How would you divide the bills if you have different incomes?

[DrTrillianAstra]

Just wondering what you all think is the best way to divide household expenditure.

DP and I are both just finished studying and are job-hunting, and it seems likely that we will end up earning different amounts. Up until now we have had identical incomes, so we have contributed equally to the joint account, which pays for rent, utilities, and food.

I want to know which of these scenarios you think is fairest:

A) Contribution to joint account is as a % of take-home income, so (for example) half my wages and half DP's wages go into the joint account. So whoever earns more contributes more, but also keeps more.

B) Each person gets to keep the same amount, so whoever earns mre contributes more, but both have the same 'disposable' income.

C) Something in the middle of A and B (not sure how to work it out)

D) We each contribute the same to the joint account, because we're both eating the food, both using the electric, both living in the flat (this is not really an option, so don't choose it okay?)

We don't have children so there's no issue of childcare, SAHPing, etc.

Thanks!

I guess we do A. my DP earns about 50% more than me so he pays three fifths of the houshold requirements and i pay two fifths.

In theory that should give him more spare cash than me but becasue he had an overdraft and big credit card bill when we met he uses his 'spare' to pay that off while i save most of my 'spare' (for future mat leave and pt working) and we meet in the middle with actual disposable income.

When/if i stop working/earning or earn significantlly less then i plan on putting my savings and any wages or govt money i get and his wages into the houshold account together and us each taking equal 'pocket money' if we can afford it.

That way neither of us has to feel guilty about how we spend our 'pocket money' and we can both save or spend it as and when without having to check the status of the joint account.

thin is we did "our" money - with the remainder (once bills and everything paid fo) split equally between us to spend on whatever we wanted (so no issues over "oh but you spent x £££'s on that so why shouldn't I spend x £££'s on this). We did this with seperate accounts though......... it was only "his" and "mine" once everything was paid for and we had our "pocket money" (if there was any) afterwards

Thanks guys, so far we've got (my adding up what I think people mean) 6 votes for 'contribute % of salary' and 5 votes for 'equal pocket money'.

And a lot of votes for 'all money should be shared', which it will be when we have children, so in the meantime this is just so that he can't go if I buy expensive shoes with my pocket money and I can't go at how much electronic gadgets cost.

(big stereotyping, but you know what I mean)

why live together as partners if you are uncomfortable pooling your money?

WaitingForVino: see my post of 14:04:05

Or FAQ's posts.

Or SazzlesA's posts.

There are plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons to not completely pool your money, even when you do have children but especially when you don't. It's not a sign of anything being wrong with the relationship.

I don't think you have to pool your money to live happily together. I do, however, think that it is odd if you hide your assets from one another. I have lots of money stashed away (largely from the French tax man ) that my DP can't get his hands on but my DP is quite aware of this.

WaitingForVino - we "pooled" our money - just had seperate accounts for it that's all.

We have a joint a/c and 2 seperate personal a/cs. We both put enough into our joint account to cover essentials and to leave us both with roughly the same amount left over in our own accounts.

Another vote for same pocket money OrmIrian, thanks!

BonsoirAnna: there was definitely a thread a while ago in which people were extolling the virtues of all women having some 'running-away' money just in case. That I found very weird, DP knows exactly what I have and where, and I know the same about him (or at least I think I do).

Before children, wen dh earned much more than me, we had a system where dh put in a proportionately larger amount of money into the joint account, to correspond with his higher salary.

Over the years I have done everything from A to ....about R..?

With my ex-dh, we had one account. One account only. Everything that we both earned went into it and everything that we spent came out of it. He earned more than me, we planned kids in the future, we believed we would be together forever.

But I was living in lala land.

Later (after children) when my career was taking off and he felt threatened, money was one of the means he used to control me. (e.g. we had £26K in the bank and I wasn't "allowed" to spend £600 to get the hall painted).

