As the new university year approaches, no doubt there will be thousands of you about to embark on the next stage of your student journey: not just starting your second year, but moving into a proper house for the first time.
While moving out of home and into student halls gives you that taste of freedom and independent living, a student house is a whole other ball game.
Most university accommodation makes payment easy – with bills included in the rent, and all costs paid for up-front out of your maintenance loan without you even seeing a penny: good to ensure you don’t spend it all in Fresher’s Week.
But life in a student house, often through a private landlord or letting agency isn’t quite so easy. Bills have to be sorted out and paid for by you and your housemates, and not dealing with it in a mature and logical way can lead to fractured friendships down the line.
Here are our top tips to help you and your housemates deal with your bill payments.
Be responsible
Unless you’re very lucky, there’ll undoubtedly be at least one housemate who has to be constantly chased up for money to pay the bills: don’t let this person be you! Your housemates will grow to resent you for this.
You are all students, in much the same situation financially, and so it isn’t fair to add undue stress and financial troubles into other people’s lives.
Take the lead
Whether it’s you or another housemate, it helps if one of you – typically the most trustworthy, responsible and sensible – takes the lead in this.
One person dealing with all the bills (if they don’t mind of course) makes it so much easier, rather than having lots of money being passed around to different people.
If you are the one to take this responsibility, be transparent and allow your housemates to see the bills when they wish.
Split everything
We’re not saying you need to split communal food bills, and most rent will be dealt with separately (most student houses are ‘Houses in Multiple Occupation’) – what we are talking about here is bills.
Don’t be the one who claims they don’t take as many showers as someone else so should have to pay less of the water bill, or the one who goes home to see their long-distance girlfriend or boyfriend every weekend and feels they shouldn’t pay for the equivalent weekends’ worth of electricity.
It’s petty and it’s unworkable, so equal splits just make sense.
Pay in advance and overpay
As the term goes on, your money will dwindle massively ahead of that next loan payment.
You can tackle the issue of not being able to pay the bills by putting the money aside at the start of each term.
If you overestimate how much you need each week, you could even end up with a surplus at the end of the year – perfect for a summer blow-out!
Depending on how many housemates you have, around £10–£20 per week could be workable. Just work out how many weeks there are between loan payments, then put that amount into a money pool.
You can even do it online these days, with a service such as KiTTi.
Even if you underpay, you’ll likely have paid off at least the majority, so scraping for the remainder may not be too bad – and you can up your regular payments next term.
Should I open a joint account?
A joint bank account between you and your housemates could seem like a smart move in order to keep on top of all bill payments. Personally, we wouldn’t recommend it.
By starting a joint account you are financially linked with all of these people. While you may be sensible and have a good attitude towards money, your housemates may not.
Debts and missed credit payments on their credit file could then impact you. It isn’t worth having a black mark on your own file, that could stop you getting credit – including credit cards, personal loans and even a mortgage – in the future.
Ryan Smith writes on behalf of Local Financial Advice, connecting people with financial advisors in their area.
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