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My husband makes considerably more than I do. We went the traditional route. We have one shared checking account and one shared savings account. It works for us. We did this as soon as we decided we were getting married and started living together. It just seemed simpler.
Before we were married but still living together, everything was split proportional to income. I paid about 25% less than my husband then in bills. Now we have one checking and one savings account.
We do the same thing that @Neva and her DH do. My FI makes much more than I do as well. When we got engaged and then started living together, we opened up joint checking and savings accounts to handle the bills, etc. I know that is not for everyone, but it works for us.
before we were married everything was separate. Since we lived apart it was easy. I would in your situation, try to make things fair by splitting stuff proportionally but try not to be too anal about it. Until you get married that is.
We don't have a joint account yet, but FI makes much more than I do. We split everything proportionally to our income. We would not be able to live in the apartment we have now if we split things 50/50 because I simply do not make enough money. I tease him that if I wasn't with him I'd be living with my parents.... Which is actually not a joke. I'm poor. Heh.
I'm big on savings too and although I have a lot less than you (~10k) we agreed that I would not use my savings to pay for things like rent, utility, etc. I think it would be fair for you two to split the bills in proportion to your income. But... that is just what works for us and you need to figure out what works best for the two of you.
FI and I make about the same amonut and we still have all our own accounts and no joint account yet, but we effectively share all our money. FI takes care of the utilities, just cuase I don't want to deal with it, and I do the grocery shopping so that goes on my CC, and all the gas going on my card too cause I have better rewards. Then we just take of our own cards out of our accounts. We just bought a house, so the savings took a big hit and we've been cutting the bills close, but if either of us doesnt' have enough to cover, we just transfer whatever we need to the other person, no questions asked. Once we have more time, we'll come up with a plan to consolidate. Right now we have about 6-7 checking or savings accounts between the two of us.
We are only engaged, so we split it 50/50. However, when we are married, we'll pool our money so it really doesn't matter.
Other - we have a weird situation. I make more, but not a lot more. Previously, I would pay a little more of the rent and a little more of the bills, but we tended to split stuff 60-40 or 65-35. Since he started his PhD program, though, we've been living in student housing and the school can deduct rent directly from his stipend. Since he hates dealing with money and bills, we do that, and since he's now paying the rent I pay for almost everything else.
This is what we've been doing pre-engagement, and since we got engaged. We will get a joint account at some point, but he really hates dealing with forms, so it hasn't happened yet.
I do think it's fair that if one partner makes significantly more, he or she should take on a higher percentage of the bills.
My FI makes way more than me. There have been times, however, when I was making more than him. When we moved in with each other we got a joint bank account and now we don't even say "50/50" or "40/60" anymore, we just have both cheques deposited into our account and pay everything from that. We've devoted our lives to each other so what's his is mine and what's mine is his. This makes things super easy for us. If either of us wants to make a big purchase we consult each other and usally take turns. FI wants some new hockey skates? Okay, he gets them this month and next month I get those new boots I want :)
I've also heard of some couples putting the majority of their cheque in a joint account and spending money in a separate account (Ie: each keep $500 a month and then devote the rest to combined bills). That works well I've heard!
I'm in the same boat as Neva as far as going w/ the traditional route.
We're not engaged yet, but I am financially responsible whereas the boy really lacks in that department. I think his eyes lit up when I asked him "do you just want to combine checking accounts to make things easier?". I make almost twice as much as him, but I have a lot more bills to pay as well (credit cards, student loans, car). He just lets me take care of everything and I always let him know how much 'fun' money we have. It works! But I will admit, it's a lot more stressful for me to have to take care of two incomes, all the bills, and not just MINE. I have to worry about him now too. I didn't even see that change of thought coming!
For you I'd say maybe you could go 70/30 on bills, or just put everything together and pay bills together and whatever's left is for the both of you to spend. I find it's super easy for us and we have yet to argue over money matters.
