50:50 bills if you've chosen to earn less

[CaribouCarafe]

Inspired by some recent threads, assuming you're in a position where you have no children and have an equal split of household chores with your partner, don't have any disabilities, are of average intelligence...basically have no mitigating factors.

At what threshold of salary would you expect a 50:50 split in bills and household expenses/just expect to pool resources without considering each person's exact contribution?

I often see the argument that expenses should be proportionate to income (e.g. a 33:67 split), but if you've chosen to earn a low income with no prospect of substantial increases over the coming years, is it fair for your partner to pay more to essentially subsidise that choice?

For context, I outearn my DH but we pool our finances. I'm fine with this because he's in a sector that's not particularly well paid, but he works hard and earns over 48k and his earnings look like they'll increase over time so it's not an issue. But I wouldn't be happy to pool finances / have a 50:50 split if he was just earning 25k for example with no prospect for his salary to increase substantially.

I get that marriage / relationships are a partnership, but it seems a lot of the time the advice on MN seems to be that the better earning partner is expected to financially support the lower earning one but few people will advise the lower earning partner to improve their earnings/support their partner by earning more.

Not looking to start a bun fight, just genuinely interested. I guess there could possibly be a lot of projection also going on in these scenarios / consideration that women have historically been in the weaker position.

I think individual circumstances come into play but I'm completely with you on your point.

My partner earns 15K more than me now but when we met she earned 30K more than me. As I was part time and unable to increase my hours/accept promotions.

Now, I've moved job and in a career where I will earn the same as her in a few years but when I do she will probably have moved up the ladder again. So we will probably never be equal but she knows I'm trying and not just settling with her supporting me on my part time hours.

But I get that's not doable for everyone.

We now have a combined income and both live below our means anyway and I think the fact we spend the same -something I've never experienced with a partner- helps us work. Neither of us over spends but neither of us is a penny pincher either.

@VanGoghsDog I think I'm on the same page as you. Although, if it got to the point where my partner was expecting me to pay / bail them out if they've made some poor financial decisions then I'd be unhappy

I think this maybe the crux, when you fall properly in love you often can't choose..

Do you choose to work 3 days?

Yes, that's what I think. Or you need to maintain seperate households.

I dont know about partners, but I do think marriage isn't meant to be a series of equally weighted transactions. Your sort of supposed to tackle the world together a lot of married people have promised to cherish each other.

That's the line isn't it, and where do you draw it?

What if you don't smoke, but they do? My partner vapes, I've no idea what it costs, but say it's £20 a week, that's £20 he could be paying towards dinner out instead of me paying for everything - financial choices are hard and very subjective.

I don't think this btw. I know there is a line somewhere though. Gambling, for example. If I have to pay for everything because he lost money gambling - well, I think I'd be out anyway. (He doesn't)

When I met dh he earnt 21k (20 years ago) I earned 32k. I paid more of bills. After we had our son I went part time waning

I went part time earning about 18k by which time dh earned 35k so he paid more.

When our son became disabled I had to re think my career as I needed something more flexible I changed to a lower pay job. I now earn about 15k and dh earns 70k. We still pool our earnings.
Neither of us has every made the other feel less

DH earns double what I do, so he pays more than me. He's happy with this, we're a partnership and he never makes me feel like I am less than him because I chose a profession that doesn't pay as well. He's proud of me and happy to share the load whether that's financially paying more or not because he loves me and we are one financial pool (even though we keep separate bank accounts)

We have always had separate bank accounts. DH earns more than me I work part time. He pays all the bills I pay for the shopping. Anything left is our own for spending. We are both happy with this arrangement.

I think that's a different situation though - your DS's condition necessitated a change in circumstances and you both came up with a plan together for how to best cater to your family's needs. You're providing unpaid labour at home in addition to the 15k you bring in.

I was mostly curious about circumstances where the couple doesn't have any particular 'reason' to have such disparate incomes.

@CaribouCarafe a lot of the time the lower earner is providing childcare/doing more of household tasks so the higher earner is benefiting. But I agree on situations with no kids /health/extenuating circumstances it does seem unfair the higher earning payrolls the lower one.

This is me! I used to be on 100k/year FT (with bonuses) in a job that was killing me, so I downgraded to two days a week without bonuses in the same company but without management duties and earn a fraction of that, whilst I develop my side hustle. My long term partner earns at least twice what I do now, but we still split our bills 50/50 as it was my choice to go PT and I don't see why he should fund that. We don't have kids.

I earn enough to pay my share but he has a lot more disposable income than me. I don't know what he does with it (or care). I think he does pay for some stuff without telling me, and I'm sure he'd pay for dinners, inexpensive holidays etc if I asked, but mostly we just get by through adjusting to my income level now.

When I met him a long time ago, I had loads of money and he was in a similar position to me now, and I just banked my cash to save for a house deposit and adjusted my lifestyle to his means, so we've done this before.

I think kids completely change things. I work the equivalent of 3 days a week but that enables me to be with the kids while dh is at work. He works far more and earns far more than me but my time has value too.

DH earns not quite double what I do. I’ve chosen to earn less by working in a lower paid sector. He didn’t plan on going into a higher paid and if he’d have followed his original plans, our incomes would be in the same rough ball park.

It’s always been one big pot. We met at university so we both started with nothing, which might make a difference. I had more money at uni and I earned more for the first 18 months of graduate life. He’s in a sector that starts low, rises quickly and goes much higher. In my sector the max I will earn is what he earns now.

Maybe he will feel resentful that he’s subbing my lifestyle. However, I’ve made sacrifices in my career for his career because we’re a team. I’ve been tied to the same location due to his career and his career potential, limiting the pool of jobs I can apply for. As my sector is lower paid, I’ve always had more flexibility so it’s always been me shuffling work when we needed someone to repair the shower/boiler or take the car for a MOT. It’s always been me that’s taken the dog to the vet. It’s now me that reduced my hours to accommodate childcare. When you are in a relationship you can’t just decide to take the highest paid job if that’s on the other side of the world without consulting your partner. If someone couldn’t see the contribution from my compromises and taking them and their career into account, I wouldn’t want to be with them.

No, I want to work full time, but my boss can only afford me three days a week. I did start on two days but negotiated up. I've tried to get two extra days for over a year to no avail. I can easily manage on the salary so to be fair I don't have a massive incentive to work more. I wouldn't mind if he wanted to reduce hours either.