David asks: “With $2000 savings, am I ready to move out from my parents’ home?”

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Question 9 – Can I Move Out From Home? – Shownotes

Today’s question comes from David:

I’m 19 years old and my parents are driving me crazy with their strictness. I only have about $2000 in total, but I need to move out. I also need a car if I’m going to find another job (I work for my dad). My mom also told me that if I moved out she wouldn’t support me financially, meaning she won’t pay for my college tuition. Basically, I need a place to live, a car, and my education. How do I do this?

 

 

Right now, I’m afraid you can’t. That $2,000 would barely last you a month!

The first thing that I think you should consider is looking for a job that isn’t with your Dad – this may help your relationship with your parents. If you find it tough enough living under the same roof as your parents at the moment, then adding the stresses of a working relationship isn’t going to help matters.

I would advise that you get to work on your CV and explore opportunities with other employers, that will hopefully be better paid and which don’t inflate the already fraught relationship with your parents.

In order for you to determine whether it is viable for you to move out at present, I would recommend that you make two separate budgets. The advice of “make a budget” is getting fairly repetitive in this podcast already and we are only on question 9. But, do you know why? Because it’s a question and ANSWER podcast. And, in personal finance, it’s not very often that making and analysing a detailed budget won’t be part of the answer!

So, your first budget David should detail your exact position now with your monthly income and expenses.

 

 

The second budget will detail all your future income and expenses if you were to move out from your parents’ home. This would include rent, utilities, college, car payments, food, drink, repairs, furniture, etc etc. Absolutely everything that you can imagine.

When you complete these two budgets, you’ll probably quickly reach the conclusion I made within 3 seconds of reading your question – that right now you can’t afford to support yourself independently.

The only other alternative is to move away from home and burden yourself with debt until your income surpasses those expenses. It’s just my opinion, but spending years trying to get out of debt just because you couldn’t handle living with your “strict parents” isn’t worth it.

To conclude, I’d urge you to have a think about your parents’ so-called “strictness”. Obviously I’m not privy to your exact situa tion David, but more often than not, “strictness” is simply their way of looking after you and making sure that you are heading down the right path in life.

So, make your budgets and start saving. If you really can’t handle living with your parents for a little while longer, then this desperation to move out should act as a great incentive to find a better paid job and to scrimp and save every penny until you can viably move out from a financial perspective.

 

 

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