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Ask HN: Have any of you moved back home to save money?

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Re: Ask HN: Have any of you moved back home to save money?

#121

:) It gives me a smile and good feeling to read below comments. Seeing americans living indians life. Living at parents home, good old moms cooking and she's complaining about dad to you while cooking.

as someone not from the US, The american mindset of moving out at 18 seems bizarre to me. (also, moving halfway across a continent aswell).

Most people in my country don't move out of their parents homes until their mid twenties (usually after university/military duty).

Also, it might be my ignorance of american culture. But to me it seems america lacks a certain sense of regional culture that exists in most other places around the world. a sense of belogin to a very localized culture.

Kind of hard to explain, "heimat" is a term which sort of covers it, but is not entirely what i mean.

Re: Ask HN: Have any of you moved back home to save money?

#122
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their whole personalities seemed built around it, and next I hear they've moved several hours away to a rural area—not even just the 'burbs. This is a common sentiment that I personally share. I am lucky to live in a dense city neighborhood with an amazing sense of community - stoop gatherings for drinks 5 evenings a week and kids doing chalk art and bicycling around, local teenagers to help out with babysitting, b…

Where do you live? I'm trying to find this type of city culture in NJ suburbs.

Oakland, CA. AKA "Hell" according to recent news. I should be clear that things are far from perfect here, but one of the things about a strong community is that it is most helpful precisely when things are not perfect.

If I had any advice, it would be to find a place with modest sized homes close to the street, and a mixture of generations and subgenerations, and a place that is not so poverty-stricken as to induce desperation in people, but not so wealthy that people don't really need each other's help.

Re: Ask HN: Have any of you moved back home to save money?

#123

I had to move from NYC to Oklahoma to save SimulaVR ( https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula ). This was over a year ago, and I'm still here. Because of this I have saved an enormous amount of money (such that I'm still able to work full time on SimulaVR while I search for VC funding elsewhere). The other co-founder of Simula is also remote (in Germany). Since this was pre-pandemic, it's been very hard to explain to VCs…

Just wanted to touch on some of what you said, as I took a year to recoup from burnout in a fairly small-sized town...

Saving money, and having "time" are great, but at least for me the people in small towns live very different lives. The pace is slow and it's easy to become complacent. Compounding that is by not following the pace of life there, you're going against the grain and it will cause friction in your life.

Also, if you grew up in small towns, but haven't really been back in a while a lot of them are pretty depressing these days because of things like Amazon... Where I was most, if not all independent retailers/bookstores/etc had gone out of business. In fact, there wasn't a single book store for 90 miles despite roughly 200,000+ people living in the area. Want a tech talk? Probably not unless you're a real estate agent setting up a Wordpress ;P

If anyone is thinking about taking the jump and moving back home, or somewhere cheaper, my one suggestion is put a hard time-limit on it "1 year." It helped keep me sane having a deadline. Glad I took the time away, but even more glad I came the fuck back.

Re: Ask HN: Have any of you moved back home to save money?

#124

There's no shame in moving back in with your parents, as long as they and you get along, and as long as you keep making something of yourself. I lived with my parents for seven and a half years after getting my bachelor's degree. The first two and half of those years I did music freelance, after which I landed my current full-time job in IT (but I've kept up the music too). I saved up a bunch and then a few months ag…

I'm being very strict with doing worthwhile things and not lounging around. I feel like it is almost more of a growth-phase than if I stayed in the city. In the city there are so many stimuli to distract you perpetually... food, raves, dates, "networking" etc. Now at home I can channel past experiences in solitude and learn, create, etc. Of course the downside is there's no dating at all. So essentially will go celib…

My only rain drops on your parade is that raves, dates and networking are particularly important in your 20's. I fear you would miss out on a lot of those activities that you will not get to ( or have far less opportunity to ) do when you're older. At 40 now, I'm glad I had those experiences, but little to no to desire to do them again.

Re: Ask HN: Have any of you moved back home to save money?

#125
post #4

To hijack this thread, has anyone moved places in the same city to decrease their rent? In SF right now rents are taking a pretty big dip and I’m thinking about moving apartment.

