<p>Hi! I'll be moving away from my parents for the first time and into a townhouse with two girls this September. Since I've never had roommates before, I was hoping you guys could help answer a few questions that I have:</p>
<p>1) Labeling food (putting your name on it) -- good or bad idea? I think this might be kind of a rude thing to do, but there are three of us after all.</p>
<p>2) Sharing -- should we share food? What about cleaning supplies, vacuums, utensils, etc? Also, none of us have furniture. Should we buy it all together or designate one piece per person (one buys a sofa, another buys a table, etc)?</p>
<p>3) I will be sharing a bathroom with one of the girls and the kitchen with both of course... how would you suggest we divide the cost of toilet paper, paper towels, hand/dish soap and other shared necessities? One person buys the supply per month, or we split the cost each month?</p>
<p>Also, is there anything else I should know about having roommates? Any warnings? :P</p>
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<li><p>seems a bit much, when you move in just say you don't want them eating your food, or just for them to ask if they want to.</p></li>
<li><p>I'd say split the tasks of buying furniture and have the costs come out to about equal. No one should be paying more than the other person.</p></li>
<li><p>Just rotate?</p></li>
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<li><p>Just make it clear that you don't want them eating your food, and if they do, they either need to replace it (with the exact item-not the cheaper brand). If you have any respect for the other's stuff, you won't have a problem. My brother has been thru a ton of roommates and never had a problem with it.</p></li>
<li><p>This always seems to be a problem. If you split the costs, who gets it when you move? Do you repay them part of their cost if they move? Who pays for it if someone else destroys it? What happens when the piece of furniture someone bought is destroyed and they want to move--are they just screwed? It just has the potential of a crappy situation no matter what.</p></li>
<li><p>You can either alternate who buys (but seriously don't buy the expensive stuff if they just replace it with the cheapest stuff made) or you can split the costs.</p></li>
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<p>The #1 thing is that you need to respect them and their belongings. Learn to compromise.</p>
<p>We usually just labeled food that we didn't want to share, if we had something special (like leftovers or something). Splitting furniture tends to be the easiest, so that there are no problems at the end of the year.</p>
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<li><p>I lived with 2 girls in the dorms freshman year, we never labeled and rarely shared food. Sophomore year I lived with 3 girls in an apartment and we kept our own food in our own cupboard. Two girls brought mini-fridges that they kept their refrigerated stuff in, the other two of us shared the big fridge and we all shared the freezer. It was sort of an unspoken rule that if you use it, tell the person; if you finish it, buy the same product.</p></li>
<li><p>Each person buy the furniture (one person the couch, one the tables, etc.) but try to make it pretty close to even. Do NOT split the cost of something between 3 or even just 2 people. Say all 3 of you chip in $50 for a couch. Will each of you take 1/3 of it when you move out? No. It's just easier in the end if things aren't split cost-wise. Everybody brought their own plates, cups, silverware, etc., but we shared those without a second thought. At the end of the year we packed up what was ours and that was that. And throughout the year we collected probably 20 plastic cups from different events that we just split up at the end of the year. </p></li>
<li><p>The four of us bought stuff on a rotation sort of deal, when supplies got low. Honestly, a package of 6 paper towels can probably last all year. Toilet paper goes much faster, and we rotated that and the hand soap. If one person wanted to buy the cheap stuff because it's all they could afford, rule #1 was no complaining. There's no rule anywhere that you have to buy the multi-layer sheets. If you didn't like it, buy your own. </p></li>
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<p>You'll learn to compromise quickly. Not everything will go smoothly, even if you're really good friends. That's not to say it can't go perfect, but you'll probably get irritated and flip out on someone at one time or another.</p>
<p>My suggestion on the furniture would be to make a group decision on what kind of furniture is necessary and then have each person buy a piece. You definitely want to wait on this one because you might want to decide on a decorating scheme with your roommates. If you pool your money to buy furniture, there is always the problem of who gets what at the end of the year.</p>
<p>As for bathroom necessities, it's probably easiest to pool money and buy a big pack of TP whenever it runs out. When I shared a bathroom with my suitemates this year, toilet paper was supplied by housekeeping, but we had to get our own hand soap. There was an unspoken agreement that we'd all take turns buying hand soap, and whenever one bottle ran out, another suitemate would replace it. It worked passably well (and you could always tell who had bought each bottle based on the type of soap). Unfortunately, there was one suitemate who never quite caught on.</p>
<p>As for food, I can't help you. I'll be sharing a kitchen next year with suitemates as well. The current plan is for everyone to put in a certain amount at the beginning of each week and have two people buy all the groceries for everyone, and everything would be shared. But I see a lot of problems with that idea.</p>
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As for food, I can't help you. I'll be sharing a kitchen next year with suitemates as well. The current plan is for everyone to put in a certain amount at the beginning of each week and have two people buy all the groceries for everyone, and everything would be shared. But I see a lot of problems with that idea.
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I can already tell you that problems are going to arise. lol</p>