The Hotel of Mum and Dad

Are millennials missing out on learning valuable life skills and self-dependence while living with parents?

Soaring property prices and the high cost of renting has led to record numbers of young people living at home with their parents. 3.4m young people between the ages of 20 and 34 were living with parents in 2018, which equates to over a quarter of people in that age range. In fact, the number of young people living at home has increased by 5,500 per month over the last 15 years, according to the ONS.

The average price of a property in 2018 was £233,000. If a young person wanted to purchase such a home and assuming they opted for the typical 10% mortgage, they would need a deposit of £23,300. As the median yearly salary for people between the ages of 22 and 29 is £20,563, this makes it almost impossible to save a for deposit. The affordability of getting onto the property ladder has worsened substantially in recent years. According to This Is Money, the average home in England or Wales cost 3.55 times earnings in 1997, making it less than half as expensive as it is now.

Blinds Hut has conducted a survey of 600 young people from the UK who are living with parents, with the aim of determining if they are missing out on learning valuable life skills that they will need once they find their own home, such as cooking, home maintenance and self-care. Given that our study shows that only 49% of young adults pay their parents any rent, that means 75% of the people we surveyed pay less than £10 a day to stay at the Hotel of Mum and Dad.

Key Findings: Millennials Living at Home 

• One in four have never changed a lightbulb.

• A fifth rely on their parents to be their alarm clock.

• Half of young people have their clothes ironed by their parents.

• Most young people rely on their parents to wash their clothes.

• Almost 60% don’t know how to change a car tyre.

• A third of millennials spend less than an hour per week on household chores.

• Over half don’t pay their parents any rent.

Replacing a lightbulb might prove challenging for a millennial living at home.

Astoundingly, one in four young people living at home have never changed a lightbulb. Although the process of changing a lightbulb is relatively simple, this statistic shows the level of comfort living with parents provides.

Nearly one in five millennials rely on their parents for a wake-up call. 

Nearly a fifth of young people rely on their parents to wake them up in the morning for college, university or work. This is a staggering statistic considering being able to manage your time and life schedule is one of the key aspects needed to function in today’s society. This dependency could hamper a millennials’ adaption to living on their own once they decide to leave the family home, with research showing that punctuality is a key component of success.

The majority of millennials living at home don’t iron their own clothes. 

A household task that almost everyone hates when living on their own is ironing. It’s an important and necessary thing in modern life to be well presented and smart and could affect your job prospects if you’re not. Our findings show that the majority of young people living with parents leave it to them to do their ironing.

Parents are generally relied upon to wash clothing. 

An essential job in any household, a staggering 64% of parents who have millennials living at home wash their clothes for them. This is something that can easily be taken for granted if it’s something that you’ve never done before, as it’s easy to place your clothes in a washing basket and forget about them. This is another statistic that shows young people living at home generally live a life of luxury.

If there’s a motoring emergency, millennials are unlikely to know what to do. 

At the end of June 2018, there were a record 38.2m vehicles licensed in Great Britain. As more young people become car owners to travel to college, university or work, it’s vital that they are able to deal with any emergencies that might arise while on the road. Our survey has revealed that 60% millennials living at home wouldn’t know how to change a car tyre should they break down. This means they would have to rely on their breakdown cover, or most likely Mum and Dad to come to the rescue.

Nearly a quarter of millennials rely on their parents to change their bedding. 

It’s important that bed sheets are regularly changed to ensure bacteria doesn’t spread, with recent research showing that two-thirds of the British public are unaware that dirty bedding can cause allergic reactions, illnesses and spread viruses. This could explain our survey results, which show that nearly a quarter of young people leave it to their parents to change their bedding. Perhaps it’s because millennials don’t know the health risks of dirty bedding, or it could be that once again they overly rely on Mum and Dad.

A fifth of millennials have both their breakfast and evening meal prepared for them while at home. 

Perhaps the most important skill that young people require in order to become self-sufficient is the ability to prepare and cook their own meals. This is so when they leave home, they’re able to stay healthy by not bingeing on junk food. However, nearly one in five have both their breakfast and evening meal prepared by their parents, meaning if they were to leave home, they would have no experience making a meal themselves.

 Many millennials contribute less than one hour per week on household chores. 

Not only are millennials losing out on learning valuable life skills, they’re generally not contributing to the upkeep of the home. A considerable 37% of young people living with parents spend under an hour every week on household chores, with only 27% spending over 4 hours. When it’s time for them to move into their own place, it may come as a surprise just how much time is needed to carry out basic chores around a house, such as washing, cleaning and cooking.

The majority of millennials living at home don’t pay their parents any rent. 

More than half of young people living with their parents don’t pay rent. This is extremely low considering the rising cost of electricity, gas and other expenses such as food. The most common amount of rent that is paid to parents is between £100 and £200 per month, which is well below the average rent of £758pm for a private dwelling (excluding London). Incredibly, 3.5% of millennials in the UK who are living at home pay over £500pm to their parents, although England is the only region where this is the case.

Our survey results have shown that young people living at home could easily be missing out on important life skills and self-dependence while living with parents. If you’re a parent of a millennial still living at home, it’s always good to make sure your food stretches as far as possible. If you want to find out the optimum temperature to store your food so that it lasts longer, our fruit and vegetable guides have you covered.