in which Maya thinks she has this under lock and key but in reality I have no idea what I'm doing. so, really, a million questions I've been told that some apartment complexes charge per person rather than per room, is that true, and if so, how likely is that to be the case? What are some good budgeting apps? I think I need one where I can enter in how much I made each paycheck, since right now I don't make a consistent rate. Any clever ideas for how to balance out chores? Where can we find cheap furniture? How important is credit when finding an apartment? Mine should be pretty good, considering I have a loan out on my car and my father co-signed, but how important is it really? If you and your roomies split rent, what's the best way to pay the bill when it comes in? Check, cash? Is there anywhere where I can find relatively cheap, healthy recipes? We're looking at meals to feed 3.
Great, good for you! I'm traveling rn and can flesh these out more later if u want Depends how much you do with cash, and how easily you can access your bank. I do almost everything with internet money so I vastly prefer checks. also look into Venmo, haven't used it but it seems awesome for money transfers Mint Second-hand stores, also try Craigslist if you're ok with it, but be careful with it I have lived in maybe 6 apartments and havent run into this myself, idk how common it is, might be dependent on city
Where I live charging by person is more likely if you are renting rooms in a house then an apartment. I have not run into this in either of my apartment hunting attempts. Craigslist and places like Goodwill and Savers are good for cheaap furniture. Yard sales also, and if you have any friends/relatives in the area those people love to get rid of stuff by gifting. I dunno if this is average but we can't pay rent in cash, it has to be through this rent paying thing moneygram does. So we just use our debit cards. I know lots of places require money orders, I dunno.
My bank is state exclusive, so luckily there's locations and ATM's for it everywhere :) I generally deal with Paypal and Square's Cash app for transfers, but I'll take a look at Venmo! This was more of a "just wondering, b/c I'm anxious" question. I only recently started building my credit with the help of my father, so while I'm not worried about it for myself I was worried about my roomies, who have never had anything to do with credit in their lives. And thank you for the good lucks! I'm kind of excited but also TERRIFIED of this. That makes sense. My boyfriend ran into it while he was visiting Iowa, so I was wondering if it really was a common thing or if his friend just had shit luck. Now that you mention it I can probably drive down to Tex-ass and splurge on my grandparent's old furniture haha.
Oh I forgot, if you have bad credit you might have to pay extra to move in. My bf has garbage credit and because of that we had to pay an extra $100 to move in. But I think everyone starts with good credit as US citizens? Credit also matters for bills like electric, we had to pay like 80 bucks cuz my bf wasn't thinking and put it in his name instead of mine. Maybe ask your future roommates to check with their bank to see if they have credit?
They shouldn't have any credit unless they're doing what I do and are co-signed to their parents credit cards/have a loan with a parent/etc. But I do know no credit is just as bad as bad credit in most instances, so, unless I can encourage them to sign up for a paypal or a store credit card like what I have, and never actually use it for spending money they don't have (I use my credit card at Costco, but I immediately pay it off when I get home once I check my bank statement), I'll just put all the bills under my name. Might just be easier that way.
