The idea of moving in with your friends does sound like a birthday wish come true. Whether it’s after high school or your first year at uni, the mere thought of sharing a place with your best friends brings sheer excitement and is always fun to imagine. Every day would be a fun-filled experience, a new opportunity to laugh, to share experiences and to create memories with the people you love the most. Not to mention how there’ll always be laughs, giggles, parties, hi-jinks and all sorts of crazy but enjoyable stuff.

You can’t just wait for that dream to become a reality.

Unfortunately, as exciting as it may sound, you might get disappointed when things don’t turn out to be exactly the way you pictured them in the beginning. No matter how many reruns of Friends you’ve watched, living with your friends, in reality, goes far beyond the thrilling or adventurous storyline of a sitcom.

You’ll have responsibilities and duties to take care of, goals to achieve and a lifestyle to maintain. And, you’ll find that your friends have habits that are entirely different from yours – habits that will annoy or frustrate you.

You might come home to a trashed apartment. You might feel pressure to always be upbeat. There might be – nope, make that there “will definitely be” – disagreements and fights.

So, before you embark on that kind of situation, it would be better if you could sit down and discuss the following things with your besties.

#1. Cleaning

I don’t know for you, but this would be number one on my list.

Your friend’s weakness might be gobbling up meatballs but there’s no way of knowing if he’s a sluggard who only cleans up once in a blue moon.

No matter how much you love partying with your friends, I’m sure you don’t want to be the only one cleaning vodka jelly off the walls, right?

Discussing cleaning habits means making it clear that you are not going to be the only responsible housemate. That also includes dividing the chores. For example, if one likes to vacuum and the other ones like to wash dishes, you can then easily assign cleaning responsibilities in accordance with who will perform what and how frequently.

When it comes to cleaning, you cannot trust anyone, so make sure you establish a chore chart or some other system for tracking what was and needs to be done.

#2. The Budget

You might have been friends for decades, but a petty matter like whose turn it is to buy toilet rolls can put a strain on friendships (trust me, I know what I’m talking about).

Money is one of the few things that people always hesitate to discuss. But, if you don’t want any financial disagreements with your friends, better take the time to talk about budgets and spending habits.

Are you both still in school? Does either of you have a job at least?

Determine who will pay bills, who will be responsible for buying groceries and what you will do in case of any financial crisis.

#3. Sharing Food

Do you have a gut feeling that living with friends is the best decision you’ve ever made?

Wait until the last of that milk leads to an ugly fight to say that.

Time to be honest – if you are the kind of person who goes freaking crazy when people (no matter who) take your food or ask to share food, I’d assume you are not ready yet for what we call the “friend’s sacrilege.”

#4. Having Guests Over

We’ll all had our sad days, bad days and I-want-to-kill-everyone-who-disturb-me days. That’s life.

But, it’s really difficult when you are just trying to sleep and your friend throws a freaking rage party.

There might be no hard feelings between you and your friends, but when they constantly invite their boyfriends or girlfriends, especially when you are in a single-wrenching state, it can be pretty uncomfortable.

What other things do you think you need to discuss with your friends before you start living together?