Roommates are for Everyone

Ah, the American Dream. You get a house, a spouse, and 2.5 kids, then live on your little plot of land till you die. Except nowadays, between stagnant wages and increasing housing costs, the idea of owning a house or living on your own is increasingly seen as unattainable for the average citizen. So what do people do? They live with other people! Roommates, housemates, flatmates, whatever you want to call them. It’s a great way to get by without a lot of money.

But what if I told you that living with roommates isn’t just for college students or those who can’t afford to live on their own? What if I told you that living with roommates was not a sacrifice, but rather a benefit that people would willingly seek out? What if I told you it was ok to have roommates even as a middle-class worker in their 30s, 40s, or later? What if having roommates is for everyone?

Indeed, all of the above is true, and I know it because I’m one of those people. I’ve been sharing housing for over a decade now, with nearly a dozen people over the years. All voluntarily! I am lucky in that I could afford to live alone if I wanted to. But I’m even luckier that I chose not to. Here’s why.

America is lonely

I used to be an introvert. Going out and making friends was just a thing that I didn’t really do. After all, it’s just so hard! What if I get rejected? Is it even worth it? Maybe it would be best to just stay home. Where I lived. Alone.

And then one day, a friendly coworker of mine mentioned they were planning on moving, and asked if I wanted to be roommates. Not to share an actual bedroom, mind you. Just to share a house—or rather, a basement apartment. I’d never had such an arrangement before, but my lease was ending, so I gave it a shot. Now, a decade later, my former roommate is one of my best friends.

Humans are social creatures. We were meant to live in groups.

Having a roommate changed things. No longer was I able to remain tucked away in my own little world all day. Even if I made no conscious effort to be social, the social activity happened anyway. Because we shared a space! After all, how can you live with someone and never talk to them?

They would have friends over too. We had more folks move in. We had dinners, movie nights, parties. Slowly, I came out of my shell and realized how great it was to be part of a community—one that would be there regardless of how shy or busy or tired I was. Friendship just happened.

But when you don’t live with someone, keeping up a friendship is hard work. Schedules clash. Life gets in the way. You’re tired from work, and it takes like 30 minutes to get over to their house… maybe you’ll just try for next week. Or next month. Who knows?

Meanwhile, loneliness takes its mental toll. Even if you’re lucky enough to live with a partner, you’re still stuck trying to fulfill all of your social needs with just one other person. Here’s a hint: it doesn’t work. Humans are social creatures. We were meant to live in groups.

3 out of 5 Americans are lonely. Are you one of them? Sure, perhaps you could make a concerted effort to find and maintain friendships. But why not try living with built-in friends? Many people have fond memories of the easygoing social relationships of their school or college days. Everyone lived nearby and it was so easy to just have low-stakes social interactions without needing to plan ahead weeks in advance. So why not try and recreate that? It could change your life—and that’s not even mentioning the financial benefits.

Oh my goodness you save so much money

Think about the math real quick. Where I live, you can rent a studio or 1-bedroom apartment for about $2000 per month… or you can get a 3-bedroom house for $3000 and split the rent 3 (or more) ways. That’s just $1000 each. Your rent payment could easily be cut in half!

The money you save with roommates could easily add up to $3,000,000 after 40 years. Yes, three million.

Sure, you could also do the same thing by living with a partner, but as it turns out, you can live with both a partner AND roommates, and end up with proportionally cheaper rent. If everyone in that 3-bedroom house also had a partner sharing their room, then your rent could be 75% lower as compared to living alone! Crazy!

And that’s not the only thing that gets cheaper—here are the other things you can save money on:

• Food: we can often buy stuff in larger quantities, giving a better deal.
• Utilities: we can split the cost of home internet, as well as heating/electricity for common areas.
• Borrowing: we can get by with fewer possessions because there are so many things that are easily shared, such as kitchen implements, tools, furniture, etc.
  • You can save an especially large amount if you can share a car!

In such a situation, many could easily save $10,000 or more per year. And guess what: if you were to invest all of those savings prudently in the stock market, that money could easily turn into 3 million dollars after 40 years. That’s enough to retire multiple times! Or even retire early!

You can help each other out

Don’t like grocery shopping? Only one of you has to do it! Tired of cooking all the time? You can take turns! Hate cleaning, but love yard work? Just swap chores! Everyone has different preferences and skill sets, so if you live with others, you can just do stuff for each other—and both of you end up better off.

This not only saves you anguish, but also time! Many activities, such as grocery shopping, have fixed time costs (e.g. it always takes 15 minutes to get to the store, regardless of how much stuff you buy). By giving certain chores to certain people, you save a lot of time, as compared to making everyone do their own chores.

You can even save money too, if you and your roommates have specialized skills. Maybe your roommate’s computer breaks, and you’re able to fix it, saving them the cost of a new one. Or maybe your car needs new brake pads, but your roommate is a mechanic who can install them for free.

But finding roommates sounds hard!

That’s true, it can be hard. Maybe you don’t think your friends would be interested in the idea. But you never know until you ask! Show them this article and let them mull it over. Then pop the question the next time your leases are up!

