At first, the idea of moving in with friends after college or high school may seem like a birthday wish coming true. The mere thought of living together with your best pals brings sheer excitement and you just can’t wait for that move to become a reality. You have a gut feeling that sharing an apartment with your best friends will be a very enjoyable and fun-filled experience.
And yet, once you move in with your friends, you may get somewhat disappointed to find out that some things are not exactly the way you pictured them in the beginning. It’s not a secret that spending a few hours a day with someone is different than living with that person full-time, 24 hours a day.
In fact, moving in with your friends can potentially strain your relationship with them and could even jeopardize your friendship in the long run. Ultimately, it’s important that you understand the advantages and disadvantages of moving in with friends so that you can be prepared in advance and maybe even think twice before you agree to the move.
Advantages of moving in with friends
Without a doubt, moving in with your best friend or moving in with friends – good friends, of course, not just mere acquaintances – has a number of benefits that are hard to dismiss easily.
Shared expenses
One of the most appealing reasons to want to move in with friends and live with them under one roof is the fact that you’ll be able to share the rent, home utility bills, grocery bills, and all other household expenses, both expected and unexpected.
As a result, you should be able to save hundreds of dollars each month just by sharing the living expenses with another person or persons – trustworthy friends you know well enough to make that big step.
So, if you just finished school and you wish to start a new life in a new city, then moving in with friends after high school or college can be a great temporary solution until you gain the type of financial independence you need.
Shared responsibilities
Living with your best friend or friends means that, in addition to sharing the living expenses, you’ll also be sharing the household chores as well. In order to maintain peace and harmony in your friendly apartment sharing, each one of you will have to do your share. The truth is that if only one of you starts to shirk their housework responsibilities, the balance of your harmonious coexistence will quickly be disturbed.
Sit down with your good friends and create a house cleaning schedule that should clearly state what everybody is supposed to do on any given day of the week. Remember to share the responsibilities fairly to avoid possible arguments or hard feelings down the road – the chore of vacuuming the floor is not readily comparable to the task of cleaning the bathroom.
Support and assistance
Living with your best friends means that you can rely on them whenever you may need their help. The thought of knowing that, no matter what happens, you have somebody by your side to support you and help you out can be very reassuring and comforting.
Of course, your buddies must know that they can rely on you too.
Complete trust
Compared to moving in with complete strangers – roommates you don’t know, moving in with friends is a great idea because those are persons you know very well and you trust completely. As a result, you won’t really have to be on your guard when sharing an apartment with your best friends because they are not going to want to lie to you or get tempted to steal from you.
Mutual trust is critical when living under one roof with friends. It’s the thought that you can really trust your roommates that should make you feel safe and comfortable in that new shared home.
Must-read: How to move out without money
Disadvantages of moving in with friends
Believe it or not, moving in with your best friends won’t likely be a fairy tale from start to finish. Difficult moments and tricky situations are bound to pop up here and there, thus potentially putting your friendship to the test.
Whether you’d like to admit it to yourself or not, there are a few disadvantages of moving in with your best friends as well.
Lack of privacy
You love spending time with your pals, don’t you? Talking with them about anything, doing fun things together, or just hanging out will make life so much more enjoyable and easier to deal with. But that’s only when you’re having good days.
Sometime when you’re having a bad day, the only thing you wish to do is to be left alone, alone with your thoughts. In such moments, you’ll want to have some quiet time with yourself, but that may not be possible with your friends around, possibly trying to cheer you up when you just need to be left in peace.
Arguably, the biggest disadvantage of moving in with friends is the lack of privacy and alone time that you may come to need from time to time.
Uncomfortable situations
As you’ll soon learn, spending time with someone is different than living together with that person, under one roof, day in and day out. So, when moving in with your friends, you should try to prepare for the occasional awkward or uncomfortable situations that are quite likely to occur, sooner or later.
Tricky situations where money is involved are sure to become uncomfortable for everyone. Also, expect awkwardness whenever one of your friends invites over somebody else, especially if that someone is their romantic partner.
Things may get even more awkward when you start noticing some little weird things but you keep silent because you wouldn’t want to be labeled as a whiner. It can start with something seemingly innocent such as somebody eating your piece of cake by complete accident, of course. Soon enough, you’ll be wondering how to hint to your best pal that they “forgot”, again, to tackle the bathroom cleaning task.
Oh, and you never knew that your buddy Mike was snoring that loudly, did you?
In the majority of cases, moving in with friends is a great idea because you’ll be living with people you know well, people you do trust, and people whose company you enjoy very much. Disagreements and misunderstandings can happen from time to time but when they do, you’re expected to discuss those issues openly in order to come up with the best solutions under the presented circumstances.
Is it a good idea to move in with friends? Well, moving in with your friends happens to be of those things that you can’t be absolutely sure whether it’s going to work or not until you try it out. After all, what’s the worst that can happen? Think of the move as a calculated risk simply because you can always move out when things don’t work out the way you hoped.
See also: Is moving back with parents a good idea?
