Sharing the bills with a roommate is not always easy, whether you live with a close friend, a complete stranger, your partner or a family member. The key is to have an open dialogue from the beginning, to establish a plan before moving in together and to know how to execute it. If you want to find out how to deal with living together from an economic point of view to avoid conflicts and stress, just follow these simple steps.
Steps
Method 1 of 2: Establish a Good Plan
Step 1. Choose the right roommate
Before making the decision to move in with someone, carefully examine the candidate. Whether it's a close friend or a complete stranger, it's essential to have an open dialogue to make sure your goals and values match. You should also be sure that he is financially responsible as well as an ideal roommate.
- Try to live with someone who has a stable job and who is not facing an existential crisis or professional revolution. Not only will this be stressful to manage, it will also make it more difficult to divide the expenses. If it's a student, make sure he doesn't abuse his situation to avoid paying his due.
- When choosing a possible roommate, look for seemingly negligible or obvious alarm bells. Here are a few: he often confidently states that he hopes to receive money in the future, is perpetually looking for a job and refuses to accept jobs that he considers below his capacity, is financially dependent on his parents or has lived at the expense of his family for far too long after passing adulthood.
- Try to find someone who has a similar financial situation to yours. If you earn five times as much as your roommate, it could make you feel guilty that you want to split the bills in half.
- If you know your potential roommate or have recently dated this person, see if they tend to latch on or show signs of greed. Avoid paying for drinks or meals and force you to pay for both? Do you carefully avoid taking cash to places that don't accept credit cards and force you to pay? It is a not indifferent alarm bell: if you were to live together, it will continue to have this behavior.
- Try to understand why he is looking for a roommate. If you have heard that he practically ran away from the house he lived in due to misunderstandings with other tenants, it is possible that he (with his opportunistic tendencies) was the source of the problem, so your coexistence could also be difficult.
Step 2. Discuss in depth how to divide the expenses
If you've found the perfect roommate (or already knew the right person to live with), you should talk about every single aspect of living together before making a deal. It can be boring, but making unanimous decisions about everything before moving in together will prevent conflicts and unforeseen problems in the future. Here are some things to keep in mind and talk about:
- Agree on everything from personal spaces to every single financial detail, including payment for rent, utilities, grocery shopping (decide whether it will be shared or not) and potential maintenance costs.
- If you have a television or a certain subscription, decide how to divide the costs. Will you both be watching TV and are you willing to pay half the price? If you don't watch television, but your roommate does, then he can pay for it on his own. However, this can be incorrect, as sooner or later you may be interested in some program and you would give the impression of scrounging.
- Determine how you will pay for utilities. Is one of the two more likely to turn on the heaters or air conditioning, while the other never touches the thermostat? If a tenant's habits drive electricity costs up, then they should be willing to pay more. Another example: if one of you works from home, this person should make a bigger contribution to utilities.
- Determine what to do in case of guests, whether they are staying for a couple of hours or sleeping. If your girlfriend is going to spend half the time in your house, how will she contribute? If your roommate's girlfriend is always with you, it's not fair that you don't pay a penny. Talk about your expectations from this point of view. If you've decided to live with only one person and don't want someone else to hang around the house all the time, say it from the start.
- Determine what to do if either of you goes on vacation. If you go away for a month or two in the summer, will you have to pay rent and utilities? Will you have the opportunity to sublet? Make up your mind now, because your future roommate may not want a stranger to take your place for some time.
- Determine what to do if either party leaves first. If you have signed an annual contract, but your roommate leaves two months early, will he have to pay his share or find someone to take his place?
Step 3. Write a contract
Once you have established all the most important aspects of living together, you should write a clear contract that lists all the decisions made. By signing up, you undertake to divide the costs from the outset according to the methods indicated. In this way, if one of the two does not pay what is due, the agreement will show that he has neglected his duties as a tenant. Also, in the future your roommate won't be able to deny that he has agreed to something. Thanks to the written form, it will all be out in the open. Here's what to include in the contract:
- Determine how much monthly rent you will pay individually. If you share the house fairly, you should split it in half. If you have a larger room or more space in general, you could agree to decide if you should pay more.
- Determine what to do with the deposit. It would be ideal to pay it in half. It is not fair that only one of the two pays the entire deposit with the risk of losing all their money.
- Determine how to divide the utility costs.
- Determine who will pay the bills. Will you do it once your roommate gives you his share? Will one of the two take care of the utilities and the other of the rent?
- Determine what to do if one of the two fails to pay the amount due. Will you have a tolerance of a few days or the tenant who pays late will have to pay a small fine? If your roommate constantly fails to meet his commitment, will you have the right to send him away?
