off-campus finances among roommate -- suggestions?

ucsd_ucla_dad
Thu, 14 May 2009 18:00:31 +0000

It really depends.

Regarding food, unless they’ll have similar eating habits they shouldn’t try to have a common pantry and just split it because someone will have the short end of the stick and another will have a windfall. This is especially true when one is a veg (as was the case for my D) and the others aren’t, when one doesn’t drink expensive soda (like my D), and is true for someone who ends up frequently eating elsewhere while someone else eats all meals at home. To compound it, if one or two of the girls ends up having a BF eating almost every meal or lots of snacks there then it’s also inequitable. To be safe, they should just keep it separate unless they ‘really’ think the results of splitting it would be equitable. They’re better off keeping the ‘potential’ for strife to a minimum. For more common consumables like paper towels, PT, dish soap, etc. they can maybe split that cost.

Regarding cleaning up - they all need to clean up after themselves. IMO if they don’t clean up their plates after a few days the roomies should be free to place those dirty dishes on the offending roomie’s bed. Some people at that age, including girls, are real slobs and can be very lazy with housekeeping and it can get disgusting for the others and can be a real bone of contention.

‘somemom’s’ ‘some one’ items to discuss are all good points.