Oh the joys of roommates...
So I'm back in Spokane, and the transition, though a bit rough, was fairly easy. I ran into a few bumps when looking for roommates, but finaly found two friends that were looking for a new place to live, yay! This means I wouldn't have to cover rent by myself for a while. So I move in with Brian (a friend from freshman year of college) and Kate (a friend from highschool). They were dating at the time which wasn't a huge deal to me since they'd been living in an apartment together for about a year and all that jazz. Although just my luck, 2 weeks after we move in, Kate decided that she should break up with Brian. Joy... More or less I give up half the basement for Brian so that he and Kate don't have to share a room... kinda sucks since the whole basement was supposed to be mine, but so goes it, I'm adaptable, and was willing to compromise. Except then I find out that brian is still sleeping in kates room, and just using the second half of MY basement for storage space. I finally got him to move out of it but only becuase we have a new roommate moving in this month. Yay of Ali!!!! at least she and I get along perfectly all the time. So there is problem one, Kate and Brian are just dysfunctional (oh and they're back together, but they didn't tell me that untill our entire group of friends found out on a hike, way to tell the room mate.) So problem two comes with brians inability to pay rent on time or in full. Rent is pretty simple at the house, and its a steal on top of it so there should be absolutly no problems with him paying rent.
Currently rent is $400.00 a month plus electric, so we'll say between 500 and 600 a month, devided by three people. Brian is paying for his and kates rent, and I pay for the other third. His rent has never been more than 400 dollars since we moved in. He is working full time, but for shits and giggles we'll say he only gets 30 hours a week. And he works for more than minumum but once again, we'll throw in a low estimate of him making $8/hr. So lets throw together a sample budget:
Income: 30hrs/week*4 weeks/month*$8/hr=$960.00/month.
Expensise: 400 for rent, 200 for car insurences, 200 for food= 800.00/month
Profit: 160/month
He should have plenty of money for rent, with room to spare, right? or can I not do basic math. I'm even underestimating how much he's making....there should be no problem with him making rent money, but for the 3rd or 4th month in a row, its been a pain trying to get rent money from him. Rent is due on the 5th, but I often don't see the money till the 7th or later.... I understand that sometimes money is tight, I do... but I also don't have the money to cover their rent. Thats why they are living there is so that I can afford to live there... I feel like I'm being mean or something, but I also don't feel like them paying rent on time is too much to ask... heck at their old apartment they were paying about 600 a month without utilities, and they payed for cable and internet on top of that... we don't have to pay for internet, and we don't get cable, and we don't pay for water since we're on a well.... they should have the money... I don't fucking get it... I'm planing on having a sit down with Brian soon to figure this out since it is uncalled for... I'm not an unresonable person and there are ways we can go about working this out if he gets payed too late in the month for rent, I can adjust when he has to pay rent, but I need him to communicate with me...
Heck... this month he owed me 310 for rent. I told him on the 29th. I asked him to have it to me by the 2nd since friday was a holiday, and I was going camping so I wouldn't be around. Talked to him on the second and he said he didn't get his paycheck yet, but I should have the money in my account by 4:00 on friday, okay, I can deal with that, but still not ideal. I talk to him saturday when I see him at a 4th of july party that a friend of ours had, and he said he transfered the money. Great, I can pay rent with out a problem right? Wrong. I get home check my bank account and it says that only 190 has been transfered... thats 120 short of what he owed me... he led me to believe that it was ALL in the bank waiting for me.... WTF!!! So I text him on monday to give him the benifit of the doubt thinking maybe since it was a pending transaction, the bank had to wait till the business day to transfer all of it. But monday rolls around and it finalizes at 190. I text him asking him about the rest of the money and I don't hear back. Then kate texts me saying that she is going to her moms for the night and that brian is going to his dad's. I ask her if brian got the text and she says yeah, the bank hadn't processed all of brians paycheck yet so he only had the 190 to give me. Would it really have been that hard for Brian to tell me that? I understand that that happens, but also the bank didn't process the entire check cause he insists on using ATM deposit of his check instead of walking in and dealing with people or using the drive through...really? are pepole really that stupid?
