Chatsquatch

If you have ever split an expense with a person (or a group of people), then you know the hassles involved. Sending out reminders, making sure everyone has paid, and keeping a good financial record is enough to make me pull my hair out! I have tried using financial software to keep tabs on shared expenses, but it is very cumbersome. Plus, everyone involved wants to track their payments and there is no good way of doing it will locally install financial software.

Then I discovered an online application called billshare. It allows you to:

• Create receipts to divide shared expenses.
• Track spending habits with detailed statistics.
• Email alerts keep you updated on amounts owed.
• The group wall and messaging allow group members to communicate effortlessly.

Plus, it is available for my favorite price… FREE!! Some great uses for billshare would be:

• Tracking shared rent expenses. Not that your room mates don’t trust you, they just want to make sure that you are not spending the money on “The Diamond Oreo Experience” to win at the race track.
• Splitting the burden of your student loans with (willing) family members. Come on, Grandma… you know you love me. Now prove it by paying off my enormous student loan… and my account from the liquor store next to my dorm room.
• Sharing the cost of that kick-butt LAN party you are throwing (I hate begging for pizza money while people are playing Counter-Strike)

I am always looking for ways to abuse the hell out of Web 2.0 startups… then get bored and junk them later. So please, drop me a line to tell me how you would use billshare.

-Jason