3 Ways To Split The Rent With Roommates Bankrate.com Caret RightMain Menu Mortgage Mortgages Financing a home purchase Refinancing your existing loan Finding the right lender Additional Resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Bank Banking Compare Accounts Use calculators Get advice Bank reviews Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Credit Card Credit cards Compare by category Compare by credit needed Compare by issuer Get advice Looking for the perfect credit card? Narrow your search with CardMatch Caret RightMain Menu Loan Loans Personal Loans Student Loans Auto Loans Loan calculators Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Invest Investing Best of Brokerages and robo-advisors Learn the basics Additional resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Home Equity Home equity Get the best rates Lender reviews Use calculators Knowledge base Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Loan Home Improvement Real estate Selling a home Buying a home Finding the right agent Additional resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Insurance Insurance Car insurance Homeowners insurance Other insurance Company reviews Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Retirement Retirement Retirement plans & accounts Learn the basics Retirement calculators Additional resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Advertiser Disclosure
Advertiser Disclosure
We are an independent, advertising-supported comparison service. Our goal is to help you make smarter financial decisions by providing you with interactive tools and financial calculators, publishing original and objective content, by enabling you to conduct research and compare information for free - so that you can make financial decisions with confidence.
Bankrate has partnerships with issuers including, but not limited to, American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi and Discover. How We Make Money
The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site, including, for example, the order in which they may appear within the listing categories. But this compensation does not influence the information we publish, or the reviews that you see on this site. We do not include the universe of companies or financial offers that may be available to you. SHARE: February 09, 2012 Susan Johnston Taylor Bankrate logo The Bankrate promise
At Bankrate we strive to help you make smarter financial decisions. While we adhere to strict editorial integrity, this post may contain references to products from our partners. Here's an explanation for how we make money. Bankrate logo The Bankrate promise
Founded in 1976, Bankrate has a long track record of helping people make smart financial choices. We’ve maintained this reputation for over four decades by demystifying the financial decision-making process and giving people confidence in which actions to take next. Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. All of our content is authored by and edited by , who ensure everything we publish is objective, accurate and trustworthy. Our banking reporters and editors focus on the points consumers care about most — the best banks, latest rates, different types of accounts, money-saving tips and more — so you can feel confident as you’re managing your money. Bankrate logo Editorial integrity
Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. Key Principles
We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information you’re reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers. Editorial Independence
Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU – the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether you’re reading an article or a review, you can trust that you’re getting credible and dependable information. Bankrate logo How we make money
You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey. Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers. We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money. Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service. When Alexis Campestre recently moved in with two friends in Los Angeles, he was between jobs and had no cash flow while he tried to start a business. So he agreed to cook, clean and do laundry in exchange for rent. Now that he’s landed a job and continues building his business, he plans to start contributing. Splitting up rent and household expenses can be tricky, especially if you and your roommate have disparate incomes. “Since, in most cases, the roommate relationship starts as a contract about saving money, a major imbalance in contribution to household versus personal spending can be a source of trouble,” says Annamarie Pluhar, author of “Sharing Housing: A Guidebook for Finding and Keeping Good Housemates.” Here are a few options for divvying up rent as well as tips on getting everyone to contribute. The 50-50 proposition
One option is to divide everything equally regardless of incomes. It’s often the simplest way, and it avoids one roommate subsidizing the others and potentially growing resentful, says Ornella Grosz, author of “Moneylicious: A Financial Clue for Generation Y.” Grosz also suggests divvying up the monthly bills so there’s a utility or cable bill in each person’s name. “It’s a good time for college students and recent grads to build their responsibility,” she says. This also creates a cooperative environment. Splitting the rent and utilities four ways has worked well for Amy Grizzle, a small-business owner in Acworth, Ga., and her three roommates. Grizzle says she’s in the middle in income, but they split everything evenly, including utilities. However, one of Grizzle’s roommates recently moved out, and Grizzle stepped up to cover the extra rent because she’s the one who collects rent checks and mails them in each month. “Although it made my budget a little tighter, it kept the house peaceful, and they took the lead in putting out ads to find a replacement,” she says. Next time, she might split the cost of that extra bedroom evenly among the roommates. Percentage of income
In some apartments, roommates split up expenses according to a percentage of their incomes. For example, if one roommate earns $100,000 per year and the other makes $30,000, the higher-earning roommate would pitch in more each month. But according to Grosz, splitting the rent based on income is more common with couples than with roommates. However, there may be some cases, such as Campestre’s, where it makes sense to adjust financial contributions based on other types of contributions. In situations where one person is paying less rent in exchange for extra chores, those responsibilities should be discussed in detail so expectations are clear. For instance, “you will do the cooking so many times a week for maybe a month or a couple of months,” Grosz says. “If you’re going to cook, you have to truly cook a real meal. The roommate has to see value.” Bedroom size
Instead of splitting rent based on income or going the 50-50 route, some roommates factor in room size and access to other amenities such as a parking spot, private balcony or master bathroom. The person with the lower income could agree to take the smaller room and pay slightly lower rent. When rooms are of unequal sizes, Pluhar suggests using the rent-splitting calculator offered on the online roommates’ resource Splitwise.com to get a ballpark suggestion on what each person should pay and then adjusting based on a conversation with roommates. House rules
Whatever type of split you prefer, here are a few ways to ensure your roommates hold up their end of the bargain. Before you sign a lease or move in with roommates, get clarity on how rent and other expenses will be divvied up and make sure everyone is comfortable with the arrangement. In addition to verbally discussing rent and other details, put them in writing with a roommate agreement. Grizzle says she’s planning to get a roommate agreement that will solidify the house rules and what happens when one person moves out. Financial author Grosz says roommates should have “a bowl or a box where each person puts in $50 or $100 as kind of an emergency fund, so if somebody comes up short, they can dip into that fund.” If a roommate dips into it, that person would have to pay the money back. Each roommate would remove his or her contribution when moving out. A shared money pot also could go toward buying household staples such as paper goods and cleaning supplies, Pluhar says. Related Links: Related Articles: Save on food More On Saving Money
SHARE: Susan Johnston Taylor Related Articles