Seth Walsh
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I'd put that up there with the worst financial advice going, and it still gets passed off as character building.
The idea seems to be that the sooner you're paying a landlord, the electric bill, broadband, insurance, food and furniture for a whole new house, the more of a man you are. Like making yourself poorer at 18 is a rite of passage. I honestly think that mindset wrecks people.
If you get on fine with your parents and they're happy to have you at home, moving out purely to prove you're independent can be a really expensive decision.
Say there are two identical 18-year-olds. One moves out because he wants to "become a man". Over the next ten years he's paying rent, bills, deposits, commuting costs, a bed, a couch, and whatever else it takes to run a second household. The other stays at home, gives his parents a fair contribution, works, saves hard, invests, gets his qualifications and builds his career.
By 28 the first guy has some great stories about shitty house shares and figuring out the washing machine. The second could be sitting on €100k+ in assets and a deposit big enough to change where his life goes from here. And somehow we've all decided the first guy is the independent one.
It's backwards. Independence is having money behind you: walking out of a bad job because you've got two years of expenses saved, having the car break down and not panicking, being able to put a deposit on a house, not being one missed salary away from borrowing. Paying €1,200 a month to a landlord because you were embarrassed to live with your parents isn't independence. You've just swapped depending on your family for depending on your next payslip.
The opportunity cost is what people really underestimate. A grand a month saved from 18 to 28, even after giving your parents their share, is €120,000 before you count any investment returns. That's not a small head start. It can be the difference between owning a house in your twenties and renting into your late thirties, or between taking a risk on your career and clinging to whatever job pays the bills. Let it compound and you're into hundreds of thousands later on. And apparently throwing all that away on purpose is what makes you a man.
What I find funniest is that wealthy families get the exact opposite. They don't handicap their kids to teach them independence. They pay for the education, let them live at home, help with the deposit, introduce them to the right people. Money, contacts and know-how get passed down, and that's literally how family wealth survives.
Meanwhile plenty of ordinary families have talked themselves into believing the noble thing is to recreate an orphan's starting conditions the day the kid turns 18. "Figure it out yourself." Why? Your competition isn't doing that. The guy whose parents paid his university fees, let him live at home until 27 and gave him €70k towards a house doesn't get marked down because somebody else built character paying rent at 19. The bank won't add €100k to your mortgage approval because you moved out young, and compound interest doesn't pay extra for suffering.
Obviously there are times when moving out is the right call. Abusive home, no jobs nearby, a relationship, university abroad, family problems, whatever. And nobody's saying you should still be in your childhood bedroom at 45. Every adult eventually has to run their own life. But moving out because it genuinely improves things is a different thing from moving out because you think hardship is virtuous in itself. You can learn to cook, clean, budget, work hard, date, travel and take responsibility without handing half your income to a landlord.
The goal is to get properly independent as fast as you can, which means building skills, income, savings and options. Sometimes the quickest way there is staying technically dependent for a bit longer. There's nothing impressive about starting on hard mode when someone's offering you easy mode for free.
If your parents are willing and able to help, fucking use it. Then make sure it compounds instead of getting pissed away.
