I tip housekeeping each day because not always that you have the same person cleaning your room every day. When I travel for work I often tell them not to clean the room everyday. No need to waste resources.
@ECmotherx2 a lot of Asian restaurants are like that also. The owner keeps all the tips. Especially in Asian concentrated areas. When the staff clued me in of such practice, sometimes I just asked them flat out if they get to keep the tips. In such situation I put the cash directly in their pocket, literally.
DH does $2-3 per day, if I’m staying somewhere solo (and usually with the dog), I do $5.
Was really proud when S2 came home from a Model UN conference in HS and said he’d taught his roommates that tipping the housekeeping staff was an important thing to do.
S1 was with us for a family wedding over the weekend and tipped $5 on top of what we had done.
We tip daily, though we don’t ask for new sheets and towels during our stay.
What percentage of salary should go to apartment rent? I’ve seen some estimates and they were all high in my opinion, and based on pre-tax income, which makes little sense to me.
I do not know the rule. But, in my opinion it depends on where you live and how much you can tolerate small living quarters vs travel time vs quality of life.
I am a former property manager of apartments. The rule of thumb is no more than 30% of pretax income.
The theory is that should leave you enough for your other financial obligations, of which taxes is one.
That does not mean you have to spend that much on rent, just that it should not be more than that.
If someone had a good credit score and very few to no blemishes on their financial or rental background checks that we did, then we may accept them if the rent was slightly more than 30% of their income but less than 35%.
@Nrdsb4 This topic just came up yesterday in a discussion with some young adults and a head of a property management company. In the areas he works it’s 35% of pretax income otherwise the applicant would need a co signer. I think that number is high as it doesn’t take into consideration taxes, student loan debt etc.
The old guideline was 1/4-1/3 of pre-tax income. I think a lot of young adults are finding they need to spend at the upper part of that range. Unfortunately if you have a lot of student loans it doesn’t make sense to be spending 35% of your income on housing.
D2 will be moving in with her serious BF soon. He has a nice low six figure job, but pays child support, and I think may also have a modest student loan repayment. D2 will have a much higher salary and no debt, but wants their rent to be split 50/50 so that no one feels they aren’t carrying equal weight. It looks like their decided budget is much lower than recommended amounts. As a result, they are not going to get everything on their wish list (their desired locations come with bigger price tags than the Dallas average), but that’s okay. It seems they are looking at approximately 12% of their combined pre-tax gross salaries.
I told D2 she could probably spend a bit more to get a little more space (they will have BF’s son every other weekend, certain holidays, and 30 consecutive days in the summers, plus 2 cats). She feels like it would make BF feel weird to be paying less than half and wants to make sure she has plenty of $$ left over each month for savings (already has a Roth), utilities, money for clothes and entertainment, etc.
If they can get what they want and live the way they want at 12%, go for it. It will pay off in the long run if they are serious about putting some of that away in savings.
Our mortgage was about 15% of income when we bought our house (it was actually cheaper than our rent at the time, given the tax benefits at the time), and when the guys got to college, that percentage was even lower. THAT was how we paid for college.
I have no idea what we paid in percentage through the years. I just remember that the realtors always tried to say we qualified for like triple what we bought.
She should ask him. He may appreciate the support reducing the financial stress considering he has student loan, child support AND making less money. It’s a no brainer to me, but everyone is different.
Remember, the BF could later find the kid asking him to fill in the CSS Noncustodial Profile and contribute money for private college costs, so it is wise of them not to financially overcommit (of course he could refuse, but if he likes the kid more than he dislikes his ex, he may find it hard to refuse). “Low six figure” is still a very high pay level, so using that as a budget constraint is not likely to result in living in poor conditions or whatever.
Also note that a 1600 SAT requires a top score of 800 on both sections, while a 36 ACT composite is an average of the four sections, so a 36 ACT composite can be gotten even if a section score is not 36. So for students who do equally well on the SAT and ACT and are aiming for the highest possible score (e.g. for the Presidential Elite Scholarship at the University of Alabama), the ACT may be “easier” to get that highest possible score on.