For those of you who are higher earners than your OH– do you pay for more things?

[Sandylanes66]

DF and I have been together a fair while and own a home together, we have no children. When it comes to monthly mortgage payments, household bills, shopping etc. we both split everything equally and we also have a small joint ‘pot’ for takeaways or evening out together etc.

DF earns quite a bit less than me and has a few more outgoings (student loan, pays extra tax as the HMRC weren’t taxing him correctly for a long time – DF didn’t realise, season ticket for commuting on train and he’s also paying off a 0% credit card which he used to buy me an engagement ring.)

After all of our bills and outgoings, DF doesn’t really have much money left at all, whereas I am able to save at least £300 a month. Due to this, I’ve got a good amount of savings and would like to be enjoying life a bit more with nice holidays, having some work done on the house, getting a cleaner etc. Unfortunately when I mention this to DF, he points out affording to pay half for a lot of these things I want to do are going to take a long time for him to save up for.

So I’m wondering what others couples do. Should I be paying for these luxuries on behalf of the both of us or should I be waiting for DF to gradually save enough to pay me half?

When DP earned less than me, we paid all bills proportionally. At the time I earned four times times as much as him. We arranged it such that we both had a similar amount of disposable income left each month. It meant he didn't pay nearly as much as me but we could pay jointly for any leisure things/clothes etc and savings.

So at that time if bills and rent were £1200 a month, I paid £900 a month and he paid £300.

Now he earns more than me as I'm part time and he is in a better paying job, and we do the same but in reverse. The disparity isn't quite the same so the split is more like £500 I pay, £700 he pays (example the amounts are a bit different).

I don't really think it's fair that everything should be 50/50 if he earns less. If you want to do more interesting stuff I'd split that proportionally too.

What happens if you have kids and one of you takes time off to look after them? It is very unlikely you will both always warn about the same. Looks like now is the time to address how to handle when you don't.
I earn much more than DH at the moment. We each put the same amount in the joint account each month and when we run low I top it up. This works for us. Other friends put aside a percentage of their income each for joint bills etc. Others put aside how much they each want to save and everything else goes in the joint pot.
Are you wanting to be able to spend more without him feeling like he isn't pulling his weight?

We recently opened joint accounts so our money is pooled each month. Makes it even easier, all money is 'ours' and we are able to budget and save much better. Perhaps not for everyone, though we did wait 10 years to do it

We’ve always paid into a joint pot proportional to our earnings. I’d pay in more but DH struggles with the idea of not paying his ‘fair share’, so I try to balance things in other ways like paying for flights, groceries, etc.

We have joint money so no one pays for things. It all comes out the family pot. I out earn DH considerably

I earn twice as much as my DH and everything just gets put in one pot. All bills go out of there, some gets put into a savings account and we both just spend whatever we want without worrying who spends more than the other.

I'm the one who earns less, I'm on 17k partner on 26k. I pay about 400 a month towards the house, he pays about 700. It fluctuates if one of us has a big expense one month etc but it's not set in stone.
If I have more money left over than usual I take us out for the night, if he does he takes us otherwise we split etc.

Now that you're getting married, isnt the money all the same anyway? I'm not advocating only joint accounts etc but aren't savings and earnings for you both now? Is there a point to 'his money' and 'your money'? I earn more than my DH (well I used to, I am on mat leave and not going back to same job) and while we obviously have our own bank accounts, I did the lion share of saving. I see the savings as ours, not mine.

We just have family money. All income goes in one pot, from which all expenses are paid. Simple.

I earn much more then DH (he’s part-time). We both keep a certain (same) amount of money each month in our own personal accounts and then the rest goes in the joint account. I pay about 3 times as much into the joint account. Any extra money at the end of the month goes into joint savings. Some may argue I “pay” for luxuries, but I don’t see it like that. I’m able to earn because my DH takes on more childcare/home responsibilities. We are a team.

Do you expect your DF to half finance these holidays and home improvements? if you can afford it and want to do it, then why don't you just pay for it?

I would see it as family money if you are married. and as others have said, split household bills proportionately by your earnings in future.

I think it's a bit sad he had to point it out to you. I can't really imagine watching someone I love struggle to save for something that I could easily pay for. We just share everything.

We do the same as jenala I have a budget that includes things that need to be saved for like holidays, insurance, car maintenance as well as monthly bills and we pay into the joint account a proportion representative of our wages. We both get the same amount of spends and any extra money gets put aside.

As soon as we got engaged all money went into the same pot, joint accounts only, and is family money. I know some people make it work keeping finances separate but that would work for us.

If you ever have kids, would you be happy continuing to pay half of everything if you were on a lower income due to mat pay/ decided to return part time?

Humour me for a moment with regard to money. I shall use rounded figures for ease..

Person A earns 20K, Person B earns 10K.
Each puts in 50% to the communal bill pot, so10K and 5K, with Person A earning twice as much therefore paying the larger share.

This leaves Person A with 10K and Person B with 5K after bills paid - proportionally this is 50% of their salary.

So in real terms there is a disparity between left over money. How is Person B supposed to save or be financially equal to Person A with regard to luxury items/holidays/present buying etc when Person Bs purchasing power is actually 50% less than Person A.

So we come to one oft touted solution - Person A and Person B then put their 10K and 5K together and take an equal share of 7.5K - meaning Person A is again 'subsidising' Person B to the tune of 2.5K

If you are swapping bodily fluids, paying rent and bringing up children all this his money/my money and the spends business is so child like ; just pool it all in the beginning, all this fannying around with percentages is ridiculous.

I earn slightly more than DF but we put the same amount in a joint accout for bills, food shop and matbe 1 meal out a month. If it runs low I top up. DF has a car and I cant drive but as he drives me around I contribute to the running costs, mot etc. Im more likely to buy him something just because whereas hw saves and spoils me on key dates

One pot for every thing

It would only work to wait for him to save if you only want to have these experiences less often than you can afford though.
So if you want and can afford a cleaner every week holiday every year / dinner out once a month for example, he can’t keep up with that. If you want to share things with him, you’ll need to share your income too.

Thanks everyone - currently we do have a joint account for all mortgage, bills etc. But our wages go in to our own accounts and we then both pay an agreed equal amount in to the joint account to cover the above outgoings. I’ve never even thought about just having one joint account!

We just make sure both of us have even amounts of spend per month.

DP pays the rent and I pay for all household bills, childcare, insurances, food shops, petrol etc that comes to more than our rent. I might have more money on paper but we both have equal money to spend/save as we wish every month.

Do you pay the same amount each e.g. both put £500 in?

I earn about 1/3 more than my OH but he's a few years younger than me. We split the mortgage and most bills come out of our joint account but I pay for DD's nursery (£575 a month) and the water bill (about £300 every 6 months).

When we had our house redecorated, I paid for that. And I paid for most of our furniture. If it was the other way around, I hope he'd do the same.

So I'd go ahead and pay, OP. Just tell him you've got some savings so it's on you.

Yes we pay the same amount in each per month.