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Fiancee and Me: Live in apartment by ourselves, or in house with 1 roommate?
NickTheNewbie
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Registered User regular
I just recently got engaged, and since lease renewal time is coming up, we need a place to stay together.
The two choices are:
1. Save money, and live in a house with 1 roommate (pretty cool go, no foreseeable drama)
2. Spend more, live in an apartment by ourselves.
We're concerned with money, because we'd like to save up for our wedding and our own house, but we're also a little worried that we wouldn't get the full experience of living alone and working out the "bugs" (so to speak) of everyday life.
Do people have experience living with their SO and a roommate, or being the roommate living with the couple? What are your thoughts?
The two choices are:
1. Save money, and live in a house with 1 roommate (pretty cool go, no foreseeable drama)
2. Spend more, live in an apartment by ourselves.
We're concerned with money, because we'd like to save up for our wedding and our own house, but we're also a little worried that we wouldn't get the full experience of living alone and working out the "bugs" (so to speak) of everyday life.
Do people have experience living with their SO and a roommate, or being the roommate living with the couple? What are your thoughts?
NickTheNewbie on
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I live with my girlfriend. My plan is I live with anyone I am serious about for awhile before I take it further. Living can totally change everything. Some people may not be able to stand another person if they are constantly clean or leave messes everywhere. Beyond that, you get used to their patterns and how they act when they are at their most comfortable.
I definitely say live by yourselves.
It's also better for you to learn to plan your finances together, rather than splitting it with another person, so you have that experience before marriage.
At the beginning it was pretty cool though. He was really cool about giving us our personal space, but he was around when we were bored and wanted someone to hang with. It helped that we both knew him before living with him, so it wasn't like choosing between "my friend" and "my girlfriend"
But by the end of the year he was getting to be a huge slob, which meant that we ended up having to eat a lot of fast food because who wants to clean up for someone else before you can even start cooking. He also got in the habit of getting drunk all night which kept her up (I'm a heavy sleeper), hanging around all day and not going to class which got pretty annoying, and generally being a pain in the ass. Also it really sucks to fight around another guy, and believe me you will get in fights. It also sucks not to be able to hang out in your underwear in the living room any time you want to.
But that was a 2-bedroom apartment. In a house it might be a lot easier (more places for him/you two to hang and not be in each other's business). Plus if he has, you know, a life he's not going to be hanging around being annoying all day.
Basically what I'm getting at is that if you and the future mrs. both know him and if he's really a good guy and if there's enough space in the place then it could work. Oh, and 2 bathrooms is definitely mandatory. believe me
How big a money difference are you talking as far as rents on the two places? I don't know what the market is like around Columbia as opposed to here in NoVA, but....will whatever that difference is be enough to make a significant slowdown in saving up for a house?
Unless it's going to be a huge difference, I would lean towards still saying that you should avoid a roommate - especially considering that you should probably experience living together before committing to spending a hefty sum on a house.
Unless you plan on living with roommates forever, it's better for the both of you to live sans roommates now. Finance planning between the two of you is important, as is learning how to be around each other (and just each other) possibly 24/7/365.
However, things changed in the friendship with that roomate (they broke off with their own SO, and we became better friends), and the SO at the time became more and more irritated with any time I would spend with that person. The whole thing became a juggling act, of time, weird jealousy's and emotional drama.
Which was unfun. So my advice is if you -do- get a roomie, make it a short term thing, no more than six months, and with the understanding that at the end of that time, they will need to move on. (Barring any changes with your own SO relationship).
Really, living together is managing your own space together as a couple. You can't really do that with a third wheel. The upside of more cash, especially these days when incidentals are rising phenomally in cost, can offset this, by how much depends on the roomate. Give and take for sure.
My guy and I haven't had any major issues as a result of living together. I cannot stand the roommate though. She's stinky, obnoxious, annoying, unable to tidy after herself and has no respect for personal space.
I think you'd be fine as long as you made sure you got someone who isn't disgusting or a slob to live with, and who isn't annoying. It's only a year and it saves ya money, and it sure beats living with the parents. But make sure you do take whatever cash you save from that and put it into a separate wedding fund, or else you two will end up spending like half of it on frivolous fun things (put the ps3 on your wedding registry if nothing else
I figured since it's a house that we would have a little space from the roommate, that we would more or less still get the experience of living together, and dealing with the day to day tasks.
On the subject of the room mate; We know him very well and he's a very good friend of ours, and if anything goes awry, the lease would be 9 months, so we wouldn't be stuck with him for an entire year.
I don't know if this affects anything...
Since you didn't provide details of the finance, I'll go by personal experience. Last year we spent 512/mo on half a two-bed. This year we are spending 730/mo on a one-bed. That's 218/mo savings. Times 9 months is $1962, if you save judiciously. There's your hall rental fee right there (or whatever).
It might suck, it might not. You can deal with sucking for 9 months. And if living with another person for 9 months (assuming he's the upstanding citizen you portray him as) is the thing that breaks you two apart, I'm gonna say that it wasn't meant to be.
Also: I think you are right
However we are both very laid back, the friend is a mutual long term friend and she's very neat and tidy.
I would recommended that you live together for a while, 6 months to a year so that you can work out what bugs you about living with each other and get it all sorted out, before you bring in a third party!
In the end, the safe bet is to go it alone. With sane people, you'd probably be fine with a roomate...but it can be hard to tell who's sane and who's not until you're under the same roof all the time, and it can be tough to get rid of the nutjobs after that point.
It depends on the roomie, really. Do the obvious shit up front - get any rules, needs, wants all spelled out in advance. No sense leaving issues about who cleans or take out the trash to fester into serious problems.
Add:
You'll be alone plenty. Unless the roomie has boundary issues, you won't have to worry about this much. Sure, you give up being able to get down and dirty on the livingroom floor, but that's to be expected.
That said, wow - living with a couple makes you realize just how annoying couples can be. I much prefer living by myself, I don't think I could have taken it for another year.
And I'll agree on the bathroom situation - 1 bath for 3 people isn't ideal.
My current roomate was really legit, working, more clean than I am.
Well he got fired from his job from a DUI a year ago, now he sleeps all day, never cleans, drinks all night and works part time. Shit can change easilly.