--- title: 10 Cities Where Having a Roommate Will Save You the Most Money description: Living with a roommate in San Francisco or New York could save you tens of thousands of dollars over the course of five years. authors: - name: Kerry Close url: https://money.com/author/kerry-close/ at_money_since: 2016 articles: 182 covers: - Housing - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://x.com/kerryclose former_staff: true published: '2016-10-04T15:47:56.000Z' modified: '2024-03-18T15:05:38.000Z' section: Housing tags: - pubdesk - Rent - renting - roommate word_count: 293 canonical: https://money.com/cities-roommate-save-money/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Women having coffee together in new home](https://img.money.com/2016/10/gettyimages-175139711.jpg) *Living with a roommate could save you thousands in certain cities.* Looking for a new apartment in San Francisco or New York? You might want to shack up with a roommate. That's likely advice you've heard before, but prospective renters might not realize that getting a roommate could add tens of thousands of dollars to their nest egg, according to a [new report](https://smartasset.com/mortgage/what-a-roommate-saves-you-in-50-u-s-cities-2016-edition) from SmartAsset. The average person saves about $420 a month by living with a roommate -- a figure that adds up to more than $25,000 over five years. In certain cities, however, the savings are even greater. In San Francisco, for instance, a person living alone would pay an average of $3,548 for a one-bedroom apartment. If he or she decided to split a two-bedroom apartment -- and divide rent equally -- the new monthly rent would be $2,433 -- amounting to monthly savings of about $1,100. Similarly, in New York, the monthly savings for living with a roommate are just over $1,000. In both pricy cities, shacking up could save you more than $60,000 over five years. ![roommmate_savings_2_map](https://img.money.com/2016/10/roommmate_savings_2_map.png) The savings for getting a roommate in these cities are followed by those in San Jose, Calif.; Boston; and Oakland, Calif., where living with a friend amounts to monthly savings of $841, $810 and $733, respectively. ***Read More: 20 Things to Consider Before Renting an Apartment*** If you absolutely can't deal with living with a roommate, you might want to head to the Southwest. Tucson, Ariz.; Mesa, Ariz.; and El Paso, Tex. ranked among the five cities (of the 50 studied by SmartAsset) where renters see the smallest savings for splitting expenses with a roommate. In Tucson, renters save just $187 monthly for shacking up with a friend, while they save $240 and $252, respectively, for doing so in Mesa and El Paso. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/cities-roommate-save-money/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Housing", "item": "https://money.com/housing/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Places to Live", "item": "https://money.com/places-to-live/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "10 Cities Where Having a Roommate Will Save You the Most Money" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/cities-roommate-save-money/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/cities-roommate-save-money/", "name": "10 Cities Where Having a Roommate Will Save You the Most Money", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-10-04T15:47:56.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/cities-roommate-save-money/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/cities-roommate-save-money/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-03-18T15:05:38.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "10 Cities Where Having a Roommate Will Save You the Most Money", "articleSection": "Housing", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/10/gettyimages-175139711.jpg", "width": 5121, "height": 3414, "caption": "Women having coffee together in new home" }, { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/10/roommmate_savings_2_map.png", "width": 800, "height": 480 } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Kerry Close", "url": "https://money.com/author/kerry-close/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/kerry-close/#author", "sameAs": [ "https://x.com/kerryclose" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2016-10-04T15:47:56.000Z", "description": "Living with a roommate in San Francisco or New York could save you tens of thousands of dollars over the course of five years.", "abstract": "Living with a roommate in San Francisco or New York could save you tens of thousands of dollars over the course of five years.", "@id": "https://money.com/cities-roommate-save-money/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-03-18T15:05:38.000Z", "wordCount": 293, "keywords": [ "pubdesk", "Rent", "renting", "roommate" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Housing in the United States", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_in_the_United_States" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "City quality of life indices", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_quality_of_life_indices" ] } ] } ] } ```