Sadly, it is normal these days to live with one’s parents while starting your career right out of college. If your parents are fine with it, there’s nothing wrong with it.
There options such as living in a roommate/house sharing situation if that would allow you your independence. You can always explore that 6-12 months after you start working. That would give you a little time to save some money and get adjusted.
There is nothing wrong with waiting tables to earn subsidize an income.
$300 a week is NOT minimum wage if working 40 hours a week…in most places.
My one kid waited tables tomget on his feet financially. It was not a bad thing. He worked in his field too…but also did a couple of nights a week at a great restaurant. In addition to the money he earned, he also made a great group of friends, and also loves the place where he works. In fact, he could give that job up now, but he still does it. It’s great extra money…and for someone in a lower income job, it gives him that extra cushion to contribute to his Rith IRA, save money for a new car, and do some extras he might not otherwise be able to do.
Oh…and he is able to live in his own apartment and pay all of his own bills.
When our kids lived with us after college, we gave each of them 6 months at no charge. After that, we charged them a small amount of “rent”. Both were working and could contribute this. We didn’t think it was unreasonable, and neither did they. They were still able to save the bulk of their earnings while living at home.
Oh…and the one did live with a roommate for a few years when he moved out. It was one way to make ends meet.
What is there to think? You haven’t told us what your so called “field” is, why you went into it and why you think that you will eventually be able to make a decent living at it. Then we can assess whether you wasted the last few years.
For many people, their degree is general that they don’t have a field, they have a general liberal arts education and can seek out a “field” that will eventually provide them a living. For others, their specialized degree, often in the arts, is not in high demand and they haven’t developed any practical skills. How can we know which situation you are in?
I don’t think the OP wasted the last few years getting a college degree. College is more than a job-training program. Also, people without college degrees often get stuck in low-paying jobs permanently. Some companies will hire people who aren’t college graduates, but they won’t promote them to more responsible and higher-paying jobs. This happened to a friend of my son’s. He left college after two years and went to work in a supermarket. He got promoted once, but he couldn’t get promoted again because all jobs at higher levels required a college degree.
It depends. I think that’s usually true for liberal arts degrees, but some preprofessional degrees really are worthless. Early Childhood Education? I know several people who studied that and it was worse than worthless because they borrowed money to study it. I know few students who majored in the arts who are living independently.
I would still argue that it’s not worthless. If the person who studied early childhood education switches to a different career field, he/she is still a college graduate, and that makes a big difference.
I work for a large company where you don’t get in the door without a college degree, except as a janitor or cafeteria worker. Even our administrative assistants have to have bachelor’s degrees. But lots of people have degrees that are utterly unrelated to the work they do now – such as the guy with a theater arts degree who now does web design. Similarly, if that friend of my son’s had had an early childhood education degree, he could have gotten promoted beyond front end supervisor at his supermarket. Any bachelor’s degree would have qualified him for jobs at the next level.
Is it better to get a college degree that leads smoothly into a career field that enables you to become self-supporting quickly? Arguably, yes. But having any college degree is better than having none, in my opinion.
I would be surprised if you didn’t know that other kids live with their parents for a while after college when just starting out. What are your options? Your choices seems to be live with parents and save for an apartment, find a living situation you can afford (sharing with lots of people, moving some place cheaper) or working a second job. The kids I know living with parents and making low wages typically would not be able to get a second job that would make much of a difference due to commuting times and having to work late many nights. I suppose they could get a Saturday only job, but those are pretty rare in this area. Waitstaff need experience and working as a host does not pay very much.
If you are just looking for support, at least here in the NE it is not unusual for kids to live at home for a while. Most strive to move out ASAP, but a year is not rare. It is hard to save enough money to move to a desirable area, especially for kids paying a school or car loan. I would say that you should be paying as much of your own expenses as possible - pay for gas in the car, buy groceries occasionally, pay for your own social activities and any other expenses (cell phone) you can afford. What do your parents think?
