College means freedom to most students. This freedom comes at a cost, one that is often paid for by the students themselves. While living on campus can often be less expensive, dorm living gets old after the first semester. Noisy neighbors, inconsiderate roommates and building rules that you may not agree with are all valid reasons for wanting to find your own place to rent in college. 
One way to get cheap rent is to bargain with the landlord to let you handle maintenance and minor repairs in lieu of part of your rent. Maybe you can get a monthly discount for agreeing to keep the yard mowed or, if you’re in a multi-unit building, you can do the maintenance that the landlord usually does. This works best with landlords who have just a few properties and are doing it as a way to bring in a little extra income, not ones whose whole business is in rentals.
Similar to the above tip is to find a senior citizen who has an extra room or even a unit above the garage or in a duplex and negotiate a way to live there for little to no rent. If you belong to an organization, like a house of worship or a community group, you can find like-minded individuals who are glad to help out a "youngster" in return for your help. An elderly couple may be capable of staying in their half of the duplex, but not be physically able to do many of the chores like taking out the trash, shoveling snow, mulching the flowerbeds and trimming the hedges. They may be happy to let you live in their upstairs unit free of charge in exchange for you taking on these responsibilities.
Another way to live for less is to rent a whole house and then sublet the rooms to your friends. It's not unusual for a group of eight to ten guys or gals to rent a five bedroom house and split the rent among them. You might even be able to live for free if you charge a price that's reasonable, but high enough to cover your share as well. Just be sure that the landlord is in agreement with this and that you have adequate renters insurance.
There's no reason you have to stay in the dorms as long as you can come up with a creative way to make living on your own, or with your buddies, less expensive...or even free!
Get the right coverage today. Call Epic One Insurance Group LLC at 847-305-4837 for more information on renters insurance.