- In the event that the rent includes a work performance, specifically examines the assigned duties and working hours, in order to define whether your roommate will have to pay part of the rent or can avoid paying it entirely. It may happen that a person who receives a high income takes advantage of a less wealthy individual. He therefore ends up underpaying him despite the fact that the workload is comparable to a full-time job, plus overtime. Find out about the hourly rate for professionals who take care of these tasks, and work out a schedule before making a deal.
Method 2 of 2: Execute the Plan
Step 1. Follow the established plan
Once the agreement has been signed and cohabitation undertaken, you will have to strictly observe the decisions taken. In order for the situation to be right for both of us, it is necessary to impose limits, that is, it is essential to avoid abuses or transgressions of the rules, not even "from time to time". Once the freeloader tenant begins to occasionally take advantage of the other's generosity, he will gradually develop bad habits. As you can guess, lability is one of the main reasons why the rules are broken.
- Don't accept excuses. For example, your roommate might say "I bought this and that" to avoid paying rent or bills. Do not give in, otherwise you will find yourself fighting a losing battle that will refer only to the division of material resources. Always make sure he pays his part in cash for rent and utilities, while other expenses need to be looked at separately.
- You only gain more flexibility if your roommate has an impeccable track record and circumstances arise that are beyond their control. If he has proven reliable over many months and a serious event occurs, such as the loss of his job, it is understandable to accept temporary changes that will affect the financial arrangements. This is very different from those who immediately make up excuses every time they don't want to pay.
- Never allow someone else's problems to become yours too. Everyone must be responsible and solve them with their own resources, even after losing their job or going through a difficult time. A person who has been unemployed for a long time could very well keep looking for work indefinitely, while abusing your generosity. Don't let that happen. Give her an ultimatum regarding the payments she owes you and follow the plan set out in the contract, which describes how to act in these cases.
Step 2. Keep track of your outings
You should create a table or use an application to check your expenses, large or small, in detail so that you can continue to implement the plan properly. You will know who paid what, who owes money and who does not respect the rules. Here are some purposes of this tool:
- You can find out who shopped and what they bought, such as toilet paper, kitchen paper or dish soap.
- You can find out who paid for minor repairs needed for house maintenance.
- You can find out who bought home improvement items, such as new curtains or furniture.
- If you share a pet, you will know who bought the food and other products needed to care for them.
- For example, a classic profiteer would go to the supermarket, buy 80% of the products for himself and consume them. Subsequently, he will claim to pay only part of the rent due to him because he contributed with the expense.
Step 3. If you want to split your shopping at the supermarket, be careful
Unless you are married, live with your girlfriend or a close relative, it is not recommended to share this cost with a roommate: you risk confusing things immediately and blurring the limits imposed. If a tenant has different eating habits than yours, this could also lead to arguments over buying expensive or unhealthy diet foods.
- If you need to share the grocery shopping, then split the bill into three parts. You will pay for your items, your roommate will pay for theirs, and in the end you will pay for the joint goods in half. It will be a little annoying to request three different receipts or do the bills at home, but it's worth it.
- Do not let this small inconvenience become an excuse to confuse the established limits, otherwise you risk breaking the agreements made and sharing the expenses incorrectly due to bogus justifications based on unfounded logic.
- If both of you have a rather sharing mindset and eat the same way (for example you are a convinced vegan), this can play an important role in defining your expectations about cohabitation. Adjust accordingly to manage expenses, but you still need to explicitly clarify which payments are due and when.
Step 4. Always try to communicate clearly
To continue implementing the plan, you need to put everything in writing and also communicate it verbally. You and your roommate should talk openly to make sure everything is handled responsibly and everything is paid for on time. Here's what you could do:
- Thank him for buying something, being responsible and paying for everything regularly. Show him you appreciate his punctuality.
- Thank him for all the home maintenance items he bought and be sure to give him the money he is owed.
- If your roommate does not pay attention to the table on which the expenses are noted, kindly remind him that you bought something and make sure he is aware of your contributions.
- Should an unexpected situation arise, such as an expensive repair or a guest staying longer than expected, sit down and discuss it openly. Add this decision to the contract and sign it again.
- Don't have a passive-aggressive attitude towards your roommate. Not only will it be more difficult to manage finances, you will also ruin the harmony in the house.
Advice
- When you live with someone, there are three types of funds to pay for expenses: your money, your roommate's, and mutual funds. The latter should never be touched, except in the case of unanimous agreement. Instead, your money should only be used for personal purchases.
- Don't forget to get paid on time every month. Even if the utilities for a certain month are only 30 euros, don't let them accumulate until the end of the year, otherwise you risk not seeing a penny.
- Nothing can replace the payment of rent and utilities: there is no excuse to avoid paying what you owe. Doing chores around the house will not exempt anyone from paying.
