I’ve been kind of out of the blogging world for the past week. I had a big presentation to give for work (which went well, thank you very much) and I was working on cleaning my apartment. Why? Because I’ve decided to get a roommate! Sort of, anyway.
I have a friend who has moved to town and was looking for a place to stay possibly for a short time, possibly for longer. I have space that I don’t really use efficiently. And it is always nice to have a friend around, someone to hang out with and chat with and cook meals with from time to time. And given the state of the economy, I can definitely use someone to help out with the rent.
We’re not sure how long she’s staying, so we’re just going month by month right now. What that means is that I’ve been cleaning out the room for her arrival, which is something that needed to happen. I’ve gotten rid of at least five bags and boxes of things that I had held onto for no apparent reason. And she’s working on getting moved in, and she’ll be deciding around the end of every month whether or not she’s staying another month. Unless something amazing comes up with a shorter commute or we decide we hate each other, we both think she’ll be here til next summer.
Some people would freak at the uncertainness. I’m usually one of those people, but I’m surprisingly ok with all of this. I’m not sure why, exactly. It might just be that I realize that I need to clean out that room and the idea of her paying me for even one month of rent will do wonders for my finances after the month of pet expenses gone wild. Plus I’ve missed having her around and so far, we’ve been having a lot of fun. I hope she decides to stay. Not just for the financial reasons, but for the social reasons as well.
Sometimes I think living with a friend will be fab, but then I think about my quirks and their secret behavioural quirks and I think it’s just better we stay apart (lol)
But hey, if it works out for you – EVEN BETTER 🙂 It’ll be fab to save money.
This sounds fantastic, and I would be perfectly okay with the month to month arrangement. Since you are good with your personal finance, you wouldn’t slip into something irresponsible like buying a new car because you have a roommate. Some people might do something like that. Present company included. Ahem. Actually I took on a babysitting job, and charged a VCR and stereo system on a credit card thinking I could quickly pay it back with the extra babysitting money. I’m sure you know the end of the story… the babysitting job didn’t work out after a month and I was stuck with payments I shouldn’t have taken on. Now granted this was about 15-17 years ago… I hope you both have a great time together and that it works out until next summer. Boy that would be an awesome boost to your finances!