Your views on splitting living costs

[sunshineinabag]

When one person in a couple outearns the other, whats the fair and right way of splitting rent, bills, food, etc?

No children, no marriage.

How do you do it?

There is no fair way to do this on percentages

Salary A = 20K, Salary B = 10K

Each puts in 50% of their salary, leaving 50% ‘pocket money’ so in reality Person A has 10K pocket money and Person B has £5K pocket money.

Or

Each puts in 50% of their salary, and the left over 15K is equally divided £7.5K each – wait a minute – Person A is subsidising Person B

Or

Straight cash 50-50 – leaving Person B in penury.

It always amazes me, you’re happy to swap bodily fluids with someone but you don’t actually trust them financially. If you cant have a joint account and sit down and work out incomings and out goings like adults, then please do not consider bringing children into this unequal relationship – because you’ll be hotfooting it into MN wanting to know how you got your self into this financially dependent mess –easily – you decided your money was yours and his money is his and now you want access to his money and he's not for giving it up.

We didn’t open a joint bank account until we’d been living together a year or so iirc. After that everything got paid in to joint account, and we take out equal portions for our own personal spending. Our value to the relationship is not based on how much money each brings in, so we have equal personal spending funds. Holidays etc come out of the joint account. However, by the time we got the joint account we had been together for five years and knew that our spending habits and attitudes to money were compatible

When we were unmarried and rented we paid 50:50 but he always paid for meals out etc (he earned about double my salary but had a big loan to pay off). When we got married and bought a house we both put in as much as we’d managed to save for the deposit and fees but dh paid the mortgage and bills from the start as I became a sahm within a couple of months of moving in.

Percentage share

We don’t split. We just pool household earnings and budget together on agreed priorities. So it’s one pot of money. We’d co-habited for four years before we did this though!

I earn more than my wife but we both take £300 'personal' per month for eating out, clothes, cinema etc and the rest goes into two pots - bills and savings. Doesn't bother me that I earn more as we're a team and ultimately its family money.

We agreed what counts as joint expenditure, and pay pro rata to salary into a joint account to cover it all. Each of us are then left with a percentage of our pay for personal saving or spending, whatever we choose.
No DC, it would be different in those circumstances.

Financial independence is absolutely key to all other kinds of independence in the real world, for right or wrong

For you maybe. It's not any kind of universal truth. Not the case for me, for example.

I think people’s interpretation of financial independence is going to differ though

I do think things are different if you have incompatible spending habits, or one of you has particular debt, or you have children from previous relationships

But all the money H and I have we have acquired together with each other’s support, and we know each other’s spending habits and that we are financially compatible so pooling all our funds and taking equal spending money out works well for us

My other half out earns me by about £10k pre tax. We still split our bills 50/50 but he buys us a lot of things like food shopping or dinners out and it all works out in the end. If I ever needed money I wouldn't hesitate to ask and I know he would always help. A few years ago I out earned him and would chuck over £200 of he needed it, without the need for it to be paid back, and I know he would do that for me now. Different things work for different people 😊

Me and my OH have always split everything 50/50. Been together almost 3 year, engaged since July but trying for a baby before we get married (as I'm 39). He earns slightly more than me annually and his bonuses are bigger but I only work 4 days a week, so if I did 5, I'd out earn him. I previously out earned him by a significant amount before I changed career and dropped to 4 days but we have always done 50/50.

We each have our own accounts which our pay goes into and we each have a rental property so our rent goes into our own accounts too. We then have a joint account which the mortgage payments come out of (we put the money in 50/50) and same will bills. We then have a credit card which is mine, but he is an additional card holder. All our spending goes on there (food shops, eating out, holidays, cinema etc) and we pay it off 50/50. The remainder of our money is ours to do what we like with. OH will usually invest his in shares whereas I'm more of a saver. If he wants music or camera equipment (his hobbies) then he buys with his money. If I want things (clothes or whatever) then I buy with my money.

He technically "owes" me 25k as I put more in for the house we bought jointly earlier this year but now we're engaged and trying for a baby I'm less bothered about it. Plan is if we need to extend in future he will put more in or sell his rental flat to put more in and it gets "repaid" that way.

