How to nail home-life in your flat-share

Flat-shares can be a ton of fun and a perfect way to find your forever friends. Nothing bonds people together quite like sharing a home, especially if you find that housemate who you can count on for late night life-affirming rants, cooking sessions and Netflix binges. 

However, for some managing everyday life when living in a house share can be a minefield. From passive-aggressive post-it notes to that mug that never gets washed up and dreaded conversations about negotiating household bills.  

So how do you get around these obstacles to avoid arguments and unwanted tension? Shane Clifford – Co-Founder and CEO of household bill management app, WonderBill – is on hand to offer his top tips on how to nail life in a house share and ensure your homelife runs as smoothly as possible. 

Keep a kitty – It can be extremely frustrating if you’re spending money on communal household items and others don’t contribute. It’s a sure-fire way to build resentment. A simple and effective way to make sure no one person is forking out more than other is to forecast the cost for shared household basics in advance – washing up liquid, milk, loo roll etc. – split the cost and put the money into a kitty to cover the expenses. Any cash left at the end of the month can go towards the glorious first round at the pub on a Saturday afternoon or on a shared house treat.

Book a date – You aren’t necessarily going to be living with people whose social lives perfectly align with your own. Some prefer an early night, while others roll in at dawn. A good way to balance this is to have a shared calendar to jot down important dates – this could be a big job interview, a serious meeting at work or a looming deadline. Housemates will know not to make a racket at 3am, leaving you lacking shut-eye. The same goes for party time – if you know your housemate is out at a birthday bash or celebrating at a Hen or Stag do, you can prepare for a potential early-hours wake-up call.   

Centralise communication – Keeping up-to-date with all your housemates isn’t always simple, particularly if you have to contact each person separately just to see if someone can pick up milk on the way home. The best way to keep on top of everything is to have one centralised group chat – WhatsApp or Facebook are both great for this. Remember to set a time to talk about household things outside of working or studying hours, so you don’t get tons of distracting notifications while you’re trying to get things done. 

Be open to compromise – Living in a shared home will always require compromise. People will have different priorities and needs. You may find yourself living with the obsessive gamer who wants super-fast broadband or the ice-queen who always wants the heating on full – particularly frustrating when you’re on a shoestring budget. When sorting out household bills, like gas, electricity and broadband, it’s worth sitting down together and talking through what each person would – in an ideal world – want, and what you can each afford. Why not try WonderBill, an app which makes it easier keep on top of the cost of shared household bills each month, as well as offering switching recommendations to suit your needs. Acknowledging each other’s wants and compromising where you need to is important for a harmonious home-life – these top tips are an easy and quick way to help iron out some those tensions that might pop up. There’s nothing better than a flourishing, peaceful and stress-free house-share. Once all the house admin is sorted, you can focus your attention on having fun! Pub anyone? 

WonderBill is a new household bill management app, available to download from the AppStore and Google Play.