Fair way to split the bills

[Bluebird21]

I’d really like to get some thoughts on how to split the bills with DP, please.

Background is we’ve been together for 4 years, lived together for 18 months. However DP told me last week that he only considers that we’ve properly been together for 6 months as that’s when he packed up his place, let it out, and moved his stuff into mine. I have one DC aged 12.

I am the higher earner but I have sole financial responsibility for my DC. My ex-DH doesn’t pay a penny in support (that’s a different story).

We are currently renting, and we both have our own places that we are renting out. We’re living and working in a different area for the next 1-3 years so it doesn’t make sense to buy here. My DP is almost mortgage free (1 year to go), so the rent easily covers his mortgage payment, whereas I have another 15 years to go on my mortgage and I have to top up the rental income quite significantly to make the mortgage payment each month. Also, because my job requires me to move around, I made the decision for my DC to go to boarding school for stability, and so I have significant school fees to pay from September.

For the first year we lived together, DP and I split grocery costs 50/50 and I paid the rent and bills for the house we are living in. He was still paying bills on his empty house. For the last 6 months, he’s been paying 1/3 of the rent and utility bills. He was also using my second car everyday (I was paying everything but petrol), although he’s bought his own car a few weeks ago, and I paid for his annual gym membership. I also pay all the costs for our cleaner, and everything for DC, except for the groceries which we pay 50/50 and that covers the dog and DC’s food too.

I’d like him to pay 50/50 for the bills and make a contribution towards the cleaner’s wages. And then next year, when we renew our lease, either pay 50/50 on rent or move somewhere cheaper so he pays the same amount as now.

I earn about 3x as much as him, but if he has a good month, he might earn 40% of what I earn. We pay for everything out of income, no family or other money. We have about the same in pensions/savings.

AIBU to move to a 50/50 split of the bills? Thanks for your thoughts.

OP hasn’t suggested he should.

Shouldn't be about what you earn, it should be about your remaining income after outgoings, including school/ mortgages and personal bills like gym/phone etc.

You should then sacrifice the same % of that remaining income to cover the joint bills.

That's the only fair way.

Maybe not school.

That’s what I think Quincy. He blindsided me with the we’ve ‘only been together 6 months really’. I thought we’d been together 4 years! We celebrated our 4 year anniversary anyway, he bought me flowers. Now I’m thinking I’ve been too generous with my time, and thoughts, and money.

I appreciate I’m in a good financial position. I’ve worked hard and had some luck along the way. But I haven’t had inheritances, and I financially carried DC’s DF for 10 years. He was a cocklodger, never put a single dollar on the table, and that makes me wary of being taken advantage of again.

You are not married, or sharing a family, proportional income shouldn't come into it. Financially, this should be treated as a flat share. OH should pay a fair rate for rent (somewhere between 33-50%) and half the bills and cleaning. Stop paying for his gym and transport!

Tbh it sounds like there are other issues

Good question. Ok, so taking school fees and sport etc for my DC out of salary, I would earn around twice as much as my DP (DC costs 1/3 of my take home pay).

If I add in his rental income, and take out my cost to subside my mortgage in Australia (in some ways I consider this compulsory savings, as I want to hold onto the house but he’s also dead against me selling in case we want to spend half the year in Australia when we’re retired), I would earn about 35% more.

I know I earn more, but I’m financially responsible for 2 people. We’re not married and he could just up and leave any time, and then I’ve spent money that I could have saved for mine and DCs future. But maybe I’m being selfish, because I appreciate if the situation was reversed maybe I wouldn’t expect to pay half? Like I said, he saves half his salary though, so he’s not on the breadline.

Yes, maybe Plugee. And money is the easiest thing to focus on in a way, rather than confronting an emotional issue.

In partnerships and marriage though where ALL assets are shared and where when one dies the other gets it all shared income or a proportion of earnings makes sense. They are in effect joint tenants of everything (including the house).

Here though this isnt the same kind of partnership. Assets are going to remain very separate, savings, pensions, houses are all kept. They are renting together but that is it in terms of mixing anything together - more like Tenants in COmmon who if either died one assumed it would go to someone other than themselves. In this case it should be 50/50 in order to keep the divide as clean as possible. Higher earnings dont count because there is no sacrifice on either side for children or any wish (one assumes on either side) to have a merging of incomes.

It is a very different situation to me

I think what you're really missing is that there are costs for your child in the rental; their room, bills, food etc. If you split everything 50:50 then you are actually getting him to contribute to your child.

