<p>There isn’t any right or wrong. Mine graduated and got a job in our area so is living at home. Up until a day or two before graduation we didn’t think he was coming but this job came through and he jumped on it. He hasn’t been home more than a week or two since between freshman and sophomore year so there is a novelty factor also. We’ve discussed him moving out in the fall but really he’s working so many hours we just hardly see him. He needs to save money so living at home gives him an opportunity to build up alittle bank account which in the long run will get him out of the house sooner than if we charge him rent right now. I never thought he would end up back in this state, let alone in our area let alone in our house. It will be interesting to see if he “stays.”</p>
<p>Younghoss-I am sorry if I was unclear. He didn’t come home with the plan of staying here indefinitely. He had a plan to visit for a week and head back up to his college town for another 6 weeks and do some work for his university and continue his job search from there. His hope was to land a job in that region of the state or in another northern state. Our community was not even on his radar. The only reason he is here is that he decided to apply to a posting on Craigslist. He figured that being his first interview it would be good practice. He was not expecting to be offered the job. In this economy we felt he should take the job. I think he was in the right place at the right time. The employer needed someone right away and S was available. If it means living at home to get some experience I think we will all have to make some adjustments. I don’t think my S is taking advantage of us. I do think he is a bit clueless about what it will take to live on his own out in the world with no monetary support from his parents.
When looking for work he found most job postings wanted 3-5 yrs minimum experience. Many also wanted a certain skill that my S is lacking. This job gives him experience and will also teach him the skill he is lacking.</p>
<p>I am looking for tips on making this period of time work for the entire family.I also am curious as to how other families handle this arrangement.</p>
<p>I don’t think you were unclear at all, to me, Mom60.
My understanding is the expectation was for a pretty well defined period- one week. After that, he was expected to go back to the school region, get a job there, and work and live there. Am I correct that was the original plan?
However, things have changed and now the time he will remain there is uncertain. That is the very definition of indefinite: uncertain, unspecified, no fixed limit. The opposite of that would be (for example) 2 weeks- that would be a clearly defined time limit.</p>
<p>I truly believe I am clear on what you said. Lasma said the young person wasn’t staying there indefinitely, but since there is no time limit, then I disagree.
Maybe the word intended was “infinitely” ? Infinite means forever, but indefinite means unspecified. An indefinite visit is very different than an infinite one!</p>
<p>I read it as, there was a plan, now it is changing, OP wanted thoughts on how to best effect the change. As opposed to the kid coming home with mooching indefinitely as the plan.</p>
<p>Regardless, I think there are times when it makes sense to stay with family during a transitional time, how long it is transitional before it is mooching depends on the circumstances & attitude.</p>
<p>My kids coming home between big life changes, not a problem, my DH & I living with my parents for a couple of months after a move & before buying our first home, worked fine. A friend whose 40 year old son came home broke 8 years ago and has not left and who pays $300 a month total for R&B, a problem.</p>
<p>There are times when it is not smart to spend the funds to get the apartment, the cost of moving, the costs of setting up everything, the lost work time to all those details, no reason to go there if you can hang at home for a few months. Indefinitely, no.</p>
<p>But when I think of indefinite in this situation, the negative connotation comes with the ‘no plan at all’ set up, not the OPs,‘we had a plan and now it is changing’ set up.</p>
<p>oldfort, i know in some areas it may make more sense to rent but it just depends where you live. You may not necessarily come out ahead with buying a house or make a ton of money on it but you don’t even have the option to come out ahead when renting… all that money is gone with no chance of return. In my area I can rent a 1 bedroom apartment for about 800 a month (that seems to be the going rate according to my co-workers). I pay about $900 for my 1600 sq ft house and thats including taxes and insurance. If I ever decide to sell, I’ll get some of that back.</p>
<p>It’s interesting how full circle we have come. When I was finished school, almost no one moved back home but my parent’s generation often lived with extended family even after they were married. And their parents often moved in with their adult kids sometime after retirement. Virtually all my friends growing up had a grandparent or two living with them. Then, as a society, we became so affluent we expected each person or couple to live on their own. With our economy in tattered, I expect we will see a reversal of this and extended families will live together more often. </p>
