A Dozen Ways to Live Rent Free
For the past five years, I’ve been doing my damnedest to avoid paying rent. Given, I’m quite nomadic and largely avoid leases for the purpose of geographical freedom, but you might be surprised just how much time rent can cost you in a year.
I don’t particularly love articles full of numbers and perhaps you don’t either, but these are eye-opening numbers. Bear with me as we begin with a little math.
For the purposes of this article, let’s say your rent, utilities, and other housing expenses total $800 a month. This is a pretty frugal figure, as the average cost of rent alone for one bedroom apartment in the United States these days is over $1,000. So, at $800 a month, you’re well under that mark, and you managed to work your utilities into that number too. Well done.
$800 per month x 12 months = $9,600 a year
So, each year you would have to make $9,600 to exchange for a living space. This is money on which you get no return, other than a place to live of course. Come the end of a lease, it’s just an extra $9,600 you had to make to stay financially afloat.
Now, we’ll do the math with a few different hourly pay rates, under the assumption you’re working full-time (40 hours per week) and see how much time per year rent costs.
