To move out of my parents' house and into an apartment where I can hang a crooked No More Heroes poster behind the toilet and decorate my room with wrestling masks and swanky clothes.

You'll also need a cat that is smart/stupid enough to hang from a rotating ceiling fan ad nauseum.

Oh, so that's how you have so much money for VGM.  All this time I thought I was poor...

Hah! I pay my parents rent and have at least $200 extra bucks in bills and stuff to pay every month, so I don't have a free ride. I'm seriously considering moving out soon, which means I'll have to start spending more wisely. No kids or girlfriend either, so instead of dropping cash on dinner and drinks I can get some stuff from VGMWorld. It's like I'm dating myself except there's no pressure trying to figure out if I want to put out or not because I'm always on the same page with myself.

I was actually talking to Miker about something like this the other night... I don't buy a lot of non-VGM stuff. I spend my money on food, supplies, the occasional game (usually used on eBay), beer (not much: $10 a night if I go out... I'm a lightweight), etc. Most of my spending is straight up VGM. I sold a lot of stuff too and added those to my "buying VGM" fund. That said, I probably should save my money, but I love supporting VGM and discovering new stuff.

Dare I ask about other peoples' living situations? Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm kinda curious to see who lives at home and who lives on their own.

Living in the Boston area is a living expense in itself, eh?!

/22, still living at home but not forever!

Living on my own:

25 & supporting teh wife (of 5 years and going strong!) and teh baby, just graduated college, so at least I'm making more money, and currently starting a band with me and a guitarist.

Living at uni but, I'm being paid for so yea, = same as living at home.

Though also I don't spend much outside of one thing (in my case videogames, I rarely buy music anymore.)  In fact outside of music and videogames, and paying for Internet, I don't buy any luxury goods.  But, lets see if I can manage a job that'll give me some money, first!

Housing/Renting costs is the largest single expense for most people in the US...  About 60% of my paycheck goes directly to Rent & Utilities, and even that is the cheapest rental available in my area. 

There's no possible way I could pay for a house here on my current income, as even the cheapest property listed would require 120% of the earnings just for the mortgage payment alone. (nevermind eating).

During my parent's generation, the general "rule of thumb" in society was that housing shouldn't cost more than 30% of your income, but today that is near impossible.

Was living on my own while working in Japan, but am stuck at my parents' place until I get a job back in the states.  I consider myself lucky that they're willing to let me stay here and that I saved a lot of money during my three years on my own, but I'm still going pretty stir crazy.  No car, no job, no life... I didn't really anticipate that getting a teaching-related degree in college would get me rejected from SO MANY other types of English-related jobs.  Oh well... I'm doing little things here and there and planning to move out/away and get a real teaching job in the fall.

.

Saving for a house, still live with the folks.  Renting is a waste of money, but I realize some people can't avoid it, so I know I'm fortunate cuz my parents don't make me pay anything and I like them, so I don't mind living with them still.  There's only 2 downsides to still living at home, you can't say you live on your own (which I don't give a $%*^ about that), and it doesn't go over too well with the ladies (but then I look at all the extra scratch in my pocket and suddenly don't care about that either).  It's funny though because chics can totally get away with living at home still, like if a chic is hot, a dude will not even think twice about that, but if you're a dude it's like, "Oh. My. Gosh. You must be like totally unindependent or something, I've been like totally living on my own like forever and barely getting by living check to like check and have like all these like debts, and like how could we go back to your place, like whatever."

This is pretty much why I don't bother with women; I try to hide the fact I live with my parents most of the time... not embarrassed of them but of myself.

We're just trained to think this way by people who are miserable and struggling to stay alive living on their own.  I've got a good career, am mature, and can take care of myself (okay I'm going to have to hire a maid to do my laundry), so the fact I still live with my folks is irrelevant.  And I know plenty of dudes that still live at home who have good girlfriends, it's just a matter of finding a good chic that likes you for your own merit and not what you have or can give them.  Obviously I don't recommend using the fact you live at home as pick-up line, but in the grand scheme that stuff doesn't matter, and most quality chics are more impressed by a guy who has goals and ambitions.

I'm a grad student... do I really need to say more?
I haven't lived at home since I was 18. LOVE my family, but SO happy to be independent I know everyone has different experiences, problems, etc, but personally I totally recommend moving out of your parents place and into your own as soon as you can. Why? Mostly because it teaches you to be independent and about "real life". That's my opinion, and yeah I've met a lot of women who probably would not date a guy who lived with his parents. That's how it goes!

cheers,

-avatar!

scary stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT2F3GNlSI0

"We're just trained to think this way by people who are miserable and struggling to stay alive living on their own."

