How do you split bills when one earns more.

[nikkylou]

We're buying a house. My partner earns about 7k more than me, although I'm hoping to work on this!

He's suggested we each pay a % split into the joint account for out mortgage, bills, etc. So he'd contribute more and me less.

I'd rather pay an equal amount. It's not his fault I'm on less, we have no kids to worry about, and I can't deal with the faff of re-calculating every time one of gets a pay rise, changes job, etc.

I also don't want to justify my spending, feel like I owe something when I'm contributing less.

I get this means I get less disposal income per month, to save or spend.

I suppose this is the aibu bit. We went out for dinner last Friday, when he got paid. He asked if we can go half. I feel a little upset, especially when he spends 300 on cosmetic repairs for his car, that he can't treat me to dinner. There's similar situations. I can get over this!

I suppose I'm a little concerned if I split all the bills half way, he's still not going to consider I have way less disposal income. That situations like the above will be a common occurrence. It's hard to explain what I mean.. I don't care what he spends his money on, but it cuts when he spends big but then tells me he's skint for a Costa or something, and I have to pay for us both.

With that in mind, how do you split your bills / manage disposal income when there is a big pay gap.

P.s. I'm on my lunch break so won't be around long but will check in this evening!

I earn almost double what my partner earns, we pay half the mortgage each, and I pay about £150-200 more into the bills account. Works for us. The rest of the money is our own to spend how we want.

I get paid around 8k more than my DP. We split bills 50/50 as it's equal and fair. However, I do tend to buy more 'fun things' and will pay for the majority of nights out etc purely because DP is happy staying at home saving the little money he has whilst I like socialising and buying nice things. Tbh You cant say you want to go 50/50 then grumble about him not buying dinner. Instead adopt the "person who wants a nice dinner out pays for it" principle. It's worked fine for us x

We both work full time he is the higher earner, all bills excluding petrol which we pay for our own cars are split half. He buys meals out as (in his world) it is a blue job. Occassionally I treat us to coffee/cake/a light lunch out.

DP knows how much I am happy to pay towards holidays, if he decides on something luxury he knows I will be paying X amount towards it.

We put money into a joint household account that covers everything we do together: bills, mortgage, grocery shopping, days out, holidays, meals out, coffees out, joint saving for household costs (new curtains / the boiler fund etc).

You can calculate the amount into that how you like - % of income, or 50% each of what is deemed the set amount. Then we just use the joint account card when we go for a meal. No 'treating'.

What we have over is our individual money to save or spend as we like.

Similar incomes, both can 'get by' within the lifestyle we both choose.
Where there is a big discrepancy, one where one person really struggles and one lives the life of Riley, I would make the contribution to the joint pot a % rather than half and half.

What is fair is not always the same as what is equal.

You aren't married? If he pays the mortgage on a % of oncome basis would that mean he owns a greater share of the house, if you buy as tenants in common?

Both put 80% of salaries into joint account (I earn x 2 than DP). All house stuff comes out of that.

My DH earns more or less a six figure salary, I am on PIP and ESA as I became disabled after I had our DS 12 years ago.

All our money goes into the same bank account, all the bills, mortgage, personal spending, everything comes out of that bank account. We take savings from there that also goes into a joint account.

Even when I worked we just looked all our money, never occurred to us to split things based on personal income.

I feel a little upset, especially when he spends 300 on cosmetic repairs for his car, that he can't treat me to dinner.

This is the nub of the issue. It doesn't matter how you split your money/bills if you cannot reconcile your different concepts of value.

He thought the repairs to his car were worth it. You don't. You resent the impact his spending choices have on your spending choices when he then asks you to pay for his coffee and to match his spending on dinners out.

It doesn't matter if you have a shared pot, or equal spends, or any other way of organising it if you have this conflict. That's what you have to work out.

Either you let go of this and trust his spending choices, or you discuss it with him and he decides to trust your judgement and changes his spending choices, or you split. (Or you continue as you are with this acting as a running sore slowly bleeding all the love and respect out of your relationship).

I know that I couldn't cope with someone who had a different attitude to money than me. I would be a nervous wreck with worry about it all the time.

Joint account that both salaries get paid into. All bills and any expenses paid from there. No monitoring of what each other have spent. Some months I might have a couple of nights out or need some new clothes, another month he might spend a bit more. It's always worked this was from when he was earning a lot more than me to me now earning a lot more than him. It works for us.

Dh and I have our salaries paid into the joint account and both have the same amount paid into our own accounts for our own spending which is a relatively small amount.

I keep the budget and check how it’s going and everything comes out of there including savings. I don’t like the idea of one person getting more to spend because they earn more - we are a unit and so we both get the same. We do earn similar amounts - not sure what it would be like if we didn’t but tbh if either of us earned more it would be saved or we’d do more things to the house etc

He's suggested we each pay a % split into the joint account for out mortgage, bills, etc. So he'd contribute more and me less.

^This.

If you earn proportionately more you contribute proportionately more. It's common sense.

DM always said keep a separate account each and pay into a joint account what you think is fair. She'd be in her Eighties now. She worked nearly all her life and my DF outearned her. She enjoyed buying him and her DCs things out of her own account (what's the joy when your DP sees what you've spent on him?) and bought or topped up family holidays.