But where sylvan? And in grad student housing? I lived on a grad stipend too, along with money saved from a previous job and not in a super expensive city.
My relative is studying music composition and we have all expected that he will needs parental financial supports during his early career, the moment when he chose the major. His parents knew what it takes for their son to be successful (as in eventually becoming financially independent without a 2nd job), so it went in as a part of their decision to support him choosing the major.
There was no illusion for my relative that he would be financially independent from parents after graduating from college. It is necessity for some majors/careers. Not all careers are mainly for money. Family members help each other.
LOL. Back in the stone age when I graduated college, almost everyone I knew ended up living at home for a year or so while getting their post-college lives started. This is certainly not a new thing at all!
If you need to live at home, and your parents are fine with that (mine were), there is nothing to worry about.
In an apartment complex. Not an expensive city, but stipends tend to be indexed to some extent. Last year, in a more expensive city, he lived in a small rental house with 2 other guys on an Americorps stipend and food stamps. I really don’t expect that my post-college children will be living with us, short of a zombie apocalypse.
When i hear that people “can’t afford to live on their own,” it sometimes turns out that their idea of living on their own means that they have a car and no roommates. I think that every single person I knew in college lived with other people and used public transportation after graduating, often for many years. Many people also lived with their parents for a while in order to get together the $$ for a security deposit.
My niece has her first ‘big girl’ job and she is making some good money, but she still had to decide how she wanted to spend that money. Did she want to live right near her job in downtown DC or in a shared apartment farther away, have a car, etc. She went for the more expensive closet. It is tiny, it is expensive, but it is how she decided to spend her money. She walks to work saving money on transportation. She doesn’t have a car.
She has friends who chose something different, living with 3-4 friends, spending a lot of money on entertainment rather than rent. Niece did spent her first post college year living at home, job searching and working a minimum wage job (although a pretty impressive one with a professional sports team).
OP: I’m projecting, but what you describe sounds like journalism. Or publishing. ie: industries where starting salaries are in the sub-30K region despite them being focused in high cost of living areas. (insert rant about said industries’ pay scale) It’s incredibly common for individuals starting out in these fields (or comparable ones, as, like I said, I’m projecting!) to not be able to support themselves, sadly. Living at home or having parents subsidize rent is common… and this is why most people in these fields come from middle class or higher families.
If your parents are generous and understanding enough to allow to you live at home for a year or two while you get your feet yet, take their offer happily. It’s a kind one. Sock away every bit of your salary–don’t waste your extra money on drinking/going out/etc.–save. What you’ll save up you can use for a first/last deposit for a place to live when you’re ready to move out/a cushion for emergencies. Then once you have a salary that is enough to pay your rent (I recommend sharing a place with 3-4 roommates, splitting expenses) and other expenses, you can move out.
I will say that you may find, once you are properly in this low-paying industry, that you find your path to ascend to a liveable wage is not as realistic as you had hoped. Keep an open mind, re: changing directions later. Again, projecting, but when I actually dug in post-grad and looked into it, I discovered I’d be LUCKY to top out at 50, 60K income… like, forever. At the least, I’d be stuck at a salary below 30K for years, and expected to live/work in a market in like NYC or LA. It should be of note that the starting salary for journalists has not changed in 15 years. Chew on that, re: economy and inflation. I realized that was untenable for me and gave up on the fantasy of “starting in a small market and working my way up.” YMMV.
My older daughter, whose dream is to support herself by writing, has worked at least part-time as a server since her first post-college job (she traveled for a few months after graduating). During her year and a half in southern California, she saved $10,000, which she put toward her move to and residence in New York City, where she has started getting some writing gigs.
OP, what is the career field? I’m a journalist and if, in fact, that is the profession, I might have some insight but there are a number of careers you could be talking about. There’s a lot of expertise on this board. You might as well get some career advice if it’s such a difficult field.
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