Moving in together

[Andrea701]

Hello. My partner and I have discussed him moving in with me. He has a rented flat that he pays £460 a month. He has no other debts apart from utility bills. His take home pay is £1450.
I have a mortgage that is £150 a month. My take home pay is £1600 a month working 40 hours. I have quite a few credit card debts, car loan etc which after paying everything I am left with about £600 a month disposable income.
If he moves in I want to drop a day from work which means my wage from work would be reduced from £1600 to about £1250 per month.
He has offered me £400 a month plus half towards the food.
His disposable income after paying me would be £1050, take off about £200 for food and that would leave him £850 disposable. My disposable would be a lot less due to my debts.
Is this a fair offer

I think there are two separate issues but they impact each other.

Firstly, is £400 + half the bills fair? Well, given him renting a flat costs £460 and presumably you aren’t losing a paid lodger, that seems about right. If you were renting out a spare room how much would you charge? Similar?

Secondly and separately, what this means in terms of your joint lifestyle. That’s a much more personal thing to do with your relationship and your other personal outgoings, and how much disparity you can live with and be comfortable. You have debts to pay, he doesn’t, and it seems fair he isn’t penalised by your debts. Similarly you dropping a day - if he works full time then he shouldn’t be funding you dropping a day.

How about you don’t drop that day, so you can have a more equal lifestyle?

Why would you drop a day?

Seems fair, it's not his business that you've got debts.

It’s not half the bills it’s half on the food bill and half towards council tax. He hasn’t offered to pay half towards the gas/electricity/water.
For example. My gas/electricity per month is £150. Water is £30.
He also hasn’t suggested paying anything to the mortgage.
I want to drop a day because I find my job really tiring. I currently work 4 days, 10 hours a day (40 hours). Whereas he works 4 days at 7.5 hours a day. I want to reduce mine to 30 hours a week (3 days).

I think there are two options:

You share everything equally. This means he shares your debt and in return for that, he shares your mortgage and if you split he’s entitled to some of the equity.

Or you share bills, utilities and food. The mortgage is yours, house renovations are yours and the property remains yours if you split. But that also means the debt remains yours. You will have less disposable income than him but the house is your asset and remains so.

Personally, if I was your partner I wouldn’t be wanting to take on your debt. I definitely wouldn’t want to move in with a partner, take on their debt and them reduce their take home pay.