The percentage thing works for me, OP. As you earn more, you'll contribute more. When you can't or he can't, you won't. And how often realistically will you be recalibrating on change of jobs, increase on earnings?

On top of which, he can buy his car stuff out of his money. When you both go out to dinner, it's joint unless you decide to treat him or he you.

I hate to ask but as usual, will your name be on the deeds on your new house? And perhaps a solicitor could advise on what a percentage contribution to mortgage and outgoings means if a couple splits up

It’s very complicated in our household!
I earn double DH, he was bankrupt due to failed business so we can’t have any joint finances.
The house and pretty much everything has to be in my name only. So if he buggered off I’d have all the debt. But equally he would have to divorce me to get to any of the house equity, and then he’d struggle as we had a legal document drawn up to protect the deposit I put into it (over £100k, he contributed £0). So he is only entitled to half the new equity, not the original deposit.

I also have a horse, had before I met DH. When I deduct her expenses (she costs as much as another mortgage) what we have left is more equal. We split the house bills 50/50. I cover unexpected bills and put more in for holidays etc.
DH gets a company car and fuel allowance, I have to lease mine.
We have no DC.

After bills and food DH has about £600 disposable income.
After bills, food, horse and car I have about £800.

DH wants to pay half the mortgage because he wants to properly co-own the house. He also feels he should cover half the bills as he eats/drinks more than me and likes expensive food. We also spend much more in gadgets, TV packages etc that I wouldn’t have if I lived alone. I am happy to pay half but not more for things I don’t want. I don’t expect him to pay for half of my horse (who costs IRO £600pcm).

I earn more than dp. Well he's on a social welfare payment, I work full time. I pay more for costs, we split half when we can, or when it seems fair. For example if something was €100 each that's fine but I can't really expect him to pay €500 each for a €1000 holiday if he has a considerably smaller income than I do. So I'm happy to pay the extra if I want to do something.

DH and I put into a joint account % wise of what we earn for bills. He earns 4-5 times what I do and is a spender. I am a saver. What is left of our salaries is for us to spend individually as we wish. All set up via direct debits, no hassle at all.

husband earns 8 or 9 times what i do (i work part time and earn a bit more than NMW, not massively above it).

i pay 2 sets of school wrap around care and buy food (£130 is per week on food). that's pretty much all my income gone.

he pays for car running costs, savings, mortgage, council tax, gas, lecky, insurance, home improvements, weekend pub lunches, days out, me frittering money away at expensive make up counters, holidays, everything else basically.

it all goes into one account and savings put into joint savings account. we still have separate personal accounts and keep savings there too.

My DH was really adamant about having a serious money talk before getting married as he’d found out that the main reason people get divorced is due to financial reasons. We didn’t want that to be us so we sat down and worked out a system that works for us. Quite similar to OP.

DH earns just under £10k more than me, we both get paid into our separate accounts. We have a budget on YNAB for our joint monthly expenses such as rent, bills, groceries, date nights, eating out etc (no DC yet) and slightly adjust it every month accordingly. For example if we are driving down to another city to meet family, we will add in an extra £50 for petrol, if we have a holiday booked we’ll add extra for eating out, unexpected repairs etc. DH puts in 60% of that total amount in our joint account and I put in 40% - he earns more so he pays more in so we are left with a similar amount of our separate money each. This is used on our own stuff like clothes, hobbies etc and we both treat each other equally - I tend to treat us with food out more and he tends to buy me stuff every so often.

DP earns double what I do. We've never had a formal chat about who pays what, although he pays what he can into the joint account for the bills and I just transfer what I can in. If I need some I then transfer out later in the month. He paid all the bills previously, whereas I paid nursery bills before DC started nursery. Whoever has money left pays for food/meals out etc

Before DC started school that should say! This informal arrangement works well for us

With that in mind, how do you split your bills / manage disposal income.

All money is pooled.

Your DP sounds stingy as fuck.

We keep the same amount in our own account for personal spends/savings etc, and the rest goes into the joint account for bills etc, seems to work well,

WE have family money. Everything we earn goes into family pot. Everything we spend comes out of it.

Everything in one pot right from our very first flat purchase, even before we were married. House is in joint names, bank account in joint names, savings too, we even have the same credit card account. Why make life complicated? We have each out-earned each other over the years, or equally been fired or made redundant, I put the deposit down on our first flat, but I am now a SAHM. In the end it all equals out. We have never rowed about money, and the only thing we discuss is big purchases like cars. Neither of us are big spenders, so I suppose we are lucky that our spending habits match.

If the man earns more than the woman he should pay a lot more. If the woman earns more than the man then the bills should be split equally

I say this because it is normally how these threads go. If the man earns more the MN consensus seems to be that he should be paying more of the bills. But If the woman has more wealth the consensus seems to be that she should be protecting her money for herself, her children etc in case he leaves and she should only be paying a 50:50 share.

What Romany said.
Almost 40 years married. Our earnings have fluctuated over the years, we've had periods when only one of us was working and we're now retired. We now have unequal pensions but it just all goes in the pot. It has always worked for us because we have similar views about money and trust each other not to blow the lot

I'm the higher earner by the same amount but I pay more into pension than he does - we split it so we both have same amount left at the end of the month after joint bills have gone out. Personal stuff is out of personal money