How do you split the bills in a relationship? I'm running out of money!

[Newname88]

I've lived more on my own since moving out of my parents house 12 years ago than i have with somebody so just looking to see whats normal.
Moved in with DP in Jan, i've always worked part time and received the benefits i was entitled to which meant i was living comfortably, but would have to save up to afford extras e.g birthdays/xmas etc.
Obviously since moving in together i am no longer entitled to those benefits and we split the bills 50/50 and then pay our own extra's e.g car insurance/tax, i pay the pet costs as they were my pets before we got together.
I am in my overdraft every month long before payday and am using my savings to cover me which are soon running out.
I dont buy unnessary items and i dont get my hair done/nails etc if anything the only extras i spend that i shouldnt are takeaways and days out with the DC, even if i cut back on those i would still be in my overdraft.
DP works full time and does alot of overtime too, on a good overtime month he could earn a good £500-£700 more a month but his company cut overtime since COVID and he now only earns about £200-300 more than me at the min.
He spends way more on extra's/personal stuff for himself but also spends money on us as a family etc.
What do other couples do when one earns more than the other? It's going to get to a point where i run out of savings and have nothing left!

We do all in one pot, all out one pot. Some months DH is the higher earner and can get up to 3k more than me, and other months I'm the higher earner, but only ever take home 1.5k.

We both have a child together, and were in debt. We went through stepchange to set up a budget and debt management plan, and did it jointly so made sense to blend our finances.

Now we know we jointly have outgoings of around £2000, and anything in addition means we can both take an equal spending allowance, and the rest can go to pay off some of our debt/driving lessons/car/rainy day fund.

There were some contentions about mine and thine in the early days but no one benefitted from that because it didn't get a budget sorted, so now it's just "our" money, with a budget and an allowance each.

Split bills proportionate to earnings

This, always this.

Time for a come to Jesus meeting with your bloke about money. 50/50 indeed

Have you talked to him about it? Can you really afford to live together?

Everyone, including you OP, seems to be focussing on the split of money and bills between you and DP without any mention of what those bills are.

Why don't you have a look at what you think you can reasonably afford to spend on bills each month (rent, utilities, etc) and then compare it to the cost of the current bills. If what you can afford wouldn't cover half, then it seems to me like you've taken on more financial commitment than you can afford.
Sit down with DP and explain this, and that you are worrying about money, conscious that you have very little disposable income, that he has also recently had to take a pay cut and that you feel it would be sensible for you both to review your incomings and outgoings with a view to relieving some of that pressure. The options would either be for him to chip in a bit more, which he may or may not want to do, or for you to both decide to try and reduce the bills a bit, maybe by moving to somewhere with lower rent for example.
FWIW my DP earns more than me, quite a lot more, but we've always split things in half, primarily because we're in the fortunate position where we both earn good enough salaries. I'm also conscious though that he could afford a better lifestyle than we have, but I couldn't, so we choose to only spend to my budget as it were.

What I really want to know - in addition to 'how was this not worked out properly before you moved in?', is, when you could see your money draining away and were unable to keep up with payments, why didn't you immediately say 'woah! something's going badly wrong here! I've no money left and can't afford the next payment. We need to look at our money arrangements, pronto!'

Are you scared of him? Scared of a sensible conversation about money? Think he'll dump you? Have somehow convinced yourself that you're 'lucky to have him' whereas it's fine that he should merely tolerate you?

What is going on that you would get yourself into this situation, where you're subsidising his personal spending, with your savings?

You are in effect working for him for free (the childcare) and paying him for the privelege. (He will have had rent, bills and council ax of his own before this. He will have rediced those outgoings by splitting them with you). It's as if he's your pimp! (Unless I've massively misread this).

Me and DP both work full time and have no kids but we split things 50/50 as that feels fair to us. We have a joint account that we pay all of the house, bills, food etc from and then a joint savings account. We also each have our own accounts, I’d never get rid of my own money and don’t really agree with it just all going in one pot but know it works for some! I’ve always been pretty independent so can’t imagine doing that and want to keep my own money.

We are ttc and saving towards that. Luckily I will be getting a good maternity pay from work and then hopefully our joint savings should cover the rest until I got back to work

I think it's a bit cheeky to say you lived "comfortably" on benefits and only worked part time 🤷‍♀️

Welcome to real life. Since you've said you are already splitting bills 50/50 sounds like you need to look for full time employment to live within your means

I would split proportionate to income but I’d count more for you For food because of your 13 year old Who is going to eat pretty much adult portions.

We don’t split it - all the money we make it classed as joint money.

No one pays more than the other even though DH earns about £48,000 and I earn about £7000.

At the beginning I found it a bit odd but I soon got used to it.

I actually can’t understand how this isn’t the norm, especially for married couples. I can understand when couples chose not to marry. They are separate ‘entities’ in the eyes of the law, but when you’re married it’s all equal anyway.

I wouldnt be moving in with someone who thought it was ok for them to be better off and for me to be worse off from the arrangement. Youve already had to compromise your job by taking on the childcare for your baby. Sorry but that does not sound loving or equitable to me. And as PP said you lost the benefits because it was rightly assumed your partner would step up when he moved in, why hasnt he?

