What expenses roommates should split, and which to skip

What do roommates usually split?

Costs fall into three groups. The home itself (rent, utilities, internet) and things in shared rooms (cleaning supplies, paper goods, furniture, appliances) are split, and personal costs (food, parking, pets, guests) stay with one person. The table gives a default for twelve expenses. A default is where to start, not a ruling, and any line can change if the household agrees.

Expense	Default split	Rule
Rent	By agreed room shares	Shares add up to the full rent and stay fixed until renewal
Electric, gas and water	Equal, or by days present	Agree any flat extra charge for heavy use before the month starts
Internet	Equal	The plan is a flat fee, so whoever wants a faster plan pays the difference
Groceries	Each their own	Share only a short staples list, split among the people who eat it
Cleaning supplies	Equal	Buy for shared rooms only, and treat a private bathroom’s supplies as personal
Toilet paper and paper towels	Equal	Whoever notices it is low buys it and logs it
Furniture in shared rooms	Equal	Write down who keeps each piece when someone moves out
Shared appliances	Equal	Same rule as furniture, and split the repair too
Parking	Each their own	Split only among the people who use a shared space
Pet costs	The pet’s owner	Food, vet and litter are the owner’s, and damage is agreed before the pet arrives
Repairs	Equal if nobody caused it	Whoever caused damage pays, and check the lease for what the landlord covers
Guest costs	The host	The host covers food and extras, and the group agrees how many nights a guest stays free

The details of the biggest lines sit on their own pages: how to split utilities between roommates, how to split groceries with roommates and how to split furniture costs with roommates.

What does a month of defaults add up to?

Say four roommates pay $3,200 in rent at agreed shares of $900, $800, $800 and $700. Electric, gas and water come to $210, internet is $60, and cleaning supplies and paper goods are $40. Those $310 are split equally, which is $77.50 each.

Roommate	Rent	Bills and supplies	Monthly total
Room 1	$900	$77.50	$977.50
Room 2	$800	$77.50	$877.50
Room 3	$800	$77.50	$877.50
Room 4	$700	$77.50	$777.50

The four totals add up to $3,510, which is the $3,200 of rent plus the $310 of bills and supplies. Food, parking, pets and guests are missing on purpose, because each of those belongs to one person.

How do you settle the lines you disagree on?

Go through the table one row at a time before the meeting. Each roommate writes “agree” or “change” next to every row, and the group only talks about the rows marked “change”. A row everyone marked “agree” needs no discussion, so the meeting stays short. Write the final version into the roommate agreement, with the date.

How do you decide about something that is not on the list?

Ask three questions in order.

1. Does everyone use it? If only one person does, it is theirs. If only two of three do, those two pay.
2. Does the cost grow with use? Costs that rise with use, like electricity, hot water and food, are fairer split by use. Flat costs, like a sofa or an internet plan, are fairer split equally.
3. Can it leave with one person? If it can, decide who keeps it before you buy.

Say two of three roommates will watch a $240 TV. Only two use it, so those two pay $120 each. If the third roommate buys in later, they pay $80, which is a third of the price, and the first two get $40 each back. Say instead that all three share a $90 vacuum cleaner. Everyone uses it and the cost does not grow with use, so it is $30 each. It can leave with one person, so write down at the start who keeps it at move out and what they pay the others.

At what price should you ask first?

Pick a threshold and write it in the roommate agreement. Below it, a roommate buys and logs the item. Above it, they ask the group first and wait for a yes from the people who would pay.

Choose a number that nobody would mind a roommate spending without asking, such as $40. At that figure, a $6 pack of sponges and a $15 pack of light bulbs get bought and logged. A $180 armchair for the living room gets a message first. What to include in a roommate agreement has a line for the threshold alongside the other money rules.

How do you track it in EvenOut?

Make a Household group, the type labelled “Rent and bills”. EvenOut comes with 33 categories, including Groceries, Utilities, Internet, Home and Furniture, and it guesses the category from the description you type. The split method is chosen for each expense, so rent can be “Shares” and the supplies “Split equally” in the same group. Set rent and the internet plan to Repeat monthly and they add themselves.

After a few months, the group’s spending charts show where the money goes by category, by person and by month. The charts are free.

What should you do next?

Copy the table, change the defaults you disagree on, and add the threshold. The roommate budget template turns the defaults into a monthly sheet, with each person’s share worked out.