Generally I would not encourage someone to move back home, because life isn't just about money. But if you can't afford to move out you can't afford it and you do what you have to do.

What is your degree in? The long term returns will be higher by entering your profession ASAP. Wasting a year in a job not related to your career sounds like a waste of time IMO.

What are the things you could do with 40k?

Have a downpayment for a home

Have a chunk of cash to invest and begin growing wealth.

Have a downpayment for a duplex and begin house hacking

Take a journey around the world

Piss it away at roulette (don’t recommend)

If you can do this, it’s a great opportunity to set your adult life off on a great foot. The wiki has a lot of great advice

Financially it's a golden egg. I wouldn't just let that money sit though. It'll do much more for you in an IRA. Time is money when it comes to compounding interest.

From a personal point of view (and this is highly subjective) it's good to get away from home. You're young, minus investing early there's not much you can do to mess things up. People get trapped at home sometimes and it stagnates their personal growth and sometimes their financial growth.

[deleted]

We offered this option to our kids upon graduation. One took it. We established rules before hand. He capitalized it by paying off his school loan, new car in cash and saved for a move out of state.

As a parent I have no issues with this option as long as there are rules and timelines.

All I can give you is an anecdote.

My oldest son graduated college in 2019. The original plan was "live at home until you get a job and save enough for an apartment". We figured 6-9 months. He got a job, but that job started having him travel from New England to North Carolina for 2-3 week work trips. Didn't make much sense for him to get an apartment that would be sitting empty anyway so the "plan" was put on hold until the travel stopped. Then the pandemic hit. Travel stopped but now there was new uncertainty about job security. He was eventually set up to be a remote employee (data analysis) and we basically abandoned the "plan" in case he was the victim of "let the new guy go" or "we're shutting down".

He's still working remote and living with us. On weekends, he drives about an hour to visit friends he's made through work and stays with them for the weekend so they can all do stuff together. We don't charge him for rent, food, or utilities.

In 2020, he bought a new car. That's also the year he paid off the last of his student loans. The car is 90% paid off and he pays for his own car insurance. He also gives us $40/month towards our cell phone bill because he's on our plan. Outside of that, he banks everything else.

He's been contributing the full $6k towards his IRA since 2019. He's also contributing to his company's 401(k) to max the company match but not the full contribution max. He also has an emergency fund that is about a years salary that he is working on transitioning to I Series bonds. He decided to go for a year as a starting point because his first job out of college didn't pay as much as he had hoped. He's going to leave it at it's current dollar amount as he gets better paying jobs so that it gets closer to the standard 3-6 months expenses. He's now at the point where he has money coming in that he has no immediate need to spend on anything. Next year will be the first year he is on his own medical and dental coverage through work so that he can start contributing to an HSA. Once we get into the new year and see what his paycheck is like with the new deductions, we'll sit down and talk about what to do with the money including consideration of maxing out his 401(k) contributions.

We get along with him and he helps out with stuff around the house as needed but also has his freedom to go and do whatever he wants. He knows when meals are served and if he's not going to be around, we just ask that he let us know so I can either cook less or plan on what to do with the leftovers. He's welcome to stay for at least another decade (my expected retirement) and personally, the longer he stays, the better the financial foundation he'll build so the lower the risk that he'd ever need help after moving out.

Hope this helps.

If you and your parents are comfortable with it then, by all means, take advantage of the opportunity to save. As a parent, I am all for helping my kids out like this at any point in their lives. As long as they are being responsible and bettering their life I would be more than willing to help them.

Live at home. Save a good chunk of the money and use what you don't save to travel and explore areas you think you might want to move to.

Also, I know a lot of people who have become traveling nurses. Take a year to build your nest egg and try to do that.

You have plenty of options and giving yourself the grace to live at home for a year to figure it out is much better than putting yourself in a situation you won't be happy in and potentially put you into debt.

Honestly since it’s the first job and a way to save money I would do it.

Reasons being that it saves you money. You expect to work overtime and it’s your first job which sounds like you’ll have less of a social life anyways and it’s good to focus on learning the ropes and things College didn’t prepare you for on the job. Plus it’s good experience and can help finding a job after. Additionally I like you mentioned the stress and having support system and I imagine it will get a bit better after a year experience somethings you won’t stress over anymore.

Living rent free and pocketing the money will give you a bigger cushion. Part of that should be increasing your emergency fund since your income is going up your fund needs to as well. This will also allow you to have money for when you do want to travel or move to a larger city you’ll have more than enough for deposit and can come out of pocket without worrying when you will be reimbursed.

You have your whole life to pay rent or a mortgage later on you won’t get many chances to make money while having a almost no cost of living.

I understand being young and wanting cool activities to do, new people to hang with and part of that can be fomo but I don’t think a year is to long if it sets you up for later. Just have the plan and stick to it to leave after a year don’t get sucked into the stability of it if you don’t like the area and still want to explore.

My father just passed, I wish I spent more time with him.

Do you have any savings at the moment?

If you can stand your family, and you're willing to just make an occasional trip out to go have fun instead of moving outright-- do that. Because holy shit, $40,000 in a year is fucking insane. Imagine how much more fun you'll get to have knowing you made the right choice and you're financially stable-- WAY more so than most people you're age (I'm 24 and barely have half as much as that goal of yours over the culmination of 5 years).

Why a year? Why not just do 6 months?

There is a lot of value in having your own place, and it might help you have a better future.

I think the following would be good:

1. Move home and start your job
2. Get 2-3 paychecks and start looking for a place to rent
3. Move out on your own