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?

I earn more and the rule is that we keep back the same amount for personal spending rather than a proportion. I still have more savings than DH but that's because he's more of a spendthrift than I am so is usually paying off a credit card for something he didn't really need

I work full time earning £25k, other half is student nurse. I pay £1000 into a joint account for all bills, then £100 into a holiday pot and £100 into a engagement ring pot leaving me with £500 spare. My partner takes a wage of £500 from her student loans to level out with my spare cash. I pay for everything, meals nights out etc but she sorts my Dd's clothing toys etc so works out very even at the end of the month.

We are lucky that we are both great with money and the left over from her student loans are the deposit for our second house. Can't wait for my partner to qualify and we have have even more spare for holidays and nicer cars.

I've been the higher earner till this year, but we've always had a joint household account and then our own accounts. We pay into the household account proportionally to our incomes, and when dh was out of work I transferred half of 'my' money to his account

We just have joint money. Joint savings, joint mortgage, joint current account. At different times I've earned more than him and he's earned more than me. We both have very variable incomes and jobs with no tenure, and at different times in our marriage we've both needed the other to support us - eg when I took time off to look after DS, or he took time off to train for a career change, or when I had a big project fall through and wasn't paid for it, or when he was unemployed for four months and looking for work. We're both aware that this is a risk with the uncertain careers we've chosen, and we're both happy to support the other when necessary.

I think if you want separate money, you have a choice. Either spend your extra money on things for yourself - holidays without him etc. Or make a gift of it - this year for Christmas he's getting an all-expenses-paid skiing holiday, you want a new kitchen so you're buying a new kitchen and he gets to enjoy it because he also lives in your house. Or rearrange so you put money into the joint pot proportional to what you earn. Which option is best for your relationship depends on you and him, but be warned - once you have children, it's going to get even more complicated.

My DH gave up his full-time (well paying) job, to care for the kids so I could be a student. He worked evenings instead, very sporadic work, but it paid the bills. Once I qualified, I took over the whole of the household bills and he continued his evenings /weekend work. Kids are a few years older now, so he's recently got another (not so well paid) full-time post. I earn far more than he does, so I pay the lions share of bills. Swings and roundabouts.
We have a bill account that we both put cash into (split probably 70/30) and have a separate account each that's for our play money.
Works well.

I earn more than my husband, at times though he has out earned me. We put a proportional amount into thr joint account to cover all joint expenses and things like socialising. I pay about twice what he does but we don’t think about it, it’s done on direct debit. I still have a bit more than him left every month but for both it’s more than enough. I also buy more stuff for thr house out my own money than he does.

When big things come in, we either pay out the joint account, split equally or I pay more. Honestly we don’t really think about it too much and it takes no discussion. So yes, I would expect you to pay more towards joint activities than he does. And if he out earns you in thr future vice versa.

So take a holiday, we agree a budget, I will pay x he will pay a bit less, I usually transfer thr money to him and he pays it. We then agree the holiday destination together, the financial side is a twenty second conversation as we both know what we can afford, individually and as a team.

We also, of course, talked all this through with each other and made sure the other was okay with it. "I want to work three days a week and look after DS the other two days. It's going to mean a drop in our income. Are you okay with that?" "I hate my job and want to do this instead. The course is going to take a year and cost this much. Are you okay with that?" Etc.

DH earns more than me - currently only a bit more but it was lots more a few years ago and will be again when I go off on mat leave. We pool everything. Anything left over after bills and savings is split as ‘pocket money’. Not quite equally - DH insists I have a bit more to cover the ‘female tax’. When our little one is born I’ll keep the child benefit to do things with her / buy her clothes etc. But otherwise we split things pretty much equally.

We share all our money - we are a family not flatmates. Dh gets paid monthly so we pay mortgage and bills with his money and anything left we save. I get paid weekly so that's what we live on. We buy food and petrol and then split what's left for pocket money

I really don’t like the attitude of how some people see money. Your view strikes me as very different to my own. The fact he had to talk to you about it speaks volumes.

Dh and I only have a joint account. He earns more, I work part time. If I want to buy something, I just buy it! Unless it’s a lot, then we discuss.

I my DP only earns about 2/3 of what I earn, and we split everything proportional to our incomes because if we didn't, he would have hardly any money left after the bills were paid, and I've have plenty. Which wouldn't be fair. We try to keep things completely even.

For the first 10 years together I earned much more and paid the lions share of the bills. Now my DH earns more, I work part time and he pays much more. We only have one bank account where both our salaries go and from that we each take an equal amount of cash each month as discretionary spending money.

Some goes into savings every month but although he contributes more to the savings than me he would never expect to have more of a say in how we use money.

