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We do 50% of our income into a joint account that pays shared bills.
Or you could think of it as % of your income per bill. so if he makes 10% more than you, he should pay 10% more of the bill than you. So it would be split 45/55.
My FI makes way more than I do! We see my money as "supplemental" and his as "crucial" He picks up on the bills where I lack... it isnt expected but its just how we do it. We split the bills before we were engaged but living together and then were more relaxed like we are now when we got engaged. I think it is just too much to split things when most of your things will be in joint names after you are married more than likely.
We don't live together (yet) but our plan is to be completely joint and try and live off of our lowest income (currently mine).
I definitely don't think it's too much to ask - in fact, this is one of those topics that you SHOULD have before you get married! As a couple you need to decide if you want to continue each "paying your own way" or to be completely joint, or somewhere in between! Each couple is different, and without a totally honest discussion about each of your expectations, you won't know where in that spectrum you fall!
That's my two cents anyways :p
A lot of couples do things as a % of income. If he makes 60% of the income, then he should pay 60% of the bills.
FI makes a little more than me so he pays $800 of the mortgage and I pay $600. We then split the bills down the middle.
If you make less than your SO, is it expected that he pick up a little more financial weight?
for me the answer is no because i dont see how someone having a higher earning ability should mean they pay for more of the household costs
i will say i dont get how you go out for dinner and split the bill - i wouldnt be comfortable with that, sometimes i pay it and sometimes my hubby pays it - just depends on who gets their wallet out first
We split regular bills 50/50 ... always. If we go out for dinner or on a date night, then he typically pays.
@eloping: that is how we do it. we do a "you paid last time. i'll pay this time" sort of thing.
Before we combined our money we split everything 50/50, even though at one point I made about $15K more than him. However, I had/still have way more debt than him. Mostly in school loans.
You guys should definetly talk about it soon and figure out what works for you.
everyone is different - FI is in financial services - bless his heart - so i let him deal with budgets, which im terrible at, and i will pay the bills, which he is terrible at doing (on time) we are doing a joint checking so no more 50/50- its all OURS, all of it. i probably make a third of his salary. we have decided to "try out" living on his paycheck and completely saving mine. we will see how well it turns out.
it was never a question for us on how to do it, we were both on board for joint checking. as i said im a terrible budgeter...so tell me what i have to spend and im good. haha.
we get married in 10 days so we will see how it goes - up until now we have pretty much done things 50/50. or whoever has extra cash at the time. i get paid once a month - and he gets paid twice a month so there were times where i was low on cash and visa versa.
@eloping: I completely agree with everything you said.
My FI and I see our money as OURS 100% so there is no splitting of costs.
Well, we're married, and all our money goes into one account and then we put a certain amount in savings and everything else we have to pay for comes out of our account. I make a little bit more, so I guess that means I end up paying for a little bit more of our expenses. Before we had combined finances we just split everything 50/50 regardless of who was making what. It never really bothered us because we have always viewed it all as "our" money, even before it all went into the same account.
ETA: I should add that now that all our finances are combined, it really doesn't matter who pulls out their card to pay--it all goes on the same credit card, which gets paid for out of the same account. I vastly prefer this to our arrangement before, which was the whole "you paid last time, I'll pay this time" thing. Too hard to keep track of. We even had a card in my husband's wallet to try to keep it even. Ridiculous, I know.
My FI makes almost double what I make...but I still make a decent amount. Since he owned the house before we met and my name is not on the mortage at all it was decided that he would pay for that. I pay utilities, dog expenses, wedding expenses, etc. We alternate grocery weeks and when we dine out. I am not sure really what we are going to do when we get married.
Now that you're engaged, I would talk to him about thinking about your money and his money as both of your money. His is yours and vice versa. It all goes into the same pot and you both decide on how and when to spend it. That might resolve the 50/50 issue.
FI makes much more money than I do (seriosuly, right now I'm making like 5k a year, i barely work..but thats a different story).. starting next year when I do get a real job, I will be making approk 90k less than FI. We absolutely wont split things 50/50 but thats not the kind of relationship we have. We've never done anything 50/50, we always put our money together and consider if OUR money.. we're a family and thats just how money works best for us.
