How do you split rent when living with a couple?

I'm moving into a house with my boyfriend and a good friend and we are having difficulties agreeing how to split the rent. The details: we will be living in a 4 bedroom house with 2 bedrooms downstairs, and 2 bedrooms in the attic. No matter what, my boyfriend and I will be living on one floor, and my friend on the other. We haven't decided who is living where yet. I would like to split rent 350/500 with the utilities in thirds. My friend says that my boyfriend and I can each have our own bedroom if we want (which we don't) and should divide the rent into thirds. My boyfriend wants to measure the square feet of the bedrooms and common living areas (bathroom, kitchen, etc.) and divide the common areas by 3 and the bedrooms by the person or people living there. Which seems like the most fair scenaro when considering that it is technically a 4 bedroom house, but only 2 bedrooms will be used by 3 people?How do you split rent when living with a couple?
Divide the rent by 3 since you and your boyfriend will be living on one floor and your friend another. It doesn't matter how many bedrooms there are or you are using but rather how many persons will be sharing the accomadations which in your case is three.





InspectorBudget above has made a very good point.How do you split rent when living with a couple?
You folks haven't moved in yet, and already there are disagreements.





I think that once you guys move in, there will be a lot more disagreement - about garbage, cleaning the kitchen, doing the yard work, etc.





And this initial issue will be brought up as ammunition to make a point by some or all of you three.





It may be better, at this stage, to seriously consider if you really want to move in with a third person. All of you have not been generous or willing to be flexible, so this does NOT bode well for harmony when you all stay under one roof.





I strongly suggest going your separate ways.....you %26amp; your BF in one direction, the ';friend'; in the other.
Dividing common area for what??? This already seems like it will not work out. If you are all contributing to paying the rent, your friend should pay 1/3 of it...he/she is 1 of 3 people renting so that's fair.
I manage rentals for shared housing and this is how we do it:





For ';Consumables'; (items where the expense will vary by the number of people, such as water, supplies, trash), we take the total cost and divide by the number of people in the house.





For ';Fixed'; (items where the expense applies to the whole house, such as heating, cable TV, power), we divide the total cost by the number of rooms rented. If there are three bedrooms but only 2 are rented, the cost is divided by 2.





You can track this very easily in a spreadsheet.





You had better work this out now, before your ';good friend'; becomes ';that good-for-nothing jerk who I never liked in the first place and I hope I never see him again!';.