How can I split a Walmart order with my roommates?

Question

Is there an easy way to split a Walmart order with my two roommates without one person spending an hour manually calculating everything? We just moved into a new place in Austin and decided to get Walmart+ to save on those delivery fees because we dont have a car and ubers are getting way too expensive. We are trying to keep the weekly grocery bill under $180 total but its getting complicated because we share some basics like eggs and cleaning supplies but then everyone has their own specific snacks and frozen meals.

I am torn between two main ways of doing this and honestly neither seems great. The first option is just using Splitwise to scan the physical receipt after the groceries arrive but the scanner is always so buggy and never reads the prices right so I end up typing in 40 different items which is a huge time sink. My other idea was to have everyone log into my account on their own phones and add stuff to the cart but then at the end I am looking at a massive list of 60 items and I cant remember who picked the name brand chips versus the store brand ones.

Option 1: Manual entry/Splitwise (accurate but takes forever)

Option 2: Group cart where everyone adds stuff (fast to order but a mess to figure out who owes what later)

Option 3: Making separate orders back-to-back (worried about extra fees or the driver getting annoyed)

I am leaning toward the manual entry just to be fair to everyone's budget but we are all grad students and dont really have the spare time to be accountants every Sunday night. Does anyone know if there is a better app or maybe a hidden feature in the Walmart app that lets you tag items or something? Or maybe a way to see a breakdown of the cart by when items were added? Just trying to find a way to make this less of a chore...

CanadarmReach · Accepted Answer

I totally feel your pain with the manual entry struggle! Since you guys are already using Walmart+ in Austin, you definitely need a more technical solution than staring at a paper receipt. I found an amazing way to automate the whole headache. Check out these steps to keep it organized:

Use the Walmart Cart Share extension to coordinate the shopping process across your different devices.

Instead of Splitwise scanning, use a categorized cart method where you group personal snacks first, then the shared basics.

Take a screen recording of the final checkout list before hitting place order so you have a digital trail of the prices and quantities.

For the shared stuff like eggs, just create a standing house tax you split 3 ways automatically. It makes the Sunday night accounting like 10 minutes instead of an hour. Seriously, it's a total game changer! You guys are gonna love how much easier this makes the budget tracking.

JazzFestJoy · Answer

Regarding what #1 said about "I totally feel your pain with the manual entry struggle!", unfortunately, even the tech-heavy workarounds have been a letdown for me lately. I spent way too much time trying to scrape the order history JSON to map item IDs to specific roommates, but Walmarts backend keeps changing the data structure, so its super unreliable. It is honestly annoying that a company that big hasnt implemented simple item tagging for group orders yet. I had issues with the native group cart too because it just mashes everything together into one big list. For my house, I started using Easy Cart Share for Walmart instead. Its basically a tool that lets everyone build their own lists and then syncs them into one checkout session without losing track of who wanted what. It saves me from that 60-item guessing game you mentioned. Its not a perfect, sleek interface, but at least I stop losing money on shared eggs and milk.

FloatPlaneFlyer · Answer

I had issues with the Walmart app for years and unfortunately most hacks suck. I tried separate orders, but drivers always mixed up the bags. Total nightmare. I eventually started using Easy Cart Share for Walmart to keep things organized.

Separate orders: Drivers get confused, logistics fail.

Manual entry: Accurate but takes way too long. Its the only way we stopped fighting over bills.