Roommate Finances
Recently I had a situation where I had three tenants living as roommates and their lease was coming to an end. When I asked them if they wanted to renew the lease, they told me that one of the roommates would be moving out and that the two remaining would not be able to cover the third one’s share.
After doing some quick math, I determined that to continue to live there, the two remaining roommates would have to come up with an extra $133 per month.
So basically, this crew will be footing the expense and general pain-in-the-you-know-what of moving all because they can’t find a way to come up with an extra $133 per month.
It’s unbelievable to me that people choose to live so “close to the wire” that they would allow any little unexpected expense that comes up to completely throw their finances out-of-whack, thus incurring late fees for that month.
I’ve seen this kind of behavior from tenants so much recently that when I write them a letter about late rent/maintenance due/fees owed, I always include a paragraph that says something to the effect of, “I highly recommend that you keep money in reserve to cover unexpected expenses.”
I mean, these people are not 12-year-olds or anything. Why is it that I have to advise them to keep money in reserve? From their experience, it should be the obvious thing to do. No?
