Higher earner should pay more of the bills?

[TTM123]

What are peoples opinion on this? If your partner earned more than you, would you expect them to pay more towards the bills?

If you both work full time (no kids) and earn different amounts then yes, the higher earner should be paying more.

If one works part time and looks after kids then yes the higher earner should pay more and you should have roughly equal amounts left over.

The only exception would be if one of a couple was deliberately not earning as much as they could, then I think I'd begrudge paying more!

DH earns twice what I do. I work part time and do most the childcare. He pays far more into the joint account, but as his hobbies are more expensive than mine he has more left over too which I'm fine with.

I agree with this to a large extent. My teacher/nurse vs lawyer/doctor/CEO example was based on assuming both like their jobs and both work hard etc. And also that the other burdens are ALSO split. Or, in the case of one working less than the other, the person working more gets the support of the person working less in terms of housework/childcare etc.

But I couldn't agree more with the point that one person expecting the other person to take on the heavy lifting is not okay. In our case, I outearn DH by a huge amount. But doing so is made possible because he is picking up the slack elsewhere, including being a SAHD when the DC were little and I had a job working long hours in the City.

SIL, on the other hand, was with a man who constantly worked less and less but never ever stepped up anywhere else. At one point he was doing just 20 hours a week because "childcare" but their DC were at school and she was still paying for after school club 4 days a week.... And no, he never did a load of washing, ran the hoover round or did any of the cooking/cleaning.

Hours are similar, we actually work for the same company. The difference is that I have more responsibility and more stress. He is more than capable of progressing if he wants to and he has, he's just reached a level that he's happy with whereas I want to continue to progress.

He does pull his weight at home but then so do I. There's no doubt that he works hard, we both do but if he wants more money, he's more than capable of earning it himself and that's what I'd expect.

It depends on the circumstances though doesn’t it? A guy pissing about just doing bits and bobs of work here and there, having an easy life while you subsidise him - not ok, but why would you be with someone like that anyway? (The same would be true here if the male/female were the other way round). A man earning a lower wage in a job that’s essential to society and he works really hard at, eg nurse, teacher then why shouldn’t you both share all your money with each other if you’re in a loving, mutually supportive relationship? Or at least pay proportionally so that he’s not left with nothing after paying his 50% while you have loads to spare?

This is so boring on MN. Why can’t people just have a joint account, put all the money in it and then take out an equal amount of personal spends?

All this complicated ‘you pay 31.43% and you pay 68.57%’ of the bills doesn’t make it sound like a proper partnership. It makes couples sound more like flatmates who may or may not shag from time to time 🤷‍♀️

I think the last part here is key. It’s about the respective efforts you put in contributing to family life. If you are both working hard- whether it be in the home or in a job then proportional to earnings might be fine. If one of you is working part time to have more leisure time or in an easier role for a quiet life it isn’t fair to expect someone else to subsidise your bills.

I couldn’t bear to see someone I care about working harder than me to pay for my lifestyle.

My ex dropped to part time without telling me because I was paying most of the bills as we were paying % to income. With his “disposable cash/fun money” he looked at how much he had and calculated he could drop 2 days a week because he felt he didn’t need so much disposable money! When he’d been single he had to work full time- with a muppet to pick up his bills all of a sudden he didn’t need to earn so much. No discussion about finding a nicer house, putting money into savings…

Fair enough and as I said, it seems to work for you both so that's the main thing.

I think that's a fairly specific example though and relatively unusual. In my experience, it's usually extremes - either one person is the high earner and the other one is just an all round slacker ie works less/ makes no effort/ doesn't pick up enough of the household stuff (SIL's situation) OR, one person is the high earner but as a partnership it works as things are split and the higher earner/more hours person gets support with fewer other tasks (like with me and DH and many of my friends and family) so that works too.

Because relationships are different and different things work for different couples?

I'd never be in a relationship with someone or marry someone who expected all money in a joint account.

There's a lot of variables.

Married, I kind of agree with treating it as family/shared money, because that's the (lifetime) commitment there, even if it often doesn't actually work out that way in practice.

Earlier, pre-kids relationships: could be 50/50, could be by proportional earnings, kind of depends how you see the relationship going/lasting.

Later life relationships, it gets complicated: do you have kids, does he, how much time do each set of kids spend with you both, how is the split of "family" responsibilities for children, housework, mental load etc?

