A shared shopping list: who buys what and who owes whom
The trip's WhatsApp group, two days before: "Who's bringing charcoal?", "I'll get beers", "Did anyone buy bread?". And after the trip, the other half: "How much do I owe you for the groceries?".
The shopping list and the money are the same problem. Kept apart, someone forgets to note something and whoever bought it ends up paying.
A list by meal
What helps most is thinking of the shopping by meal, not as one long list:
- Each meal has its list. Friday dinner: pasta, tomatoes, cheese. Saturday's barbecue: meat, charcoal, bread.
- Things for the whole trip go apart: drinks, ice, coffee, fuel.
- Each thing has someone who buys it, and you can see what's missing and what's done.
Nobody buys the same thing twice and everybody knows what's theirs.
How Cobote does it
Cobote is a free web app for the money of a group with dates. No sign-up, nothing to install: one link for the group and everyone joins from their phone.
- One list: the house, each meal with its things inside, and the extras (drinks, ice, fuel…).
- Who buys: set it on the meal or the extra and its things follow. If someone else buys one thing, change just that one.
- Bought: each thing has its checkbox. When all are ticked, the meal ticks itself.
- The price, in one tap: type it on the line and it's noted as paid by whoever bought it.
- "See the list of": everyone sees only what they still have to buy, and can copy it for the shop.
And the best part: what each meal costs is split among those at that meal, with nothing else to do. Balance shows who pays whom with the fewest payments. More in how to split when not everyone is there every day.
Cobote only keeps track: it never charges or moves money.