Note: because of this, we also discuss EVERY purchase though, when you decide the money becomes OUR money, every purchase is OUR purchase.. i suppose you lose a certain amount of spending freedom but it doesn't bother me, his opinion is important to me in financial matters
ditto.
We've been together for 7years and my partner makes much more money than me.. about 40K more than me annually.
We see it as 'our' money and don't 'split' bills & expenses; we split tasks and responsibilities, but money is a different story as we combined our finances over 4 years ago.
have you considered how you want to manage your money once you're married? if you plan on having one shared account, this will become a moot point.
We actually just finalized our plans for splitting finances. We are having ALL our money direct deposited into a joint account and then things will be redirected from there. It sounds complicated but it makes sense for us. We will have that main account, our own personal acocunts, and two saving accounts. So each month a certain amount will be transferred to our personal accounts. This is what we are referring to as our "allowance" and it is an amount that should cover fun expenses but also not too much to keep us from saving for more important fun things. The other two savings accounts are for short and long term savings. The short term right now is for wedding/honeymoon stuff. After that we will use it as a vacation fund or for big purchases such as a new tv or other nonessentials. The long term savings will be for new cars, work on the house, and emergency funds. I said in the beginning everything will go into one account to begin with. That account will be where all the bills are paid from (car payments, insurance, mortgage, food, gas, etc.)
I have a powerpoint at home that clarifies this, I will try to post it later.
Oh and I forgot to mention, the whole point of this post... I make more than my FI, about the same difference as your FI. I definitely do not feel like he is living off me. I also bought the house on my own (we had been dating about a month at the time). I will be taking on a lot of his debt because we looked at interest rates and are paying off higher interest first, which happens to be his credit cards. I didn't like the idea of having mine and yours when doing finances because in my mind it makes things more complicated. I didn't want to have one person "owing" the other for groceries or a night out, etc... I know it works for some people though so you just have to get a feel for your style!
I'm currently earning about twice as much as DH. We don't split things 50/50, but we don't really calculate percentages either. When we go out, we take turns paying. When it comes to rent and bills, I do pay more but it's not an exact science. We split rent 50/50 and each pay our own phone bills, but I pick up all the other bills. So far it's worked out just fine.
FI makes more than double I make, and he wouldn't expect me to pay 50/50. He pays for the mortgage, most of our nights out, all our vacations. I pay for our month utility bills, and contribute what I can to vacations. We did however decide to split the wedding 50/50. I think you should just figure out what works best for the both of you financially.
I make more than my SO so I contribute more towards household bills. We split the mortgage and groceries equally. Lately I've been pitching in more financially than normal as well because he's hinted at needed some help (I think he's tucking away money pretty aggressively for a ring).
FI has always made a fair bit more than me.
We originally split our apartment 60/40 because he wanted to move somewhere that I couldn't afford to pay 1/2 (we split our first apartment 50/50 but he wanted an upgrade).
As my salary has gone up, we've moved to splitting the rent and parking 50/50 however he pays all cable & internet bills as well as picks up the majority of our dinners out. I pay for delivery food and groceries as well as our laundry service.
Hmm. Well, I work part time and FI makes about 10 times what I do. I help with groceries and household items at times but he pays the mortgage and other bills. I think this arrangement works out ok because I use the time when I'm not working to clean the house (which he would never do) and make him dinner every night.
As for your situation, 15k isn't a HUGE difference, but I'm not certain 50/50 is entirely fair. I don't think you should feel uncomfortable talking to him about it if you intend to get married.
Before I was engaged, and before I had children, FI and I lived together in a house that he owns. He paid all the bills, and the mortgage. We both had jobs, but he made significantly more than me at the time. We took turns buying groceries, and I did all the cleaning and laundry.
I, personally, don't believe in 50/50 unless you make the same amount. If the rent is $1000 a month, and Person A takes home $3000 a month, and Person B takes home $500 a month, obviously they are going to struggle more and that's not really equal.
