Homebound

Wilner offers a template for a "contract" between young adults and their parents that includes the amount of time per week young adults must spend researching careers and how much access parents can have to their bedrooms.

Experts (not to mention young adults and their parents) debate the merits of charging rent. Elina Furman, author of "Boomerang Nation," said rent is crucial to teach responsibility, even if it is a nominal $50.

"It's a very important gesture that implies that you're an adult and want to be treated as an adult," she said.

Furman acknowledges that some parents think asking for rent defeats the purpose -- the more money their children can sock away, the more quickly they can move out.

Furman recommended that parents who are uncomfortable taking money from their children invest those rent payments in an interest-bearing account and return it when the children move back out.

Ben Somers, 23, had to pay his parents $125 a month after he moved back into their Chevy Chase home last summer. When asked about his parents' philosophy for charging him rent, Somers was hazy.

"I don't know," he said. "Morals [are] behind it, probably."

What he does know, however, is that $125 is much less than the $815 rent for the Adams Morgan efficiency apartment he plans to move into this weekend. He knows he'll have less money now but hasn't started seriously thinking about a budget. He doesn't have a savings account -- everything he makes goes straight into his checking account. He does contribute 4 percent of his salary to the 401(k) offered through his job at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. But Somers said he has only a vague idea of how much he is -- or should be -- saving.

"Everybody tells you to save," Somers said. "And it's the hardest thing to do when you're living paycheck to paycheck."

Beginning to Save

Maria Varmazis, 22, knew almost immediately that she would have trouble saving after a long talk with her parents before she graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in May.

Together, they wrote up a budget, including estimated rent, gas prices and insurance. Then they considered her expected salary. The financial picture was not pretty.

"We concluded that I could feasibly live on my own and have my own apartment," she said. "But I'd basically be throwing money down the drain if I'd be paying rent every single month."