Author Topic: Budgeting with Roommates?  (Read 2316 times)

ichangedmyname

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Budgeting with Roommates?
« on: December 15, 2013, 10:46:38 AM »
My living situation is interesting. I live with my husband and mother-in-law in a rented duplex. We split rent, utilities, gas for the car, groceries three ways.
Our grocery bill is ridiculous and I really REALLY want to present a budget to them.
Any ideas?

pirate_wench

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Re: Budgeting with Roommates?
« Reply #1 on: December 15, 2013, 12:36:41 PM »
If you all share meals together, perhaps you can make a weekly meal plan with an exact list of what you need.  Buy and split only what's on that list, and then whoever wants something extra or different are on their own. Elect one person per week to do this shopping.

A less drastic step might be to just discuss with everybody and figure out what you generally share, and then split the cost of only those common groceries (milk, toilet paper, olive oil, etc...)

Maybe all it will take is simply expressing your desire to be more thoughtful and frugal with the grocery shopping. Careful though, you might get tasked with doing all the grocery shopping yourself!

StetsTerhune

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Re: Budgeting with Roommates?
« Reply #2 on: December 15, 2013, 02:48:23 PM »
I read somewhere else today (I forget where, but it's undoubtedly true), that the most important thing in minimizing expenses is to control the big three: housing, transportation, and food.

If those are the three expenses that you're splitting with 2 others who don't sound like they're on board at all with cutting expenses then that makes things really tough.

If they're truly not on board with cutting grocery costs, maybe you could just try to phrase it as a non-monetary discussion? "Eat less processed food" - that'd save money. "Cook more from scratch",  "eat less red meat", "try cooking some authentic pasta dishes", etc. I don't know what what appeal to them and save money, but you get the idea.

I found that at the beginning  with my wife she was resistant to "let's spend less", but if I made specific, positive suggestions then she went along. Once we made enough changes like that for her to realize that "spending less" <> "life sucking", then she was much more receptive.