<p>I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer but if my son was working and living at home I would expect that he would be saving money. It wouldn’t be so he could spend all his money on entertainment or ‘toys’.</p>
<p>To the OP: I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect an able-bodied person to work 40 a week unless there is a compelling reason not to like being the primary homemaker or having kids at home or not really needing the money. I would encourage him to find a second PT job if possible and try to save some money. The problem with only working 20-25 hours a week is it is very easy to get use to having a lot of free time, at a time in his life when he needs to be working full time.</p>
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<p>Oldfort always has sound advice in these situations, right down to a good percentage number to ask for rent. I would follow this if I were in your shoes.</p>
<p>As a personal aside: when I started work, I worked in my field part time and I had a night job. It was a great fun experience and I am still very good friends with some of the people from my night job. We had such a good time together. So, it doesn’t have to always be a drag. YMMV</p>
<p>Our kiddo was home waiting for his security clearance. He was NOT making any money but he lived with us from August until April, when he went off for a vacation to Thailand (once his security clearance came through & he had his start date). He WAS very pleasant, helped us declutter the house, run errands, and do whatever jobs we requested of him, including helping clear out grandparent’s storage room. It was a very pleasant time for all of us and it never occurred to any of us that S get a job or pay rent during that time period (tho others asked us why we didn’t urge or insist on him getting a job). If we were to do it again, we would not change a thing. It is indeed different strokes and other than a definite increase in the electric bill from S keeping his computer & other electronic gadgets on more hours of the day than we do & slightly higher food costs, it really didn’t cost all that much more for him to be home with us. We did have him pay his own medical insurance & maintain his own auto (including gas, AAA, repairs, & insurance). He remained on our cell plan but when it expires this August, we will have him get his own plan.</p>
<p>From my perspective, there is no “one size fits all,” as long as the folks involved in the situation are all happy with it.</p>
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<p>It’s not that simple. In my area, you could loose your shirt by buying a house. It depends on the house, you could loose between half a million to a million. You basically rent from the bank with the option to paint and change your carpet if you like, slightly different from renting. That is all.</p>
<p>Lots of different opinions. I can see the problem with the 2nd job. Today he ended up working 8 hours. Tomorrow his boss told him to plan on being there 5 or 6 hours. My S feels the job is going to progress to full time fairly quickly. I think we will let the part time with no second job go for a few weeks until we get a clearer picture as to how many hours he is going to be working.</p>
<p>If money isn’t a huge issue for you & your family, OP, letting S have a bit more time to see how or if this evolves to full time sounds like a good idea. Trying to force your S to commit to a part-time job that would interfere with his ability to let this become a full-time job would be penny-wise & pound foolish. It would also detract from the energy he brings to his current job and could jeopardize his opportunities there, which would be a VERY BAD choice in the current economy and for his future in his field.</p>
<p>My apology for going off the topic a bit in responding to fendergirl - when you purchase a house, there is a down payment which could be invested (like CD), and there are closing costs(points, legal, title search…) which you would never get back. If house value should go down, your loan to value ratio could go up and you could potentially lose your down payment when you want to sell someday. If you bought your house at a good value, then there could be some appreciation when its time to sell (you would net out the closing costs, home improvements). It is so ingrained in Americans to view real estate investment as their biggest nest egg that people buy a home as soon as they are able, and it is causing a lot of financial problem for many people now.</p>
<p>Now, back to the original discussion.</p>
<p>Sidebar to join oldfort as case in point–my friend & her H bought a home in the suburbs. They lived there & paid their mortgage for over a dozen years and during that time the price of their home & the area went up & down. They got divorced & sold the home for a significant net loss, even though at times it was worth more than they originally paid & they had paid the mortgage amount for all those years (plus the closing costs & maintenance & association dues).</p>
