Selfishness Is Learned: We tend to be cooperative unless we think too much

Re:Selfishness Is Learned: We tend to be cooperative unless ... by MichaelBurge on Thursday June 09, 2016 @03:59PM (#11871904)

I did this with a recent roommate. I loaned him a couple thousand dollars for furniture and such to get situated in the US, and since I use accounting software to keep track of my finances I find it easier to just issue him an invoice at the end of the month for the remaining debt and any additional transactions that I paid for. If I order food and split it, I charge him 50% on said invoice.

Sometimes he tries to say, "Oh, since I got a pizza last week, you can pay for this Chinese food and we're even", and I have to tell them that it's harder to keep a running ledger in my head than to just go through every transaction once at the end of the month and ask, "Is this a 0%, 50%, or 100% expense?"

I have him pay via ACH into my dedicated 'incoming personal payments' checking account.

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Re:Selfishness Is Learned: We tend to be cooperative unless ... by theseatoms on Thursday June 09, 2016 @04:07PM (#11871964)

This system only works if he also issues invoices for communally-consumed things that he paid for.

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Re:Selfishness Is Learned: We tend to be cooperative unless ... by Larrikin on Thursday June 09, 2016 @04:21PM (#11872067)

I use Splitwise for this and it has been the perfect system for me and my roommate the past 6 months. Small things don't always get added in (like sharing some beers here and there), but most stuff does, and most importantly all of the communal items needed for the apartment. Who ever ends up owing at the end of the month just uses Venmo on there and it automatically zeroes everything out.

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