I agree financial independence is important and I've retained my property in london in my sole name and with no contributions from OH for that reason. It's now worth about 450k and only 96k left on mortgage so I figure if sh1t ever hits fan I have that. But for general running of household, it makes sense to do it as we do.

I suppose in future he might pay more as his career is now likely to take off, whereas I've switched to a less demanding role, partially because it will be easier to cope if we have a family. So I guess he may end up paying more then. But, apart from our respective rental properties, even though we have our own "spending" money I think we probably do view our disposable income as joint money.

Joint account for the household expenses - separate personal accounts if you so wish. If you're serious enough to cohabit, surely it's serious enough to pool your finances. Is there a massive discrepancy between salaries? Plus the higher earner doesn't want to actually share? It's an issue of trust - whether you trust your partner financially or not. If you don't, maybe you should think twice about moving in together.

When we were in this situation we had a joint account, paid the same amount in and paid for everything like rent, bills and food out of it. The higher earners had more spending money.
Once married with child the higher earner puts a bit more into the joint account. We tend to divide holidays and other expenses up roughly but as we’re married it’s all joint anyway so don’t worry too much about who pays for what.
I’m self employed and he isn’t plus I prefer to have my own account to hide my TKMaxx etc spending.
I think as long as you both have the same attitude to money (ie Yorkshire as they come for us!) and spending priorities it works ok. DH and I have never fallen out over money in 11 years of marriage.

It always amazes me, you’re happy to swap bodily fluids with someone but you don’t actually trust them financially

That's a bit of a silly thing to say. Most people woudl do well to hold off becoming financially entwined until that have trialed living together for awhile. And living together usually comes a LONG way after having the first shag.

When I say hide it’s a joke btw- DH wouldn’t dream of complaining about how much I spend on anything.

We do 50/50. I earn more so should have more left over as disposable, i'd end up getting annoyed at him if i had to put more in just so we had 'the same' each month. Ee both spend our money on different things and it works. Different things will work for different people

Each pay a % of salary into an account. You should be left with a similar amount each otherwise one of you is a peasant and the other a prince. I don't see how a relationship would cope with that. My DH out earns me (for now!) because I work 3 days to save on childcare. He pays the mortgage and utilities etc. I pay the food bill and generally buy whatever DC need. It works for us. When I earn more, I pay more.

Been living with dp for four years, not married no dc. Flat is his. I pay half the bills, council tax etc. He earns about 10k more than I do. I don't pay half the mortgage or maintenance charge since I have no stake in the flat and technically have less rights than a tenant. We have our own bank accounts, never really understood joint accounts. Not a hugely secure existence but then I'm paying a lot less than if I lived alone - I could barely afford a room in a shared house!

Should mention his mortgage is very low, almost paid off

DP and I have about the same income atm, but he changes jobs a lot and sometimes does agency work or short-term contracts, so his earnings have varied quite a bit over the 7 years we've lived together.

We also have different attitudes to money. He's a bit of a tightwad and hates spending on the house or clothes, I'm the opposite.

We each have our own accounts and pay the same amount into the joint account which pays all the household/shopping bills, eating out, holidays and the running costs of our motorhome. We each pay for our own cars and what's left is our own to spend or save as we wish.

I've just reduced my hours quite a bit and will be paying off half the mortgage with my savings soon. Then, I'll reduce the amount I pay into the joint account and he will pay off the rest of the mortgage over the remainder of the term. He's good at saving, so may well opt to clear it sooner than that.

“I earn more so should have more left over as disposable”

Why?

The thing is, we also have disposable income in our joint account, so most of our spending comes out of that. The personal accounts are for presents for each other, subscriptions etc

I do not understand the logic that the higher earner is entitled to more personal spending money, provided you both work hard (in terms of both paid and unpaid work). The value we bring to the relationship is equal and not based on the amount of money each one earns

Partner massively out earns me. We split the day to day stuff 50-50 and he buys mostly all the treats. He’s very generous and sometimes I feel bad but he tells me to stop being silly so trying to just be grateful and not worry about it these days

I've worked hard to earn my salary, if it was the other way around i wouldn't want him to subsidise me. We treat eachother throughout the month etc, but jointly everything is 50/50. I'll always help if he needs it, but not just as the norm. Like i said it works for us and we never argue about money.

We put all our money together. I would earn as much as dh of we didn't have children and I didn't now work part time.