I read an article this morning written by Cosmo Landesman, a 52 year old man who had recently moved back home with his elderly parents thanks to the unhappy impact his divorce, and the credit crunch, has had on his finances.

I have two friends, both in their mid-late 20s, who moved back into their respective family homes within the last year. One was unable to deal with constant dust and mess while her house was being renovated; the other had to go home for the two-month period between selling her house and being able to move into the new one. Both went slowly mad in the process. 

In those two particular cases, both of my friends had an end-point, and were moving home as a practical measure, rather than for financial reasons alone. The lack of rent and the free laundry service was nice too, so was coming home to a lovely dinner every evening after a long day at work.  However, both of them couldn’t wait to get out, almost solely due to the emotional strain of living in close quarters with two people to whom they would forever be a child that needed looking after.

However, Cosmo Landesman was moving home for purely financial reasons, and made himself feel better about his feelings of inadequacy about having to do so by claiming that:

“Lots of people – rich and poor – are doing it. Look at Richard Branson’s son Sam: he still lives in the family mansion in Oxfordshire. And the singer Leona Lewis was still living at home when she had a No 1 hit in America”.

[Except those people are young – not 52 years old - and if my dad had a mansion in Oxfordshire I’d probably be off to live there in a shot].

I know this guy was in serious financial difficulty, but I just feel that there is something a little bit morally wrong about moving home with your parents in order to save money. I know that lots of PF bloggers have done the same thing, as I read about it quite often on other blogs.  I don’t think I could do it, mainly because my family home is on the other side of the world, so the commute would be a bitch.  However, FruGuy’s parents live nearby, and I’m sure we would be welcome there if we ever felt the need to cut our expenses and save money on rent for a few months. 

But even then, I don’t think I could bring myself to actually do it, mainly because no matter how much rent I paid them, and how much of the housework and cooking I took care of, I’d always feel like it was an imposition, no matter how welcome they made me feel. No ones’ parents are never going to admit that they’d rather not see their offspring every single day – we don’t want to think that our parents are as glad to see us move out in our 20s as we are to go. They have their own lives.  Also, surely my parents gave up enough of their lives to financially support me the first time around, I don’t think I could bring myself to ask them to do it again.

But maybe I’d feel differently if I was seriously up against it and was experiencing real financial difficulty. What do you think? Could you move home again for financial reasons?

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