The Roommate Money Talk: A Script for Before You Move In

The difference between house shares that fall apart and house shares that don’t isn’t compatibility. It’s whether anyone spent thirty minutes on this before moving in, and very little else.

Skip that half hour and every undecided item surfaces one at a time over the following year. Worse, each one surfaces immediately after something has already gone wrong: the food disappearing from the fridge, an electricity bill much higher than expected, somebody announcing they’re leaving. Writing rules from that starting position is why these conversations turn into arguments.

Take thirty minutes before anyone moves in

The best window is after signing and before moving. Nothing has happened yet, so nobody is accusing anybody of anything. It’s the only period in which you can write rules in the abstract.

Moving day still works, but you’ll be talking between boxes and nobody’s really listening. Book a slot in advance, in a café or on a call, with that half hour as its only purpose.

Thirty minutes is the right length, too. Give it an hour and you’ll disappear into edge cases; give it fifteen minutes and something important gets skipped. Five items at roughly six minutes each lands about right.

Five items, no more

There isn’t much to decide. How rent is divided, how utilities and internet are handled, what counts as a shared supply, when you settle up each month, and what happens when somebody moves out.

The first three are about money and the last two are about process. Process is what actually bites you later, but conversations tend to burn all their time on the money half and rush the rest, so running the list backwards is a legitimate tactic.

The arithmetic behind rent and utilities is covered in splitting rent by room size and splitting utilities. In the meeting itself you only need to pick which method you’re using.

Wording you can use as-is

Only the opening line is genuinely hard, so have it ready. Sending it as a message beforehand lands better than starting the conversation cold in person.

Before we move in, can we do 30 mins on money stuff sometime this week? I’d rather sort it now than have it come up awkwardly later.

Then, when you sit down:

There’s five things: how we split rent, utilities, what counts as shared stuff, when we settle up, and what happens if someone moves out. Half an hour and we’re done.

For each item, propose something rather than asking an open question. Ask “what do you think?” and politeness produces silence.

The rooms aren’t the same size, so how about splitting rent by floor area, with the common space divided evenly?

Toilet paper, detergent and bin bags are shared; food is individual. Does that cover it?

Let’s settle up on the 25th each month. Easier right after payday.

Leave moving out until last. Discussing the end before you’ve begun feels slightly grim, but the groups who skip this item pay the highest price for it.

Can we say a month’s notice if either of us leaves? And decide now who covers the rent until a replacement is found.

Write it down on one screen

Put the outcome in writing without exception. Rely on memory and in three months somebody says they never agreed to that.

It doesn’t need to look like a contract. One bulleted message in the group chat, and everyone reacts to it. That’s enough. What matters isn’t the formality, it’s that everyone can look at the same thing afterwards.

Record only the decisions, not the reasoning. Rent by area 4:3:2. Common space split evenly. Shared supplies are paper, detergent, bin bags. Settle on the 25th. One month’s notice. Those five lines will do.

Revisit once, after six months

Whatever you agree at the start usually stops matching reality within six months. Someone starts working from home, someone’s schedule shifts, consumption of the shared supplies drifts to one side.

So set the review date during the first meeting. Just saying “let’s do another 30 minutes in six months” removes the need for anyone to sit on a grievance. Knowing there’s a scheduled moment to raise something makes it easy to let it ride until then.

At the review, talk about the mismatches rather than the numbers. Who paid what is already answered by the records, so the useful conversation is about everything the records don’t show.

Common questions

What if they don’t want to have the conversation? Give it a time limit and send the agenda first. Usually it isn’t money they’re avoiding, it’s an open-ended discussion with no visible end. Knowing there are exactly five items makes a yes much more likely.

Does this work with three or more people? Same agenda, but don’t take votes. A rule passed two to one runs with someone who never agreed to it, and it will collapse later. Parking one item until everybody can accept a version of it is faster in the long run.

Isn’t this too formal between friends? It’s more necessary between friends. The closer the relationship, the more people avoid money conversations, and the avoidance is what damages the friendship. Saying “because we’re friends, I’d rather sort this upfront” communicates the intent correctly.

Someone joins the house later. Walk them through the existing rules and check they actually agree. A rule nobody consented to won’t be followed. One read-through of the five items at the point they join is enough.