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 around £15k more than DP. We split everything 50/50 at his insistance. I would willingly pay proportionately more, but he won't consider it.

He isn't exactly on the breadline, so it doesn't create any issues for us.

Male pride, I suppose.

I earn nearly 3 times what dh does. Only one account both wages put in. He minds dd 2 days a week so this works for us. We don't buy each other presents instead we pick a hotel or restaurant for every occasion like birthdays and Christmas and go there. Otherwise it's just money out of joint account. The difference in wages has never bothered me .

I earn about a third more than my dp. It’s my house so I pay all the mortgage, bills etc. My dp buys all the food and anything over and above bills, like holidays, meals out, fun stuff for my and the kids (they aren’t his dc). So actually neither of us are better off than the other. For the first time in years I’m able to save a bit of money. But it may also look like he lives there rent free. If we split the mortgage and bills I’d have to pay for half the fun stuff, which is less but I don’t want to put him in a position to have any right to my house.

We don’t have children - if we did I think it would all be ‘family money ‘.

As it is we pay half each on the essential bills and I pay for the extras, and am happy to do so.

Should have said, own our house jointly.

I want the op to come back and say she had realised she's not being at all fair and will contribute more from now on.

I earn £15k more than husband. All money goes into one account, bill money goes into another account, set amount into joint savings and rest is ours for the month.

Never argue about money

I earn about five times what DH earns, so I pay for nearly everything. It wouldn't make sense to try and split it equally. We both work hard and contribute what we can.

I earn nearly double my partner, I pay maybe £50 more into joint account than them to pay bills and mortgage. I have more debts which I'm trying to clear at the minute, and my partner doesn't want to be kept by me, so it works for both of us.

We have a joint account for all household bills.

I pay in 85% of the monthly average cost of bills. DH pays in the remainder.

I pay from my personal account all my commuting costs. When we go out, I probably pay most of the time.

We've always paid a proportion. We've never paid equal amounts as we've never earned the same!! I'm surprised that you thought that was even close to being fair

I would be very resentful if I was your DP.

When I met my DH I earned more but had more outgoings (season ticket). We shared everything.

Then we had a family and I became a SAHM for a few years. He therefore paid.

Any money since (inheritence, me working again) still shared.

I think you're either a partnership or you're not. You seem to think you're carrying your partner. Not how I would see a future

But it may also look like he lives there rent free. If we split the mortgage and bills I’d have to pay for half the fun stuff, which is less but I don’t want to put him in a position to have any right to my house.

I understand that as it's your children' home. But doesn't that make him a lodger with no security?

I wouldn't be happy if I was your dp.

I never ever understand couples in a committed long term relationship where there is a disparity of income, but one person ends up with more net at the end of the month. I just have little respect for the higher earner - sorry not meaning to sound harsh!

Dh and I have joint current and savings accounts as well as each having our own current and savings accounts. Irrespective of where the money is, we look at the whole thing as one. But on a month to month basis, we try and end up with the same net amount after bills and savings.

Each get paid into our own accounts. We have a joint account for mortgage, bills and food. We each pay into that, different amounts so that we roughly have the same left over. It's not exact but roughly equal - I can earn overtime, we have both had incremental pay rises etc so things change. With what's left we get to spend on what we want. We both choose to save some of that. Separate savings accounts. Big purchases from savings we'll split or if one has more savings than the other at that point they will pay. Treats like meals out etc we'll take turns to pay, or whichever one of us is better off at the time. I'm the higher earner so pay a fair amount more into the joint account. Although we do have our own accounts we feel that money is shared so we never "owe" each other anything. We have similar attitudes to money and it works for us, we've never once argued about money.

Tbh you are abkut to be married so i think everything shluid go into one jount account from which bills are paid, and you each have some fun money transferred out to your own accounts, then you also have joint savings put into a joint savings account. Each of you have equal access to all money apart from the "fun" money which you can spend or save on yourself as you see fit.

We have this now (and my DP doesnt work due to looking after our young kids).

Before we were married I was the higher earner and we had seperate accounts, paying bills proportional to our earnings, so we were left with the same amount (actual amount, not percentage of income) to save for or spend on ourselves as we saw fit. We lived in a nicer flat and had nicer holidays than DP could have afforded because of me paying more, but I didn't mind because I worked in a better paying profession than my DP did.

In answer to your original question OP, its neither option that you provided. It's that from now you should be splitting the day to day expenses so that you can both save at an equal rate and then you have your luxuries at a time when you can both afford it.

It could be argued that up until now your individual savings are actually coming from him paying more than his proportional share of your joint living expenses.

What I'm saying is that you are looking at it wrongly for me because "your" savings should be viewed as joint and you are not paying on behalf of both of you because its both of your money.

We split things roughly proportionally. We do t calculate things to the penny but we work things out between us. He puts more into the joint account each month but I pay for the childcare costs (which is more).
We have two holidays a year and I pay for the accommodation and he pays for everything else, food, activities etc. We don’t really talk about it, we just sort of do it. Now I’m on maternity leave he pays more proportionally.

In part the fact he doesn’t have as much money is because he’s paying off your engagement ring.

He’s invested in your relationship via a ring. You could do similar by paying for DIY or holidays or whatever.

Being so cut and dried about money is rather depressing. Surely you are building a life together whoever pays for each bit.

I earn slightly less than my DH but he pays the mortgage and utilities from his account. I just pay for food and childcare so while he has a few hundred left over each month I have a surplus of £2K from my salary. I don't see this as my money just because it's in my account. If we want to go on holiday, meal out then I pay for it. You're a couple if there's money to go away you just pay for it regardless of which account it comes from

What would you want him to do if it the situation was reversed?

Of course you should pay for holidays and a cleaner if he can’t afford it.
My DH earns four times what I do.. it all goes in one pot.. joint account, joint savings. I think it’s mean to remind one person that they constantly earn less when you are married and especially when you have kids.

DH and I don't have a joint account. He arms about 15k more than me but we make sure we both have an equal amount if disposable income each month and he pays for the luxuries or large items we need for the house.

I wouldn't be with him if he expected me to pay half of everything!

My DH takes home on average twice as much as me, his overtime fluctuates so every month is slightly different. I work pt and childcare is organised around my set hours as DH does shifts that are subject to change at very short notice.
We have 3 joint accounts:
Direct Debit account where our salaries get paid into and all direct debit bills come out of.
Cash account which is used for shopping, fuel, car repairs, clothes and all leisure things we want to do. Basically everything that is not set up as a direct debit.
Savings account which is self explanatory.
When we get paid some money is transferred to the cash account and we monitor that all month to see what we are spending and move money into if need be. A set amount always has to stay in the detect debit account for obvious reasons but that is easily managed on our banking app that we both have access to and both are responsible for monitoring and moving money. Near the end of the month we see what's left in the direct debit account (minus what's to come out) and move it to the savings account and when we get paid again any money left in the cash account gets sent to savings before we start the month all over again.
Writing it down makes it seem complicated however we are both aware of what we are spending and when we have to pay for things like birthdays, mots etc.
It works really well for us and means we know every month whether we can afford to eat out or treat ourselves to something.

Well, dh was the lower earner for 10 years so we covered bills proportionally so that we both had the same spends. He is now semi retired but his pensions make his income higher, we still pay the same towards bills and his extra income is going into our savings - it's family money that we both have access to.