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We originally worked it out so that he would contribute more, as he earns more than I do and he felt that it was fair. I actually didn't get a say in it, he's really in control of his finances and told me that that's how he wants things to be as I contribute by cooking, cleaning etc.
He pays 3/4 of the rent (as it is quite high) and he pays the phone/internet bill as he's had the account since before I moved in. I pay 1/4 the rent, all of our groceries, the electric and gas bills, and any water charges.
It actually works out that we pay out roughly the same amount per month.
FI and I are slowly started to bring up this subject. We don't live together but will by Spring. He makes about 25% more than I do. So his contribution will be 25% more than mine, to make it proportional. Totally his idea.
However, depending what expenses look like, it may be different. We discussed him paying the mortgage and myself utilities to make it an easier divide since it would still work out to be the same percentage. I think it should definitely be proportional. This way here your both working the same amount of excess cash.
I recently read about the 50/30/20 rule. You use 50% of your income for the essentials (mortgage/rent, utilities, other bills), 30% for the non essentials like new shoes or a vacation and the other 20% goes into savings.
We make the same amount so we put the same amount into joint accounts and the rest goes into our individual accounts to spend however we like. We actually have two different joint accounts: one for fixed bills, which get auto-debited out, and the other for discretionary/variable expenses like groceries and gas. That way we don't have to worry about whether we have enough money to pay the mortgage because we spent a lot on groceries that week. We each have our paychecks direct deposited into the three separate accounts. It sounds complicated but it actually makes life REALLY simple because there's no stress about paying the bills.
We have a joint account that we use to pay rent, electric bill, and groceries. We each put the same amount in there each month, but I make much less than he does, so we are living on what range is affordable for ms. Fi works from home, so Internet, phone and cable come out of his business accountn whenever we go out or do something fun, he pays. So far we haven't been on a vacation where we didn't use points, but anything we do on vacation, dinners, shows, tours, etc he pays for. It's worked for us so far. Things will probably change once we are making a more equal income, at which point we may just combine accounts, but right now, I like having my own account, I don't want someone scrutinizing my every purchase or questioning why I buy so much coffee at work.
I don't think our method would be helpful because it is pretty uneven. He makes almost twice as much as I do and my student loans and car payments make my monthly bills about 3-4 times his so my SO pays the rent which covers everything (all utilities, cable, internet...), and the rent is veryyyy cheap for where we live. I pay for food and extras. And when we get a puppy that will also be on me. So wicked uneven but I am looking for a seocnd job so I can help more.
SO and I have a joint bank account. We have a couple of mutual accounts where our living expenses are taken out and we have our own individual accounts for our personal use. The amounts we put in was predeterminded when we first did our budget.
To try and encourage savings we have opened an external online account (ie ING) and a predetermined amount is deducted on a fortnightly basis. As the money isn't linked to our normal account we cant access it easily and the interest rates are higher.
A few months after we got engaged we combined everything. It just made more sense because of saving for the wedding, paying our mortgage ect. He makes a lot more than I do, so it's nice to have all the money in one place. I certainly don't go crazy spending more than I make, but sometimes if I have a bill due it's nice to know there is always money available. He handles all the budgeting and reconciling, but I keep an eye on the account to, so we both always know how much we have to spend. I know this doesn't work for everyone, but it's been great for our family.
@6yearsncounting: Hi dear. I hope you find some good ideas.
DH has a heck of a lot more money than me. He is active military and I'm an admin assistant part time (had hours reduced because of the bad economy).
Our rent is almost $1k a month for our apartment and what we do is take $500 a paycheck to go towards it. The trick is you have to be a month ahead for it to work. So we paid full rent one paycheck and took half starting the next paycheck.
Maybe try spliting bills in half? It gives us a lot more money left over in our account to pay for stuff. We have separate car insurance because it is cheaper. He pays his and I pay mine. He pays my car note but I will buy groceries.
@6yearsncounting: We do it exactly the same as you, set aside a predetermined amount every week and pay our bills from that amount. Although over our relationship we've had a few changes in employment status so it's been fairly flexible... While I was studying I put in 50% of my normal amount and he went up to 150%.
Sorry to hear your SO is struggling at the moment... It's really tough to try and support someone through that.
Would he prefer it if you had individual budgets, he put aside exactly how much money he needs for each bill and then paid for whatever percentage you worked out? Or maybe like other people have suggested being responsible for particular bills?
