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Surprising Science

Two Useful Apps for Splitting Rent and Utilities with Roommates

Tech innovations can’t help you get back at the roommate who ate your leftover curry but they can help you maintain transparency in your household finances.

While the tech world hasn’t quite mastered a way to help us get back at roommates who eat our ice cream (I’m looking at you, Felix), several apps do exist to help housemates manage shared finances. And since big kerfuffles can arise over tiny things like questionable rounding of cents, it’s important that the process by which cohabitants pay their bills remains transparent.


CNET has a feature up right now on two of these apps: Splitwise and Venmo. The former, which is available worldwide on most mobile platforms, allows you to arrange people into groups and ledger moneys paid and owed within them. Venmo, on the other hand, is a simpler app that works like Paypal but eases the process for person-to-person transactions. Splitwise’s interface integrates Venmo so users can simultaneously monitor and pay various debts.

Even if your roommates aren’t super tech savvy or are striving to save money by resisting smartphones, the above mentioned apps also feature easy-to-navigate web-based platforms so there’s little to worry about with regard to learning curves. If your housemate seems to harbor an inexplicable distrust of financial transparency (or a more reasonable distrust of app security), you could always opt for the old school, pen-and-paper route.

If your roommate resists even that… well, you can probably guess who ate your ice cream.

Keep reading at CNET

Photo credit: wavebreakmedia / Shutterstock


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