To ask you for help laying down ground rules of living together

[twiney]

Hi MN!
So next month I am moving in with my boyfriend and would like you to help me come up with a solid and fair plan for division of money and household tasks. I do not want to find myself in the situation of many we read about on here.

Me and him will be sitting down sometime next week to discuss this but I wanted to hear your thoughts.

Here are the details:

• I make 3 times what he does. I work 30 hours a week, all from home.
  
• He works 40 hours a week and its quite uncomfortable work (think physical and outside).
  

With this in mind, please tell me how you would break up the following:

• MONEY:
  

Rent
Bills
Food shop

• CHORES:
  

Cleaning
Cooking
Food shopping

Ta!

[CheapSausagesAndSpam]

Can't answer without knowing if you rent or own.

[CheapSausagesAndSpam]

If you're renting and have no children, then you should each pay one half of every bill.

What's left is your own...you don't have children I assume, so you're each responsible for yourselves.

Chores should be split with you doing slightly more.

[twiney]

@CheapSausagesAndSpam
Renting, no kids.

Thanks for your opinion, I was going to pay 2/3 of the rent simply because I earn more and if it were up to him he would have chosen somewhere cheaper.

[Altwoo]

Pro-rata your bills according to what you earn. Then you proportionately have the same amount of leftover income - much fairer.

[Singlebutmarried]

Strangely a similar thread where the woman earned less than the man and paid 50/50 she was slated.

The suggestions there were that the bills should be split according to percentage of earnings. So more on your original thought of 2/3 and 1/3

[Blackteadrinker77]

I don't agree with paying 50/50.

My husband and I have always done it on % of pay. Over the years it has changed many times on who earns the most.
As for the chores we do it together, we find half hour a night together gets everything done and an hour on days off.
I cook he does the chopping as we catch up on each others day. After we eat we do the dishes, one washes one dries. Then we go for a run together.
Food shopping I do at lunch time as we have large fridges and freezers to store it in.

[butterybean]

My exh and I had a good system. We had a joint account and everything came out if it. Bills, phone, rent, food shop, vehicle costs, petrol, shared holidays, meals out together, savings etc.

We each put 3/4 of our take home salary into it.

The last 1/4 was ours to spend individually on what we wanted. Clothes, nights out with friends, separate holidays, gym membership, mobile, spa/beauty/hairdressers, gifts etc.

With regards to tasks can you alternative nights when u cook (other person clears up) then one of you do laundry (each person does their own ironing if they desire) while other one does hoovering, bins and grass cutting.

Get a cleaner for the rest and take it out of the 3/4 pot.

[ButchyRestingFace]

Strangely a similar thread where the woman earned less than the man and paid 50/50 she was slated

Was that not because she’d run up debt?

[Codlet]

Add up the rent, bills and food shop. Split it so that you are paying more than him (maybe a 67/33 split) as you earn so much more than him.

The chores - depends on your / his preference. Do you like having jobs you’re responsible for (eg one person does all the laundry while another does the washing up) or divide things between you?

[Fluffyears]

Work out the overall bills v overall income then each pay the % of your income. I did work out how to do it but can’t remember.

[Maryz]

You can decide rent/bills as you wish (2/3rds for you is fairer for him, especially if you have had greater input into where you live and how expensive it is, but many won't like it)

One piece of advice I would give is that you, personally, set up a savings account in your own name and do a direct debit of whatever you feel you should be able to afford. That way you won't go dipping into your wages whenever he, or you as a couple, are short.

Another suggestion is big items. Buy them individually. If he wants a massive tv, let him pay for it. If you like a particular piece of furniture, or kitchen equipment, or exercise machine, you pay for it.

Hopefully you will be together forever. But if not, you really don't want to have a row over a sofa.

[Fluffyears]

Right here goes:
Dp after tax =£1,900
Me after tax =£1,400

Overall bills = 48% of joint income do we each pay 47% to the joint account. This covers all bills and food.

