Jo Varsani, 45, and her 21-year-old daughter Lavina Patel are both so-called “boomerang kids”, adult children who have returned to their parents’ home after living independently.
While both moved back to save money, their reasons and experience couldn’t be less similar.
Following the break-up of her first marriage in 2006, Jo returned to live in her parents’ home in Northolt, London, with her then-one-year-old daughter.
“When I left my husband, I had huge amount of debt as he was a gambler,” she says. “Initially, me and my daughter were living together in one room, then I moved in with my parents and paid them £200 a month for rent and food.”
Jo was working full-time in the care sector to pay off the £30,000 debts, which her ex-husband had racked up in her name, and her parents also supported her with extra childcare when she needed it.
“I was going out working and then coming home to them; it also meant that my daughter could be brought up in a decent environment.”
After two years, Jo was in a position to buy a home for her and her daughter – a three-bedroom house, also in Northolt. She paid £270,000 for the property and was helped out by her parents who loaned her £30,000 towards the deposit.
Mother and daughter lived here for two years but in order to settle her debts quicker and repay the £30,000 loan, Jo decided to move back in with her parents in 2008. She rented out her own house for £1,200 a month and paid £300 towards the rent and bills of her childhood home. Her buy-to-let mortgage was £1,000 a month and her salary was £25,000.
“Living with my parents was a bit of a rollercoaster,” says Jo. “The first time it was fantastic as they gave me the emotional support I needed but, the second time I went back, I was more independent, and they couldn’t understand why I was popping in and out all the time.”
Both her parents are orthodox Hindus and Jo felt like she was being treated like a rebel, even though she was a mother herself. “In our culture, it’s taboo for a woman to leave her husband and move back in with her parents. But, had I not done that, I would have downwards spiralled. They emotionally and physically saved me.”
According to the ONS, boomerang kids are an increasingly common phenomenon. The total number of adult children living with their parents increased by 14.7 per cent between 2011 and 2021, from 4.2 million to 4.9 million.
The age of these adult children is also going up, with the median increasing by a year to 24 years in the decade to 2021. Significantly, it’s even higher in London, with 25 the average age of boomerang kids in the capital.
Along with her daughter, Jo continued living in the house she grew up in until she was 34, a total of six years, in two stints. She then met and married her second husband and the family, including the couple’s ten-year-old son, now live in a four-bedroom house in Halstead, Essex.
Jo has since pivoted careers and runs The Fleet Safety Systems group, while Lavina, who is 21, is studying to be an accountant at the University of Hertfordshire.
“My daughter moved out for university and had two years in halls. She’s now on a work placement for a year,” says Jo. “She worked part-time in Matalan while at university, but what she had to pay, with accommodation on top, was ridiculous.”
Lavina only has lectures three times a week so, instead of paying rent where she studies, since May, she lives at home and drives the 1.5 hours to Hertfordshire during term time. She doesn’t pay rent or anything towards bills, with her mother preferring she saves towards the future.
“Because of what I’d gone through when I was younger, I wanted to give her the option to save,” says Jo.
Instead, every month, Lavina pays £500 towards her car and £500 towards a property deposit, invested in shares and other savings accounts.
“[When I moved in with my parents] finding a spare £200 every month was hard. I’m more lenient with my daughter and I don’t expect her to pay towards the household, [but] more towards her future. I struggled myself and wouldn’t want to put my daughter through that,” Jo adds.
As well as not asking for any financial contributions, Jo says her relationship with her daughter is very different to that of her parents. “I’m very laid back; I encourage her to go out with friends. I’m also teaching her things, life skills that I was never taught. Things like cooking, finances, paying into a pension, things that you need to be equipped for.
“She has fun but I make sure she saves for the future. It’s taking kids a lot more to save up on their own and having the safety net of their parents is important.”
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‘I was spending nearly 60 per cent of my earnings on rent’
Graphic designer, Natalie, who’s 26 and prefers not to use her surname, has also moved in with her parents for financial reasons.
“The rent for the shared housing I was living in at the time increased so much, it was out of budget and unrealistic,” she says. “As much as I think some people have a relationship with their parents that they stay by choice, for some people, like myself, it was not by choice but because there was no other realistic option.”
Until 2023, Natalie was paying £850 a month, including bills, to rent one room in a six-bedroom HMO house-share with shared bathrooms and on-street parking in Cambridge.
“It became too expensive for me to live comfortably. At the time it was nearly 60 per cent of my monthly earnings, I wouldn’t have been able to save money (and had little to no savings) to move elsewhere, so moving back home was the only option.”
Her parents live in a small village outside Cambridge, where public transport is limited and she has to use a car to get anywhere. “My room fits my bed, a wardrobe and a drawer. There is no space to walk around.”
She pays her parents £400 a month and her brother pays the same. “I wouldn’t say it was the worst, but it’s not the best. I feel I’d have a much better relationship with them by not living under the same roof.”
The plan for the future is for Natalie to save up and move in with her partner, somewhere further out of Cambridge where rents are cheaper.
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