AITA for proposing to pay 70% of the bills instead of contributing to my GF's mortgage to protect my savings for our future home?

[DrSpongey]

TLDR:

I'm (36M, £28k salary) moving into my GF's (37F, £44k salary) flat in new year. I'm have savings for a future house deposit, she has very limited bar equity she doesnt want to release, wants to at least keep her flat for 10 years to build the equity which makes sense, says in principle she used that to then pay off some of the mortgage if we got a house when I'd put the deposit down which is majority of my life savings before we met.

I suggested paying 70% of all bills to protect my savings instead of contributing to her mortgage. I can tell she thinks it's unfair but won't explicity say so. She has hard time not people pleasing or saying how she really feels with anyone.

My girlfriend (GF) bought her two-bed flat in Feb 2023, well before we met. We're getting serious and planning for me to move in permanently in the New Year—it’s just getting tiring packing and unpacking constantly to come to hers. I lived at home with parents. She comes over very rarely which I get. I actually prefer to be at hers due to better lighting and she encourages it especially in the winter where my mood is low. I moved about daily and workout 2-4 times a week consistently. We both shared domestic labour and contribute halves on food, fuel costs whilst I'm here as well as treating her to little surprises and gifts. She's says she loves having me around but feel there's disconnect and dissonance between what she says and how she actually feels.

The ultimate goal is to buy a house together, which is why I’ve saved up £40-50k for a deposit which is my lifetime savings; she, admittedly, has very little.

The Proposal
We initially agreed to split all costs (including the mortgage) based on our income percentage. Since then, I've had a rethink.

My new proposal is to pay 70% of all the bills (Council Tax, utilities, internet, etc.) but £0 towards her £690/month mortgage.

My Thinking (Why I'm Doing This)
Protecting My Investment: If I pay her mortgage, that money is gone forever if we break up. I don't get equity, and it slows down my ability to save for the massive deposit I plan to use on our joint home and sets me back further in my plans to move out.

The Maths Works Out: I genuinely don't think she's losing money. My high contribution to the bills (£28k vs £44k salary split) essentially frees up her money, which she could then put toward the mortgage herself or save (which I encourage). I'm not trying to short-change her; I'm trying to minimise my risk but genuinely don't think she understands how she could use the money cut back in bills to distribute towards whatever she feels to.

It’s About the Long Game: I want us to succeed, and that means protecting the deposit that will get us into a bigger home together eventually.
She's the kind of person who struggles to express feelings and manages money less consistently than me (her sister basically gifted her most of her savings). She just keeps saying "we need to think about sharing costs fairly," but that's precisely what I feel I'm doing by protecting our future large deposit while still shouldering the majority of our living expenses.
I'm thinking long-term here, not just about the next six months. I've heard too many horror stories as old as time where people get fleeced and dont have cohabiting agreement of some sort.

My concern is if the relationship went completely south I wouldn't see or get that money back. I've also paid for nearly 3k holiday for us to enjoy in December of which she is paying me back monthly for next six months. Her mortgage is relatively low for 2 bed flat in middle of Newport.

I think lot of it, is due to upbringing and culture (Afghan British Muslim). I eventually want to get married and have a child so this would be stepping stone to that. I just want to do this fairly now so by living together for extended period of time permanently, we'll know if we're compatible.

She actually sent me a tiktok about cohabiting agreement a little while ago about cohabiting couple who unlike there friends where it just never got discussed or addressed properly decide to draw up this agreement so there would be no stone unturned or potential messy unwavering consequences so alleviated any pressure or confusion in the way of divisions to allow conscious free state by knowing what each would be entitled to.

AITA for wanting to protect my savings for our future house deposit by paying the vast majority of bills instead of contributing to her existing mortgage?

Thanks,

Rob

Lol, I didn't express that very well at the time as I was in a rush.

For context, those aforementioned reasons outline was actually a mixed up of things she has said to me. She mentioned those reasons. It just allows me to being closer to her rather than having to be separate. She says she loves my company.

The only one being true is that I genuinely love spending quality time together with her and after being with her for 2 years, I feel ready to now want to make this step. Think about it, it cuts the distance on travel and just make things easier for both of us. It benefits us both. Whislt I can attest to it feeling and looking transactional, we genuinely love spending time together, shared experiences, interests and have lot of similar mindset and outlook on things as much as there are differences. We both care and support for each other, we have travelled together and have done a lot in 2 years.

Theres genuine love and tenderness there, it may seem little transactional. But I'm not being funnty, show me a relationship where there isn't a little form of compromise and transaction. Dating in itself is transactional when you think about it in terms of the conformist stereotypes around expectations of Men when courting a woman. No relationship is without "transaction". So to say otherwise is just not true. There can be love and still wanting to reciprocate effort , provide and help out. The intimacy and connection between us is still strong despite our differences because we both focus on that too.

I’m not going to make any other suggestions now on how to split finances for the current situation as you sound like you are making progress.

However before you move in, I’d agree on an approach to when you buy together to ensure you are on the same page now. My view of this would be to split contributions to everything (bills, mortgage, savings ) proportionate to income and have the same amount of disposable income each (in your own account to) to live on

IDK, maybe open a joint savings account and put money in there that he's saving in rent. Then they can use it for deposit or split it if the relationship ends. No matter what they do I bet someone is going to feel hard done by if they split.

