[TriLUG] A Rent Control System

[Randy Barlow]

Howdy all!  I've been thinking of developing a system to be used by my
roommates and I to help settle small debts (things like utility bills,
pizza, etc.)  If I were to develop such a system, I would surely open
source it.  But first, I wanted to check to see if anything like it may
already exist.  Here's the details on my idea:

Three us us (students) live in the same house.  We get bills for things
like gas.  We also pay our rent individually.  Suppose I get a gas bill
for $90.  I could ask each of my roommates to give me $30 when I get the
bill, but that becomes cumbersome when you also get many other bills and
do things like ordering pizza.  What's easier to do is to adjust the
amount of rent we pay next month (i.e., I pay $60 less and they each pay
$30 more).  This is how my roommates and I currently do it, but we do it
by writing e-mails out about what we spent money for, i.e., it's
currently done by hand.

I was thinking I could make a php/MySQL app that does this for us.
Obviously, if I did open source it it would only have a very limited
market (single folks who have roommates...) but I figured why not?
Anybody know of anything that already does this or something like it so
I don't reinvent the wheel?  Anyone find any interest in such a product?

Randy Barlow
http://www.electronsweatshop.com
Dio fece il mondo in sei giorni, ed il settimo fu arrestato.