Heh, its funny, when I see my family in India, its totally the opposite.  If I can't manage to find anything after school, methinks I should move and live with some family there, heh!

Actually I remember reading something about certain places in Europe (Italy, I remember specifically) where its a little more acceptable, due to lack of space and so on.

26, still live with parents. Literally counting days when I can move out and not worry about college debt and other matters. I like the fact I can tell my parents, "I love you guys, but I can't wait until I can move out of here." Just not much to do except wait for big breaks and save up. No rent, but I pitch in on everything (and fix the internet connection everytime it goes down...I've become an expert at that) And yes, it's a bitch to explain to girls and pretty much any random person, but at least I have a plan and am pretty much sticking to it, so it doesn't completely sound like I'm freeloading...

My biggest problem is we're in a pretty secluded area (read: no local jobs) and I haven't decided which direction to move (north into Delaware, where I work now or back into mid-Maryland). Choices, choices...But it's nice since none are particularly bad ones. It's like, "anywhere but here will do nicely".

As csK mentioned, I think the concept that everyone should move out of their parents' home after college is primarily an American thing.  I had a couple of friends in grad school who were from Italy, and there, it's not uncommon for people to continue to live with their parents until a few years AFTER they are married.  Being 30 and still living with your parents is no badge of shame there.  Real estate is just really expensive there, and it's pretty much impossible to get a place of your own unless you've been able to save up for a while.

Personally, I've been living on my own (with a roommate or by myself) since I was 25.  After grad school, though, I did move back in with my folks for a few months while I got my feet back under me.  It was an immeasurable help to be able to do that.

I rent, and will likely continue to rent for the foreseeable future.  Whenever I crunch the numbers, I just can't justify buying a place.  When you include property taxes, interest on the mortgage (even with the tax-deductibility of these), association fees, and maintenance, it just comes out to be too much.  I still don't understand why houses are viewed as great investments.  Houses wear down, and should be depreciating assets.  I don't like the idea of having most of my money tied up in one asset, especially when selling that asset incurs such a substantial transaction cost.  I like having liquidity.  It might be different if I was in a place where I knew I wanted to stay for years to come, but that is certainly not the case now (I'm so freaking tired of Minneapolis and its -15°F temperatures).

Believe it or not, your parents do get tired of seeing you.  There are certain circumstances when moving back in with your parents does you a world of good.  I know.  I did it for 2 years after getting married.

We had just gotten married and up until the wedding my wife (girlfriend?) was really sick and didn't have any health insurance so bills kept stacking up.  By the time we got married I think she was up to like 7 grand.  Coupled with a relatively large credit card bill and other bits and pieces, we finally concluded that we couldn't afford an apartment if we wanted to pay off all of our debt.  Eventually we swallowed our pride and asked for help.  My dad's a lawyer, so he was able to work out alot of what we owed and we moved in with him and Lisa's mom for about 2 years while we payed off what we owed. 

My credit's finally just starting to pick up and hopefully I'll be able to refinance our condo later this year.  There's nothing like the feeling of being financially independent.  You'll looking more mature to your parents and your peers, and the sense of freedom is immeasurable.  Save up now.  It's worth it.

It's quite interesting to hear how different things are around the world.

Here in Finland it's really common to move out of their parents' house after lukio (~"high school") or such, maybe even after the ninth (and the last) year of compulsory education. I turned 22 last December, and I've been living alone since May 2005. I probably would have moved out earlier, but we have this compulsory military service, and I wanted to complete it first.

Finland isn't the cheapest place to live in, and, naturally, many students need to work and/or take a student loan to be able to live on their own. We do get social benefits (which is really great), but the amount of money per month isn't very much. I was lucky enough to get an appartment with really low rent (it's still like 55% of the benefits, though), so I manage to get on fine without owning any money to some bank. Also, I have worked in a bakery (just one night a week, yay) since last autumn, and that has really helped me grow my CD collection etc. Before that I was mostly dependent on the money I mustered up during the summer breaks.

Ah!  So jealous!  Finland has quite the metal scene with some of my favourite artists being from there.

Amoral
Diablo
Insomnium
Mors Principium Est
Norther
Noumena
Omnium Gatherum
Sonata Arctica

...just to name a few.  What are CD prices there?

For those who are married, in the USA it's become "normal" to have both spouses going to work, because it's increasingly becoming the only way to have enough income to pay for things. 

