Consider How a Potential Roommate Might Affect You Financially.
When I was in graduate school, one day I came home from class and found that one of my three roommates had moved out.
I also learned that I wouldn’t get her share of the unpaid rent because it was one of those situations where one roommate wrote a check to the homeowner (and utilities) and other roommates left money on the kitchen table to pay. share.
I wrote a check that same month and was never reimbursed for the rent I paid on behalf of this roommate, and if I remember correctly, she owed more than one month. It was a devastating blow to my bank balance at a time when I was not making a lot of money.
This isn’t the only way a roommate could cost you more money than expected. As Taylor Lones explains in an essay for The Financial Diet , the roommates you choose can influence the amount of money you spend:
All four years of college, I worked part-time with decent hours and pay, and I have absolutely nothing to show about it in any of my accounts.
For me, living with people like that, my friendship and my environment led to me doing a lot of things almost daily, which drained my energy and my bank account. From spending more nights in restaurants or ordering takeaway than preparing meals to several trips a week to Target out of sheer boredom or “just for one!” and going out with a cart full of pointless shit was a common waste of money. Not to mention the money I spent on going to bars every weekend.
You’ve probably heard of the idea that we act like the people we surround ourselves with. As motivational speaker Jim Rohn put it, “You are, on average, of the five people you spend the most time with.”
This means that if you really want to save money by living with roommates, it might be a good idea to choose neighbors who are equally interested in frugality – or at least won’t force you to join them on every Target trip.
How do you do this? Likewise, you deal with any other difficult interpersonal situation: communication . When interviewing someone to fill the roommate-shaped hole in your group home or apartment, ask how they like to spend their time. You should also ask how they prefer to interact with their roommates; are they the type who wants to have a group dinner every night, or who prefers to eat in their room with the door closed? (It’s also a good idea to ask for referrals, just to make sure they haven’t recently left the group home without paying their rent.)
If you are looking for a room to rent, feel free to ask similar questions. Even if you may feel like you need to find a place to live as soon as possible , it is still worth asking yourself what type of roommate you would like to have and if the situation you are considering really suits you.
Have you ever had roommates who cost you more money than you expected? Do you have any advice on how to pick good roommates or how to write a Craigslist ad that lists the type of roommate you want without being so picky and rule-based that you end up getting sucked into social media? Share your scary roommate and your roommate advice — and if you’re a bad roommate, feel free to “confess.