I can hear you know. “But I don’t own any property.” But what about where you are living right now? If you own your home this is easy. If you rent, well then it gets a bit more complicated.
We all used to love that show The Odd Couple and could speculate all day about whether or not the characters were really gay. But it proved a good point. Even people who are radically different can adjust and live together, especially if it will save or make them both money.
Living alone, or even living as two people, is expensive. Buying food is cheaper if you buy in bigger portions, but if you live alone you can’t buy too much food because it may go bad and then you lose money. You have to pay the insurance, taxes, and rent/mortgage at your house, condo, or apartment, and they are the same whether one person lives there or twenty.
Twenty may be a bit much, but it doesn’t stop the Mexicans down the street from me who have at least 20 people in each of the small houses they are renting. They tend to work all day and aren’t home. Late at night when they are home, they are usually drunk on Mexican beer and playing that loud Mexican music. They might actually be Salvadorian. But whatever, everyone south of Oklahoma is Mexican to me. Nevertheless, it looks like a good life. They are having fun. And they are saving lots of money.
If you are renting, it is probably a good idea to ask your landlord how he feels about your subletting out a room to a friend. You could probably just do it and keep telling your landlord that he or she is just a good friend and that’s why he or she is always there. But it probably wouldn’t take long for the landlord to catch on and that could cause some issues for you. Your landlord might not want another person there or might want part or even all of what your friend is paying to stay there.
Having your own house makes this much easier. It is possible your local government might have some fascistic policies against roommates, but most sensible places don’t. Plus those rules are hard to enforce.
It helps if you can convince a friend to move in. If you don’t have a friend, consider a listing online and around your neighborhood. Do a background check on any prospective renters (many states have their court records online and available for free) and ask for references as well.
Keep your arrangements as informal as possible and try to stay on friendly terms. Don’t be a jerk about anything. Request payment in cash or maybe even silver or bitcoins. Check with a tax professional about any tax consequences of accepting renters and ways to offset any income. It is absurd. You are already paying taxes on your regular income, any gains in your investments, gambling winnings, your property, and your purchases, yet the government expects you also to pay tax on the few bucks a month that you get from a renter to offset your expenses, despite the fact that your renter already paid taxes on that money. But I guess the people on welfare, the people who work in the military industrial complex, and foreign government officials just deserve that money more than you.
You might want to see if your renter is able to pay you in services. Perhaps he or she has home improvement experience and could finish your basement or put up a fence in return for being allowed to stay at your house for a few months or so. Of course, then you also have to worry about getting the proper permits. I am not recommending this or any lawbreaking, but many people get work done on their houses without getting the proper approval. They don’t do projects that are too big and try to do them after 5pm or on weekends when government inspectors typically are not working.
Another option is to rent out your house completely and stay elsewhere, perhaps with a friend, for less. Even if you break even with the renters, with them covering your mortgage and utilities and the rest, you will still save money if the friend you are renting from charges you less money than you otherwise would have paid to live at your house.
Finally, look into the option of renting out your house on websites such as VRBO. This is a great idea if you are in a tourist town. People in Annapolis rent out their houses every year during the Naval Academy’s Commissioning Week to the families of the Midshipmen. I know several who make charge several thousand and then spend the week at a hotel, often at another tourist town in the mid-Atlantic area. It is like getting paid to take a vacation.
This is not an exhaustive list of ways to make money using your house. You might be able to come up with others. Be creative. You might lose some privacy, but you will save and/or make money. If you need money, it is worth doing.
