23. Being a Human Boomerang Put My Net Worth in the Fast Lane

Living with your parents is generally considered a massive red flag in the dating game. The social, mental and financial benefits, however, gave me a head start I couldn’t have planned for.

“Let me be really honest with you about my biggest red flag.”

We were roughly half an hour into our first date and things had been going really well up to that point: a sunny evening, genuine conversation, and a lot of laughing. Not a single moment of quickly checking our phones because we were actually enjoying ourselves. 

My girlfriend, even though she wasn’t that yet, looked at me with the careful expression of someone preparing for bad news.

“I’m currently living with my parents.”

She later told me that she would’ve ended the date on the spot had it not been for what I immediately told her before she could: that after my previous relationship had ended, I’d moved back in with my parents for the first time in eight years. That it wasn’t a permanent arrangement, but that I was rebuilding rather than stagnating.

She decided to stay, and at the end of the evening fortunately was just as enthusiastic about a second date as I was. Many more followed after, and when we realized after a couple of months that we practically already were boyfriend and girlfriend it was an easy step to also start calling ourselves that.

And that gigantic red flag of mine? It ultimately turned out to be one of the best things that could’ve happened to me.

The Boomerang Generation

There’s actually a term for young adults like me who, for various reasons, end up back at their parents’ place after years of living independently: the ‘boomerang generation’. A whole Wikipedia page even exists about it, which somehow made me feel both less alone and slightly ridiculous when I moved back in with my parents.

My situation wasn’t unusual: a long relationship had ended, the shared life that came with it had dissolved, and returning back to my childhood home while I figured out the next chapter was the most sensible option available. What I hadn’t expected though, was how good it would turn out to be in almost every way that mattered.

I went in expecting to feel like I was moving backwards and that I had to get out of the situation as fast as possible, but the opposite turned out to be true. It was a great time and I came out on the other side with a stronger relationship with my parents than I’d ever had, a financial position I couldn’t have built any other way, and a beautiful girlfriend who hadn't secretly been hired by my parents to get me out of the house as soon as possible.

Bonus Time

The moment I decided to move back, my parents handled the whole situation with more grace than I had any right to expect.

From the beginning they were clear: this would not be a return to the parent-child dynamic of my teenage years. We had all been living our separate adult lives for a long time already, and we would continue to do so under the same roof. The most important thing, they said, was proactively setting honest expectations about what we could expect from each to lead those lives as well as possible. No assumptions, and no unspoken rules inherited from fifteen years ago.

That clarity made everything easier. And what emerged from it surprised me completely.

We eventually started calling the whole situation “bonus time”. The conversations we had at home were nothing like the ones we’d had when I was growing up. We elaborately talked about their lives before I existed, about decisions they’d made and regretted and made peace with, about what they thought of the world now versus thirty years ago. I saw sides of them that most children almost never get to see, because many still relate to their parents as parents rather than as people. Living alongside them as an adult changed that entirely.

I also had space, for the first time in a while, to just breathe. The breakup had been tough and the period around it genuinely chaotic. Having a stable and quiet place to land while I found my footing again was something I hadn’t known I needed until I had it. I focused on work and almost accidentally earned the best possible performance score twice in a row, spent a lot of time with friends, and slowly stopped feeling like someone who was recovering and started feeling again like someone who was building.

I ended up staying for nearly two years, significantly longer than I’d originally planned. Part of that was inertia, but most of it was deliberate. My girlfriend had entered my life roughly halfway, and we both knew I would move in with her at some point. Starting a one-year rental contract on my own, only to be forced to combine two households shortly after, made no practical sense. 

What It Did to the Numbers

My girlfriend actually deserves a lot of credit for allowing me to be a guest at her place much more than she could be at mine, since my parents would always be around. She was also clear from the beginning that she didn’t want me contributing to her fixed costs, which meant I could always benefit from things like her rent and utilities without feeling like I was taking advantage. We shared equally in the expenses that made sense to share, and left it at that.

Still, every fixed living cost had disappeared overnight after moving back. No rent, utilities, or monthly expenses that exist simply because you occupy a space. What remained was a salary with almost nowhere to go except where I deliberately chose to send it.

The vast majority went into long-term savings and investments, while also trying to leave enough for the social life and experiences that were keeping me sane during that period.

The first time my girlfriend and I openly showed each other our finances we were lying in bed, on a lazy Sunday morning during the first month of our ‘official’ relationship. She looked at my phone screen and, according to the history of my banking app, must’ve seen a combination of savings and investments somewhere around sixty thousand euro. She immediately started laughing out loud and said: “Well, that gigantic red flag of yours has at least been good for one thing!”

She wasn’t wrong. The boomerang period had been financial rocket fuel, and I’m really proud that a part of the capital gains from the investment portfolio have directly contributed to the down payment on the house we now live in. Using that money for something that would benefit the both of us was one of the easiest choices I ever had to make.

What I Took With Me

Whenever I think about the period moving back with my parents, and I frequently do, I think about it warmly.

The financial head start that came out of it is the easy thing to point to. Numbers are legible, and a net worth accelerated by two years of eliminated fixed costs is something you can quickly see in the banking app. But the financial outcome is honestly almost secondary to everything else.

My parents gave me something during those two years that I couldn’t have asked for and wouldn’t have known to want. They gave me stability when I needed it most, while treating me like an adult who was going through something difficult instead of a child who had come home. That distinction mattered more than I can properly explain.

I try to reciprocate that now in whatever ways I can. Regular visits, taking them out for a good dinner when the opportunity is there, and being present in their lives in a way that adult children busy with their own households and careers frequently aren’t. I don’t consider it an obligatory form of repayment in the slightest, but rather recognition that what they did for me at a difficult moment mattered and will be returned with the same amount of love.

Living with your parents in your late twenties is still, I know, generally considered a red flag. A sign of something unresolved, something stalled, and something to be explained away. And in many cases I can imagine it might be. But sometimes it’s also bonus time: a chance to rebuild socially, mentally and financially. To get to know your parents in a way that you couldn’t have had at any other point in your lives, and to come out the other side with a clearer sense of who you are and what you’re building toward.

I moved back in with my parents because I needed somewhere to land, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.