As exciting as it is to (finally) get your first apartment, there are some undeniable negative factors, as well — the extra long commute, no longer having all your friends (and tons of cute boys) around you at any given moment of the day, and, of course, the dreaded money talk. Living with your best friends is definitely a perk, but when it comes to figuring out how you’re going to split rent, things can get super awkward, really fast. After all, how do you figure out how to split your new apartment in a way that is fair and won’t lead to passive aggressive door slamming? Meet Splitwise, an online calculator that figures out splitting rent for you. It will save you from the “so…how do you think we should split everything…” conversation.
Using Splitwise, housemates can make sure they’re splitting rent in a way that isn’t ripping anybody off. You begin by entering your total rent and saying how many bedrooms you have/how many people live in each room (e.g. if your housemate’s BF lives with you). From there, you state how big each bedroom is.
You can also let the calculator know of any specific info that might change the price owed (e.g. your housemate has awesome bay windows, while you just have one small window; or your closet is gigantic, but your housemate doesn’t even have one). How these elements are calculated is based off an in-depth survey from Splitwise of about 100 people, which gauged how important these factors are to people.
Lastly, you let the calculator know how big your shared space is. After all, it doesn’t make sense for you to spend two times as much just because your room is two times as big. You are sharing a living room and kitchen and that needs to be accounted for.
The Splitwise rent calculator leaves you with a clear price, down to the cent, for how much you and your housemates owe. Now, all that’s left to fight about is who left the dirty dishes in the sink (it totally wasn’t you). Happy living, collegiettes™!