Moving in together and splitting bills - how?!

[Ace56]

DP and I are planning on moving in together in the near future (when it’s possible with the current situation...). We’re in our twenties, no children. I earn slightly more than him, about 4K more per year. This is the first time either of us has lived with a partner, just the 2 of us as a couple and no other housemates etc.

He thinks rent, bills etc should be split proportionately according to income, so I would pay slightly more. I think we should split everything 50/50, as I have done in the past and as is normal for housemates/friends living together. I KNOW living with someone you’re in a relationship with is different to living with a friend/housemate, but I can’t understand why I should be effectively subsidising his living costs when we’re not married and don’t have joint finances? His reasoning is that it wouldn’t be ‘fair’ as he would then have less spending money/for savings than I would. I said that this is true now, when we don’t live together, so what’s the difference? He thinks that when you live together you effectively become a ‘unit’ and so it should be more equal.

In reality, because I don’t earn that much more than him, I know the difference would be minimal if we did split it proportionately. However I think it’s the principle that bothers me. I think it should be 50/50 but you should both live within the lower-earner’s means - ie. if he says he can only afford 600pm for rent, then I can’t expect him to pay more than that, and if I want a more expensive house then he has every right to ask me to subsidise him. But if we both live in a place that he can afford, why do I need to pay more for that? AIBU?

I'm interested in whether people's ideas about equal vs proportionate towards their shared private expenses are the same as their views about paying taxes towards our shared public expenses? If you're on a higher income do you feel like you are subsidising people on lower wages by paying a larger amount in tax, or do you feel like you are paying fairly towards our shared services relative to the amount you earn?

@sageandroses that's a good point, it's really relative. If they are low income earners it would make a difference.

I've clearly been on mumsnet too long, and now assume everyone posting here earns 6 figure salaries

@Soon2BeMumof3

I think whatever works for you both is fine, but if you fundamentally disagree on this now, it's not the best start. He's not a flatmate, presumably if you're moving in together you hope to have a longer term future?

What if you lost your job? Will you take on debt to maintain your half of the bills or would you hope your partner supported you while you looked for another job?

Me, I would both put, say, 70% of salary into a joint account for bills, emergencies, stuff for the house, holiday savings or whatever and you both have the same % of income as disposable spends. DH and I always did that pre-DC and it worked well - who was the highest earner changed over time.

@alittlerespectgoesalongway
I agree with you. We’re definitely just in the ‘trying it out’ stage...have no plans to marry in the near future and haven’t talked seriously about kids yet, although both know we want them at some point. We’ve been together 18 months. The situation would be very different if we were a long term couple on the verge of marriage.

As for kids, I haven’t even begun to think about what maternity leave I would take or what would happen then as we’re nowhere near that stage. At that point I think we would have to reassess our finances and work out what’s best for us as a ‘unit’ (which now involves a child whom it is both of our responsibilities to support) - if we did change our finances to split proportionally I certainly wouldn’t be ‘having my cake and eating it’ - we would be doing what’s best for our family.

I think always 50/50 to be honest !

Even myself and my husband spilt things 50/50 - it will only change when kids come along !!

He does treat me regularly though - but household things like bills and rent we pay half each

If you're on a higher income do you feel like you are subsidising people on lower wages by paying a larger amount in tax, or do you feel like you are paying fairly towards our shared services relative to the amount you earn?

I'm a higher rate taxpayer. And no, I don't feel like I subsidise people. Graduated tax is a fair way of funding basic components needed for society to function, including a social security safety net. I would rather live in a society where I pay tax and know that someone in shit circumstances has access to public fund to help feed and house themselves, than not. Anyone's situation could change - there but for the grace of God and all that.

Turnedouttoes Im confused. If you think the proportion suggested by bf is a red flag yey your partner wouldn't hear of you paying half, what do you pay?