Also, once you've sorted out your budget, with fair, proportionate payments for everything, don't forget that he owes you a debt for the amount you're overpaid to date.

An actual debt of money, that is. Not favours or kindness. Those come free with any worthwhile relationship.

We still have separate banks but that's because do can't be trusted with money (has a bit of a gambling problem) all money goes into the family pot. Well most of it. Do is good at not putting all his in.

I have a ds from a previous relationship, but we have always been proportionate for the household bills and I always pay for most things for ds. The amounts have varied, at first dp earned much more than me so he paid more, then I caught him up and it was 50/50, now I earn more than him and I pay more.

I had 2 young kids when I met my husband. I used to receive a small amount of benefit from working tax credits.

Before he moved in we sat down and went through what all our joint outgoings would be, what we both earn (me part time then due to childcare costs, him full time professional). We then looked at what we both believed would be reasonable. Luckily for me, DH was paying a huge amount in rent so what he suggested he put it was enough to cover what I would have lost in working tax credits and increase in utilities/council tax and to pay for the extras so I was lucky.

Could you sit down together in a similar way with a whole list of outgoing and incomings and see what you can come up with?

Me and ex-h used to have our own accounts and pay bills roughly proportionately. When one of us was massively out-earning the other (he had periods of unemployment and also periods of earning a much higher wage than me), the one with most money would pay for most of the 'recreational' stuff like meals out etc.

I wouldn't want to be with someone who would happily watch me struggle for money when they had loads. Or who would suggest I pay money to cover 'my' 13 year old's food, when I was mother to his baby.

You are either a family or you aren't, and that is a discussion you need to have.

Generally I think joint costs should be split proportionately, I do however think only you should be funding your teenager.

We’ve not long moved in together, it has been a learning curve, we’ve had furlough and a job loss in the mix.

He wanted a joint account where we pooled all money and gave ourselves x amount of spending money per month to buy whatever we like.

I prefer proportional as him funding my son is unfair, I also don’t want to accept rent as he isn’t on the mortgage and I don’t want him to be on it yet.

The compromise we came to which suits me more than him is he pays 1/3 of all household bills and 1/2 council tax, he’ll also pay 1/3 of holiday costs etc. He has worked out what his proportion of the mortgage would be and he is putting that away each month so he has a deposit he can contribute if he ends up going on the mortgage/deeds. Basically I got my own way, but agreed to pool resources if/when we get married.

I say that from the POV of me having more kids and if we had lived together when all mine were at home it wouldn’t have been fair to him.

@ivfdreaming when I say I lived comfortably I mean I had enough for the bills and a small amount for treats outside of that, I still had to borrow money from relatives to buy Christmas presents etc and would pay them back a small amount a week. I was part time until my DS was 3 as I was also doing a uni course and then I stayed part time so I could spend my time with him in school hols and take him to school and pick him up 2 days a week. That may have been selfish but I didn't get loads in benefits and it was the right decision for me considering his father didn't give a s**t.

I am reading all the replies thank you, I wish I could reply to them all.
The recent months where my DP is only earning 200-300 more than me is only temporary and like I said because of COVID he has now been approved for overtime again so next month should be different. In a usual month he would earn at least £500 plus more than me and some months when he's been on call I suspect he could nearly double my wage.
I'm sure he too is feeling the pinch and is spending more than he has coming in but the difference is he has all his money in one account so probably isn't noticing that more is going out whereas i have my current account for my wages and bills only so I know when it's not adding up.

Who is paying for childcare ?

Like many others:

We have a joint account.

This is for all "obvious" joint spending (essential stuff like rent/mortgage, utility bills, food, childcare, ... and also entertainment as a family, like holidays, Xmas presents), but also for individual essentials (e.g. socks and pants, medicine, transport to/from work, etc.). The second is our choice as a couple, others may choose to keep the individual stuff separate.

This means the only thing NOT coming out of the joint account would be individual non essentials (e.g. a very nice expensive pair of shoes, or an electronic gadget)

Then we pay in monthly, proportionately to our current income.
At some point when the kids were little, I had no income, but this meant I did more around the house and for the kids (unpaid work, really) so it still worked.

The important thing to make this work, is that we have a household bugdet, with categories, and expected expenses by categories. So there's no surprise. We know how much the monthly top-up should be. And we talk. We agreed the whole system, we review budgets as needed. Wouldn't work (for us) otherwise.

Dp pays the mortgage, split other bills, pay for own cars, buy food as and when (I tend to buy the top up bits as I'm pt so around in the weekdays, he buys the big shop) I pay for meals sometimes, he pays other times. We pay for our own kids university costs, he pay spousal maintenance, I receive it ... it works for us.

It’s a good question on child care. But more than that, all the other child related costs, food, clothes, days out etc. Is this seperate or is it in the fifty fifty?

Given your sole-funded 13yo, an obvious approach would be to deduct his costs from your income first, then what is left is the earned income you have available to contribute to the household.

That will mean you contribute an even smaller proportion to the household but, so be it, that's what you have.