DH & I are in a unique living arrangement after the wedding. Within the past year, I graduated from my master's program and within 8 months, we were engaged & married. I'm currently going through a career transition and now that the wedding is over, I can really focus on networking and getting my job.
Our parents live within 5 minutes of each other. We have furniture bought and saved up from both of our ends. To save money, we decided to stay at both of our parents' house. We are paying them for the spaces and saves SO MUCH. Where we live, our city is an up- and-coming tech town. It costs 1 million+ to live in the city and suburban homes are at $800K+. An acquaintance of mine just got married - her now husband works for Microsoft and they had to end their apartment contract and move back to her parents' home to save up. We are giving ourselves a year to save up and find homes within the area (it's actually a good area to raise kids with a reasonable commute to the city). An apartment would cause more stress/finances (very expensive as well) and it just makes more sense to wait a bit so we can move all of our stuff and furniture into a permanent living space vs. temporary.
We do have some family members who find it so humorous we're doing this but I have to ignore it bc it's the smart solution for us right now and we're okay with staying at home for now. We know of other family members who went from parents home to apartment to parents home to apartment, which to me, seems more chaotic. There's also a family member who had kids before she got married & now they're stuck at her parents house forever (NOT to shame those who had kids before hand). My friend (who also just got married) said that this is a smart solution and there could be worse situations. The reason why we're staying at both is because it's more balanced (and the parents are within close living spaces). In my experience, I've found that it's easier for the woman's family to accept her husband in their home VS. the other way around. My in laws are good but I feel like it wouldn't be a good situation if I was there 100% of the time. His parents are also strict penny pinchers. His dad would charge us extra for cooking or using their kitchen...even if we cooked for them - so that's the balance.
I also find reassurance that many of my co-workers have told me that if they could go back and change things, they would live at their parents until they saved enough but not they're stuck in their leasing contracts.
Any suggestions on how to save up?
