I'm moving in with my best bud in NYC, any advice to keep the friendship strong?

My recommendation is don’t have specific expectations or assumptions for how much time you will be spending together.

Keep your own things relatively tidy.

Come up with an agreed upon rule about food. Personally, I think the best plan is no one eats someone else’s groceries or leftovers.

Let him know if you will not home at your usual time. I am not talking about an hour here and there. I think people who live together, I don’t care what the relationship, roommate, SO, parent child, should have a reasonable idea of when the other is coming and going so no one worries. I don’t mean texting every part of the day about where you are, I just mean common courtesy when a routine is outside of the usual.

I think the biggest problems happen when one person parties a lot and constantly has other people coming and going into the apartment who have little respect for the other roomates space, or if one person is much more of a slob than the other.

I never had problems living with friends, and even when I moved in with my fiance, now husband, there was barely a transition for me.

Good luck with your move, sounds exciting! Are you both familiar with the NYC?

Have everything in writting. I use to rent apartments to friends who would ditch the other person and leave them hanging with the rent. Of course they are both responsible but landlords don’t care about who pays what. If one roomate leaves, it does not automatically mean that the rent is reduced till you get another roomate. The land lord will not chase your roomate for their portion of the rent. That will fall upon you till you move out. So get it all in writting in case you have to take them to court for half of the rent. Let your friend know that it will also assure that you don’t bail on them either.
Make ground rules about noise and personal items.
Make rules about overnight guests. How long is too long and what they must tell their guests.
Copies of keys or your keys should never be given out to anyone else. (Had a friend who did that and her roomates friends robbed her when she was out)
If you share a bathroom, than make sure there is a schedule for cleanning and maintaining the bathroom and any shared living space.
Put this all in writting in case one of you should forget.
Schedules should be put up on a board.
Agree to all before moving in together. A signed contract will help keep things peaceful between you and you both don’t have to act like each others mother. If you can’t agree to these things than don’t move in together because these things will come up and someone will end up nagging the other person. Even if you are not a very neat person, you will resent cleaning up after someone else after several months. Or you will resent them if they keep coming up with excuses as to why they can’t pay their portion of the rent. Make sure rent and utilities are a priority.
I’ve seen roomates buy all sorts of new things and expect their other roomates to pay the full rent, or sometimes they want to pay less because they have a smaller room or the room without suite bathroom, or sometimes they want to pay less because one roomate is making less than the other roomate.

Like any relationship, don’t get sloppy, with your habits or your emotions and always respect your room mate. Discuss your expectations for things like keeping your place clean, how to divide up chores, food, dish washing etc. Discuss house rules about other friends and boyfriends/girlfriends hanging out. Just be respectful and things should be just fine.

Honestly, tell them what you just wrote here. Let your friend read your question and discuss the question openly and honestly. Don’t lend money nor allow it to become an issue between friends sharing a place. If you have money to give to someone in need, give freely without any expectations of it being paid back. Pay your rent on time. Be clean and courteous to yourselve and your friends. Don’t let alcohol or partying take control of the situation. Everything in moderation. Hey, best wishes on what sounds like a very exciting and great time in your lives!

Keep your line of communication free of any passive aggression.

Get a joint account for bills only. Pay the same amount in every month and only have the bills come out of there. Also I use our house account for things like loo roll, washing up liquid, carpet cleaner and bin bags etc. Not for food/drink/nights out/cinema etc. Keep track of bills and be open about your financial situation. I dont buy loo roll washing up liquid etc too often so it is really easy to keep track of an account when you see your deposits going in e.g. on the 1st of the month then all the bills (Water, tv, internet, electric, gas) come out e.g. on the 5th. Then the occasional bill for house products. It means house spending is much easier to keep track of. If there is something on the statement you don’t recognise just ask your housemate, “hey what was this?”, much easier than picking through your own personal bank statements! Doing this has saved me so many arguments about “you aren’t buying enough stuff for the house” or “its your turn to buy loo roll” This way everyone pays the same amount every time.

Edit: and make sure this joint account has no access to any overdraft. If someone is late to pay their money into the account and you get a bank fine incurred, then it is the late payer’s fine to pay!

Just be a good roommate. No nagging, no sloppiness, no fighting over the hairdryer… :D

Clean up after yourself. Clean yourself too. Don’t use or borrow your roomate’s stuff without asking.