It’s always a good idea for students moving into a property to have the ‘money chat’ about sharing household expenses as early as possible.
That’s because everyone needs to understand what bills they will need to pay, in addition to their rent.
There’s no doubt that for a lot of students the cost of utilities such as gas and electricity will come as a surprise and they will need to budget accordingly.
Great student broadband deals
On top of finding and organising the provision of utilities, there will also be a need to look at the great student broadband deals available to ensure there is an internet connection.
For many students this will be a crucial part of their everyday life and there are lots of potential providers of student broadband, but you will still need to be careful that you don’t sign up to a deal that doesn’t meet your needs.
There are various ways of dealing with student utility bills and among them is to have one person in charge for paying all of them and then have them collect the money from fellow tenants.
There’s also the possibility of students opening a joint account to ensure that they contribute monthly, or even weekly, so that they can pay their utility bills by direct debit.
This also means that the student housemates will be sharing the responsibility and there is also a trend for all the people living in a property to put their names on the utility bill which also shares the responsibility equally.
Alternatively, you could allocate one bill for each tenant and they must pay this when it falls due.
Landlords offer student tenant utility bills
This may appear to be a daunting task and a distraction from your studies and helps explain why there is a growing trend from student landlords to cover their student tenant utility bills within an all-inclusive rent.
While this may appear to be an excellent way of organising the utilities and paying for them, the student may be paying more for the gas and electricity, for instance, than they would do if the organised the supply for themselves.
There’s also another potentially suitable solution which is to utilise the services of a bill splitting service provider such as Glide – they will organise the provision of utilities, including a great student broadband deal, and then deliver a bill every month for each student to pay.
One of the best things about this is that the student tenants are responsible for paying their own bill rather than sharing responsibility when one tenant cannot pay.
As a way for students to budget when sharing household bills, the Glide solution is great idea so speak to the helpful team to find out more.