Since we've been engaged all of our money goes into one pot and everything is paid out of that. It's just been easier that way. We've never had the issue of I make more so I should spend more or vice versa. He said once the bills were paid I could do whatever I wanted to do with the extra money as long as he could buy a new toy here and there. We share everything so this is one issue we have perfected.
We make exactly the same amount, but I pay more of the mortgage than he does because the house is in my name. So he essentially pays me rent. Other than that, we split the utilities 50/50. Oh, but he pays for 100% of the cable. And he usually buys dinner food and makes me dinner. :)
I make more than my SO but he insists on paying the same. If there is a pressing personal bill for him some month, I make up the difference and he does extra chores. I don't care, but he feels badly about it so I let him do extra dishes. Ha. Why would I complain about that?
We each place 50% of our incomes into a shared account for shared expenses. He makes more, therefore, he contributes more. However, if we ever need more than we have no problem dipping into our individual "savings or checking" to supplement.
When I first moved in with my hubby we had been dating for 5 months. Like you were saying, since he got paid a lot more then me, he paid for a larger percentage of the bills. It was nice, I was able to contribute some, and I still had some money left over.
I had kind of the same issue with my job. It was extremely stressful, and my hubby (then fi) encouraged me to quit for my own health/sanity reasons. Since then, he's been paying for everything. I had a good amount of money in savings, so if he ever needed money I contributed that way, and eventually we put all of our money together.
Before we were married we shared an account so we just pooled all of our money and there was no "his week" "her week" type of thing with groceries or any other bills. ALl of the money was split equally and if we wanted to buy something we would consult with one another. Of course not small things like lunch or coffee, but something like clothes, shoes, a DVD or something we would call the other and make sure it was okay. Im sure this would not work for everyone but thats what worked for us!
We live in a house I bought so FH pays me "rent" about 1/4 of the house hold bills but he also buys food because hes the 1 who eats it all. Even after the wedding we will still do things this way.
If you're sure you're going to get married, I would really recommend going the simple route and combining your accounts. It's just so much easier, especially if you make drastically different incomes. I wouldn't know how to go about splitting up expenses with a significant other I was living with. It's just always seemed natural to my husband and me to think of our money as our money, even before we were married.
My husband and I have joint accounts for everything.
But if we didn't, I would have us put in percentages of our incomes in. So if he made $4,000 and I made $1,000 a month (total $5,000), and our bills were $2,000 a month, I would put in 20% of the bill ($400) and he would put in 80% ($1,600). Yes, he is paying more but it's the same portion of the income. He will have more spending money but he makes more which is more fair to me than me paying 50% of my salary every month on bills and he only pays 12.5% of his.
Our monthly salary is about the same, so we split bills evenly (we have a joint account that all of our joint bills come out of and we put the same amount into the account every month). Technically I make more because I generally get a large bonus at the end of each year, but that money is specifically earmarked for extras... not bills. So out of that we put money into savings, vacations, home stuff, etc.
I make less than half of what FI earns. I pay 1/3 of the bills (electricity, water, cable, most of the groceries) and he pays the other 2/3rds (rent, most of when we go out)
Since we moved in together, we've had a joint checking account that we deposit money into for rent, electricity and water. For our joint savings we use a money market account that is low risk, but a little higher return than a regular bank savings account.
Everything else comes from our personal checking accounts. We each are responsible for our own bills as they relate to us individually (cell phone, gas, student loan payments, etc.)
Once we get married, I anticipate this will stay exactly as it is. It works well for us.
I think splitting bills based on a percentage of your income works out pretty well for us.
Bottom line, it comes down to what makes you and your SO the most comfortable. Only you two can decide that!
He has always made substantially more than me so we split the bills 50/50 but he pays the larger bills and I pay the smaller ones. For example he pays the rent and light bill I pay the water and gym. Sometimes I will pitch in and pay more so that I don't have to pay it the next month or something like that. He also usually gases the cars up because I hate pumping gas.
I don't have a job that makes a whole lot yet but since he's in school he's only part time. So I pay most of the bills but he still pays a large chunk so it's probably proportional to what we make (he makes slightly more than me hourly but has half the hours). He also drives his car everywhere when we run errands so he contributes that way too. To break it down, I pay rent, he pays internet, cable, water, and electric and we split the groceries pretty much by seeing who can cover them or who just offers to that time.
