Economic survival advice: what would you tell young people these days ?

[SheilaT]

9. Excellent!

I'd forgotten the part about having a roommate. I'm 66, and back when I was starting out, we always had roommates. It made a huge difference in our standard of living. In fact, two different times in my early years, I had a roommate bail on me and it made a very large, although temporary, difference, in my housing costs.

Son number one is in a place where he can afford his own apartment. Son number two could probably afford one, but he lives in a two bedroom town home with a roommate, and it makes a huge difference in what he pays and what sort of standard of living he has.

Another example of living below one's means.