I earn quite a bit more than dh, I pay for rent and bills and he for food and petrol and anything left gets saved in a joint account. Bit different as we have kids and he does most childcare so all money feels like joint money.

I earn double what DH does, (£55k to £25k) but he is much better with money than I am. We both pay into a joint account for mortgage, presents, bills etc but each buy food from our own accounts, which balances out. I pay for my horse, clothes , and other interests from my money; he pays for his interests from his. He would much prefer us to each split every joint bill exactly in half. I prefer to pay a bit more (not least because he was so supportive previously when I was in debt). I do now pay a bit more into the joint each month, but I'm not convinced he's noticed yet. He has agreed though that once the horse goes (he's pretty elderly) I can spend that money on house improvements and holidays for us both without him feeling the need to match fund it.

One joint account all in there. At first I was the higher earner, now he is. What we both have is both of ours and has been since 3 months after we met .

I couldn't even imagine having the thought process that you have described in your OP - whats his is mine and vice versa because we are a team.

When I earned more I put the excess into savings and that was our holiday fund. Once we started TTC we put it all into one pot, and took an equal amount of "pocket money ".

When we bought our first home together when shared finances too. 1 bank account with both wages going in, all wages going out. A separate account each for our ‘spends’ which was limited in the beginning as DH was crap with money and we were on a tight budget. As we have both aged he has got better and now we just transfer money in to our accounts as we need it. It is truly a shared pot of money for our family, regardless of who earns it. DH earns less. He does the school run every day and most pickups from after school club so that I can travel to work at my higher paid job. We both leave the house at the same time and arrive home roughly the same time, we’re equals. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with it any other way.

We pay all bills/fixed outgoings fifty/fifty.

But because i earn a lot more I pay for holidays, most meals out, various big spends on the house e.g. new bathroom.

DH earns more than I do but if the situations where reversed we would keep the same system.

We each keep £500 a month "play" money (clothes, toiletries, petrol, going out, hobbies, subscriptions etc) and everything else goes into a joint pot from which we save and pay bills.

I choose to save a little bit each month from my £500, in addition to family saving; DH doesn't, but that's his choice.

Joint account since we got together 30 years ago - at the time we earned similar amounts and bought the same 'capital' towards our first home, our salaries have differed over the years, I was a SAHM for some time, we have been self employed running our own business and now I work p/t - never argued about money but we have very similar frugal attitudes towards money and both believe in savings, pension pots etc.

Do argue about plenty of other things though .

Having the same approach to money is one of the most important - if rather boring - aspects to a relationship in my view.

Another vote for everthing going into the joint account and equal ‘allownces’ paid to private accounts, regardless of income. I used to be the higher earner but my income was erratic, now I’m the lower earner. But we both work as hard as each other and we’re a partnership.

Even the private accounts bit has its tensions - DH wears a uniform to work, his haircuts cost under £10 and he hasn’t resorted to hair dye, leg waxes or makeup yet, and those things are paid from our private accounts, so he saves more than I do. But he just puts his savings back into the communal pot so it all works out in the end.

Earnings go into joint account. That account pays us both a sum of spending money each month. This sum has fluctuated wildly over last decade depending on our jobs. House food kids from joint account - we tell each other about unusual purchases as a courtesy or to see if we agree. Our individual things we pay for ourselves. Stops me wincing when dh treats himself to sn expensive whatever and vice versa. When we go out together sometimes we do it on the joint account and sometimes we treat each other

All incomes go into a joint account that we have equal access to. However, DH is not in work right now so I pay for everything.

DH has completely equal access but he’s too lazy to download the banking app so texts me to check there’s enough money in the account

Yes that annoys me.

Our bills come to about 50% of our total income. I pay in 50% of mine and he pays 50% of his into a pot and pay our outgoings out of that. Remainder is for whatever we want personally.

My job is one that has pay increases early, then none for a few years, then a big jump after that. His is one where there's a massive jump after a few years, so he's going to be earning more than me in a few years, so we obviously want it to be fair!

We have a joint accout and, within reason, take out what we want for anything 'personal' - I never get the idea of having the same amount of 'pocket money' - strikes me as rather childish; I know what is in our joint account, I can judge what is 'reasonable' to spend & wouldn't dream of buying myself something expensive if it would effect our joint account - equally neither of us would 'deprive' ourselves of a 'treat' if we had the money to fund it.

I never forget a friend who would insist on spending exactly the same as her DH on a 'treat' just so that he wasn't getting something more than she was - no surprise when the marriage ended in divorce.

Obviously it doesn't work if you don't have the same ideas about saving/spending - but then if that is the case I would question how compatible you both were in the first place? .