Say goodbye to the mess of dealing with finances in shared living communities. A new form of handling shared finances is rolling out across coliving houses.
“Damn, our finances are a mess!”
I remember this scene clearly. It was 2018, we just opened our third coliving space in Barcelona.
I was trying to make sense out of our Google Spreadsheets and just couldn’t stare at my screen anymore. We were trying to get the finances together, and after looking into it for hours, I kind of broke down. Here is why:
- We accepted payments in different currencies and on different platforms
- We used apps like Splitwise to keep track of groceries, but some people would forget to put it in, or even better, put it in once we settled the finances
- The system was also broken because people didn’t remember what they paid for and/or would disagree on having consumed what was bought
The list goes on. Truth is, handling finances in a shared living community is not easy: on top of collecting rent from everyone, you need to track common expenses such as repairs, groceries that are consumed by the group, plus also have systems where smaller groups within the community can also settle their finances, such as three people going on a trip and wanting to settle it between one another.
So far, coliving communities have used traditional tools such as Spreadsheet or Splitwise, which require everyone to put in what they buy, and then having someone chase all participants to settle accounts. Or, communities simply gave up on the idea of sharing, whereby communal dinners simply fell away.
I’ve always been thinking about a tool that would work differently. Last year, I read in the Belgian magazine XXI how a group of 10 friends opened one bank account, put parts of their salaries into it, and each had a debit card associated with the same bank account. It was the first time a bank in Belgium allowed this, and it made headlines in Belgium and France as a great social experiment.
Until I got contacted by someone called Amanda Peyton:
“Hey Gui, we created a payment system called Braid that allows coliving communities to have one common bank account, whereby everyone can have a debit card tied to it, and which is already being used by coliving communities in the US. You should check it out!”
And then I discovered Braid.co.
So I did, and I actually got in touch with some of the people and communities who use it. People responded to me with such lengthy answers that I decided it was worth publishing this to other coliving communities, simply because it could save you lots of time, effort, and especially, avoid conflict in your community.
How coliving communities use the shared wallet
The first person to answer was Joseph Perla, a member of Sunbeam Arts, a non-hierarchical intentional community that has weekly dinners where people cook together. Here is how they use it and how it’s been helping them:
We have a Braid account to collect and deliver the rent. We also collect money for the house fund, utilities, and general art and construction projects. We have another Braid group to collect food plan costs, where we collect about $200-300 per month from each member to buy communal groceries for the month.
Braid helps tremendously in keeping the non-hierarchical leadership of the house. No one person has control over finances or the bank account, everybody does. Braid is fully transparent so it is very helpful to have every transaction logged and visible and auditable by everyone. We had terrible problems getting everyone’s rents set up and paid and accounted for correctly with our old traditional bank accounts.
On top of that, there are also ways to use it in more hierarchical structures. As he explained: “We had a group on Braid owned by the landlord with all the deposits, plus all the tenants could see that their deposit was visible and safe. The detailed controls made this safe to have transparency with all 15 people in the house.”
Another feedback was from Kyle Gaarder, who lives at the Grove in Portland, Oregon - a 22 room community built by Orange Splot and set up by OpenDoor.
“We use Braid in two ways right now. The first is the general fund, where Braid automatically charges everyone for essential supplies and brunch money each month. The second is for a food team, again automatically charging each person a certain amount each month. Then once the money is in the fund, anyone with permission can use a debit card to purchase stuff and it shows up on the page, visible to all. Venmo is still used for spontaneous outings, but Braid does everything we need in the community.”
When I asked about what other options exist out there, his answer was simple: “When we were wading through the mess that is community finances, we identified six features that we needed. Traditional options would help with one or two, and Braid did all six… we could hardly believe it.”
Finally, I got in touch with a third person, Jonah Kahan. He is part of Crescent House, a five-person co-op located in Berkeley, California.
From their own mission statement, Crescent House aims to foster a healthy, caring interdependence. On a practical level, that means they share food, supplies, expenses, and labor, and they take time to build intentional relationships with each other. They see home as a place to invest, grow and be creative, not just as a transactional place to sleep. One of the members of Crescent House also did a beautiful 18-min documentary on their home, which I recommend you to watch at livingtogether.us.
When I asked Jonah about a funny success story around Braid, here’s what he responded - and I swear, it’s not made up: “Well, one funny story I can think of is that anytime anything goes wrong with Braid or we have an idea to make it better, I usually contact the Braid team. They’re so responsive to our feedback, which is great. But my housemates keep making fun of me for spending so much time talking with them! Also, my partner and I ended up creating a separate pool for ourselves since we’ve gotten so used to using it for shared house expenses.”
Going further with Braid: what’s next
And if you really want to know how it works, I also asked Amanda via email about a few technical things.
My first question was around the financial model - usually, the end user would pay a percentage of transactions, or something along the lines. But not in the case of Braid, which is kind of genius. As Amanda said: “The end user doesn’t pay anything to use Braid. We make money from debit card interchange, which is paid by the merchants. For example, if you use your Braid Card at Target, we make money from that transaction. Our hope is to keep Braid free for end users.”
Finally, I also asked her if there’s any features that Braid is currently working on - here’s a glimpse into it: “We currently support debit cards and bank accounts as funding mechanisms. We are planning to add credit card support soon, though we’ll have to charge a fee for it (the transaction fees are too expensive to offer it for free). We’ve realized that options are important, and everyone has strong preferences when it comes to payment methods. We’re also exploring stablecoin payments (USDC specifically) but don’t have a launch timeline on that yet.”
If you live in a commune, shared living space, coliving community or even flatshare with your roommates - try out Braid. You can best sign up at braid.co.
I hope this inspires many coliving communities to simplify their financial systems. As Jonah ended the call with me, he shared:
“Using Braid has significantly lowered my tolerance for any type of expense sharing that requires thinking. I went over to visit another co-op recently and they were showing me their spreadsheets and I just laughed.”
And frankly, I wished that I had known Braid when I myself was doing my financial spreadsheets back in the days.