Sean Burgess, chief claims officer with Lemonade, joined Cheddar News to provide tips on how to handle finances and expenses with roommates and which apps are best to use when doing so.

<div class="block">Sean Burgess, chief claims officer with Lemonade, joined Cheddar News to provide tips on how to handle finances and expenses with roommates and which apps are best to use when doing so.</div>

Stretching Your Dollar

Stretching Your Dollar: How to Handle Finances With Roommates

So let's bring in Sean Burgess, who's the chief claims officer at Lemonade? Sean? Thanks so much for joining us. Does it make sense to split expenses? 50 50 between roommates Michelle? Thanks for, for that question and thanks for having me. Um, you know, the I've got two daughters live in Brooklyn. They've had um, roommates from 432 different levels. And I would say generally for the, the bigger expenses like rent, um and those type of things, it's generally 50 50. Now, there may be a plan upfront that you have with your roommate for things like, like if one person has their own bathroom or if they have a bigger room, but generally the, the bigger expenses are split 50 50. Now, when you get into things like groceries as an example, um those things, um can generally be, you know, more personal and people like to eat at different times, different things. And so those type of things generally you're on your own and maybe it's not best to split it 50 50. Now, do you have any advice for anyone navigating if your roommate pays the rent late? Oh, that can be super complex, right? And uncomfortable. Uh communication is the key Michelle, I would say, you know, discuss it with your roommate. Like, why was the rent late? And I think just as important is that going to happen again? Is there something in the future um that we need to plan for? Um if you get a late fee on your rent, if you can and you want to create that bond, maybe you could help that roommate uh with that late fee. Again, that's on a very individual basis. But I would say the bottom line is be comfortable with the uncomfortable conversation uh right up front and find out how you can prevent that from happening in the future. Now, what about utilities? I know you said that everything should be split equally in most cases. But what if one party works from home, the other person works uh in the office? Yeah, certainly because utilities um are, are one of those things that generally are 50 50. But if you have a unique situation, um like you mentioned a work at home or work away, you could, you could wind up splitting it. But what uh you know, what we've seen is that, you know, trying to monitor or track, you know, who uses more electricity or who takes longer showers, uh can sometimes be a little more complex and cause a little more tension. But um if you can work that ahead of time, that may be something you could do. Now, speaking of those tense situations, do you have any tips to alleviate the stress of paying with roommates? Certainly. Right. I mean, I, I would say 33 main tips that I would say one is have a plan. So align with your roommate upfront about what's gonna be split, what's not gonna be split? Are you gonna pay on a weekly or monthly basis? And hopefully you can do that before you become roommates, but it can happen at any time, right? Have a plan. Secondly, I would say is keep it simple, right? These things can get really complex and you're trying to live your life. So the more simplicity you can uh put into this and still feel really com that you're paying your fair share amount of the better. And then the third tip I would say is transparency as your friend, listen, your roommates, you're close together, you know, um you're, you're seeing each other all the time. So just be really clear with each other about what expenses are being incurred when they're gonna be due. Um And if you treat transparency as a friend, um it really helps the the stress level maybe come down a little bit. Do you have any recommendations for apps that might help splitting those payments easier? Yeah. Yes, apps are a great way to do it right. There's many out there. Uh Splitter split wise for groceries, something called our groceries. Um back to, um, the, you know, comment about my two daughters. They both use split, split wise, they love it. Um, it allows you to do things like sign expenses to individual parties. So if you have two roommates, but only one of you was involved in maybe a weekend event, you can split that to just the people that, uh, are, are involved. Uh, it can, you know, net your expenses at the end of a week or a month, whatever you guys decide on. Uh and then it's really integrated into Venmo, which uh a lot of people use and it helps you. Um again, back to that idea of keeping it simple apps like split wise can really um assist in that. Now, let's talk about renters insurance because it can be a cost. But is it something that everyone should have? Absolutely uh renter's insurance? I I if you think about one of the things that can like disrupt your financial uh plan for the month, I'll use month as an example, um is an unexpected and sometimes a large unexpected injection. So if you have things like um think of a water pipe breaking in your apartment and your, your couch or your rug or your clothes are damaged or if you have a, a theft of a, of a laptop that you really need, like that's an expense you probably didn't plan for and for uh you know, as little as $5 a month from lemonade as an example, you can, you can get renter's insurance. Um One of the things I would advise uh the, the folks listening is they'll make sure you understand. Right. Um What your renter's policy covers most insurance or renters policies cover your particular goods, right? So your laptop, not your roommates as an example. So generally, um each roommate would need their own policy, but if you go back to that as little as $5 a month, it can really save you thousands of dollars of an unexpected, um, expense down the road. Now, what kind of financial conversations do you recommend having before signing a lease with a roommate or roommates? Yeah. I think, you know, this is back to the, the, the, the plan up front in, in, in knowing the people that you are, uh, gonna be roommates with, you want to understand that they can afford. Right, and be able to, to pay the rent that, um, that you're agreeing to, um, and having those different, you know, allocations of, you know, again, weekly and monthly can sometimes make a big difference because people are paid different. Um, and then, you know, you're looking for somebody, you don't have to be an exact match on how you handle your finances. But if you're somebody that wants to, you know, um, measure, you know, um, down to every detail of spending, that's ok. But if you're the roommate that you're looking at maybe is someone that only wants to round up at the end of the month or round down. Um, those are things you probably want to know before you sign, um, the lease rather than after. Now. Do you have any final tips for saving money while living with those roommates? Yes, certainly. There's, there's, there's a couple of ways, right. That you can stretch your dollar. Um, I think about things like TV, subscriptions. There's so many of them out there now. Right. And so, you know, these are things to talk about your roommates with. Do you need two Netflix accounts as an example? Um, so I would look at those, there's things that may, uh, um, you know, cleaning supplies, right, that you need an apartment, you can really double up on those sometimes if you're not, if you're not careful, those are things that you can look at and then, um, we talked about food earlier and maybe it's not the best thing to split. But if you can have a plan with your roommate, like food can be an expensive thing, whether you're eating out or eating in. And if you can plan some meals once or twice a month together, uh, where you do it in a beneficial way. Again, it goes back to stretching that dollar each month. Thanks again for joining us. That's Sean Burgess Chief claims Officer at Lemonade.