Amongst the many would-be first time buyers, there are plenty of voices moaning about the affordability of housing, the difficulty in mortgage applications and the rampant price rises that are working against them in getting their foot on the ladder.
With I hope a sense of sarcasm, the Independent today have an article from a columnist with a gripe against the current system but not as we usually hear it:
The reality of being forced to move in with your parents in your thirties.
Our columnist, Orla Fay, is moaning that she has had to move back in with her parents while saving to afford her first home. But living rent free is not all it’s cracked up to be:
Since moving back home, I’ve discovered that living with my parents – who spent the last 10 years rotating the same three meals, sambos on shopping day and the occasional Chinese takeaway week in, week out – is like living with two teenage boys. They will eat anything. And everything. Without any consideration for what should be done with it. Never once in my house-sharing days did somebody eat all my food, refuse to replace it and then laugh about it. Four soda farls I bought, four, and I got none.
But what concerns me is despite this self-inflicted hardship of moving back into the family nest in an attempt to save money for a deposit, she’s not exactly being frugal with her spending:
I like food, I really like food, and stock up in swanky shops from time to time in an effort to eat better and see how the other half live…
But the parents are getting into her gourmet cheese and fancy bread products:
I appreciate that I’m living at home rent free… but I draw the line at paying for food I don’t get to eat.
What to do…
And so I’m in a pickle. I tried casually bringing it up over Corrie one idle Monday evening. “Just as an aside, maybe if you eat the last two bagels, replace them, there was nothing for my brekkie yesterday morning and I had to have cereal like a peasant,” I said. All jokey-toned and smiley-faced. To which my Dad answered: “Do you not eat two of them things? They’re tiny, either way, that’s not how we do things here, we eat til it’s gone and then we get more – you’re shopping for a family now.”
Sounds like our dear columnist might be moving out of home sooner than she thinks, but not that soon if she keeps spending like it’s 2006!
Perhaps the parents have the right idea… Make up for years of raising their daughter, they’re getting their money’s worth now!
