Student guide to help setting up your utility bills

  Jul 24, 2017       No Comments      how to, student guide, Utility bills

Moving into a new house can be difficult and stressful. Therefore you want to try and make the move as stress free as possible. Setting up your utility bills for a house share can be difficult, especially if you are living with multiple people.

It is important you think about when your bills are due and how you are going to pay them on time. The best way we would suggest is to split the responsibility. So everyone is involved with prioritising the bills and making sure they are paid on time.

Split the responsibility

We would recommend splitting the bills as it involves everyone and no one is left with the sole responsibility. For example, each tenant takes on the responsibility of either gas, electricity, water, Wi-Fi or TV licence. Then when each of the bills are due, each tenant collects the money from each housemate. This makes it quick and simple, and is fair for each housemate.

One thing to remember if taking this approach, each tenant must have enough money to pay for the whole bill unless you get payment upfront.

Download a bill splitting app

As a student you may be use to apps to control your everyday lives. For example online banking and your university timetable apps. So why not continue this trend with an app which can allow you to split utility bills in a fair and easy-to-use app. These apps can allow you to message your housemates and ask for a certain amount of money. They also show who has paid and who still needs to, making it easy for you to see where everyone is up to.

Tips to save money!

Put everyone’s name on the bill. This will ensure that the bills are paid on time as no one will want a poor credit score in the future. Therefore, everyone will be motivated to pay the bills on time.

Setting up your utility bills today

If you wait a few weeks before setting up your utility bills this may affect the price you pay. As you will be paying for bills which you are not using after you move out. This is due to most contracts being 12 months. Therefore, at the end of your tenancy you will be paying for bills when you are not living there. Also set up services may take time, therefore it may take for example 2 weeks for them to install your service, reducing the amount of time you can use it.