Five Apps That Making Living with Roommate Easier

On a good day, living with roommates is like being part of a family. In the morning, you chat about your big history exam over coffee. At the end of the day, you crack a few beers and laugh about that weird thing that happened at work. You have group dinners where you cook together. On the weekends you hit the bars together and laugh, bond and overuse the squad goals hashtag.

On a bad day, however, living with roommates is a nightmare that you can’t escape unless you move out. You squabble about bills via passive aggressive notes. They eat your food without asking. You annoy them by playing loud music late at night. Seeking a roommate situation that’s truly harmonious? The answer is in an app. Here are five apps that make roommate life your best life.

1. Splitwise

The number one rule of successful roommate living is simple: pay your share of the rent and bills. As you most likely know—hopefully not from personal experience—this concept is easier said than done.

Enter Splitwise. This app helps roommates organize shared bills so that everyone can see who owes what and when it’s due. The app also uses crowdsourcing to find the best course of action when dealing with tricky financial situations like what do when someone doesn’t pay up, how to sell shared furniture and how to split costs should you all choose to go away for spring break together.

2. Chorma

Every roommate thinks they’re the one who does all of the chores. Logically speaking, you can’t all be right.

Chorma makes splitting chores among roommates easy. The app is a shared chores list that allows roommates to assign and claim chores. With Chorma, you’re able to see what needs to be done, who has done what and—if you’re the household drama queen—who needs to be called out for not pulling their weight. As an added incentive, roommates can earn points which can be redeemed for rewards decided upon by the group, like a round of drinks or a slice of pizza.

3. OurGroceries

Sharing groceries amongst roommates is a bizarrely touchy thing. Actual friendships have been shattered over issues as small as using the last of the milk.

OurGroceries is an app for roommates who would prefer to fight over more important things (or ideally nothing at all). The shopping list app allows roommates to make and share grocery lists, that way everyone knows what communal items need to be bought. Grocery lists can be categorized by store and recipes for group dinners can be uploaded so that whoever is buying the ingredients knows just what to get.

4. Rain Rain

Living with roommates isn’t exactly zen-like. Sometimes at the end of a long day, you just want to chill out and decompress, but the sound of your roommates playing video games in the living room isn’t conducive to that.

To feel miles away from your crowded living situations, shut your bedroom door and download the Rain Rain app. This app features over 25 free sounds that are sure to help you relax. Sounds include regular rain, city rain, rain on a tent, harbor storm and even out of the box options like cat purring and shih tzu snoring (that last one isn’t for everybody).

5. Roomi

If all of the above doesn’t make your life easier, there’s always Roomi, the app that helps you find new roommates. Enough said.