When i first had a house I paid off the mortgage by having flatmates. Now I live in a small family group with a coule of houses. For us it works, and it has financial benefits, lower overheads etc as well as social benefits.
Perhaps it has been mentioned it before and I've missed it. Just wanted to post it in case it gives someone else a strategy. (I've found lots of out of the box ideas here myself)
Communal living
We're renting out 3 bedrooms in our house (hey! We inherited it; otherwise we'd never have something so big), and it really helps with the mortgage, utilities and using up what would otherwise be a a lot of empty space.
I love it, and I really can't imagine buying a house and not renting out rooms; it just makes so much sense.
I love it, and I really can't imagine buying a house and not renting out rooms; it just makes so much sense.
I live in a communal living project in the Netherlands. It is a very nice arrangement: About 50 households hire their house/apartment/room from a sort of cooperative. These households have different communal arrangements: some are group houses where you share kitchen and living room; some are clustered together apartments, where in addition to your own apartment you have a communal living room and kitchen; some are standard dutch single family homes. All share together a big garden and a big function room with restaurant style kitchen.
Doing things together is completely voluntarily, except for a small communal duty once in about six weeks (like cleaning the function room).
This voluntary doing things together is what I like about it. If someone is fed up with the community he just lives his own life and maybe later rejoins the voluntary activities. I think this simple arrangement reduces friction found in other communities where you are "forced to live free together".
This communal living is not about saving money, as renting in the Netherlands can be quite expensive. But still there a lot of opportunities. E.g. we have a farmer living with us who provides very cheap ecological products, or pooling together internet and cable subscriptions.
Doing things together is completely voluntarily, except for a small communal duty once in about six weeks (like cleaning the function room).
This voluntary doing things together is what I like about it. If someone is fed up with the community he just lives his own life and maybe later rejoins the voluntary activities. I think this simple arrangement reduces friction found in other communities where you are "forced to live free together".
This communal living is not about saving money, as renting in the Netherlands can be quite expensive. But still there a lot of opportunities. E.g. we have a farmer living with us who provides very cheap ecological products, or pooling together internet and cable subscriptions.
Well, you learn something every day. We live in other parts of the world, but we all have a sense of shared living space, albeit in different forms.
I didn't really mention the benefits of us each helping each other out at times. For example we cook meals for each other, keep a eye on the kids, the washing, the dogs, the health etc. The children liked it because there was always someone to come and talk to.
It makes a real diference when you're not driving to see each other.
Yes there are times when we annoy each other but touch wood, nothing unsolvable.
I didn't really mention the benefits of us each helping each other out at times. For example we cook meals for each other, keep a eye on the kids, the washing, the dogs, the health etc. The children liked it because there was always someone to come and talk to.
It makes a real diference when you're not driving to see each other.
Yes there are times when we annoy each other but touch wood, nothing unsolvable.
@george We have similar arrangements here: Always children around to play with, no need to hire a baby sitter, cooking and eating together, if you are sick a support group will come and so on. This is all facilitated by our communal living space. And it is voluntarily. As we are about 50 households, you will always have someone you dislike (and a lot you like). Our function room has gotten a few rather nice uses: nearly every week we have a beamer dvd cinema, regular yoga and sports lessons, childrens parties and so on.
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mikenotspam
- Posts: 55
- Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2011 4:05 am
It sounds like a brilliant idea for adults, which I'll define as older than college-aged. I'm 27 and wanted to try something like that this year, and since the only one near me was a college co-op, I decided to try it. I came in with perhaps naïve expectations of people interested in sustainability, frugality, etc., and have found instead a bunch of kids who enjoy drinking and who never do their own dishes. It's quite the opposite of frugality, since the house has so much, but nothing is taken care of in any meaningful way, promoting wasteful spending in a huge way when they have to buy stuff to replace everything that's been mistreated.
I could see the potential for great success in the model, as long as people are actually interested in frugality, helping each other, etc., and not just finding a nice off-campus way to drink and smoke as much as they want. May my experience be a small word of caution to anyone looking at a younger communal situation.
I could see the potential for great success in the model, as long as people are actually interested in frugality, helping each other, etc., and not just finding a nice off-campus way to drink and smoke as much as they want. May my experience be a small word of caution to anyone looking at a younger communal situation.
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jennypenny
- Posts: 6861
- Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:20 pm
@McTrex As I think you can understand dutch here is the site: http://www.cw-wageningen.nl (for two cw projects in Wageningen). For English only readers have a look at the menu on the left and choose the two entries called "Foto's", which deliver some pictures. The site is not updated often. Actually there are quite some similar projects in the Netherlands, but some communities function better than others.
@simplex What a good idea to have a group of 50 people. You must make some real friends and have some frugal evenings.
The tricky part for a small group is finding a group of people who have similar ideas about sharing meals etc, but 50 people means you can form your own informal groups.
I used to find people would come into the flat and agree to the shared overheads etc, and then try and negotiate their way out. So if anyone is into this, write down the details on a piece of paper and make sure they take a copy with them when they're considering joining.
I agree young people could use this idea, I'm also considering when I get older sharing a house.
Instead of a retirement home, or having a young person get free board etc if I can't do the housework. But there's a few years left,,,,
The tricky part for a small group is finding a group of people who have similar ideas about sharing meals etc, but 50 people means you can form your own informal groups.
I used to find people would come into the flat and agree to the shared overheads etc, and then try and negotiate their way out. So if anyone is into this, write down the details on a piece of paper and make sure they take a copy with them when they're considering joining.
I agree young people could use this idea, I'm also considering when I get older sharing a house.
Instead of a retirement home, or having a young person get free board etc if I can't do the housework. But there's a few years left,,,,
@george Not 50 people, 50 households!! Some are single households, but some also are families of 5. The 50 households are quite broad distributed: from students to single working people to families with young children to older couples/singles.
This broad distribution allows people to stay her for long, as there are always people in a similar life situation. E.g. I was a student and enjoyed living in a group in a house, but now I prefer to live in my own house with my family. But still I stay in the same communal living project. I actually changed houses a few times. I started in a single room, then changed to another, then to an apartment and the to a house with a small private garden (and the communal garden).
This broad distribution allows people to stay her for long, as there are always people in a similar life situation. E.g. I was a student and enjoyed living in a group in a house, but now I prefer to live in my own house with my family. But still I stay in the same communal living project. I actually changed houses a few times. I started in a single room, then changed to another, then to an apartment and the to a house with a small private garden (and the communal garden).