Your twenties are a time for forging friendships, building a career and — for some — living with your parents. That’s what many young Granite Staters are deciding to do these days as they face high costs, high rents and uncertain futures.
Logan Landry is one of them. He tried living on his own in 2019. He was 22, renting an apartment in Manchester and working as a line cook.
“I was splitting rent with a roommate at the time,” Landry said. “Then when Covid happened, I didn't have any income.”
Landry lost his job in the pandemic, and he couldn’t pay the rent anymore. His parents suggested he move back in with them in their Manchester home, and he agreed.
“It felt like I was kind of taking a step back a little bit,” Landry said. But he knew a lot of people in similar situations.
He’s since found a new job in manufacturing and now earns about $43,000 a year, but he’s still living with his parents. They have a good relationship, and he has the whole second floor of their house to himself.
In New Hampshire, over a third of adults 18 to 34 years old are now living in their parents’ home, according to Census data. Like Landry, they’re facing high costs at the gas pump, the grocery store, and in housing. The median rent in the state is $2,100.
Given his income, Landry could afford to rent again if he had a roommate, but he doesn’t think it’s worth the tradeoffs.
“Like, my rent is paid, but I can't do laundry. I can't drive my car anywhere because everything is so expensive right now,” he said.
Home prices in New Hampshire are at an all-time high, with the median price now over half a million dollars. And some renters wanting to buy a house are now wishing they’d stayed at home like Landry in order to save more.
That’s the case for Angel Durocher, 36, who also lives in Manchester. She’s been renting since she graduated from college and now earns $72,000 a year. Even with her and her partner’s income, she doesn’t feel like she’ll be able to buy a home anytime soon.
“At times I kind of wish I had stayed home and gone to community college in Concord or something,” Desrocher said. “I feel like I could maybe create more of – not a nest egg – but more savings and then had a better foothold.”
But Desrocher tries to not focus on what could-have-beens, and Landry will point out there are downsides to his frugal lifestyle. For instance, when it comes to building a social life.
“I can't host the way I would like to, and also it makes the dating scene a little bad, a little not easy,” Landry said.
Jon Cook, 22, also lives with his family in Manchester. To him, that’s normal.
“Almost all of my friends, be it from college or high school, are living with their parents because the prospect of doing anything else is simply not possible,” Cook said.
He sometimes looks up at his bedroom ceiling, and thinks about how it’s the same view he had when he was 13. But he reminds himself he’s saving for his future. He wants to move out, have a good career, and raise a family, but some days that feels far away.
“I would love to stay in New Hampshire, I really do. I don't know when that's possible,” Cook said. When he adds up the cost of groceries, health care, car payments, and gas, “I don't know where I fit a kid in there, ever.”
Until he figures it out, he’ll be at his parents’ house.