Okay, that aside, school finished out okay, definetly not my best semester, but I survived. Right after school got out I took a road trip up to Alaska to help a friend move, which was awesome. I ended up driving for the majority of the night (8:00PM-4:00AM) the first and only night we drove, Amber drove the rest of the trip durring the daylight hours. For a summer vacation I sure saw a wide variety of weather, I even ended up driving through white-out condidionts part of the time and got to see snowplows in canada. Exciting I know. As for Alaska, it is beautiful, but still looks an awful lot like anywhere else in the PNW just with really tall glacier covered mountains everywhere. I flew home from there which was pretty laid back, it was my first time flying by myself, so that had my nerves running on high, but once I was safely in seattle I felt confident with my ablitily to navigate an airport and kill time. Other than that I've spent alot of time at the lake this summer, and I've been working 4-10s at school with one boss that I'm butting heads with and another that I'm getting along great with. I just need to survive till september and then I'll only be working for one of them and life will be peachy again... for the most part... I still need to solve the roommate issues.
Currently rent is $400.00 a month plus electric, so we'll say between 500 and 600 a month, devided by three people. Brian is paying for his and kates rent, and I pay for the other third. His rent has never been more than 400 dollars since we moved in. He is working full time, but for shits and giggles we'll say he only gets 30 hours a week. And he works for more than minumum but once again, we'll throw in a low estimate of him making $8/hr. So lets throw together a sample budget:
Income: 30hrs/week*4 weeks/month*$8/hr=$960.00/month.
Expensise: 400 for rent, 200 for car insurences, 200 for food= 800.00/month
Profit: 160/month
He should have plenty of money for rent, with room to spare, right? or can I not do basic math. I'm even underestimating how much he's making....there should be no problem with him making rent money, but for the 3rd or 4th month in a row, its been a pain trying to get rent money from him. Rent is due on the 5th, but I often don't see the money till the 7th or later.... I understand that sometimes money is tight, I do... but I also don't have the money to cover their rent. Thats why they are living there is so that I can afford to live there... I feel like I'm being mean or something, but I also don't feel like them paying rent on time is too much to ask... heck at their old apartment they were paying about 600 a month without utilities, and they payed for cable and internet on top of that... we don't have to pay for internet, and we don't get cable, and we don't pay for water since we're on a well.... they should have the money... I don't fucking get it... I'm planing on having a sit down with Brian soon to figure this out since it is uncalled for... I'm not an unresonable person and there are ways we can go about working this out if he gets payed too late in the month for rent, I can adjust when he has to pay rent, but I need him to communicate with me...
Heck... this month he owed me 310 for rent. I told him on the 29th. I asked him to have it to me by the 2nd since friday was a holiday, and I was going camping so I wouldn't be around. Talked to him on the second and he said he didn't get his paycheck yet, but I should have the money in my account by 4:00 on friday, okay, I can deal with that, but still not ideal. I talk to him saturday when I see him at a 4th of july party that a friend of ours had, and he said he transfered the money. Great, I can pay rent with out a problem right? Wrong. I get home check my bank account and it says that only 190 has been transfered... thats 120 short of what he owed me... he led me to believe that it was ALL in the bank waiting for me.... WTF!!! So I text him on monday to give him the benifit of the doubt thinking maybe since it was a pending transaction, the bank had to wait till the business day to transfer all of it. But monday rolls around and it finalizes at 190. I text him asking him about the rest of the money and I don't hear back. Then kate texts me saying that she is going to her moms for the night and that brian is going to his dad's. I ask her if brian got the text and she says yeah, the bank hadn't processed all of brians paycheck yet so he only had the 190 to give me. Would it really have been that hard for Brian to tell me that? I understand that that happens, but also the bank didn't process the entire check cause he insists on using ATM deposit of his check instead of walking in and dealing with people or using the drive through...really? are pepole really that stupid?
Okay, that aside, school finished out okay, definetly not my best semester, but I survived. Right after school got out I took a road trip up to Alaska to help a friend move, which was awesome. I ended up driving for the majority of the night (8:00PM-4:00AM) the first and only night we drove, Amber drove the rest of the trip durring the daylight hours. For a summer vacation I sure saw a wide variety of weather, I even ended up driving through white-out condidionts part of the time and got to see snowplows in canada. Exciting I know. As for Alaska, it is beautiful, but still looks an awful lot like anywhere else in the PNW just with really tall glacier covered mountains everywhere. I flew home from there which was pretty laid back, it was my first time flying by myself, so that had my nerves running on high, but once I was safely in seattle I felt confident with my ablitily to navigate an airport and kill time. Other than that I've spent alot of time at the lake this summer, and I've been working 4-10s at school with one boss that I'm butting heads with and another that I'm getting along great with. I just need to survive till september and then I'll only be working for one of them and life will be peachy again... for the most part... I still need to solve the roommate issues.