Two houses, one spreadsheet
Apr 1st, 2008 by Jill
To keep track of expenses that we split between the houses, we went to Google Documents and created a shared spreadsheet. Whenever one house pays an expense we’ve agreed to split between houses, that house enters the expense into the spreadsheet. Every so often we tally up what we owe each other and one house writes the other a check. We can all log in to the spreadsheet from anywhere we have an internet connection, and if more than one of us is logged in at once, we can open a chat window inside the spreadsheet and chat while we’re entering numbers together. You can sign up to be notified by email when a spreadsheet is updated, and you can go back in time and view past versions — both handy features for shared group work.
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Curious– what kind of things do you split? If you don’t mind me asking.
IR
Historically, since I’ve been in the picture, mostly dental and medical expenses and a few other pre-arranged expenditures. Historically, school and camp stuff has been split by having each parent pay one kid’s expenses, so for the most part that stuff didn’t go on the spreadsheet.
We actually have a shared bank account between our families, but it just so happened that we both had the same bank, so that was easy to arrange….. Might not work for a lot of folks. Did get some weird looks when we turned in all the paperwork though. : )
Great idea about a shared spreadsheet, Jill. We’re going to have to steal that one from you. Emails going back and forth are too hard to keep track of. Plus, for the mathematically-challenged, such as myself, a spreadsheet is a beautiful thing.
Are you still planning on making a visit to Texas sometime this summer? It would be great for us all to get together! (And hi Izzy!)
This is really a blessed thing you guys have. Wish we could have just a little of the openness and trust you all practice. You guys set the standards high for your family- And it’s wonderful!!!
There is no child support either way in our situation. But we share expenses too…school expenses, extra curricular activities, medical copays… Usually we each just keep track of what we’ve spent for the month and at the end of the month even up. Good idea though for the spreadsheet. Also Jennifers idea about the shared bank account is neat too. No need to write checks back and forth, just transfer money in each month.
G and Kathy used to use the shared bank account method back when they used the same bank. That seemed to work pretty well for them. G and I use a different bank primarily now, though, so the shared bank account approach between houses stopped working as well. Kathy was really flexible about switching to the spreadsheet approach, which was cool.