Dime Will Tell The biggest monthly expense most of us are faced with is our housing. Whether you rent, lease, or have a mortgage; hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars month after month go towards the roof over our head.
It got me thinking, how could we reduce and even get rid of this cost entirely, saving people $1,000’s of dollars per month? It sent me on a mission to find out, and I ended up finding over 20 different ways you can get free rent.
Some are long term, some require a lifestyle change, some are short term. But with some creativity, at least one of these on this list should work for anyone that has the desire to live rent free.
Living Rent Free Saves a Lot of Money
How much could you save living rent free for a year? Could you make a dent in loans? Save up for a down payment on a home? Travel the world for 3 months? Let’s do the math and see what kind of money we are talking about being able to save here.
According to Apartment List, the median cost of rent for a 2 bedroom apartment in the United States is around $1,200 per month.
Simple math shows up that living rent free on average would save us $14,400 a year. That’s a lot of extra cash if you ask me.
Now imagine keeping this money you’ve worked hard for throughout the year and being able to save it for something that means something to you. Whether that’s a vacation, paying off debt, saving for a down payment, or any of the other endless ways you could use $14,400 a year.
Best part?
$14,400 is how much you could realistically save every single year. So if you could hang in there and do this for a few years, we are talking about life changing money.
Now, this is all easier said than done.
Some of these ways to get free rent are shorter term, so you may have to combine multiple tactics to achieve truly free rent for an entire year. Additionally, some of these tactics can be risky if you aren’t careful and understand what you are getting yourself into (e.g house hacking). But if you can manage to do this successfully, I honestly see no problem in being able to get free rent for as long as you desire.
1. House Hack Your Way to Free Rent
House hacking is an amazing concept for homeowners to live for free and have someone else pay their mortgage.
Simply put, house hacking involves you buying either a home or duplex rental property and living in one of the apartments or bedrooms while renting out the rest. This is a realistic long-term strategy for not only living rent free but also having others pay your mortgage and increase your equity in the property for you.
To go a step further, you could repeat this process and slowly buy more properties. You could look up in 10-15 years and realistically have 4-5 pieces of real estate under your belt with serious equity in them.
Whether you want to live for free or build a real estate portfolio, house hacking is a surefire way to live rent free.
2. Volunteer on Farms
WWOOF USA connects farmers with volunteers to exchange a place to stay for some help around the farm a few hours per week. There is a small fee (currently around $40) to join the site, but this is nothing even if you got a week of free rent from it.
Another great thing is that this isn’t a solo opportunity. You can bring along a significant other, friends, or family along with you.
It seems like hosts are eager to have people stay for short & long term on their farms. You could easily go from farm to farm with WWOOF, allowing you to live rent free for as long as you want to on farms.
3. Live-in Nanny or Au Pair
If you have good skills with kids, a full-time nanny or au pair position that offers live-in arrangements can be a great way to live rent free while collecting a paycheck.
You can find these types of opportunities on websites like Care.com or even Craigslist. In the past, I’ve seen several opportunities for live-in nannies on both of these sites.
If you do find a position as a live-in nanny or au pair though, be sure both parties understand what is expected. It’s important you both understand:
- When you are expected to work
- When you are “off call”
- What is expected (e.g child care, housekeeping, etc)
As with any job, it’s important to lay out all of the expectations. Otherwise you may get a rude awakening when you get a call at 1AM because it wasn’t cleared up beforehand.
4. Elderly / Live-in Caretaker
Some elderly people may prefer to stay at home than go to a nursing center, so they’ll “hire” someone to take care of them in exchange for a free place to stay.
In exchange for a free room, you’ll likely do regular chores and errands that they can no longer do. You’ll need some extra time every week to put towards this, some compassion, and lots of patience.
To find these opportunities for free rent in exchange for elder care, try local boards like Craigslist or even the newspaper to see who nearby is looking for this type of arrangement.
Note: You should probably love elderly people if you do this.
5. House & Pet Sit
Some people don’t like to leave their home or pets alone when they go away for vacation or work. To combat lonely pets and unattended homes, free rent in exchange for house sitting has became a popular thing. House sit opportunities can range from very short term to long term (a couple days to 6+ months) all depending on the opportunity.
My #1 way that I use to find these types of arrangements is to use a website called Trusted Housesitters. They have 1000’s of homes & apartments in 100+ countries, from tropical places to Alaska. While you will need to find places to stay in-between sits it can still be fruitful, especially when you land the month-long sits.
A good strategy to try if you really want to try to get free rent from house sitting alone is to find 4-5 different places in the world (or country) that are popular at different times of the year. For example, Florida is most popular in the winter so people are likely to leave for long periods during the summer. So you could look for long stays during the summer in a place like Florida and long stays in a place like New Hampshire during the winter when it is least populated. Sure, you won’t be staying in places during their prime of the year – but this is what I’ve seen to provide the longest (and best) house sits.