Now, at this length of relationship and living together I'd personally expect more resource pooling chat, where his contributions to your child's costs might well come up because it's all based on disposable income. Sounds like instead he's minimising the relationship. It might be that he's just trying to protect his own interests because he feels you are pushing too fast on the contributions for your child, because financially he definitely loses much more by pooling. It might also mean the relationship is struggling from living together. An open chat about how the relationship is going might be a better first step than thinking about the money side. No need to discuss money if you're breaking up.

Think you have your answer here OP.
You share living costs like flatmates, no subsidies for him at all.

He pays for, or does his share of cleaning.

He doesn’t use the room for your child - at all - for anything (not as a spare room for a guest, storage etc) as your are paying a bit more for this. And not 2/3 to 1/3 rent - that’s not how 1 bed can 2 bed works. 50 share of all bills when your DC is not there, you pay more when she is etc

He’s a tight bastard OP and now you’ve looked properly you aren’t 3X more wealthy based on income.

Finally, you also have a dependent too. Take care of her needs and future needs first.

He’s dead against the person he’s ‘been with for six months’ selling her flat in case he wants to retire there?

Just re-read this all back to yourself OP. Every last bit of it…

All sounds incredibly complicated and maybe you'd be better off living separately and just dating?

Well as there are two of you and one of him he should pay a third of everything.

look just tell him you do not perceive the relationship as one you share money with him and he has to pay his own way, as such he pays a third and you two thirds, when your dc moves out it’s fifty fifty.

I am sure if you search a bit you will fin trillion threads where people clearly state it should be proportionate to income. Apparently not depending on sex of the person so I would go with that

You've not read the OP properly. He's already paying 1/3 rent, but half the bills apart from the cleaner, which would probably end up about the same. So he's already paying 1/3. OP thinks that isn't on and he should pay 50% of everything, which would include his share of her child's room and bills. While saying she thinks he's somehow still being cheeky, admitting she earns more even with boarding school and mortgages taken into account, and yet proudly saying she doesn't expect him to pay for the child.

Why are you paying for his gym membership?

They’re not married! He says they’ve only been together 6 months.

No way to a proportionate share!

Honestly, what do you get out of living together? That you wouldn't get if you both lived separately and continued dating?

His 6 month thing is bollocks.

Personally, i think he should pay 50% of all household bills/rent. Your kids bills are your own. He should have set cleaning tasks or pay towards the cleaner. Don't pay anything else for him!!!

I think if you're going to live together then it should be all in or not at all (not the private school fees though!)

You are 50 and should be looking to maximise your savings/pension to ensure yours and childs future. What if your health suddenly declined for example?

I think it really shouldn't be this hard living with someone, and I'd want to reassess the relationship.

OP,

You are being used again financially.

I think you really need to wake up to that.

Exactly this. If positions were reversed you would be getting different replies.

Actually, I was saying that I think he should pay 1/2 of the utility bills, and that when the lease expires we should look for somewhere cheaper to rent so we can go 50/50.

Lucky I don’t have 3 kids, or based on your logic, I’d be paying 80% of everything.

And, yes I am proud that I can take care of me and my DC on my salary, since her DF doesn’t contribute anything.

What do you think we should do if either of us loses our job? The other one pays 100%?

Thanks again for all the viewpoints. Just to clarify, it was my suggestion that he pay 1/3 because I’m the higher income earner. It was only once he said (after 4 years of being together and 18 months living together) that he only considered the relationship had begun properly 6 months ago, that made me re-evaluate things, and wonder if I were being taken advantage of.

He moved into my place and lived rent and bill free for the first 12 months, so he’s only paid that 1/3 for 6 months. And he’s always known that I had a child, and obviously we come as a package.

Would you be doing any of this for a man you'd been seeing for 6months?

It is very weird that he is saying this relationship is only 6months old - I would automatically think he's not taken it seriously and has been with other women.

Everything should be split 50/50 until your DC is home and then it should be 1/3 2/3. The extra bedroom is neither here nor there he's chosen to move in with you and not offered you to move in with him.

See, you do think he should contribute to the DC costs. That's ok, honestly by this stage of a relationship I'd expect more sharing to go on, but best to be up-front. As he isn't the dad, it can be a trickier conversation, but if he's genuinely in this for the long haul then it really shouldn't be a big deal once he's thought it through.