The toilet roll thing reminded me of a book I read where they split the food shop but he billed her separately for tampons

If this is a romantic relationship that you expect to be in long term then I think you need to think long term. There may be times where one of you is without a job, or you need to move cities for a job for one of you and the other is without work for a bit. Or maternity leave, or illness that means you are not in work, or your child is born with additional needs and you or your partner drops your hours or doesn't work.

Resentment is a relationship killer. Dh and I moved in together in the late 90s we split the bills proportionately, everything went into a joint account, bills were paid and we were both left with the same amount of money to spend as we wished. Meals out etc came out of the joint account, holidays too. Our friends were engaged, due to be married in 3 months at the time and we went out for a meal with them, he said you owe me £28.17 as he paid on his card. We were shocked. To the fucking penny.

I have seen this recently with my SIL where she went with a 50/50 split, on paper he earns about £5k more than she does until he comes down to overtime. And he did plenty. She couldn't afford clothes and yet he was jetting off to Las Vegas with his mates. This was after 10 years living together.

50/50 is a flatshare, proportional to your earnings is a relationship. There may come a time when he out earns you by £20k, he'd have holidays without you, meals out, theatre tickets, weekends away. All because you can't afford to go too.

and I am a SAHM so earn nothing, I am paritally disabled and Dh has supported me financially for over a decade.

@Soon2BeMumof3 I agree it's not a huge amount between their salaries, but it's still around £200 pounds a month. I actually think that's quite a lot.

This is a really important point. People sniffing at "only 4K" are coming across as a bit privileged. I'd love to be able to think of '"only" 4K! For many people that is a massive amount of cash.

Personally I wouldn't do a full split until married. If only bf/gf I'd be uncomfortable subsidising him. I'd just go for the more affordable place. If you ended up splitting you might feel resentful that he'd lived off you for years.

DH and I split all essential bills , mortgage etc 50/50 and I earn nearly 20k a year more than him. I however put a much larger amount into our savings and generally pay for incidentals for DS toys, bits and pieces of clothing (summer wardrobe etc would come out of the joint account). I also paid for our last holiday (Portugal air BnB nothing fancy bigger trips we split or jointly save for) , essentially it's leaves us with the same spends for the month. However before we were married we saved independently paid half of everything else, I wouldn't be subsiding someone pre marriage/children/property purchase, that's when you actually become a unit not because you just move into a rental together, the ties are easily severable.
When we first got together we earned similarly but my earnings have increased more rapidly than DHs due to promotions etc, it's acknowledged that I'm a much better saver so that's where I put my excess, but it funds joint purchases, home renovations, news car etc so benefits us both.

I think 18 months in is too soon to be sharing a bank account. What I dislike though is that he thinks he's entitled to your money when two years ago he was even with you.

18mths is hardly any time at all. I'd say you want 50/50 and you'll review it in 6-12mths when you both know the actual cost of living together. It never works out how you project it on paper anyway. He'll have to budget accordingly, and 4k isn't a big enough difference to quibble about.

I moved in with my DH when I was about 23 and we split everything 50/50. It happened to be at a time his income fell significantly as he was starting a PhD after a year in banking, but 50/50 seemed reasonable as at that point you are still testing the relationship, so why should you spend more to subsidise someone you don’t have a lifelong commitment to, and you’re also both going to be better off than if you lived separately. We opened a joint account at this time too for all bills, food and rent and every month the same amount automatically got put in the joint account from each of us.

When we got married we moved to a pooled finances system where all the money went into the joint account and we kept the same amount left over for personal spending, although we’re neither of us big spenders.

I don’t think the proportion idea is necessarily a bad one, but it does really depend on if he earns £15k or £65k - if the latter he is being stingy. It also depends on what you each spend on rent now and what you’ll spend when you move in - if he’s spending £400 a month in a shared house and you’re talking about moving in somewhere for £1400pcm, it is understandable he’d want you to support a bit of the extra cost.

