The Ultimate Roommate Calculator: How a Math Geek Splits the Rent

[Jazzy]

Living with roommates raises plenty of questions.



Who left the dishes in the sink? Where's your share of the cable bill? What happened to my leftover pizza?



Thankfully, a graduate student at Harvard University has used math to help roommates find an easy answer to the most difficult of domestic questions.



Jonathan Bittner's SplitTheRent.org has an online calculator that can serve as an arbiter of fairness, aiding housemates in divvying up the rent based on room size and amenities.



According to Bittner, going 50-50 doesn't mean you're necessarily doing things fairly.



Got lots of windows? That's worth more. No closets? That's a deduction. Your housemate is sharing a room with a significant other? That's where things get complicated.



I think that everybody really wants to do right by each other, said Bittner, who is studying to become an astrophysicist. When you are living with friends, you don't really want to have to argue about this -- you can just split it, but that can lead to resentment. Picking a number is also really stressful.



Most people want to do what's fair, but they need to figure out what fair is, he explained.



That's where SplitTheRent comes along.

Full article: http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/07/the-ultimate-roommate-calculator-how-a-math-geek-splits-the-ren/