Debt Triangle

Debttriangle.com will host a new way of managing shared finances amoung a small group.

Case 1: Sharing an apartment

Alice, Bob, and Carol rent an apartment. Each is responsible for paying a monthly bill. Alice pays the cable bill. Bob pays the electricity bill. Carol pays the gas bill. These bills are each about the same amount, but the three really want to split the costs evenly.

They each enter the amounts that they pay into debttriangle.com and tell debt triangle to split it evenly. The difference after a month is only about ten dollars and they don't worry too much about it. After 3 months, Carol has paid fifty dollars less that Bob or Alice and Bob and Alice demand twenty-five each.

They record this transaction on the debt triangle, and their finances are once again balanced.

Case 2: Coworkers lend each other money for lunch

Andy, Betty, Charles, and Debbie work together and order lunch together many days. Generally they each pay for their own lunch, but sometimes one of them needs to borrow money that day. When this happens they record the amount on debttriangle.com.

Often it happens that the next week, the person that lent the money is the one that is short and the debt triangle can be balanced easily. One week Betty lent Charles ten dollars, then the next week Debbie lent Bettie ten dollars. Once they told the debt triangle this, debttriangle.com figured out that the easiest way to repay would be for Charles pay Debbie ten dollars.

How it works

Find a group of friends and sign up for an account on debttriangle.com
Anytime that you pay a bill, or lend somebody in the group money, record it on debttriangle.com
The debt triangle will keep track of who owes what to whom. It will do the math needed to make payments as simple as possible

What debt triangle is not

Debt triangle is not a bank. DebtTriangle.com never holds your money.
Debt triangle is not a lender. DebtTriangle.com makes it easy for friends to loan each other money and keep track of it, but does not lend money itself
Debt triangle is not a collection agency. If you are having problems getting a member of your debt triangle group to pay up, DebtTriangle.com cannot help. DebtTriangle.com does not break knee caps or otherwise put pressure on folks to pay their debts. Before you join a Debt Triangle group with anybody, you should trust them to repay any debts to you.

Coming Soon! The software powering debt triangle is not ready yet. The more people that are interested in creating a debt triangle group, the more effort will be put into the software and the faster it will get done. Please send your comments and feedback to Stephen Ostermiller.

In the meantime, you might want to try some similar services:

iOweYou - expenses sharing system with expenses logging and instant reports.
Xpense Tracker - Use a TrackSheet to track group finances.

Or you could try other projects that Stephen has actually completed:

Coinmill Currency Calculator - Convert money between any worldwide currencies.
Attesoro Translation Editor - Software for translators.
Scientific Calculator - Online browser based scientific calculator.