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?

What's mine is his & vice versa. Over 25 years both of us have been the higher earner at different times. But the ethos was always it's our money, not my money (or your money).

We used to pay a percentage of our earnings into a joint account, even so, my then DP had more money each month than I did, as he earned more. So he would pay the majority of holidays, treats etc.

Once we got engaged, we decided just to have one joint current account and one joint savings account, and still do 25 years later. This works for us as we have a similar attitude to spending/saving, so I guess it may not be for everyone. But over the years, especially when the DC were small, it was the only practical way of doing it, IMO, as our wages were so unequal.

We've had times when I've been the higher earner & times when he has.

Everything is paid into one joint account & all bills/household expenses go out from there. Big items/luxuries/holidays are discussed and a joint decision made.

If this was the other way round i.e your DP doing this to you then I think MN would say it’s tantamount to financial abuse (of sorts) basically he can’t magic the money out of fresh air- if you want to do all these things then you do it all together!

Do you want him to feel a lesser being? Don’t you want to enjoy things together? What happens when you have children? There will be times in your lives where financially you rely on the other person.

You should have an entirely joint account for all costs

Sloe I always recommend the percentage approach to my female friends, so they have their own account and own money. I’ve heard too many horror stories of relationships breaking down, partners clearing out joint accounts and people (and it’s usually the woman) being left with nothing.

Another incident, account frozen because of husbands criminal activity. It was a nightmare salaries when into that account.

I’m a lawyer so I tend to work on worst case scenario, but there is reason behind having money in your own account each month, and having your salary go into that account and then transfer over.

We have the opposite situation, OH earns much more than me.
Our solution, works for us, is that the money goes into the joint account, bills etc is paid out of that and a monthly "allowance" is paid into our personal accounts. That way we don't have to ask to spend money (to check how much is there etc...) and have our own freedom. I had more money in my allowance as I brought most of the food etc...

We used to pay in proportional to our income

We now pay all into one account and take the same amount of spending money for our personal accounts

I earn more than my DP by about 50%, we keep the same amount of money in our own account each month and the rest goes into joint account for joint bills etc and saving, seemed the fairest way really.

If you're going to maintain separate accounts and a joint one for household items, then you should be paying a proportion of your salaries into the joint account. It's unfair for him to be paying 50% if he earns significantly less than you do. That's why working out the total required to cover bills and then splitting it between you by the proportionate difference in your income, is fairer.

DH and I have a single account - all money gets paid in, and all spending comes out of it. The amount each month is just treated as 'the money' - there is no 'his' and 'mine'. This approach only works if you have similar attitudes to managing money though.

I was in a relationship once a long time ago when my partner earned more than me and I still paid half of everything. At the end of each month, he was saving a fair bit and I had nothing left so no room for holiday...etc.. I remember his Dad thought at the time that it was the most ridiculous arrangement and that if my partner loved me he should be happy to invite me on holiday and other stuff and not even mention money matters. Needless to say we eventually split up , relationship wasn't based on equal terms and certainly not love. Now happily married for 10 years with kids and sharing in proportion to our salaries. I don't mean to be horrible but the fact that you are engaged and asking this question is a bit worrying. And like many others said here, who earns more might change in the future, specially if you have kids and take patental leave. Share pot, joint account, mix it all... pronto. Best of luck.

We pay everything into one account and pay everything out of that. Any personal expenses are agreed between us - we generally shop together, and we have the same priorities, so it's really simple.

Think about how you want your future to look. Re-negotiate your finances accordingly.

Unless there's a really good reason not to pool finances and financial decisions, now that you share a mortgage and are getting married, I would share all debt and savings too, personally.

I earn less than DH. We both put in all we earn to the joint account and both have the same amount paid out to our own bank accounts to do what we want with.

We save money for various things and when we do something together it is from money jointly saved.

I have a detailed spreadsheet to budget saving/spending and it works for us

Think about how you want your future to look. Re-negotiate your finances accordingly.

This. I brought more capital into the marriage but DH brought higher wages. We have joint money. I couldn't eat lobster while my partner eats bread and water.

If you are marrying and/or having children I think that means a shared life. You might disagree.

Not the same way around but OH earns double what I do (it will be a sweet sweet day when I finally qualify and hopefully earn more than him) we have 1 bank account everything goes into and all the bills come out of and one savings account that all our savings go into we have 2 DC though so the joint account makes it easier for buying things for them

DH and I have leap-frogged each other at various times.

When I've been earning more I guess I've paid more. We have one pooled account though. Why wouldn't we?

As long as your attitudes to money are similar then having joint funds seems fair. We have a joint account that salaries are paid into and then take out savings and cash spends and put those into our own accounts - just so we can buy clothes/beer and presents without the other moaning and seeing!

There was a point when we'd been married a year that DH's commute would have left him with 50p and my costs left me with about £1,000 a month to spend on me, it didn't seem fair!

We have had a join account since day 1 - never argue about money as it's 'ours'. Salary difference irrelevant.

It will always baffle me that people in a committed relationship don't pool their finances rather than having their own pots.
We've both at various times been the breadwinner but always considered all our money to be joint.

We both have separate accounts for “spends” and use the joint account for bills. No need to close your individual bank accounts down, just pay an amount into your joint account that’s propitiational to your income each month. Not really fair that one of you has loads of spare cash while the other struggles. I couldn’t do that to my other half and he wouldn’t do it to me either.

My dp earns more than me. He pays for the childcare bill (£476 a month) and everything else is split. He paid for our family holiday. I put a bit towards the spends and bought the kids clothes. He definitely contributes more. He also gave me 2k for a car deposit.

I earn considerably less than my DH but wfh as a childminder which means although I’m not contributing as much financially, I take on all the school runs & organisation of the kids during the week & we don’t pay anyone else for childcare. We pool our money. It’s very different when kids are involved though but I certainly couldn’t maintain my standard of living on my wage.

I earn more. We have a joint account for savings but enjoy having our own accounts for day to day stuff. On an informal basis I transfer some of my money to him each month so that we have approximately the same amount of cash.

For me one joint account or proportional amounts seem a good idea. The irony is he cannot afford the luxuries you now want because of his lower income but also paying for your engagement ring that you wear.

It doesn't matter how you administer it (joint account(s)/sole accounts etc) but you should both have the same amount of disposable income each after all essential costs are paid.