I live on my own, renting. Wouldn't have it any other way. Peace, quiet, and doing what I want however I see fit.
This is a nice thing about living with my parents and one of the reasons I haven't felt a need to move out: Since nearing adulthood, I've never not been allowed to do what I want. Even when I was in my mid to late teens (16–18), my parents were pretty lenient about what I do, where I go, when, and so on, as long as I let 'em know what I'm up to, how late I'll be out, whether I'm spending the night at a friend's, etc. They were always really cool about that stuff 'cos they trusted me not to do anything stupid, and for the most part I didn't. So I'd be out till 4 a.m. all the time, heh.
And I still out of courtesy let 'em know when I'm going someplace, where, when I'll be back, and that.
My parents also have a pretty big house, so my room is pretty detached from everyone else and any noise that could bother me. One of my brothers just moved out, so the whole basement pretty much now belongs to my sister and I, and it's a big basement with a pretty sizable living room, three bedrooms (one's technically the library which I commandeered when I was 15), and two bathrooms (one with bath/shower). So it's pretty cozy and spacious here, which would make moving a pain because I have so much stuff and I can't see myself moving it to anywhere less than a house (or a duplex or something of that sort).
So I dunno. It's pretty damn luxurious in a way, and I doubt I could ever think of home as any place other than this. Not now in my young life, at least.
I really ought to seriously start saving, though. I hear what you're saying, PFG, about buying a small home for yourself being problematic now that you're married. I've thought about that myself, getting a home big enough for me, and if I ever get married, that could be a problem, especially when we start having kids, and maybe selling off the old hut wouldn't work out so well. (I really, really hope things go well for you in this regard, by the way.) So I've started thinking, "Well, maybe in a few more years if I'm saving and I have a sweetheart and we wanna get hitched, maybe then it'll be time to buy a house, and one which will fit a family." Who knows if I ever will get married? I'd like to. But in the meantime, I'm kind of hanging on to the idea that I don't really wanna move out from my parents' place until I'm more financially stable and actually have more of a
reason to move out—and wanting my own roof for my new family would definitely be a mighty good reason to do so, and I could get a nicer, bigger home from the get-go. My dad sorta did something similar, except he spent much of his 20s traveling the country (with a photography business in the south) and doing military service. When he was done with all that, though, he moved back in with his parents and started working at the bakery again until he got married and my parents got a place of their own. He was somewhere in his early or mid 30s when this happened.
And yeah, the government rapes you of money when it comes to property taxes and the like. It's a hunka burnin' bullshit. Many people don't seem to factor in the homeownership taxes when they get their own house.