We have decided that we are going to do things based on percentages (since he makes more than I do teaching). For Example: He would place 20% of his paycheck into our savings, and I would put 20% of my paycheck into savings.
We're also doing the traditional route of "our savings" and "our checking". My parents have always had theirs split, but my fiance is very big into everything being "ours" and not "yours" and "mine".
My FI and I have lived together for most of our relationship. When I was the only one with a job he took care of the house while I paid the bills and visa versa. We have always considered it "our money" while together. The only times we had to split it were when we weren't a couple and then we joind it back up once we were together again. We've never really had bank accounts so it was easy to seperate again when we broke up those couple times.
We do things sort of randomly. We split the rent and water/sewer/garbage equally but other bills are random...he pays for the internet and gas and I usually get the electric bill (which is small b/c our heat is gas). As for other things, he usually buys all our groceries and pays for meals and most dates. It was important to me that we didn't formally combine finances until we were married. Call me Suze Orman, but it's just always something I've been cautious about.
We don't really have a plan. The house is technically mine, so I pay most of the house related bills. If I don't have time to, I can hand them off to him and he'll deal with it, but I usually just take care of it. He does all the maintenance etc around the house which is worth more than it's weight in gold to me. He also usually pays for dinners out and the odd time I ask him to grab something I forgot in the grocery store. And he fills up my car with gas every other weekend (it's a hybrid, I can last that long usually, yay!) when he goes to pick up his son because the gas is cheaper there. We don't have any kind of formal agreement worked out and it works for us, LOL! If anything were to happen, we'd pick up the slack for the other, no questions asked. We've just settled into our pattern :)
We split rent 50/50.
I pay gas, electric and water.
FH pays internet/cable, which is surprisingly expensive! Even with me paying for all the utilities, that's still only about half of what the internet/cable bill is!
We each pay our own cell phone bills.
When we're married, our incomes will go into a joint bank account and all bills/living expenses will come out of it, regardless of who makes more (he does by a long shot--he's eight years ahead of me in his career, and I'm still looking for a full time job). So, bills will 100% come out of "our money."
We're doing this so we have equal control of and access to our finances, and one person in the relationship doesn't have mystery money stashed away from a higher paying job--we'll be getting equal allowances from the joint bank acocunt for our personal use, so we don't have to ask permission for every little purchase either.
We have a joint account, and we both contribute what we can. We each pay for our own phones and I pay my own car and insurance, but other than that we pay everything out of the joint account.
We're married and we split every joint expense 50/50. However, we pay for our own cars, insurance, cell phones, and personal purchases through separate accounts.
My DH makes more than I do, and we recently had a conversation that he would cover all of the joint items that do not fall in the "everyday living" category. These include household electronics, home improvements/fixes, vacations...etc. The more money he made, the more expensive things he wanted to treat us to, but I couldn't keep splitting those 50/50 without going broke. Now we both get to enjoy.
Right now we make about the same...although DH just got a bit of a raise. Ours is a bit complicated, so other!
On pay day, we each have a set amount of our paychecks taken out and deposited directly into savings. His goes directly to our "big" savings which we have for emergency living expenses and eventually a down payment on a house. Mine goes directly into our "little" savings account which we have for saving up to buy things, like a new washer/dryer, new couches, etc. Every so often, usually when we can't think of anything for which we are saving up in the 'little' savings, we transfer all of that money into the 'big' savings. FWIW, this method has allowed us to save ~20k this year alone while we have been able to make several large purchases and pay for our honeymoon.
We have two checking accounts, one is 'mine' and one is 'his' (based on who opened them, but we are joint on both of them now). My pay is deposited in my account, his in his. After our savings is taken out, all of the household expenses are taken from my paycheck. This includes, but is not limited to rent, utilities (including internet), cell phones, and groceries. Anything left over after all of that I split between 'fun money' (i.e., going out for girls' night, shopping, etc) and savings. The remainder of his paycheck gets split between paying off student loans, work related expenses, fun money, and then the rest gets put into savings. This method leaves both of us with about the same amount of 'fun money' each month and has really helped us build a nice nest egg.
