The monthly ritual of paying the household bills is a common source of tension among college roommates.
Matthew Garten, a University of Arizona business senior with five roommates, thinks he has an answer. Garten has created a website, set to launch next month, to help split the cost of bills and lessen tensions between roommates.
The site, ww.zsplit.com, lets roommates connect their bank accounts, cellphones and computers so when a bill is posted, it's automatically split and notifications are sent out to everyone in the house.
The Star asked Garten about his bill-splitting concept.
Q: What inspired you to create this site?
A: I was the one who signed up the electric, the water bill, Internet and everything. So all the bills come through me. It was a hassle to organize using Microsoft Excel and get the money collected from everyone.
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Q: Whom were you thinking of when you were making the site?
A: College students. They aren't that organized.
Generally speaking, you have a college kid without that much money, and when they get their electric bill, they have to collect all the money before the date - otherwise they might miss the payment and hurt their credit.
But now you're mixing friendship with business. So you have to keep asking people for money, and that strains the relationship.
With the application, they'll get notifications to their phone, and once they authorize it, money will come out of their bank account and flow into the bill payers.
No one wants to do business with their friends, because it just creates problems, and this makes it that much easier.
Q; How do your roommates feel about the idea?
A: They think it's a great idea. They think it would really help.
It's a problem at my house too. I just sent them an email on Sunday for the month of January and not one of them has said a word to me about it - still haven't received the money. So there's an issue there, and now I have to go up and ask for it again.
Hopefully with this site, problems like that won't happen.
And if their parents help with bills, users will be able to upload their bills, and their parents can link their account to it, view the bill and pay it accordingly.
Q: Are you planning on focusing solely on college students or will you expand your market?
A: Well, I know myself, and most people, plan on having roommates after graduation. Most people in their 20s do, especially in big cities like Los Angeles and Miami. I'm from New York, and I know that rents are high.
If you live alone, you can pay up like $2,000 a month, but if you have a roommate, you can pay like $1,200 each. But then you get into splitting costs again.
Probably up until 25 you have a roommate, so I designed this not just for students, but this also for professionals who already graduated. And it's not just for utilities; it could be for Costco purchases, the supermarket, basically anything you decide you want to split.
Q: Have you done this type of project before?
A: I've done other websites before but not on this scale. Right now, I have developers who are doing it for me.
Q: When will the site go live?
A: Hopefully by late March we'll have a beta version out. By next school year, we'll be fully operated.
I've had hundreds of people apply to be on the site when it goes live, so there is definitely interest and demand for this.
MORE INFORMATION
www.Twitter.com/followzsplit or @FollowZsplit
Michelle A. Monroe is a University of Arizona journalism student and a NASA Space Grant intern. Contact her at mmonroe@azstarnet.com