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I have a job WFH and make about £48k a year. I have £45k in hard-earned savings which I plan to use for a house payment and a car, but that will be a few years off. I am 25. I mean, I am not in a bad financial situation that really justifies staying with relatives.
I live with an older female relative who is nice enough, she only charges me £200 a month to cover all food, bills etc. She works 9-5 so we aren't stuck in close confinement either. I ended up here after running out of my abusive family home 1.5 years ago during pandemic. I lived in Airbnbs and then house shares for a year before getting in contact with her and she was happy to have me stay.
The thing is, she is very male-identified. She loves the daily mail, she's kind of a right-wing boomer stereotype. She lives in a rural area which is pretty dead. She also insists on cooking all the meals and choosing the groceries, and she generally makes unhealthy beige meals (like she heats up hash browns, chips, chicken goujons etc). She also insists on doing my laundry with hers then talks about how much she does for me. (BTW, I'm not trying to freeload off of her, I clean the whole house because she isn't able to do a lot of physical stuff- when I moved in it was dirty af and now the house is always cute.)
She is very right-wing, criticising the strikers, criticising feminists, talking about how amazing various men she knows are for doing basically anything. She's very jealous of my job and education as well, so if I say anything about what I'm doing she will make snide comments.
I have no friends left since the ones I did have either turned on me after I pretty much cut off my family, or I realised that they weren't good for me (supported my shitty ex, told me he wasn't that bad).
I want to change my career very badly, I am not excited by what I do and there's not much room for progression. I will have to start with a lower salary.
So I don't know. I'm not excited about living here but I understand COL is so high at the moment and I have a great financial situation here. I wouldn't want to rent a flat for myself either because of the expense, so it would have to be a house share with strangers, and I hate the idea of living with strange men.
I feel weird moving out to take a financial hit when I don't know if I'll need to move again shortly. I don't want to undervalue what I have here during a time when the economy is tanking. Should I change careers first and then move out to a place near the job? Or just move out now and be free and eat what I want?
That’s a phenomenal position to be in money-wise. If I were you I would dip into your nest and spend some savings to move out closer to what you value. Your home has a bearing on every aspect of your enjoyment in life. If home isn’t where you feel most at ease you’ll feel it in every other aspect.
No one has really acknowledged the massive asset bubble and recession/depression coming up so I'll be the person giving you completely opposite advice and confirming your anxieties (intuition):
I think now is a terrible time to move from a stable situation. If prices in GA have ballooned as much as everywhere else (25-50%) then it's best to wait a few months to see what will happen after the crash really picks up. Lay-offs have only just begun in tech, RE and now beginning in retail. This is across pretty much all Western nations, something very big is coming imo.
Sounds like you're on the right track, there's only upwards to go from here. You're making good enough money to move out, because no amount of saving is worth sacrificing having a place of solace and peace of mind (your home!) I don't like the idea of her being so controlling of what you eat and downplaying the horrors of what women go through. I do appreciate that she offered you a place to stay when you were down on your luck with family, so she's not a lost cause, maybe one day she'll have that eureka moment and see her own internalized misogyny, but that's not on you. I concur with the other commenters in the suggestion of finding another woman to room with. Who knows? You two might hit it off and become fast friends!
Your situation sounds very much like mine when I moved away from home only I had a controlling boyfriend. Your funds are enough to move out and go live your life unburdened. Honestly, you need not worry about the COL at that salary, if you're saving enough and good with money. Of course all this depends on how flexible your job is. Can you work from home in another location? Can you report to another office/whatever?
Go somewhere you can socialise and build a life while also having the ability to capitalise on your work success should you want to climb up the career ladder.
Perhaps you could rent a room with another woman through spareroom. Take your time to vet and only consider women who have stable professional jobs. In the meantime, you could stay at a long-stay AirBnB again in the area you're considering.
You've got a chance at getting everything you want without being subject to mistreatment. Exciting times indeed! Money is for making the life you want--that's the best way to spend it.