I stayed in my apartment but negotiated a concession from my landlord to lower the effective annual rent.

What was the concession ( just curious ) ?

Re: Ask HN: Have any of you moved back home to save money?

#126
This thread has made me feel a bit better about my situation. I'm a 25-year-old who may end up having to move back in with family if I can't find new work by the end of August. So far June has been pretty fruitless. Optimistic about the next couple months but moving back in is definitely a last-resort for me, mostly because it would be a huge hassle to move all my stuff into storage and travel from California to Idaho.

Re: Ask HN: Have any of you moved back home to save money?

#127

I had to move from NYC to Oklahoma to save SimulaVR ( https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula ). This was over a year ago, and I'm still here. Because of this I have saved an enormous amount of money (such that I'm still able to work full time on SimulaVR while I search for VC funding elsewhere). The other co-founder of Simula is also remote (in Germany). Since this was pre-pandemic, it's been very hard to explain to VCs…

Is it possible that there are places in the United States which are neither the Bay Area, nor NYC, nor Oklahoma? Surely at least some residents of these places, if they exist, might in fact dispute the broad-spectrum superiority of our most culturally legible cities. Some of these hypothetical humans might even work more than 100 hours a week, perhaps even outdoors!

Re: Ask HN: Have any of you moved back home to save money?

#128
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice. Same for me on the mom cooking lol. It really is next level. Did you move out of NYC?

I moved out of the Bay Area. Honestly the mom’s cooking thing makes everything worth it. The fact that I don’t have to think about grocery shopping and what I’m going to eat is amazing. I just sit down at the table and eat whatever she cooks. Of course I try to help with the cooking when I can (and I’m learning how to cook her dishes!) but she’s also happy to do it since it means I’m home. I read a comment about how…

Pretty interesting that the biggest benefit of moving out the Bay Area is not having to worry about food. Many SV tech companies provide lunch and dinner.

Re: Ask HN: Have any of you moved back home to save money?

#129
post #54

Honestly, I hope one of the side-effects of the current crises is that there is a re-assessment of the value of multi-generational households. We are currently in the process of building a new home (planned before Covid-19) that will accommodate my wife's senior mother as well as provide a future shared home for our son.

Bravo. This is, IMHO, one of the biggest problems with the United States, we throw away our elders. In other countries, such as Russia, it is very common to have three or four generations living in the same home, with the elders providing much support for the family, such as cooking or running the quarter-acre garden in the back yard. They really sold us on a bunch of crap last century with the "atomic" family and su…

Also, the massive size of the US and it's larger cities isn't helping.

For comparison, (it might be my limited experience with people from the US) but several people i know move across the continent for jobs/school never to move back again.

This is not a bad thing per se, but seeing your parents only a couple of times a year seems very weird to me.

In comparison, most of my peers live in or near the city they lived in their entire lives (i know of only one example of someone who lives further away (2h drive).

Being near your parents/grandparents is important, especially when you have children. It creates a sense of community that is hard to explain.

Re: Ask HN: Have any of you moved back home to save money?

#130
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are your parents also in the Bay Area? Yeah idk I just don't see the draw to the city now... and instead of half-assing it, maybe just moving home and getting a good bike etc is wortwhile. Basically zero dating options though, so that's the big downside.

Yup they're in the Bay Area too, so it wasn't a big move. Not being able to date sucks, but if most people are moving back home, then maybe living with your parents won't have as much of a stigma. But given that we're experiencing a global pandemic, dating is something we should try to hold off on until the situation improves.

SF normalized being 30+, successful, but still living with roommates. As long as you have an adult relationship with your parents (aka they're okay with you having sex, and you're okay with your parents having sex - which they most likely did in order to have you) while all living under the same roof, then it's fine (assuming all parties involved can get over it).

The problem with dating while living out in the 'burbs is that the population density just isn't the same, even if you don't mind driving. Apps help in this regard. There's also the practical matter of alcohol. Taxis (inc Uber/Lyft) just aren't as convenient outside of the city. There are more parks to meet at though!

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