Should my boyfriend contribute to bills when he stays for a week?

[Yourfuturehasntbeenwrittenyet]

BF & I live apart, have own homes, pay our own bills, my 2 teenage children live with me most of the time, his with ex wife - sees them EOW. Due to locations and dynamics, he stays with me but doesn’t live with me. He pays when we go out for an evening, buys odd food items, wine etc but I pay for all bills, food etc. Sometimes he can stay for a week. When this happens, especially in the winter, he saves on his gas, electric, water and food bills. He has travel costs that I don’t. Earns significantly more than me but pays CM etc. Trying to give essential information to help my question…
With the COL, energy and food prices rising, should I ask for a contribution for the week he stays with me. And if so how much?

He pays his own bills, travels to you, pays for meals out and wine, and brings some food when staying at yours.

Op he`s not a personal ATM.

One week 🤣 God you’re tight! You should be chancellor 🤣🤣

It would never occur to me to ask for bill money. If I was going to stay with someone I would treat them, get some shopping in.

YANBU to expect not to be taken for a mug. In the early stages of a relationship, there’s usually a little bit of dancing around money and finances to avoid feeling transactional and it’s nice if the person who is benefitting is making overtures to open up the conversation. You want to know that they have some awareness, generosity, and that the trickier nitty gritty conversations are going to be possible as the relationship develops.

There isn’t a one size fits all solution. When I started staying over more with dh back when he was dbf, I brought cake, got the groceries in and cooked some of the meals - he was very happy with that arrangement because his bills weren’t any higher and he was saving money on takeaways and clubbing, (we were still at the stage of saving water 😉)

It’s not just about balancing the accounts, but figuring out questions of character and compatibility

Hi OP, not sure if you're reading these anymore and I do understand from posting something a while back asking for advice - I was inundated with negative comments as well, which I'd already held my hands up to and confirmed an error on my (my sons) part.
Anyway, my eldest son moved out recently and I can't believe how much bills have gone down. He was at home a lot, spent half an hour in the shower and was constantly gaming so bill just kept increasing. Just goes to show how much one person can increase your costs - so not penny pinching at all as I budget constantly.

It does depend on how much he pays for you and the wine and food etc. I suspect it balances out really.

It's your choice having him stay for a week at a time so you can't really ask him to pay towards household outgoings when you'd be paying them anyway for you & your kids. Ask him to pay for the food shop as his contribution if he's not offering anything towards his stay.