One shopping list for a shared house

In a shared house the food is half shared and half not. The milk and the dish soap belong to everybody. The oat milk belongs to one person. Whoever goes to the store pays for all of it, and the house settles up later, usually in a group chat with a running tab that nobody quite trusts. Here is a way of doing it that still works after a year.

One list on every phone

The first job is a single list that lives on every phone in the house. Anything added in the kitchen shows up on the phone of whoever is standing in the store. In ManyStops the house is a group, and everybody you invite sees the same list, the same stores and the same prices. A group of up to six people is free.

See who is shopping

Two people buying the same bag of rice on the same afternoon is the most common waste in a shared house. In ManyStops, everybody in the group sees who is shopping right now and at which store. Anything you mark Low or Out joins their list. The person at the store sees it a moment later.

Mark what is shared

Each thing the house buys is either the house's or one person's own. The toilet paper is the house's. The expensive cheese is yours. You mark which is which once, and every trip after that keeps them apart. You can also keep a list of your own beside the house's, for the things nobody else needs to see.

Settling up after the trip

When a trip is finished, ManyStops works out each person's share. Shared things are split between the people who share that trip, and a person's own things are theirs alone. Who shares is kept with the trip, so somebody who moves in next month does not change what an old trip says. Seeing who owes what comes with Plus.

Where it stops

ManyStops keeps the record of who owes what. Moving the money is up to you, in whatever payment app your house already uses.

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