My wife once worked with a young, successful, preppy, attractive girl that recently graduated with her MBA degree, let’s call her Sally.  She was working full-time in a VP of marketing position (or something similar) making much more money than my wife did, back when my wife worked at this company.  She was recently married and her husband was even more successful than she was! 

At first I thought my wife was telling me the classic story of two young DINKS (Dual Income No Kids), setting out to conquer the world…  

But these two DINKS were a bit different!  You see, both of these highly educated, successful adults were living in the basement of Sally’s parent’s house!  I said “WHAT”, thinking that I misheard my wife, but she confirmed it again!  Apparently, my wife was shocked too, and she asked the pretty VP to go into greater detail, explaining the young DINK’s logic…

Sally told my wife that her parents are rich, so the basement was finished with a kitchen and bathroom and plenty of room…  Sally and her husband were socking away all of their money and living as cheaply as possible.  Kudos to them for living a frugal life way before it become popular right?  Not so fast!

You see they were saving for a million dollar house, and while they might be able to afford it, it would have been a pretty tight squeeze.  I should mention that where I live, a million dollar house is a very BIG house!

So their plan was to live in Sally’s parents house for a five year time span, saving all the money for a huge down payment on the million dollar house.

A clever way to go, and I’m sure Sally’s parents house was big enough…  But still, that would be incredible awkward for me, especially if I were her husband!

What would you do, would you mooch off of your spouse’s parents while saving money?  In some ways I applaud them, even though it leaves a nasty taste in my mouth!  But, Sally’s parents are filthy rich, and they didn’t seem to mind…  So, why not!?

-MR