As a parent, you want to provide your children with a comfortable home.
A home that would answer their basic needs, that is complete with useful and fun things for them. Obviously, that kind of home comes with a price though.
What if it’s difficult to achieve?
This is most especially true for single parents and divorcees. When you’re the only one hustling to provide for your kids, it will come to the point that you’ll run out of funds, and finances would be difficult to manage.
Recently, however, single parents have discovered the beauty of co-housing.
Co-housing is when two or more families stay in the same hours and divide the bills at a certain percentage depending on how many members are in each family. These families also share the common areas and all the things in them.
Holly Harper was a self-employed mother of one who came from a divorce.
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She was renting a one-bedroom apartment large enough for her and her daughter. Her bills reached $2,550 a month, including utility and parking. This proved to be more challenging for her as time went on. So, she thought of ways how to reduce her housing costs.
That’s when she thought of moving to a bigger space and sharing it with another single mom.
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She bought The Siren House, the name they gave their co-housing space. It’s a 1,100 square feet apartment with a beautiful front porch, open lot, and free parking. She first invited her friend, who had also just gone through a divorce.
They discussed arrangements and other essential matters.
Holly and her friend had to discuss finances, lifestyle, even political outlook, to ensure that they would live comfortably and harmoniously in one home. They also agreed on how they would split the cost, and they did so with a percentage relative to their ownership of the property.
Parts of the house needed repairing, but they split the cost.
They needed more than $10,000 for the repairs and upgrades, which would’ve been an enormous amount if only one person was paying for it. But thanks to their co-housing arrangement, they were able to split the cost. They also pooled together an emergency fund that they contribute to every month if there is a need for emergency repairs.
Soon enough, their ‘family’ grew bigger as two other single moms lived with them.
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Holly said in her Insider article that this wasn’t a problem for all of them. In fact, it has helped them to be more mindful of their finances and their living.
The most significant advantage she cited was that they could share the things they had.
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Whether it’s furniture or an appliance, scissors, or a trampoline for the kids – they shared it. Generally, they had everything they needed without buying multiples of each item. Even the kids share their toys and enjoy playing outside.
Most importantly, these women found support in each other.
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It is like having both family and friends under one roof. According to Holly, it provided financial stability and emotional, too. She stressed how this arrangement allowed them to “live in abundance while decreasing expenses.”
Learn more about co-housing in the video below!
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