Rent,planned in full.

Rent tracker

How to keep track of rent and housing costs

Rent is the easiest bill to remember and the easiest to underestimate, because it is never the only cost of a home.

Rent is rarely the whole cost of a home

When people say what their home costs, they usually say the rent. The real number is higher. Around the rent sit costs that come with the same address:

• Service charges: building upkeep, cleaning, sometimes heating or water, billed with the rent or apart from it.
• Utilities: electricity, gas and internet, usually on separate contracts.
• Parking and storage: a space, a garage or a cellar, often with its own monthly fee.
• Insurance: contents or liability insurance, often paid once a year.
• Deposit: a one-off payment at the start that you get back, or not, at the end.
• Repairs: small ones the lease leaves to the tenant.

What is worth tracking is the total cost of living there, not the rent alone. It is the number to compare when you think about moving.

Know the dates in your lease

Three dates in a lease matter for planning. The due day, when rent has to arrive. The date an increase can take effect, since many leases allow one a year, sometimes tied to inflation. And the end of the lease with its notice period, which decides by when you must say whether you are staying.

In Figa, add rent as a recurring bill: Monthly, the due day, and the landlord under Recipient. If the lease ends on a set date, choose On a specific date as the end condition. Attach the signed lease and choose All occurrences, so it stays with every month of rent. Put the notice deadline in your calendar: it is a date to decide, not a bill.

Plan the month around rent day

Rent usually leaves at the start of the month. If your salary arrives on the 10th or at the end of the month, the first days are the tightest, and every other bill due before payday competes with the rent.

Seeing every housing cost with its due date shows which ones come before payday. In Figa, the months ahead show rent with the service charge, the utilities and the yearly insurance in the month it falls, so a month with an extra payment shows up in advance.

When the rent goes up

Record an increase in the month it starts, not when the letter arrives. Edit the rent for that month and choose This and future occurrences. The months before it keep the old amount, so your history stays true.

To see what the home costs now compared with last year, compare the two periods in Insights, grouped by category or recipient.

Sharing rent with a partner or flatmates

Shared rent works best when everyone sees the same bill and nobody has to ask whether it was paid. Agree who pays the landlord, how the others pay their share, and who marks it done.

On Pro, invite the others to the workspace with a role: Member to add and mark bills, Viewer to only read. Everyone sees the same bills, and each bill’s history shows who changed it or marked it paid. Figa does not split bills or track who owes whom: it keeps one shared plan of what the home costs.

Moving in and moving out

A move brings costs that happen once: the deposit, the moving van, the first furniture, cleaning at the end. Add each one as a one-time expense on its date.

To see what the whole move cost, give those expenses one tag, for example "Move 2026". A tag groups costs across categories and shows their total, so the deposit, the van and the paint end up in one place.