Splitting rent with a roommate is a tried and tested method of bringing monthly costs down. You should however know how to spot a bad one before it's too late, and in some cases you might make some great friends along the way.

If the thought of sharing a home with someone has crossed your mind, SmartAsset crunched the numbers in America's biggest cities to see how much it'd save you. They compared the average rents of one and two-bedroom apartments and used the Council for Community and Economic Research's local cost of living data in each area to estimate how much one person could save.

Key Takeaways:

• Among USA's most expensive rental markets (as of Feb '23), a renter in New York City, Boston, Miami, Cleveland and San Diego could save between $500 and $800 dollars per month by moving into a two-bedroom unit and splitting rent, instead of renting a one-bedroom by themselves.

• The smallest savings that one would get by splitting a two-bedroom unit, instead of renting a one-bedroom solo, were around $300 and in cities like Tuscon (AZ), Wichita (KS) and Omaha (NE).

• The analysis estimates that the smallest savings one would make by splitting rent ($293 per month) would save a renter around $3,516 per year.

And if you're thinking about moving to a metro area in the US, here's a good indication of how much salary you should be earning to live comfortably and how taxes are different in each state.

Via SmartAsset.

[Photo by Dylan Fout on Unsplash]