I’d also bear in mind that if you are together a long time, this approach could be to your advantage depending on your respective careers. Unless he’s in a really low paying industry, he may well earn more than you in 10 years time (thanks gender pay gap) and in particular after you have kids. But I would already insist that if you get married or have kids you’d move to pooled family finances - the number of women on here who wind up paying for all childcare and child related stuff when their DH works full time is insane.

So if you went back to work part time after a child, you'd be happy to continue 50/50 as you have equal responsibility for childcare and housing costs? Even if you had 50 a month spare and he had 300?

I wouldn't want to be with a partner who didn't want me to have the same level of lifestyle as them, I'd feel resentful and also like they didn't trust me.

Proportional op, but sounds like you should move in with friends as a flat share and all take your turn buying bananas. I agree with others it is offputting him arguing when the difference is 4K but as the thread moved on I wondered if he sees the need to nitpick this as he knows the op will expect him to carefully split every coffee date, movie and take out to make sure he’s never subsidised...
proportionally establishes a good starting base for a relationship, where you both have closer to equal free money. When you speak of if you’re part time or with a baby it would be different you sound naive, as there are many many women out there working full time with lower earnings than they would have if they hadn’t had a baby, be it the period off or the wanting to be home at 5 or pure negative perceptions. Start out as you’d like to go on as a couple.

We’ve always had one pot, our money. I don’t understand His money and Her money. If your in a relationship everything is a joint decision!

Same for milk. Split it into 2 cartons. If one runs out before the next shop, too bad. No tea, coffee or cereal for you. You can't expect the other partner to subsidise the other's breakfast.

Ha yep. That’s how you’re coming across to me OP.

Why should you have to share with your partner?

Also agree with all the posters saying threads where the man is the high earner everyone always says it should be proportionate whether or not that have children yet.

I wouldn’t want to sit on my mountain of gold while my partner scrabbled round in the dust for coppers.

That’s not love the way I view it anyway.

There are loads of red flags here OP and more every time you post but they’re all over you

I wouldn’t move in with you if your attitude was like this when we discussed it

Tigerbear That's a massive difference. What do you do with the extra £50k a year if you don't spend it on shared/family?

Also out of interest have you both discussed big purchases for your new place? Personally I wouldn't want to buy anything expensive with a 50/50 split at 18mths. If you wanted to make it fairer you could suggest that you buy X slightly higher value item, whilst he buys Y. Then if you split up you each keep the items you've paid for, but he doesn't feel he's having to use up most of his lower disposable income compared to yours.

So if you went back to work part time after a child, you'd be happy to continue 50/50 as you have equal responsibility for childcare and housing costs?
I paid my fifty percent even when I was on maternity leave. I'd saved appropriately for it. I will never depend financially on a man regardless of how much I love him or how wonderful he is. I'm an adult and I make decisions I can support financially, I would also feel horribly uncomfortable being kept by someone else. The only exception to that being serious ill health or injury etc, or the same kind of scenario for our child which meant it wasn't possible for us to both work.

For context: We're very much a 'family money' type couple. No 50/50, proportional, he spent she spent etc etc.

When we first moved in together we were 22 and had been together just over a year. I was a PGCE student and he was working offshore, so pretty significant difference in income! We split rent and bills 50/50. There was never any discussion of doing anything else and it wouldn't have crossed my mind tbh (although things like food shopping etc I think whoever did it just paid, and undoubtedly he spent far more on meals out and drinks).

Another year and a half down the line we opened a joint account and both paid in an equal amount, all bills came out of there. If we had a particularly expensive month for some reason then he'd top it up. Although, tbh, that makes it sound like a more formal arrangement than it was. Certainly there was never a feeling of him having more money than me. A few months on again and he transferred me a lump sum so we could maximise interest on our money, and from that point on it's all been totally joint.

My point, after all the rambling, is that for the stage of your relationship you're at 50/50 is perfectly reasonable, and of course what's reasonable will change over time.