Should I contribute more towards an expensive holiday with DP?

[Trillybee]

For the last year I’ve eared a lot more than DP. Not double but easily 50%. We’ve been together a decade and live together but split everything 50:50, always have.

There’s a hotel I really want to go to but it’s £5,000 for a week half board with flights. DP takes home about £5k a month so he said £2,500 for a week is too much. I’m thinking of offering to pay £3,000 and he pays £2,000.

You're taking the piss. Pay pro rata if your incomes are different. If the tables were turned and he were earning more, every single reply would be pro rata.

Yes do it, you can afford it

I think you need to pay more for two reasons:

• you earn more
• you want to go to this particular place

I think you both still need to be in agreement though - even with the cost pro-rated, is it more than he’d usually be willing to pay?

No. Half each. It's a bit patronising. You would not pay more if you earned more than a friend. He's your boyfriend not a family member.

But that's your husband.

It's her boyfriend.

of about 10 years so really long term partner
plus she wants this specific hotel

5000 isn’t that much for a week for two? What planet are you on?!

Depends what kind of holidays you're used to. A week for two at Ikos is easily £5k.

It’s more expensive than my usual holiday, but I paid £3000 for a trip to Bali back in 2022 on a sort of group tour package .

That price did include some meals and outings though and was staying in 4 and 5 star hotels.

It would’ve been 2,500 each if I’d went in a couple sharing a room and that was for 9 or 10 days but it was back in 2022, so it’s probably even more expensive now.

Oh and it did NOT include flights unlike OP’s proposed trip so overall OPs trip is much cheaper.

So yeah it may be more on the expensive side but depending on the destination and the kind of hotel they’re staying in it’s quite a typical price.

I can see both sides of this argument , but the difference is this is her life partner she shares a home with and has been with for a decade.

As opposed to say a boyfriend who has his own place and she’s just dating for a few months.

It’s very different from a friendship even if its a friend you live with, where your finances and financial goals and plans tend to be private and completely separate from each other.

YOU want to spend the extra so yes if he is “sensibly” factoring what he CAN afford and you want the more expensive option and for you both to go then yes you pay the extra

You should be paying more than that. You want the expensive hotel, you earn more money you should pay proportionally if not more this holiday.

Also you should be paying more bills. It should not be 50/50. Not when you put warm him by 50%. He’s have more savings if this was the case and probably be able to afford the holiday.

Both of you are pretty well off tbh. On that basis he should be able to afford it quite easily.

He must be on at least £80k though. That’s surely winning at life territory for most people? It’s not like the usual situation you get on here of skinflint husband on £100k where everything is split 50/50 with the wife on maternity leave

how can someone on an £80k plus salary not afford £2.5k for a holiday?

I earn more in my marriage and we also do 50/50 but if I want to have a more expensive holiday then I will generally pay a bit more.

Yes, especially as it's you who really wants to go to that specific more expensive hotel.

Either the higher earner pays more or the couple holiday according to the lower earner's budget.

If you usually go 50/50 on a holiday which costs you £1000 each for a week and that's what he's happy paying, then you either go on a £2000 holiday as usual and pay 50/50, or talk about how much he's comfortable going over budget and how much over 50% you're willing to pay to go to the destination you personally want to pay more for.

You could alternatively go to your higher budget hotel with someone who finds that good value for money and is willing to pay 50/50 (a sister or close friend maybe) and go on a holiday within your usual budget with your partner too.

He might not be fussed about the hotel though - if one person loves five star hotels and the other finds them soulless and would be happier trekking or backpacking or low key self catering or whatever, then paying way over your usual budget for a holiday that isn't really your thing is not something a friend or adult sibling would usually do - a partner makes compromises because they want to spend their annual leave together and want the other to be happy - but asking for someone to pay over their comfortable budget for a holiday they wouldn't choose is very one sided.

Not comparable to a friend as a friend would have turned the suggestion down and suggested something else or said have fun, maybe we'll holiday together next year if you fancy a cottage in the Lake District in the shoulder season or a weekend break in Europe or whatever...

Maybe they usually go on multiple holidays annually and this is just one. Maybe they have jointly commited to some very expensive ongoing costs such as over extending themselves with a bigger than necessary mortgage plus car loans or other debt.

It's human nature to want just a bit more than you can comfortably afford. Not everyone does it, but it's really common.

There are endless "poor me, I earn eleventy billion pounds and can't afford to buy nice ham!" threads on MN.

People over extend themselves and make financial commitments they then can't easily get out of without throwing more money at early release fees or selling overly expensive properties and cars at a loss etc.

Plenty of people will tell you 80k or 120k "isn't that much in the south east" because they feel that with a joint income of 200k gross they deserve a million pound home (which might just be a fairly niceish three to four bed detached house with a small garden in Guildford to be fair) which they've over stretched themselves borrowing to buy, often somewhere they also need to pay for expensive season tickets to work and over stretch themselves with ling commutes and can't downsize the job because of the mortgage so are exhausted so pay cleaners and nannies and gardners and eat out or get takeaway because they're too tired to cook...

It's very easy to pee away far more than 5k a month if you've committed to chasing the lifestyle you believe you should be living and that your income has allowed you to lock into debt to afford...

Or maybe he just doesn't want to spend that amount of money on a single holiday?

Perhaps he's not fussed about a fancy hotel or its long haul and he doesn't want to fly so far?

In the early days of living together with my now husband, we had individual bank accounts plus a joint account for the rent, food, bills, meals out etc with contributions to the joint account based proportionally on how much we each took home. My husband paid a slightly higher proportion into the joint account as he earned 10-15% more than I did, this approach left us with more equal disposable income and so for holidays we generally paid 50:50. On the basis that your current set-up leaves you with far more disposable income than your partner has, I think you need to pay more than £3000 towards the holiday. Only after the kids were born did we switch to all income paid into a joint account and it's family money approach.

I would actually. My best friend is currently a SAHM, I earn triple figures, I'm quite happy to pick up the tab for a weekend away.

With my long term partner I also pick up 100% of holiday costs.

You should be paying EVERYTHING proportionately OP, not just holidays. If this was a man earning significantly more, he’d have his balls handed to him on a plate on here…and quite rightly!

OP are you coming back to this thread?!

Also can I ask @Trillybee is there a particular reason why you both haven’t decided to get married?

Not saying you should or should not, but I am just curious.

And would you share finances in marriage?

Yes if you want to go there you should pay more, or even all of it.