(While there's no shortage of jobs here, most jobs don't pay enough to make it sufficient on it's own, hence the need for 2 incomes.)

Since we're getting some global views here, I'm curious if "working couples" are becoming more common in other countries too, or if it's still common to have only the man being the sole income provider...

People here in England tend to move out for uni as well.  Like avatar, I'm a graduate student and I think a lot more than 20% of my income goes to rent because I live in Central London, albeit in halls.  Even so, though, it is all about how you budget your money.  My friends always ask me how I can travel so much to which I always respond how they can drink and eat out so much.  It's all about priorities.

Indeed. There's even been 16 to 21 minutes long doom metal songs (Slave of Satan was no 2 in 2005, and Teutonic Witch was no 1 in 2007; both are by my favorite Finnish metal band, Reverend Bizarre) on our official singles chart. And Reverend Bizarre's last album (which has a running time of 130 minutes) reached the position 6 on top 100 albums chart. That should tell enough about Finns' metal enthusiasm.

You might want to check out Manufacturer's Pride, Pain Confessor and Mokoma (sung in Finnish!), too, if you can find their albums. Not so very different from the ones you listed.

New releases usually cost around 20 Euros.

Ding, we have a winner!

Seriously, people were always SO AMAZED at the amount of money I was able to save up while living in Japan, even when I went to Tokyo pretty frequently.  Personally I'm more shocked by the amount other ALTs DIDN'T.  Not going out drinking and clubbing every night and cooking my own food and just being generally sensible does have its distinct advantages.

Yeah, I'll second Sonata Arctica and add Nightwish and Stratovarius. Thunderstone is okay as well.

I was just researching this.  Is the compulsary school called peruskoulu?  If it is, its amazing, very different from here, to discover that people (kids?) move out at age 16/17!

From what I understand, most of the western world outside the US sees 16 as adulthood and not 18.  Seems strange to me.  Then again, most things related to age restrictions in the US seem strange to me.  Being sent to die in a foreign country at 18 is just fine, but you've gotta wait 3 more years before you can have that beer!

I encourage everyone to live at home for as long as possible.  It just makes perfect sense economically.  Now, if your folks suck and you feel compelled to get the hell out, that's one thing.  But if you're folks are cool, then I don't see why there should be a rush.  I never did understand that whole "18 years old and you're outta the house" mentality that's so prevalent it seems in this part of the world.  I didn't move out until I was 25 (a year ago).  And I was never charged rent by my parents.  They said I could stay as long as I had a job or was enrolled in university.  Sweet.  But eventually, I needed my own space and last year was it. 

But if anyone had a deal as sweet as mine, I doubt they would've been in a rush to roll out either.

That sounds exactly like my situation, I'm even 25, heh.  It's like move out, have that much less money each month, be less comfortable, and have less space than I do now.  O-kay.  I'm planning on moving out in the next year, and once I do it's going to be a clean break, whereas other people are in rush to move out, hit a snag then they have to come crawling back to their parents.

I admit...I got a taste of college and being away and I liked it, but I also know what I'm up against, so I'm proceeding with caution. Scary thing is...It's not the figuring out what to do that is bad, but the WAITING for time to pass until resources (educational, financial and experience) build up that's killing me. Like a massive level-up before a huge boss character...

In the past, I think videogames were always sort of an escape from the craziness...Now I have all the down time I need to play them and can't bring myself to pick up anything because I can't stay interested. I actually *gasp* like going out and meeting people now. Very cool new sensation.

Ohh, yeah. Nightwish is my latest discovery; very awesome if you like hard rock/heavy metal with a gothic taste.

...

Living situations, eh? Apartment, about $600/month, going to college; in my last year. Hopefully. Until I start my professional career, anyway; probably end up going for my Master's, so I can get that paycheck up.

Expenses are solely consumatory, including video-games and the like; I sell off tangible assets that I buy to keep myself going.

Actually, with a military ID you can drink when you're 18. Yup, they figure if you're willing to die for your country, why not be able to enjoy beer... I don't quite understand all these laws myself (nor why alcohol is such a big deal), but some of them do make sense.

cheers,

-avatar!

Okay, so forgive me for being ignorant, but USD that equals? 

The only reason I ask is because I have yet to find a store in Vegas that sells any of Amoral's albums.  I'd hate to go through ebay.

Just about $29. I usually use http://www.xe.com/ for currency conversions.

Man, 29 bucks makes CD prices here look like a steal.  Thanks Zane.