Great 'Flatmate MoneySaving' Hunt

karmachilovething

pixie_girl wrote: »

Have never done the food sharing (have always had houses with 6+ people or with dietary problems which makes it harder) but I imagine it would stop a lot of food waste and reduce food bills (and fridge space)

The most money saving flatshare I've been in was one where we shared food and household products, bills were in the name of the live in landlord and we would give her a block of money each month for bills and rent, which made it really easy.

The food sharing thing is great, as pixie girl says: less waste, more space in the fridge. The reason it worked was we were three girls with similar sized appetites and taste and opinions on food. We cooked together a lot which meant the food sharing thing made a lot more sense. You also have to trust that everybody contributes more or less equally, and let the pennys slide a little. I do however, think it is cheaper even if you give up a little MSE control!:D

The house that I in at the moment (2 guys, 2 girls including me) no food sharing, but we run the same trust everybody pulls their weight financially principal to cleaning products etc. Bills, everybody has a responsibility (I'm telecomms), which some months means that the money does a bit of a roundabout, but it works!

lucy_helen

I've found house sharing to be a nightmare. I share with two other girls, one is great and thinks ahead with regards to budgeting but the other doesn't and pays the bills late so she can buy clothes/perfume/eat out etc.

We each are responsible for a bill, which is fair, but beware, this doesn't mean it will be easy! As mentioned, one girl seems to think she's above the responsibility of paying the bill on time, yet if I was late paying her she'd go mental. Just be firm but fair and DON'T under ANY circumstance get a joint account - that's my advice. Being super organised and covering your back also helps.

jjaxx

My Flatmate and I do all our Telephone on Skype which is free and to other phones so much cheaper! We don't have land-lines. All other bills are all shared and in cash. Food we have our own fridges so theres no arguments there either!:beer:

lanavdt

Defiinitely avoid a joint account, my sister shared with a "friend" who conveniently forgot to pay her rent in on time/ contribute to the gas n electricity. My sister was left owing moey to n power and her deposit as the flat was in her name and she had to pay for the damage caused. I moved into my first flatshare in December and my now ex flatmate was a nightmare. Her boyf came round everynight and had no concept of cleanliness or anything like that, nor how to pull the plug after having a bath and other lovely things... The thing that annoyed me most was that I'd go through to make a cup of tea n my milk would've disappeared and his tea bag would've been abandoned on the middle of the worktop. Yuck!!

Fang_3

Put everything in writing. It might be awkward at the beginning, but then you all know where you stand and there's less chance of anyone taking advantage. And if they do, it's much easier to get your money back.

Lyger

I've been in good and bad houseshares (I *think* I'm in a good one now - unfortunately, I've ended up living back at my Dad's house temporarily to look after him after he had a brain haemorrhage - I've stayed in the house a total of one night since she moved in!).

Here are my own golden rules for house sharing:

* Don't let yourself be caught up/badgered into accepting the sole responsibility for all the household bills. You're just paving your own path to trouble.
* In a shared bill environment, insist upon a standing order for bill payments (i.e. you set up a standing order to them for the amount, they set up one for you). Ensure that the amount to be paid is worked out and agreed upon by all people involved before doing this, and any overpayments are returned promptly - and get this agreed to in writing. May seem overboard (especially for someone you get along with and trust) but it will save many headaches in the long term should one of the housemates turn out to be somewhat flakey or rubbish at setting their own budget.
* Be prepared to cancel services/make them unavailable for flakey housemates. (Gas, electric, water etc are of course a different matter here, and not so easily dealt with). Make sure that everyone involved in bill payments know the consequences of their none payment before the first bill arrives. Then stick to it.
* Agree to all bill splits/household rules before moving in together. This includes food, sleepovers, etc. If someone isn't chipping in, you will have to consider keeping your own household products/food somewhere that is inaccessible. If it does get to the stage you have to hide your own food/utensils/toilet paper, then consider moving out as soon as possible. Because it's just not worth the irritation. Does depend on how annoyed you get with the situation, of course.
* If you have a problem, with anyone you're living with don't stew about it. Get it out in the open before it becomes a major peeve and causes resentment. Again, this will save you trouble in the future.
* You don't have to be best friends with whoever you're living with. You share a living space, not each others lives. This may not seem like a money saving tip, but bear in mind that if you get under each others feet, someone will be looking for alternative accommodation - and that costs cash, and also personal stability.

dave2

Well advice for this is going to depend on the circumstances. You're going to need a different arrangement depending on whether people are staying long or short term. Also if you're renting a room in your own place rather than jointly renting a flat. But I'd say basically for anything other than a long-term rental share you'll probably have to do a system where rent includes bills, so you take one monthly/weekly amount and hope they don't leave on the bar heater.

