Having a roommate comes with a lot of amazing perks. You get to split the rent, share the chores, cut down costs and make a true friend. While sharing the cost of rent and bills will be cheaper, dividing up finances can also make things more complicated. Follow these simple suggestions if you want to avoid tense disagreements about money with your roommates.
Talk About Money Right Away
You should talk with your roommate about money to get a good picture of what your financial situations are and what the best ways are to divide up rent, bills and other shared priorities. Communicating is important for relationships to succeed, and you just signed a lease to be in a relationship with this person for at least a year.
Once the two of you come to an agreement about how to share expenses, you should pull out a pen and paper. Write down all of the significant discussion points so you have a document you can look back to if there’s a disagreement.
Use Tech To Automate Payments
A simple reminder to have half of the rent ready or to take care of an overdue bill can be the start of an unpleasant argument. Automating your payments with mobile apps will help you avoid fights with your roommate because you won’t be pressured to nag them about finances every time a payment is due.
An app like Splitwise will divide up expenses fairly and send reminders that they owe you money, and which they can transfer to you through services like Venmo or Paypal. The app RentShare can automate rent payments to the landlord. Using tech to your advantage is easy and non-confrontational.
Get Your Own Groceries
Since you need to grab groceries and toiletries on a regular basis, constantly splitting the fees will be a nuisance. You don’t want to nitpick about every penny you owe each other or pull out your calculator to divide the cost of milk. It’s best to keep it simple.
The only time that you should split the grocery bill is when you are planning a meal together. In that case, you can manage money with your roommate by dividing up ingredients so that you both contribute to the recipe. If you do meal planning often, you can create a rotating schedule where one person buys the food and the other cooks it.
Don’t Split Furniture Costs
When you decide to move out of the apartment, you can’t take half of a television and give the other half to your roommate. It makes no sense to share the expense and then argue about ownership when you leave.
A better idea is to assign certain pieces, which will be taken by the person who bought them when they move out. Make sure that the costs are similar, so no one is emptying their bank account on furnishing half of the living-room while the other is buying a second-hand lamp.
Tackle Money Troubles
There is a real possibility that your roommate is a bad money manager and that their saving or spending habits are making your life harder with every month that goes by. If they keep paying the rent late, you need to talk to them. Instead of getting accusatory, ask if they want to take a financial planning class with you or work on a budget together.
It’s also possible that you are the bad money manager of the household. If that is the case, don’t let your money troubles fester. Talk to your roommate if you don’t have enough money in the bank to take on a bill. They might offer to take care of the payment until you get your next paycheck.
If they can’t help you, you can go to a website like MoneyKey for help. Depending on where you live, you may be able to apply for a fast payday loan without any of the hassles that come with a traditional bank. Skip the long waits and the long lines by getting an online payday loan.
If this solution interests you, you can learn more by clicking here and see how you can submit the application and get the money you need in a flash. When you tackle your money troubles right away, you prove to your roommate that you’re dependable even when your bank account isn’t full.
Dealing with finances honestly and responsibly will make it easier to have a good relationship with your roommate. You won’t have to send passive aggressive notes about them owing you $5.00 for milk or get into yelling matches about bill payments. Sorting out your finances is the best way for the two of you to keep the peace.
