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The Cost of Living Alone

Is Living Alone Making You Weird?

To live with roommates or not to live with roommates? That is the question for anyone looking to find his or her first apartment (or even second, third or fourth). Living alone has many great benefits: You have total privacy and complete control of your surroundings. You can decorate anyway you please. You can choose to spend the entire day in bed with Netflix and Oreos without judgment. You can choose when to do the dishes, how long to wait before cleaning your bathtub and whether you want to put pants on today.

However, living alone is generally more expensive than sharing a rental with roommates. When you are choosing whether to live alone or with roommates, here are four financial implications to consider.

You'll generally pay more for rent when you live alone. If you decide to live on your own, you'll be able to decide your preferred apartment location and size. However, in most cities, even a small one-bedroom apartment in a less desirable neighborhood could end up costing you more than sharing a two-bedroom place in the same (or potentially better) location with a roommate.

Though exact rental rates will depend on the city, neighborhood and building in which you live, two-bedroom apartments seldom cost twice as much as studios or one-bedrooms in the same neighborhood. That means both you and your roommate could save hundreds of dollars on rent by sharing an apartment. For example, you could save around $830 in Los Angeles, whereas the savings add up to over $1,400 in San Francisco.

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Living alone means you'll probably pay more for utilities. Utilities, such as cable, Internet and electricity rarely cost half as much for one person as they do for two people. For instance, say you have a $50 per month cable and Internet subscription. Adding a roommate into the equation will likely not increase that amount; rather, by sharing the bill you could reduce your costs by $25. Using more electricity and adding multiple cable boxes could potentially increase the cost of utilities, but even so, splitting the overall expenses between two people almost always means paying less.

You'll have sole responsibility for furnishings. It's not just the apartment itself that will cost you more when you live alone. Consider the advantages of splitting the cost of furnishings, decorations, kitchen and bathroom necessities, and cleaning supplies. Though you'll have to split everything when you and your roommate part ways, supplementing your furnishings later on may be easier to budget for than buying everything for yourself right now.

You'll have more control over your bills when you don't have roommates. Here's one financial benefit of living alone: You have a little more control over how much you're paying in utilities than if you have a roommate. For example, you can opt to cancel a cable subscription and make do with Netflix, Hulu and HBO Go; or you can choose to reduce your heat usage during the winter and simply wrap yourself in several blankets to save a good chunk of money on heating costs.

Ultimately, living solo is a more expensive choice, so if saving money is a huge priority for you, you may want to live with roommates for a year or two until you're more financially stable. However, if you're committed to living alone, there are ways you can do it without breaking the bank completely.

If you decide you want to find a place by yourself, the first step is to set up a budget and begin saving. Then be realistic about what you can afford. You may not be able to live in the trendiest neighborhood or an apartment community with luxury amenities for your first year. Your lifestyle may also be affected -- weekly nights out with your friends may not be in your financial future.

Niccole Schreck is the rental experience expert for Rent.com, a free rental site that helps you find an affordable apartment and provides tips on how to move.



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