I think both parties' contributions to the relationship should be equal, but that isn't necessarily the same thing as equal financial contributions, and it depends a lot on the individual situation.

I agree that it's relatively unusual, largely because it is less likely for the woman to be the higher earner.

If it is the other way around, the lower earner tends to go part time or become a SAHM and like I said in my first comment, in that case I would agree that the higher earner would need to contribute the most financially.

I used to think that @RadiatorHead but now I have realised how many different circumstances there are and how different spending habits are.

@hellsBells246
My husband earns more than twice than me. We both put 50% of our wage into the joint account for bills. Percentage seems fair to me.

Why? He has twice as much money just for him than you do.

Because the dh already puts more into the joint account. Get put in 50% of what they earn. He earns more do his 50% is twice as much as her 50%

Isn't that enough sharing?

As long as both are equally responsible for domestic stuff then I don't think it's unfair

Weird generalisation here. And not accurate by any means. Some do. Some don't.

In your situation your arrangement is fair. Because your earning potential took a hit to enable his to thrive. Its only fair that ongoing his higher income is seen as down to both of your contribution

I am the high earner in my marriage. I pay a bit more to bills but not proportional. My DH has a career he could progress in but chooses not to as he doesn’t want extra responsibility and likes to clock in and clock off. Absolutely fine with me and I wouldn’t force him into a huge mortgage anything, but I’m also not giving up my hard earned money which requires me to have a lot of responsibility! He has plenty of spending money left for him (£400 after bills, food and petrol), if he didn’t I would contribute more. I do pay for our holidays, pay all mortgage overpayments and savings on my own and will pay for big purchases like furniture, so I guess I contribute in other ways. I like this to be my choice though!

edit to say that we don’t have and don’t want DC. If we did and he was doing childcare then I would definitely make things more equal!

Yes. My DH does. He also pays out more to his grown up children (help with rent etc) and they will inherit more of the house as he paid the deposit.

You're totally right. I misread that as they paid 50% of bills equally. Sorry!

I earn a lot more than my DP and i pay proportionally more than him because that's the fair way.

I point blank refuse to ever pool finances. It's never ever going to happen. i worked very hard to be financially independent and will never give that up willingly.

This is exactly what we do, and it works really well for us. It’s important to me to have financial independence. My husband earns more than I do at the moment. We are both self employed and both have each others backs. This month, for example, my husband paid my share of household bills because my tax bill was higher than expected.
In a previous relationship we had joint account and it was an absolute disaster.
I don’t think the style of accounting matters, rather the mutual respect and support of one another.

My DP earns more than me, he covered all bills while I was on mat leave. Now I work part time I look after our DC 2 days a week and work 3 days. I contribute as much as I can to bills and my DP pays the remainder. So yes it works out that he pays more as he earns more. Equally before we had our DC my DP had a break in his career and I covered most of the bills during that time. We tend to look at it as our household income rather than his and mine although we do have separate bank accounts.

edited to add that once the household bills (+ childcare costs and food shop) are covered, the remainder of our earnings (if any 😂) are our own to do as we please.

If you're not pooling your money then absolutely yes. I'd seriously reconsider my relationship if my OH was happy to see me skint whilst they had cash to spare - speaks volumes IMO

I earn more than my husband. I pay more towards the household expenses. It's only fair. That's especially the case, IMO, if the person who earns less is also responsible for the bulk of any childcare/mental load of running the house.

Depends if children are involved, how different the incomes are ie. Is the higher earner enforcing a high lifestyle on the latter. In theory two healthy adults with no dependents should pay equally.

I earn roughly 75% of the household income, and the only thing that's split 50/50 is the mortgage, mainly because MIL managed to convince my other half that I'd pull a fast one and take the house if we split and I was paying more (I'd actually more than likely walk away without the house, but there's precisely 0% chance of us splitting anyway), so I did it that way just to shut the nasty old witch up.

That's only a legal/accounting thing, and our mortgage is tiny compared to most folks' anyway - I've gradually increased my share over time so that I end up paying roughly 70-75% of the household bills even after that, so it works out about right.

Women posting on this thread that they earn more but make their partners pay more than the proportionate share seem to be getting responses like “each to their own” or “well that works for you”

pretty sure if they were men it wouldn’t be “whatever works for you”