Taking on lease alone- can i afford it?

Submitted by smileandwaveyall t3_11dj9rr in personalfinance

Hello- so my (now ex) girlfriend got a 1bd apartment together. We recently broke up, and now I am going to pay for the apartment by myself. It’s $1595 in chicago, most utilities covered for, and I don’t have any debts and only pay $50 per month for car payments. Previously, I was paying $895 for rent and she was contributing the rest.

I currently work a position that is heavily commissioned based. I make $50k base salary (before taxes), and right now my commission is super good allowing me to bring home $1500 every week (I also get 1-2k in bonuses every 3 months).

In July though, a lot of my commission is falling off so Ill be on just my base.

My lease is set to go until September. I have saved a lot while we were living together, and I would only be semi-struggling July - September. I’ve just never paid this much for an apartment by myself, and my parents think it’s not a good idea, but they also are kinda ignorant to how expensive rent is now lol.

I’m just looking for some support I guess. This is a hard change and something I’ve never been through. I’m only 23 and Ill probably move with one of my friends in September.

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bros402 t1_ja8xu7k wrote

You said it yourself - you're going to be struggling July-September.

You can't get out of the lease early, so stay with your plan and move in with a friend in September.

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smileandwaveyall OP t1_ja9lqhy wrote

Yeah- it’s also hard to truly know how much I’ll be making July - September so depending on how well I do these next few months I can actually be just fine

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bros402 t1_jaaak8x wrote

live like a college student from july-september

ramen, bags of rice, beans

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smileandwaveyall OP t1_jaaaq4n wrote

True. I’m fixing up my budget right now to be able to afford and save. I’m already pretty good with my money and don’t really spend much besides rent / groceries / cat food anyway lol so I’m feeling good

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cballowe t1_ja93b9u wrote

One way to look at it is "can you afford it overall between now and then" rather than looking at each month independently. Another question is what's the hit from breaking the lease early?

Future life lesson - don't rent an apartment with a girlfriend if you can't afford it alone. (Good advice for both sides of that - you really never want to be dealing with a situation where either person feels stuck for financial reasons.)

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smileandwaveyall OP t1_ja9i074 wrote

Can you explain what you mean by “can you afford it overall”?

And yeah I’ll have to look into what would happen if I break early because I have some friends who are looking to move now, but I really do love this apartment so that’ll hurt.

And yeah- it was stupid lol

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cballowe t1_ja9qcbg wrote

By "overall" I mean "if you view your total income and rent between now and the lease end" instead of viewing it in terms of each month.

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