Sharing expenses with roommates
Lately I've been thinking about how normal roommates manage their shared finances, and why that isn't good enough for me.
You see, I have an unusual setup with my roommates. We share almost every kind of expense, from the obvious (rent) to the obscure (a toilet plunger). Our combined buying power allows us to own nice things, but requires careful tracking so that each roommate only has to pay their fair share.
Most my friends avoid the issue altogether by keeping expenses separate, with the exception of rent and utilities. As far as I can tell, there is always one person elected as the "accountant" of the household who is responsible for adding up a couple bills at the end of the month. However, it never goes much beyond that.
While drafting this post, I tried to summarize the features of my accounting system, but it quickly ran to several boring pages. I'm leaving the details out today, but may write about it later if anybody is interested.
If you live with at least one roommate, please leave a comment. I'd love to hear about the strategies that other people have developed.
4 snarky comments:
At my house, we split rent, utilities, and the grocery bill. Amy adds everything up at the end of the month and each of us gives her our share. When other less frequent expenses come up like...I dunno, a snow shovel, laundry soap...we tend to take turns purchasing them.
So far it's worked well!
Me and Steph did exactly as Sonja and her roommates, tho after a while we started buying seperate groceries as well. When the obscure things came up we took turns so that if we went our seperate ways there was no fight about who got what.
Brendan and I just shared stuff. We split rent and utilities, but apart from that, we both bought whatever we felt we needed. However, this only works if both parties buy groceries and whatnot, or somebody will inevitably get screwed.
That's why I like not having a roommate, I hate always having people owe me money, because then I feel bad about having to remind them all the time. So no roommate equates to no monetary tensions.
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