<p>OK, back to the original topic–I still think if the OP can afford to give their S the luxury of time to see how well his new job IN HIS FIELD will develop/evolve, that seems to be the most prudent strategy and may pay the best dividends. If you want your S to do more chores when he has fewer hours at work, that also seems reasonable, like he could help with the grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing cars, etc. That seems a much more constructive way to work this out than urging/requiring a part-time job at this point.</p>
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<p>This is going to be your challenge–not to turn back into the mother of a high school student. </p>
<p>For example, a mother of a high schooler feels responsible for her kid getting to school on time. You didn’t call your kid every morning he was at college to make sure he woke up on time to get to class. The trick will be not to get back into the old patterns.</p>
<p>Can I make a suggestion? For a while (maybe the next two weeks or longer), just DON’T BE HOME when he gets up & is making his way to work–get out of the house to exercise or run errands or go grocery shopping–anything If you need to be home, hole up in a separate part of the house & get involved in something YOU NEED to or WANT TO get done, even if it’s watching your favorite videos or tivos. </p>
<p>You need to figure out how to give both of you more freedom and let your S manage his time & responsibilities. This will never happen if you hoover and don’t keep your independent lives. He will have consequences for dwaddling–don’t make it YOUR issue.</p>
<p>Do get the house rules straight with him. It’s not a good idea to tackle each issue as it arises, especially if there are younger siblings at home and if your ideas of home are different from his. It’s tough for them too as they are used to living on their own and not having to be accountable for much of anything. From things as simple as dropped towels and clothes on the floor to friends and activities at the home that make you uncomfortable, these things need to be addressed. I’ve known of parents who were amazed at what their kids expected as their rights as adults. If you don’t want drug paraphenalia, sex, R/X rated movies, friends showing up at all times of the night, these things need to be discussed along with simple courtesies like letting you know where he is going at some times and when he is coming home.</p>
<p>appologies for going off topic, i realize that in some areas buying a house is a risky event but not everywhere. yes, you can lose your downpayment in such an area… and a house doesn’t always work out to be an investment… but all i’m saying is it has the potential to be one. Obviously things can change and house values go up and down like crazy. I have about 35k of a downpayment sunk into my house. If I were to sell my house today I have no doubt’s that it would sell for 20-30K MORE then I paid for it. I paid rock bottom and got a steal… and my area is slowly recovering from the housing crash. I see what neighbors houses are selling for and that estimate that I provided is on the low end. Obviously I’d have to take closing costs out of there and everything but that’s still going from say a 35k investment to getting back 50k in 2.5 years. Again, it all depends on your area. Some places a 35k down payment wouldn’t even buy you the front door. 
But who knows, maybe next year the market will crash again and I’d be breaking even. Only time shall tell.</p>
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<p>I totally agree. The investment in a house doesn’t end with the down payment. Houses need constant maintenance and updating. Roof, painting, HVAC systems, hot water heaters, gutters, appliances…to name just a few. People don’t take that into account when it’s time to calculate how much money they ‘made’ on the sale of their home. </p>
<p>Can’t tell you the number of people in my area who have lost money on home sales in the last few years (including me) and we are not in an area that is considered to be hit hard by the housing crisis. Home prices around the country have definitely not hit bottom. Case-Shiller is estimating we will see a 10-25% drop over the next few years.</p>
<p>I would still advise my son to buy a home but only if and when he knows he will be not be moving for a very long time. And I would counsel him not to view it as an investment but as a stable place to live. The days of buying and selling and buying and selling to move up are over.</p>
<p>^^ agreed. Even my accountant has been telling my son for years to buy something to reduce his taxes, he is not convinced. For a young person especially, one can’t see the future (stable employment) more than 6 months at a time since he hasn’t worked at one job longer than 3.5 years, fast-tracking his career path.</p>
<p>On the other, other young persons get “settled” much earlier in life, so being a homeowner makes sense for them.</p>
<p>A home is still an investment, and a big one.
But though any investment is chosen with the hope of a gain, some gain in value and some don’t.</p>