Good luck :)
Originally we split the bills up and each paid half the rent. I paid the grocery bill and cable/internet/phone/cell bill while he paid heat, hydro (electricity) and water. Once we had been living together for a year and moved to our new place we decided to just combine accounts. We each have a seperate savings account, seperate credit cards and seperate TFSA's, but we have the same chequing accounts. We both have our paychecks deposited to the main account and have money that goes automatically into our TFSA's. After that, we decide how much to put into his savings (house fund) and my savings (everything else fund).
It ends up working for us!
We have joint everything except for retirement accounts which are required to be split by law. We discuss if we want to spend over a certain amount but we don't have a lot of abnormal things we buy much so it works for us.
We created a joint account as soon as we purchased our house, but waited until we were married to fully use it.
When we were engaged the joint acc't was mostly used by me as a "funnel" to transfer rent and bill money into, which he would then pull into his own personal account and pay the bills with, since all the bills were linked to his personal account. It really wasn't used much for anything else, but it was there and ready for when we were married.
After marriage he re-routed all his bills (automatic online and paper) to pull from the joint acc't. We each have a personal account still for surprises/play money and a joint savings that he set up. We use the joint account to pay for pretty much everything and he's really good about keeping up with the finances. It's his thing.
We did things your way for the first year we lived together but found it was kind of a pain in the ass to have so many different accounts and also to remember to pay each other back when i'd buy stuff for him or vice versa. Plus it kind of made us feel a bit like roommates rather than partners. So we gave up on it and just combined everything. Its so much easier! We do have a budget that we both try to stick to (so we each have a certain amount of "fun money" every month to spend without question) and anything beyond the fun money or any bigger purchases we just discuss.
FI makes almost double what I make so he pays for everything and I just supplement our income. If he needs money from me to pay for something if it is a rough month (extra expenses come up that we didn't know about, paying for a big purchase, our trip that we are going on etc), if he doesn't need anything from me I put the money in our wedding saviings.
Fi and I make the same hourly wage but my job requires slot f overtime where his oes not, so I inevitably make at least $150 more a week than him. What we do is have a set amount direct deposited into our own personal accounts for personal nonessentials like shoes, video games, Starbucks, etc and have the rest deposited into our joint. Anything bill-like (rent, utilities, gas, groceries, diapers) comes from the joint. After all that is paid we take a chunk of the leftovers and move it to the savings account.
We started this a few months ago and it has worked out much better savings wise. Having a set amount of personal money has made both of us realize just how much we were wasting on fast food and trivial things.
Thankyou ladies - you've all given me some great ideas and inspiration!
He is self employed, so money varies from week to week but i think from what you've all told me i will be able to find another way to do things with my SO. Ill think things over a bit more and then approach him with some potential options.
Thankyou ladies - and anyone else who reads this, dont be shy, more opinions always welcome!
I have a 3 year old son, so when me and my fiancee got together I spent almost every dollar I had taking care of the 2 of us (putting my 50% in for bills and then paying all the expenses for my son). We got engaged Dec 2010 and then bought our house in Feb 2011. We merged our accounts and all the bills then. There is no 'portion' of my paycheck that goes in the account, or his. All of our paycheck goes into the account and the bills are paid and money distributed for things like gas/groceries (we pay in cash to keep ourselves in check with what we need and are doing) and then I take out money ($50) twice a month to spend how I want. If I want something more expensive (or he does) we discuss how to save for it. Right now with the wedding coming up (in June) and a family trip to DC (from Wisconsin) in February, our money is pretty tied up and we are ok with it. We don't split money or anything, everything is ours. Pretty old fashioned I'm sure, but it works well and no one is made to feel beholden to anyone else. His salary is 7k a year more than mine, but it doesn't matter. We share everything, nothing is 'his' or 'mine'. But it works for us.
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Hi Ladies,
SO and i are having a few difficulties discussing our household finances at the moment. Currently we split all expenses 50/50 and put a pre-determined amount each into our joint account which all our bills then are paid from. (this is based on what our forcasted bills will be)
SO has expreses unhappiness at this idea, after 3 years of doing this, but does not have a better offer of how to handle things. He is depressed at the moment about money and work in general and i think this is a contributing factor but i am willing to try somthing different to see if it works.
Wondering if anyone has any ideas to offer?
wasnt sure what board to post this to, so i apologise if this is in the wrong place!!