Copyright Slate
Pay Dirt is Slate’s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here. (It’s anonymous!) Dear Pay Dirt, A group of college students rent rooms in a house. We didn’t know each other beforehand. When discussing bills, one roommate said she didn’t watch TV so she wasn’t going to contribute to the cable bill. A lot of people just stream/download now, so we didn’t question it. But now, when we’re watching TV, she comes and sits to watch it too! The first time, one roommate told her it was cable, not a streaming service, so it wasn’t fair for her to watch it with us. She said it was communal space (it’s in the living room), and it’s not a big deal if it’s every once in awhile. We all got in a big fight, and now I don’t know where to go from here. Kicking her out of the room seems extreme, but it’s really unfair to refuse to contribute and then just partake anyway. Now it’s tense in the house, and I think this whole thing is overblown and stupid, but she won’t agree to contribute to the bill or not watch TV. What do we do? —TV Drama Dear TV Drama, Roommate situations get tricky when you try to calculate personal preferences into the cost of rent. At first, everyone else was pretty easygoing about her request, but the problem with being too easygoing is that it only works if everyone respects the same rules—unfortunately, your roommate isn’t. Technically, she’s right. The living room is a shared space. But if the TV is on, it seems silly to have to avoid watching it. This setup just doesn’t make sense. It’s time for some clearer and maybe stricter house rules. I’d start here: Communal utilities and amenities (like cable) are split evenly, no matter how often each person uses them. You probably already handle utilities this way, and it’s not always an exact science—someone will always cook more, shower longer, or crank the AC higher. Overall, though, it’s simpler to split things evenly. That’s how shared living works: You compromise here and there so the whole household can function smoothly. If everyone else is on board, call a house meeting. Make the conversation about doing what’s most fair for the group as a whole. She might get defensive, and you can get ahead of that by letting her know that you really do want her to stay. But the current setup isn’t working for the group. Propose the new rule and make it clear that when disagreements arise in the future, the plan is to vote on an outcome and stick to it. She’s probably not going to like the new rule, and she’ll have to decide if it’s worth staying or not. But the bottom line is that in a group living situation, sometimes you have to prioritize group dynamics over personal preferences. You’ve tried accommodating, but it’s clearly not working. If you don’t set clear rules around going forward, the same problem is likely to keep popping up. This is a good opportunity to get on the same page. Dear Pay Dirt, After my husband’s grandfather passed away earlier this year, his grandmother added him to a checking account. She doesn’t drive much anymore so she has my husband get money for her when she needs it or needs to buy things for her. At first, the account didn’t have large amounts of money. Now, she wants to transfer $25,000 to the account from a CD she cashed out and will be doing home repairs that will be around $10,000. If something happens to her, what does my husband need to do with this money? Her joint beneficiaries are her children (my husband’s mother and uncle, who is the executor). Does he just close the account and give it to estate account? Since his name is on it, we aren’t sure exactly how that works. I just want it to be clear so there are no issues when she passes. —Planning Ahead Dear Planning Ahead, It’s smart to get ahead of this. Most joint accounts are created with something called “rights of survivorship.” In your husband’s case, it means that if his grandmother died, the money in the account would automatically become his, assuming he’s listed as a co-owner and not just an authorized signer. In that case, the money wouldn’t go through his grandmother’s estate, and the named beneficiaries (his mother and uncle) wouldn’t automatically receive the funds. That’s where the problems could arise. Legally, the money would be his, but if his grandmother’s wish was for the funds to be divided among her children, it puts your husband in the position of having to hand it over, which is easy enough—it doesn’t sound like he wants to dispute that—but it might also raise questions about whether it’s treated as an inheritance versus a gift. The first step is to confirm with the bank whether your husband is a co-owner or just a signer on the account, and then ask his grandmother what she actually wants to happen. If her intention is for the money to go to her children, she should talk to the bank about keeping the account in her name only and giving your husband either signing access or power of attorney to help her manage it. That way, he’s not legally tied up in ownership issues It sounds like she already has a will, so she should run this by her estate attorney. They’ll make sure the account is set up in a way that reflects her wishes. It should be a pretty straightforward fix, and it’ll be much easier to take care of it now than to leave it unclear for later. —Kristin More Money Advice From Slate I’ve been helping a family member sort through some big issues (substance abuse, etc.). He makes good money but wastes most of it—he lives paycheck to paycheck and hasn’t set aside anything for retirement, emergency savings, or basically anything else. Worse, in one of our recent conversations, he mentioned that he hasn’t paid any taxes in about a decade.