ETA: Oh! And when DH got his raise, we increased the amount of money automatically getting transferred into savings by the amount of the increase. Our expenses haven't increased so our monthly budget doesn't need the extra cash and this way we are putting it to good use earning interest!
I take care of our bills because I'm a little anal about numbers. We don't specifically pay any bills unless a certain bill is set up to come out of one of our bank accounts (like car insurance is linked to mine and rent is linked to his). I have an excel chart that has all of our monthly bills and our projected paychecks for that month. My pay is never the same from month to month since I'm a substitute, and even though his is consistent, he doesn't necessarily pay the same bills each month. I just figure out which combination of bills will match each paycheck, make sure the right amount of money is in each account, and I take care of paying the bills. We share a credit card, and depending on how much is in each of our accounts, I split how much we each pay on it each month. Once we are married we'll have a joint account...although he still wants his own so that he can keep a little present money in there because he hates me knowing how much he spends on me for Christmas/anniversaries/birthdays...I suppose I can handle that
He makes about $20K more than me and we split everything 50/50. When we moved in together he had a significant amount of debt (old credit cards, student loans, etc) whereas I only have about $16K in student loans and that's it. So that was a big factor in our decision to split everything in half. I work in the public sector and it's possible that I will be laid off in July and if that happens, I fully intend to ask my fiance (well, he'll be my husband by then) to contribute a larger percentage.
We have everything in a joint account and we pay bills out of that. We also have a joint savings account. We budget our money as a couple monthly, save for big purchases together and consult each other about other purchases. It works for us!
SO is paying major bills, i pay for fun stuff small bills going out just the extras in life
My SO and I make nearly the same, but I will be paying the majority of the bills because he puts out a large amount of money in child support monthly. He goes above and beyond for his son, so it will be up to me to make up the difference.
FI makes a little more money than me, so we split all the monthly bills like mortgage, electric, cable, internet, and cell phones, and he pays for groceries or when we go to dinner he pays. I buy little stuff for the house like towels, candles, cleaning supplies, etc.
I think the OP should discuss the financial situation with her SO and do some sort of arrangement where both parties pay an appropriate amount of the bills. Also, good for you saving up 30k! That's an awesome accomplishment and you obviously care greatly about managing your money well!
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Hi There Bees,
My previous teaching job was causing me an emmense amount of stress and anxiety, so after some careful thought and heartfelt discussions with my SO, I decided it would be best to part ways. I have made several posts on the 'bee about the process, and while it has been difficult and I miss my students terribly, it ended up being a good decision for me. I feel so much healthier and I have a new sense of calm in my life.
After nearly going crazy being unemployed for the past few weeks, I have recently been offered a job teaching at a preschool. The program is lovely, the kids are amazing, and I think I would really enjoy myself there. It would be a welcomed change of pace (less stress!) and I would still be able to work with kids. However, the salary is a little more than half of what I was making teaching elementary special education (that was totally expected).
Now - - - the bills. My SO and I are in the "almost engaged" category, and currently have separate accounts. When I was working in special ed, he only made a little more than I did, so we split all the bills 50/50, taking turns on groceries and dinners out, etc. Now, he will be making considerably more than I will be, assuming I take this job.
We have discussed changing the way we split things up so I don't have a near empty pot after the bills go through, but I'm not sure what would be considered fair. When I was a single girl, living in a tiny studio, I did a nice job saving my money and put away a fair amount of cash (~30k). I have decided to use some of that money either towards a down payment on a house and/or a portion of the wedding. So, basically, that money will eventually be used towards something we both will use/want/need. We've talked about the need to stay away from my savings account until then, but that would require that he take on more of the financial burden. I'm conflicted.
How do you and your SO/FI/DH split the bills? Is there a considerable gap between your salaries? What do you think would be considered fair in my case?
Thanks, gals!