Roomate-a-Rama

Oh my goodness, I'm glad that bout of strep is over. Now I can get on to more frugal topics. Today's topic: Having a roommate.

My husband's college roommate (who he lived with all four years) moved in with us last week. We're very excited to have Jeremy with us. He ended up out in Wichita shortly before my husband got his job. He's also an engineer, but with a different company. Darn, they can't carpool!

We've had roommates twice since we've been married. Our first one lived with us free of charge, and he was handy to have around. However, it was in a pretty cramped apartment. We got along pretty well, and having him live with us helped us out later.

We had another friend of mine live with us while he was doing his pharmacy rotations at a nearby hospital in his last year at school. He paid a small amount to live with us, and part of the utilities. He worked all the time, so when he was there, it was kind of cramped, but since he was gone so much, he was pretty easy to live with.

Our new roommate will be paying rent and 1/3 of the utilities, water, internet, and trash service. In exchange, he will have the entire two bedroom basement for his exclusive use, plus his own private bathroom. Already this makes living him so much easier than our previous roommates, since we have clearly defined spaces that our ours alone, and he has his space that is his. We don't venture much into the basement, and although we share the kitchen upstairs, we have plenty of space that is just ours as well.

He's also bringing his washer and dryer, so that is one less thing for us to buy for now. Having him here will enable us to save a little more and also put more to the mortgage than we would have otherwise. It's also beneficial to him- we are charging him significantly less than he was paying at his last dwelling, and his other expenses will go down as well. He was also lonely living alone. He does not hang out with us every waking second, but he said that having someone around in general makes him feel better.

We don't know how long our friend will be living with us. We are having him sign a lease (our insurance wanted us to, but it's a good idea anyway, as you never know), which states that he will live with us from the date he moved in until one or both parties decide that he should move out.

There are many pros and cons to having a roommate that must be considered on a case to case basis. We've always known our roommates, we have never advertised for one. I can already say that Jeremy having his own private space gives all of us more privacy- we can all retreat to our own areas of the house without feeling like we're in somebodies way. We have elected to share dinners together, to run errands together, and such things, but it would work just as well the other way. I think of so many basements just filled with junk- I'm glad that we have our friend with us instead, at least for now.