20 People pitching in for gift: best way to collect the $ easily?

November 20, 2015 5:38 AM

20 or so people are pitching together to get my husband big ol' tattoo for his birthday in a few weeks. Yay! Does anyone have any recommendations or ideas on the best way to collect money from these folks, which live all over the place?

I've thought of Paypal, cash or check- and someone just told me about Venmo (which seems a lot like Paypal, but don't know much.)

Is there anything easier, where I could just send a "press this button and give your $20" so I don't have to chase a bunch of people down last minute?

posted by Rocket26 to Technology (11 answers total)

Splitzee (disclosure, I used to work with the guy who started it)
posted by dywypi at 5:48 AM on November 20, 2015

My group of friends have been using Square Cash and it has been really simple.
posted by hrj at 6:10 AM on November 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

Square cash is awesome.
posted by fingersandtoes at 6:18 AM on November 20, 2015

Another vote for Venmo.
posted by driedmango at 6:35 AM on November 20, 2015

I use Google Wallet personally for this kind of thing, but Venmo seems like a good choice too, the two are pretty similar. One of the nice things about Wallet (I don't know if Venmo has this too) is that you can get a physical Google Wallet card that you can use to withdraw money from your Wallet account as cash at ATMs, or spend it anywhere that takes debit cards.
posted by Itaxpica at 6:48 AM on November 20, 2015

How all over the place is all over the place?

It's worth noting that Venmo is exclusively available in the US, so if you have anyone outside the US, they won't be able to contribute that way. PayPal is more universally available.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:37 AM on November 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Facebook messenger has an option to send money. Just need a debit card, press the little dollar sign in the chat window and type in the amount to send.
posted by magnetsphere at 10:56 AM on November 20, 2015

venmo works great, to nth people.
posted by koroshiya at 11:30 AM on November 20, 2015

Love Square Cash. Use it for all money exchanges between me and my friends.
posted by misskaz at 12:42 PM on November 20, 2015

Splitwise is actually really easy to use for splitting payments for things, we use it to divide payments for camping trips we go on where there are a lot of miscellaneous expenses. You can keep track of cash payments you receive also, which is useful.
posted by peacebone at 2:59 PM on November 20, 2015

Square cash. No fees. It's hooked right to your debit card so no bullcrap like with PayPal to get your money out. You don't even have to create an account.
posted by reddot at 1:26 PM on November 25, 2015