🤝 Flatmate or on your own?
Compare the rent and bills you would split with a flatmate against what the same place costs you on your own — a week, a month and a year at a time.
Results
Everything below is the roof over your head: your share of the rent and bills when you are sharing, against the whole lot when the place is yours alone. Each figure is one week, and the difference is also given for a full year, where the size of it is easier to feel.
The two bars are drawn to the same scale, so the cheaper week is the shorter bar. Each one is the rent first, with the bills stacked on top of it.
Week by week
The same rent and bills, twice — sharing on the left, living on your own on the right. The only thing that changes between the two columns is who else is paying.
| What one week costs you | Sharing with a flatmate | Living on your own |
|---|---|---|
| Rent — your share of it | – | – |
| Bills — power, water, internet — your share | – | – |
| One week all up | – | – |
| One month all up | – | – |
| One year all up | – | – |
If the place were split evenly
What the rent and bills come to for each person when they are divided evenly. Another flatmate is the cheapest rent cut there is, and the last column is what it saves you in a year next to living on your own.
| People in the flat | Your share of the place, per week | Savings each year |
|---|
An estimate, not advice. You enter both scenarios, so the reading is only as good as what goes in. Rent and bills can be entered per week, per fortnight, per month, per quarter, every six months or per year; each is turned into a week before anything is compared (52 weeks to a year), and a month is worked out as 52 weeks ÷ 12, which is a little more than four weeks. Only the rent and the bills are compared: food, transport, phone and going out cost what they cost either way, so they are not asked for. The bills are asked for separately in each scenario on purpose: living alone you carry the internet and the connection charges yourself. Break-even rent is the most you could pay for your own place, with the bills you entered, and still be exactly level with sharing. Bond, moving costs, furniture and the wear and tear of sharing are all left out — as are the company, the quiet, and how easy the place is to live in. Your own numbers will differ.
Why use this calculator?
Moving in with a flatmate is usually the largest saving available to somebody renting, and it is also the one people guess at: the rent is obvious and the bills are where the arithmetic goes wrong, because a place to yourself costs more per person to run. This calculator compares the roof over your head — rent and bills, both of them — with a flatmate against the same standard of living on your own, and puts the difference into a week, a month and a year. That yearly figure is the number to hold against the company and the quiet you give up.
How does this calculator work?
Both sides are worked out per week, because that is how rent is advertised. Everything you enter is turned into a week on the way in — a monthly amount × 12 ÷ 52, a quarterly one × 4 ÷ 52, and so on — so a bill that arrives quarterly and one that arrives weekly are the same sort of figure by the time they are added up.
your week = (rent × your share ÷ 100) + (bills × your share ÷ 100)
Living on your own is the rent and bills you entered for that scenario, in full. The difference is what your own place costs you more (or less, if the numbers say so), and it is read out at three sizes: the week, the week × 52 ÷ 12 for a month, and the week × 52 for a year. Under $1 a week the two are called a draw, and under $5 a week the difference is reported as real but small rather than dressed up as a win.
Two tables do the rest of the work. Break-even rent is the most you could pay for your own place, with the bills you entered, and still be exactly level with sharing: your share of the shared place − the bills you put in. The even-split table takes the whole place and divides it by two, three, four and five people, which is the price of another flatmate written out.
Frequently asked questions
Why does it only ask about rent and bills?
Because everything else — food, transport, the phone, going out — costs what it costs either way, so it cancels out of the comparison. The difference between the two lives lives in the roof and in what it takes to run it, and asking about the rest would only make the form longer without changing the answer.
Why are the bills asked for twice?
Because they are genuinely different. In a shared place the internet, the connection charges and the standing fees are split, and one person on their own uses less power but pays all of the supply charge. Entering your own estimate for each scenario is what keeps the comparison honest instead of flattering.
How do I work out my share?
50% is a straight split between two people. A bigger room, an ensuite or a couple sharing a room usually pays more, and the person who brings a car and a parking space to a place with one space pays more again. Whatever the two of you agree on is what belongs in the box; the rest of the page follows from it.
What is the break-even rent for?
It is the price of your own place at which both lives cost the same: your share of the shared place, minus the bills you would pay alone. Comparing flats is much easier against a single figure than against two columns, and if the place you are looking at comes in under it, living alone is the cheaper option — on money, at least.
Why does a month come out as more than four weeks?
Because a month is 52 weeks ÷ 12, which is 4.33 weeks, not four. Rent of $650 a week is $2,816.67 a month, not $2,600, and the difference is about $2,600 over a year. The page converts everything to weeks first and multiplies at the end, so the monthly and yearly figures are not understated.
Does it include bond, moving costs or furniture?
No. Those are one-off costs of moving rather than the running cost of a place, and they differ between the two scenarios anyway — a shared place is usually already furnished while an empty one needs filling. Add them separately, and remember a bond comes back.