I often see threads on MN where the OP is a woman complaining that the man lives in her house without paying anything towards the mortgage (even if he does pay half or more of the bills), and people pile on saying he’s a “cocklodger” and that she should LTB, he’d be paying rent anywhere else so why does he expect to pay nothing for his accommodation, etc.

And here we have the man saying he doesn’t want to contribute to the mortgage and most people think that is fine.

MN is an odd place sometimes.

What about rent

OP your £617 sounds fair and reasonable. The only other consideration is what that covers. So neither of you are feeling it is unfair if one of you wants the heating on more or buys more expensive food or puts personal stuff in with the weekly shop.
As I said. These things can be overthought. Is it a good deal for you to move out all bills paid in a comfortable flat for £617? ✅
Is it good for her to have a big contribution to her bills with no risk to her finances? ✅
Happy days!

@DrSpongey I think the chief misunderstanding here is that you are regarding 100% of your GF's mortgage payment as a "investment" which you would get no benefit from if you contributed to. That's not how mortgages work.

Depending how big her mortgage is, it's likely that thevast majority of what she pays each month is purely paying off an interest debt, and only a small part is genuine investment. The interest part of the monthly payment is not very much different from rent. Whatever it says on the deeds, in reality the bank is effectively the "owner" during the early years of a mortgage - each month across 360 months (30 years) you "buy" an incrementally small slice of your home until you eventually "own" it in full and at that point can live rent-free. (Yes it's not quite like that technically, but if your namr is on the deeds of a £500,000 house on which you owe a mortgage of £495,000 your net worth from that ownership is only £5,000 not £500,000)

I don't think you should be contributing directly to something that only your GF will benefit from but I also don't think that you should live rent-free when your GF isn't - if you can't trear each other as equals now, there's no hope for your long term future.

A fair contribution towards mortgage interest would probably be around 30% of the monthly mortgage payment - an accurate calculation would need sight of her mortgage statement and an understanding of what house prices are doing in the area but for a simplified example :

Mortgage amount £325,000
Value of property when bought £345,000
Value of property 2 years later £355,000
Across a year she pays monthly £1750 so a total of £21,000 in a year. About £17,000 of that is interest - effectively rent - and the remainder pays off a small slice of the amount owed. After 2 years she has paid £42,000 and the benefit she has gained from that is that the equity she owns on the property has increased from the £20,000 initial deposit she put in to now £38,000 (including the increase in property value).so that's an £18,000 benefit at a cost of £42,000 (this is across 2 years)

The difference of £24,000 is effectively the "rent" part of thr arrangement and that's what you should share. That's £1000 per month so with these simplifird figures you should pay 50% of all bills/subscriptions/general running costs plus £500 per month as a contribution towards mortgage interest. She pays 50% of bills/subscriptions/general running costs plus the other £1250 per month of mortgage costs which is fair because that's a real reflection of the additional benefit she is getting as the mortgage holder.

That would mean you have struck the right balance to ensure neither of you is unreasonably benefitting more than the other, but treating each other as equals. The principles you live by here will set the tone of your whole relationship whether it is short or long, so if you reject the principles of equality it will have bigger consequences than just how much money you get to have for spending each month.

OP will ignore any posts pointing this out and explaining it.

It is also worth people considering that OP has £45k of his own savings, presumably invested in ISAs (if he has any sense) or other high interest account, this will bring him in approx £2k per year tax free income at current interest rates.

So it seems OP is allowed to benefit from his investments but his partner isn't supposed to benefit from hers!!

Her mortgage is £690 per month. £518 of that is interest. She paid 5% deposit on the flat, flat was around £182,000. Her bills are £367.

I'm covering the bills 100% as a trade off and 50% Split on food/household consumables.

Thanks for finding the correct figures. Ok so you are paying £367 to cover all bills and she's paying £690 per month? And everything else is 50:50?

Using the way of splitting that which I laid out in my previous post, you could equally define the same total contributions as:
Your £367 could be seen as £259 "rent" comtribution and the remaining £108 going into bills, so her outgoings are the £259 "rent" contribution part of the mortgage and £259 towards the bills. (Plus the non-rent "investment" part of the mortgage which shouldn't be a shared cost)

That isn't quite balanced ie you are still freeloading a bit - you should be paying a further £75 per month for your contribution to the non-investment parts of the shared outgoings to be fair. She'll still be paying out significantly more than you with that, but that's fair and reasonable because she's getting the long term benefits.

Her bills are £367 but of course that will increase the minute you move in full time - Council Tax she will lose her single person discount, her water, gas and electricity will all increase too

as will useage of her washing machine as there will be more clothes to wash, and light bulbs will need to be replaced more often due to your need for better lighting.

Yeah and we said will review it when that comes.

We generally have washing machine on once/twice a week, clothes and bedding. We have same routines and it's generally not a lot. I don't use a lot when I'm here either.

We go to gym, walk a lot, come same homemade meals and make leftovers for lunches the next day.