[twiney]

Some great ideas here, thank you. I definitely won't be splitting the rent 50/50, its fair I pay 2/3. I'll have a think about bills and %.

As it is, I do all the food shopping and cooking and I dont mind doing that, especially since sometimes hes not home until 9pm.

But on the flip side, I dont give a shit about keeping a clean house whereas he does.

Do you think its fair for me to continue doing all the cooking but say he needs to do the cleaning? Its a small flat so I would estimate it would take 3 hours max a week to do.

I think its a tricky one because I earn more and work for home. So it makes sense for me to pay and do more.

HAVING SAID THAT you make choices in life - and I dont see why I should end up with more work and less money, and he less work and more money, than if we were living alone if you get me.

[ShirleyPhallus]

Get a cleaner. Life is too short to Be scrubbing toilets if you can afford someone else to do it

[NC4now]

I do the cooking, shopping and childcare (my kids, not his). He does cleaning and maintenance (gardening, cars etc).
We’re both happy with the split.

[redexpat]

If you earn 3x his salary then surely you should pay 75%?

[pestov]

We pro rata'd rent but split everything else equally when renting. We were trying to save for a house so both kept the same monthly budget and anything else went into the family savings pot.
Until you are married make sure you can have an easy split of assets should the worst happen.

[Fluffyears]

Oops we each pay 48%

[Fluffyears]

Agree each day on household task based on time. Example to I put washing on as I just got on with it and said to dp ‘i’m going to shower and wash can you hang out washing?’ Saves us both time as I was ready to go and the washing was already hung out. ‘I’ll clean the bathroom if you hoover the lounge’

[glow1984]

I agree that bills should be split based on % earned. Try to end up with an equal share of “spending money” once all bills are paid.

Housework, if you’re doing all the cooking and food shopping, your DP could then do the dishes /loading the dishwasher and cleaning of the kitchen after main meals.

The way it works in my house is that we do the main cleaning once a week. So the kitchen, bathrooms, hoovering get done at the weekend. During the week, cos I work from home, I do the laundry and cooking, and just a general wipe down of the kitchen after cooking.

[punicorn]

When DP (now DH) and I moved in together we both had different salary ranges so we opened a joint bank account and both put half our monthly salary in each month. This covered rent (later on mortgage), food (including takeaways) and if there was anything left at the end of the month it would pay for a meal out or cinema/drinks. This really worked for us as we still had our own accounts/money and over the years my salary has decreased due to being a SAHM then working part time and DHs salary has massively increased so he puts the money in the joint account now for us both to access household bills, etc. OP if you are working at home then there are chores you could do such as laundry and changing bedlinen and maybe find an evening a week or a couple of hours at the weekend for you both to do a thorough clean. Alternatively, is a cleaner affordable? I think it is easy for people to think that if you are working at home you can also find time to do all the housework, but we all know the reality of that!

[PersianCatLady]

redexpat
No, not 75% it should be 66%.

[RemainOptimistic]

Are you planning to marry this man and stay with him forever?

If not DO NOT LIVE WITH HIM.

There is quite frankly no way you are going to either be able to or want to cope with the irritation of cohabiting unless he is the one you want to spend your life with.

Check he's also planning to spend his life with you, or else you're in for a nasty surprise anyway. That's really what all those threads are about.

[Cantspell2]

Utilities and food 50/50
Rent 75/25 as you wanted the more expensive place
Each responsible for your own personal bills like debt, gym own cars.
Cooking as you are at home or in earlier than you cook. He washes up/ deals with the dish washer
Bathroom cleaning you both do after you use it. So you shower then wipe down screen after, wash and tooth brush then you clean after.
Hoovering dusting and bed changing he does for an hour or so at the weekend whilst you sort the food shop either online or by poping to Tesco.
Washing and ironing do your own or take turns.

[Firesuit]

No, not 75% it should be 66%.

Why?

I was going to say the same as redexpat. If she earns three times as much as him, what's the logic behind contributing twice as much to the bills?