And even if none of your friends are interested, there are other options. The idea of rooming with a random person from the Internet may seem… unpalatable. But it’s really not much different from online dating! You don’t have to just start living with them instantly. Call it an interview or a date, but you can basically screen each other simply by hanging out and talking until you get an idea for whether they will be a good roommate match for you. Here are some other things you could try before actually moving in with someone:

• Hang out as friends for a while. Make sure you can get along with each other. Even if you end up not living with them, you may at least have a new friend!
• Visit their current place. If you’re a clean freak and they’re a slob, it’s probably not going to be a great match. And vice versa—you’re not going to be happy if they’re constantly telling you to clean up after yourself.
• Communicate openly about your lifestyle, expectations, and proposed house rules:
  • Do you both want to live in the same general area? Do you have similar needs in terms of housing?
  • Do you have similar schedules, or will you constantly wake each other up?
  • Do you have pets that everyone will get along with? Will the pets get along with each other?
  • What are your expectations regarding visitors? Parties? Noise? Quiet hours?
  • What chores need to be done? Who should do them, and when? Do you need to create a formal chore schedule?
  • How would rent be divided? Same price for everyone? Charge more for better rooms? Split rent on a sliding scale based on everyone’s income?
  • How would shared expenses be handled? Who pay for utilities, groceries, etc.?

It’s better to have these discussions before moving in with someone. Because then if they don’t go well, then it’s no big deal! Just don’t move in with them.

However, you might find that many people are actually quite reasonable, and that having roommates actually makes your life easier rather than harder. Sure, you might need to put in some effort, but that’s true of all relationships, and if you find the right roommates, it will all be worth it in the end.

What if I get bad roommates though?

Many folks have had bad roommates in the past, which really soured their whole take on the idea of communal living. Maybe they ate all your snacks, never did their dishes, and blasted 80s rock at 1am every night. If this has happened to you, let me assure you that it doesn’t have to be that way. I’ve had a lovely time living with roommates over the past decade, with very few major issues. How?

Well, it’s possible that I just got lucky. But I think the biggest factor is that I happen to surround myself with conscientious people who all want to get along, and are willing to work together to make the arrangement successful. Just like all other relationships, being a good roommate requires effort on everyone’s part. That means if you want to have good roommates, you must you seek out those willing to put in the effort. You need a vetting process and open communication, like I mentioned above! But most of all, you must be willing put in the effort yourself. To have a good roommate, you must be a good roommate. Because even a good roommate probably won’t put up with all your shit!

Tips for living with roommates

Here are a few tips that I have picked up over the years that can make living with roommates easier and more fun!

• Eat dinner together regularly. Doesn’t have to be every night, but at least once a week is good! Have fun together. Bond.
• Communicate early and often. Make sure everyone is on the same page about how clean the house should be, how things should be organized, how shared items are to treated/used properly, who should do which chores, what everyone’s boundaries are, etc.
• Have regular house meetings. Once every month or two is fine. Give people a dedicated time to air minor grievances with no judgement or passive aggressive notes. Talk as a group about ways to solve your problems. Act like adults. Try to meet in the middle.
• Keep track of shared expenses, such as groceries and utilities. I highly recommend the Splitwise app/site for this purpose. Rather than making every person immediately pay their share for each expense, it just keeps track of everything for a while until you decide to “settle up”. It then tallies up all of the expenses and tells you who owes what to who! Often times, almost no money needs to change hands, as long as everyone is paying for different expenses. Saves a lot of work and time!
• Keep a shared grocery list. I highly recommend the Todoist app/site for this purpose. Everyone can add items, and when one gets checked off, the person who added it gets a notification. Works better than a physical list, because it can’t get lost, and you can even add items while someone is already on the way to the store!
• Keep track of your food. Many roommates choose to have separate groceries with dedicated shelves for everyone’s food. Others like to share food. But what if you want to share most things, except for a few special items? Well, just use stickers! You can buy a pack of cheap colored stickers from the store and give everyone a dedicated color. If there’s something that you want to keep for yourself, just put a sticker on it!
  • You can also use this system to mark leftovers for those with dietary restrictions, simply by using certain stickers to indicate whether something has meat, dairy, gluten, etc.
  • We have also used “half” stickers to indicate that others are allowed to have some of something, but not ALL of it. Leave at least one serving for the sticker owner, please! 🙂

But are roommates really for everyone?

Ok, fine, maybe roommates aren’t literally for everyone. Some people just aren’t wired that way. And it can be especially difficult if you have kids too—many potential roommates may not want to share a house with children. And if they have their own, then it might be impossible to find a house with enough bedrooms! Not only that, but all types of coordination become harder when children are involved; you’ll most likely want to share parenting styles in order to make things easier. But I would still urge you to consider it, especially if you only have one kid—it might be good for them to have someone to grow up with. Plus, you and your roommates might be able to babysit for each other, or carpool on the way to school! Again, if you are able to think outside the box and find a good situation for yourself, it can all be worth it in the end!

If you’ve really put some effort into it and still realize that roommates just aren’t for you, then at least consider living near your friends. It might take a while, but eventually you could be neighbors! You still can get a lot of the benefits of roommates while still maintaining your personal space. You could also approach it from the other way around and try and turn your existing neighbors into true friends.

Conclusion

In case you’re just skimming, here’s a recap of all of the benefits that roommates can provide:

• Cheaper rent
• Cheaper utilities
• Cheaper food
• Borrowing/sharing
• Time savings
• Ability to swap chores you hate for ones you like
• Ability to help each other out easily
• Built-in social interaction

Even if you don’t think you’d be the type to enjoy roommate living, I urge you to at least give it a try. Maybe if you have an extra bedroom in your house, try listing it for rent and see who applies—you might be pleasantly surprised to meet some cool people! Or float the idea to your friends and family the next time your leases are up. The important thing is just to keep an open mind, communicate honestly, and challenge your assumptions about the best ways to live. Who knows what might happen? It might change your life forever.