For longer term shares:
- Never, ever open a joint account.
- Don't share with friends who complain that they have no money towards the end of the month. This means they cannot budget and usually suggests they are clueless with money.
- Sharing food is great... If are good friends and are similar eaters. I really doubt you need tips from this thread if you are in a position to share food.
- Try to arrange it so everyone is paying roughly equal amount of the bills in their name. One gas, one electric, one phone + TV licence + internet, say.
- Agree in advance whether you are each always paying each other your share of each individual bill or if settling up the balance. Latter is more convenient but ends up being a problem for the people who can't budget yet bizarrely don't want to setup a DD.
- Be sure to settle up balances with all the detail ON PAPER using bill amounts not estimated DD's because no, they will not notice when they get refunds.
- Keep those bits of paper.
- Any non-essential utilities get absolutely clear who wants it and who doesn't. Be absolutely clear that anyone not paying for e.g. internet is absolutely not getting to use internet no matter how stingy it seems at the time. Not even while using your computer.
- On subject of internet be wary about cheap internet as it will have a very small usage cap and with multiple people ends up very expensive when you go over and no, nobody will admit to running bittorrent.
- Strongly advise against phone, you'll need landline for BB but calls are what mobiles are for. You should really have a phone plugged in so people can call you and more importantly you can call the fire brigade as no doubt your mobile's battery is dead or your mobile was beside the overflowing ashtray that's just burst into flames. Phone operator should be able to block outgoing calls.

BexInLondon

I'd suggest paying as many bills as possible up front if funds allow - should be possible with TV licence, water, council tax.

The main thing really is to live with people who are similar to you in their approach to money. I wouldn't live with a friend who was in a lot of personal debt or had a chaotic personal life, unless there were extenuating circumstances. I hope my house-share days are over, but I learned a lot about myself from it, including the fact that what I consider clean is what many consider OTT. Over time I learned not to fret too much about lights left on and focus on the winnable battles, such as the "let's keep the fridge door closed" battle.

chomsky_2

elmo2sam wrote: »

I could use some help with this actually!

I own my two-bedroomed flat, and rent out the other room to my flatmate. I have always had the bills come out of my account as it is easier to monitor, especially when flatmates come and go.

The problem I have is that I have included bills in her rent (covering everything from council tax to line rental) but the Ground Rent and Service charge I pay for the building has doubled this year. I am aware that I need to increase her rent to reflect this, but should I change to charging her rent excluding bills to avoid situations like this in future?

Any comments/advice greatly appreciated!

No offense but this is exactly the sort of thing that happens when people rent out their property/room and don't have a clue what they are doing. As other posters have said it is LANDLORDS that are responsible for ground rent and service charges, not tenants, if you wish to factor the service charge into the rent that's your choice but you cannot ask people to pay ground rent and service charge on top. You wouldn't have a leg to stand on if you suddenly try and charge your tenant a service charge.

Me and the other half are looking for a new place and have come up against this recently when we agreed to rent a flat from a young girl, we went to sign the paper work and just before we signed she said "Oh by the way, it's a £500 service charge every six months, if you could just give it to me in a lump sum that would be great." There was nothing about a service charge in the contract at all so we told her as nicely as possible that we had no obligation to pay as the landlord is responsible for service charges and ground rent, she was adamant that we should pay so we walked away. £1000 in a year is a heck of a lot of money to us and there was no way we were going to pay that.

We have given up trying to find a place through Gumtree as it seems it's full of scammers and people who are renting rooms/flats who are totally clueless. If you're going to rent to people you should really get some proper advice. Reluctantly we are now going through an agency.

makeup

I've lived in lots of houseshares and we've had different ways of working.

I did do a joint account in one flat but we'd all been living together for ages and got fed up of the numerous cheques we had to keep paying each other for the bills and so we used the joint account for bills and cleaning stuff.

Now we just buy cleaning stuff as and when needed and it seems to work. We don't share food though and I've never done this. I don't seem to like the same things as my flatmates and I can't see it working.

I have two big issues at the moment, one is that my two flatmates and me share the bills so I do gas, my flatmate does electric and the other broadband.

My not at all MSE flatmate who sorted out the broadband has us on a completely rubbish tariff and it is costing as much as our gas bill!

Our gas and electric work out evenly so we don't worry about paying each other back for those.

The other bone of contention is the TV licence and I pretty much pay it (one flatmate occasionally chips in towards it) because they didn't want to pay for it (one flatmate doesn't have a TV).

My other issue is that I've got an American flatmate who has the heating on full blast nearly all the time, uses the dryer for his clothes constantly (we have access to a garden with a whirlygig dryer an everything!!!!) and leaves all the lights on.