Split The Rent Evenly…

 

I was thinking about this a lot in the past few days, what's the best way to  split the rent evenly and fairly that won’t lead to the destruction of friendships. In particular this became a point of importance as I plan on spending my summer in San Francisco with some friends. Fourteen to be exact. Now the easiest thing would be just split the rent 14 ways were we all to live together, but clearly this isn’t going to be fair or even. Also there is NO CHANCE I’m sharing one place with fourteen people.

So what is the fairest way to split the rooms and split the rent. Well I came across this blog.

http://splittherent.blogspot.com/

This whole thing was created by Jonathan Bittner (No, I’ve  never seen is spelt that way either), and astrophysics graduate student from Harvard.

The basics of how it works are this. Split the rent gives you the “market” value of how the rent should/could be fairly split between all parties involved.

What is handles best? Well according to the site, unequally sized rooms, couples sharing, up to 8 bedrooms and the extras of the rooms such as windows, closets, toilets, etc... (It takes note of every factorial it can think of)

Now this calculator clearly isn’t for everyone, if you find yourself in the worst of rooms, but are willing to pay more rent, something needs to be negotiated there. It all comes down to, negotiation over rooms with your friends once you use the calculator. But give it a go now, see if it satisfies your needs.

Go to Jon’s site here: Split the Rent Calculator

Should You Work For Free?…

 

Click the Picture

Get paid to write? Yes, please!

In a perfect world everyone would be paid for the work they did. Unfortunately however in many cases (mine being journalism for example) there are many arguments for working for free. There are also some stupid reasons, and the chart above might just help you filter out a few of them.

Jessica Hische has created a flow chart which might just guide you through the decision of whether you should accept the free work or expect payment for it. The chart seems to assume you are somewhat established so for all budding writers, you might find that it does not apply, but you can still use it as a simple guide or future advice.

If you’re already established and have jobs coming in from all directions, this chart is bound to help you in one way or another.

Saying no to people, particularly those in need and trying to hold promises that you just don’t have time for can be one of those bad habits that anyone can pick up, particularly when you’re used to saying yes to every job being offered,

This pretty flow chart will hopefully help those in need and for those that don’t find their solution in it, three questions you should ask yourself when asked to work for free.

1) Do you have the time?

2) Is it something you’re passionate about? e.g a band? a charity?

3) does it have the potential to help you get paid in the future?

You can see the flowchart in its entirety here