You can do this ahead of time if you haven’t yet moved in with your roommates yet or you can ask your current roommates to sit down and reevaluate how you are currently dividing the rent if you feel like something isn’t fair. To bring this up with your roommates, you could say something like: “Hey guys, I would like to sit down with everyone and talk about our rent. Since some of the rooms are not as big as the others, what do you guys think about calculating a price for each room based on size?”
For example, if the total rent of an apartment is $3000 a month and there are 3 bedrooms, then each roommate has to pay $1000 a month.
For example, if a room is 10x10 feet and has a 3x3 foot walk-in closet, then the total square footage for that room would be 109 square feet.
For example, if 1 bedroom has a square footage of 109 feet, another is 72 square feet, and the last bedroom is 80 square feet, then the total square footage of all the bedrooms would be 261 square feet.
For example, if the total space of the bedrooms in the house is 261 square feet, then divide the square footage of each bedroom by this number to get the percentage of rent for that room. In a 3 bedroom house, a bedroom that is 109 square feet would be 41% of the total square footage, a bedroom that is 72 square feet would be 28% of the total square footage, and a bedroom that is 80 square feet would be 31% of the total square footage.
For example, if the total rent is $3000, and you determined that roommate number 1 needs to pay 41% of the rent based on the size of their room, then multiply $3000 by 0. 41 to get the portion of the rent that they have to pay. In this case, roommate number 1 has to pay $1,230 for their room. There are lots of rent calculator tools online that you can use to help you figure out how to split rent if math isn’t your strong suite. All you have to do is plug in the numbers and the calculator will tell you how much rent each person has to pay.
This doesn’t need to be anything complicated. Simply write down some basic details like the date, the address of the property, the total monthly rent for the house or apartment, and what each roommate has agreed to pay. For example, “Jeremy agrees to pay $1,230 or 41% of the total monthly rent of $3000. ” You could look for a legal template online for such an agreement to help you make it more formal if you want to. However, this isn’t required.
If you want to bring this up, you could say something like: “I have been looking at my expenses, and to be honest if I pay half the rent every month I’m going to be struggling to pay my other bills. Would you be willing to consider splitting the rent in a ratio according to our salaries so I’m not spending more than 30% of mine on rent?”
A good rule of thumb is to not pay more than 30% of your monthly income towards rent. If you divide the rent in half, and the number is more than 30% of one partner’s monthly salary, then this method might be a good choice for you to split expenses fairly. If your monthly salaries are relatively close, then it might be best to just split rent 50/50. One partner can always agree to pay for more of the other household expenses, such as utilities or groceries, if they make slightly more than the other.
For example, if you make $3000 a month and your partner makes $5000 a month, then the total household income would be $8000 a month.
For example, if you make $3000 a month, and the total combined household income is $8000, then divide 3000 by 8000 to get 0. 375. Multiply that by 100 to get 37. 5%. Subtract 37. 5 from 100 to get your partner’s percentage of the total income, which would be 62. 5% in this case.
For example, if you make 37. 5% of the total income, and the monthly rent is $2000, multiply 2000 by 0. 375 to get 750. You would pay $750 a month and your partner would pay $1251.