If my SO had to split all our bills 50/50, he would be in the hole every month. Sure, one could argue if we weren't together he would have to still pay his bills, but the fact is that together are expenses are more. We buy more food because there are more people. We use more gas because there are two people driving. We use more electricity because we have more stuff going, and so on...
I think it should be based on a percentage relative to how much each person makes, or all the money should go into one family pot and then each partner gets a set amount of "fun money" to spend every month.
But, everyone has their own idea on how to manage money and the most important thing is making sure it works for you and the one you love.
I think once you're married your money is his money and his money is your money. It should all go into one pot. There will will times in life where you may become unemployed or one of you decide to stay home and take care of the children or go back to school, etc. and you will need to depend on one salary. I find it strange that some couples split everything 50/50 even after having kids. it's a marriage..no you make more or I make more but let's build our future together.
I agree with pp. I think split finances in a relationship only leads to drama. Plus it seems really impractical. Like, what happens if you stay at home for a year after you have kids? Is he "maintaining" you? Will he resent that? DH and I have separate accounts but only so we can still surprise each other and get little indulgences. We put about $25 in our personal accounts each week, the rest goes to the joint account.
I used to make 2X what DH makes and I definitely put a larger pot into the joint account. I felt that was fair. We each put about 50% of our take-home pay in. Now, we each get a certain amount deposited into our personal accounts each month as an 'allowance' if you will, but the rest is joint money. Funny, now DH says it's "unfair" that he is putting more into the pile (we make the same, but army reserve pay gives him an extra $10,000 a year).
IMO, when you get engaged and then married, EVERYTHING is shared, including money. Set up a joint account and start sharing!
Well we haven't combined our finances yet, and won't until we get married. But I've talked to him and we are going to even out all of our money. I will most likely make the most money, but I want us to be united and on the same playing field (I don't care what he makes). So say I make 50,000 and he only makes 10,000 (hypothetical) we are combining everything to make 60,000 and will pay bills together and be able to spend the same amount of money. That is when we get married though.
I don't have any advice for people who are still engaged. That is a good question! I wonder what he'll say. I'm sure he will want to help you out with a car. It will be both of y'alls responsibility in the future anyway. Let us know what happens :)
Our intent was to split things 50/50, though I ended up finding work much faster than he did out of college and ended up being the sole supporter for both of us for a while. We roughly tracked what I paid that he "should've" and he's paid me back in small incriments when he can. (He still owes me about $6k.. though now that we're getting married and everything will be even more combined I'm not sure if it's worth tracking anymore, really.)
I like the idea of putting a percentage into a joint account. Assuming that the end result covers your bills, if you put 50% of your paycheck and he puts 50% of his into the joint account, then you still get to keep the other half and so does he. His portion of each just happens to be more. (IE- If you're making, say, $2400/month and he's making $3k, you put in $1200 and he puts in $1500. You'd have $2700 to pay bills with/save, and then each of you would have the other amount to do what you want with. That way, yes, you're still paying 50% of what you make, but it's not necessarily 50% of the total bills come out to each month. Since he makes more, he gets to shoulder just a little bit more. Also, obviously those percentages could be altered to be much higher or lower, depending on your financial needs and how you're splitting other financial commitments- kids, school, cars, etc.)
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My fiance and I have been living together for two years now and engaged for a couple of months. We are nearing the point in which we are going to discuss our financial future (dun dun dun).
He makes around 15k more than I do, yet for the 2 years we have lived together we split everying 50/50. This split includes rent, utilities, vet bills, even dinners out.
For some reason I never really thought about that it might be a little unfair until now. If you make less than your SO, is it expected that he pick up a little more financial weight? Or do you still do 50/50?
I want to approach the subject, but I don't want it to sound like that I'm asking him to support me now that we're engaged - but there are things that I need like a new car (I've had mine for 12 years!) and I would need his help financially to do something like this.
I just want to make sure I'm not asking too much before I ask at all. Thanks girls!