In another relationship (a wonderful, passionate, knee trembling experience) he was DREADFUL with money. I wouldn't have shared a five pound note with him. Everything he earned got spent three times over. He was probably in debt to more people than I could ever imagine. I would not ever have any financial transaction of mine linked to his. Oh but he was a fantastic lover...

Now, dp and I have a joint account for household expenses split according to our income Probably A. Works well for where we are.

You are doing the right thing to think about attitudes to money now, and you probably need to be flexible for the future. As you can see from the posts above, things change in unexpected ways.

I've never understood partners wh=ith their 'own' money tbh.
We have always done the big pot and equal 'pocket money'

How is big pot and equal pocket money different to my scenario B nicky? Just because the money originally goes into individual accounts and is then put into the joint account, rather than going into the joint account and pocket money coming out?

And thanks notsoclever, I'm glad you agree that it's important to think about these things.

We do B - I think it's handy to have my own account so if I buy DH a present it feels like it came from me (stupid, I know), and also so he doesn't get to find out surprises for him! We have 2 ISAs simply because we get double the allowance that way, but savings are joint.

Hi again, I also agree it's good to think about these things beforehand -- and furthermore discuss with each other, and then agree to a plan, before going too far.

Would offer same advice when the time comes for children by the way

Regarding the difference in your post of 15:02:46 - when earnings go into individual accounts first, and are later pooled, it could lead to a feeling of "money separateness." It's arguably more unified in approach to pool the money from the beginning, and take from the pool as needed afterwards.

The nice thing about "pooling first" is that it encourages discussion about what is spent and for what, whereas with separate personal accounts there could be temptation to hide/forget/not mention certain expenditures.

Hope that helps.

before dd we paid half of everything. dp earned about 50% more than me but while i could afford to pay half i did, he had a lot more than me left over and that was fine by me as he had earned it.
now im a sahm so he pays everything and i think thats fair too as i look after dd.

Obviously I will discuss with DP - I'm just a MN addict and wanted to see how other people do it.

We've already agreed that whoever earns more will put more in the joint account, but I wasn't sure whether to suggest that we have equal pocket money or have it be proportional to our income.

Hiding expenditures wouldn't be a problem - anything bought from pooled money would obviously be visible to both because the account is in both our names. We have had practice at this: our flat was unfurnished when we got it so we've had to buy furniture and make decisions about what we want to spend on and what we should get cheap.

In childless days we had a lodger and his rent paid the bills
Now we run a joint business, so literally what's mine is his & vv. We still have separate savings accounts though, if nothing else I would like to know that if anything awful happened to DH my bank account would not be frozen while waiting for probate (sorry to look on the worst side).

The ideal is the one pot suggestion. However, this does mean that one person can single handedly ruin the family finances if they wanted to. We have a joint account into which goes enough money for all the bills plus a bit more. We also have our own accounts so we can buy things for ourselves without feeling we have to justify our expenditure to the other. In practise, money flows between all three accounts as needed.

When we were both working:
DH earned 1/3 more than me. Therefore he paid a third more than me into the joint account.

When I worked and he was a SAHD:
The joint account got all the money it needed. Any left over was split two ways.

Now we both work and earn roughly the same:
We both put the same amount into the joint account.

Periodically we move any excess money into ISAs and savings accounts. (if there's any spare that is)

The ideal is to have each of us with more or less the same amount going into our personal accounts each week.

We always did A, seems fairer somehow

Thanks everyone, I have shown this to DP. Decided on A, as I pretty much knew we would (unless there was a 100% consensus that B was the best option )

The was because, if we get the jobs that we are interviewing for in the next couple of weeks, I will be the slightly-lesser-earner, so I thought that suggesting B was a bit cheeky really.

you see I don't get A - why should the person who earns the most automatically get to keep the most?? I think that's unfair- to me (ie this is my opinion ) that's like saying well I'm more important than you because I earn more money.

But hey ho - as long as everyone is happy (that's involved with them) at the end of the day it doesn't really matter how you sort your finances