Lesley Traballo, 31, marketing and administrative co-ordinator, and Chris De Ath, 32, retail manager

Their Combined Income: $103,000 per year

her parents: Lillian Traballo, 69, retired nurse, and Leo Traballo, 73, retired electrical engineer

The Place: A four-bedroom house in Port Union

LeSLey: In 2012, my boyfriend, Chris, and I decided to move in together. We quickly realized it didn’t make sense to rent a place. I was still finishing my undergrad at U of T, and Chris was thinking about going back to school. He owned a house in Whitby, but it was becoming too expensive for him to maintain. He eventually sold the place. He made $15,000 off the sale, put half of the profits into a savings account and used the other half to pay back credit card debt.

My parents agreed to let Chris move into our family home. There’s no shortage of space: the house is 2,900 square feet with four bedrooms. Our wing has a bathroom and two bedrooms. We clean our area, and my parents take care of theirs as well as the rest of the house. Chris does most of the outdoor chores, like raking the leaves and shovelling snow. My dad is getting older, and his knees are bad.

We’re saving money for our wedding in Maui this August. It will cost about $19,000. We also have $12,000 in credit card debt, which we hope to pay off before the wedding. We put $3,600 each month toward debt repayments and saving for the wedding, and we already have $10,000 saved. We’re grateful that my parents don’t ask us to pay rent, so we try to take them out to nice meals every few weeks. Sometimes, my mom will ask us to buy groceries, or cover the hydro or Internet bill. We do it, no questions asked.

When my brother got married in October 2016, my dad asked Chris to leave for a couple of days while family visited. He’s very conservative, and he didn’t want family to know about our living situation. I told him that if Chris had to leave, I’d leave too. We rented a friend’s place in Stouffville for two weeks. It was irritating, but ultimately, it’s their home.

We don’t plan to move out any time soon. We don’t want to acquire more debt. My parents plan to renovate the basement in a couple of years, so we can live there. Ideally, we’ll inherit the house. Buying a house in Toronto isn’t a realistic goal.