Moving in with boyfriend - how much do I contribute?

[SunshineOverStress]

So I’m 29, and have always lived with my mum apart from when I was at college and travelling.

My lovely boyfriend has asked me to move in with him, he doesn’t really work as owns multiple properties so is wealthy. I asked him what I need to pay and he said I don’t need to pay anything! He said just to help around the house. I don’t want him to end up feeling resentful or anything and want to contribute something but how much?!

Obviously I’ll pay towards food shopping!

I earn about 28k a year and outgoings without rent are about £780 a month

3 months?!

whats the rush?!

stay at home, save, buy your own property in a year or two and then move in with him after a good 18 months of dating.

madness at moving in with someone that early - course hes amazing at the moment,its the honey moon period!

@Rainagain72

Checking companies house and downloading his accounts would be a bit invasive...poor bloke. Its akin to a woman (or worse, the Mother of a woman way into adulthood) investigating wanting to check out his payslips.

Payslips are confidential. The other information is in the public domain, its like looking at someone’s Facebook page.

I’d want to know that his large supposedly unearned income was legitimate and not from drugs, porn or worse.

It’s hardly invasive if she’s already having sex with him and is thinking of moving in with him.

Most self-employed people don’t put their turnover on their FB page and having sex with someone doesn’t equate to having the right to check out their financial information....if someone feels they have a right to know this information surely better to bring it up in conversation...otherwise it’s snooping.

If I met someone in their early 30s with a lot of disposable income I wouldn’t immediately worry they were involved in porn or dealing drugs.

My OH and I moved in together after 6 weeks! We've been together 12 years now.
My friend Moved in with her partner and he said she didn't have to pay any rent or anything As he was paying them anyway. The only thing she had to pay for was the grocery shopping

If he has so many properties ( and someone to manage them ) that he doesn’t need to work them he’s unlikely to be self employed , he will have a limited company. Or he needs a better accountant.

You may think it’s snooping to look at public information on the internet but I don’t.

And I guess you know a lot more 34 year olds than I do who are so well off they don’t have to work. Maybe I don’t move in the right circles.

So yes I’d Think it was unusual and I’d want to check it out. Anyone who is legitimate will have nothing to hide.

But that’s just me. I’m sure the Op will have done her own due diligence.

@ilovepixie

My OH and I moved in together after 6 weeks! We've been together 12 years now. My friend Moved in with her partner and he said she didn't have to pay any rent or anything As he was paying them anyway. The only thing she had to pay for was the grocery shopping

That doesn't allow her to get on the ladder herself though or have equal footing in their shared home. Which is fine short term but long term, paying bills only and no mortgage or rent means if the relationship breaks up... you are a bit fucked. People aren't giving this advice to be unromantic dicks, they're doing it because they've seen women be vulnerable to this stuff for donkeys years.

It’s not totally quick, DH SND I moved in together after 2 months, engaged after 6 now married 20 years. Sometimes it’s just right, good luck!

*DH and I

No such thing as a free lunch...

This sounds similar to DH and I when we met. We hit it off straight away and ended up unofficially living together within a matter of weeks (we had mutual friends so it didn’t seem quite as mad as it sounds!)

He officially asked me to move in with him about 3 months in, by which point I’d already been staying there most of the time anyway so it didn’t really feel like a big deal. DH owned his house outright and insisted that his bills would be the same whether I lived there or not so wouldn’t take any money. Instead I’d get the food shops and generally help DH be a bit more organised as life admin is definitely not his thing! I also squirrelled away the money I would have been spending on rent in case anything went wrong as I was well aware I could be made homeless at any point if things turned sour.

It’s now a fair few years later and we’re happily married and TTC now so these things can work out, but I’d recommend putting some money aside just in case so you protect yourself if things don’t go to plan.

for whatever reason I'm envisaging a slightly dodgy but nice Esex man - might be totally wrong obvs!

Depends why do you want to move in, OP. Ar you very keen on starting a family and just want to rush things along as he's so nice and talks about marriage? You dfinitely do not know him well yet, or the exact source of his income.

If he's inherited a lot and invested in property - fine, but then why has he got a mortgage...I especially don't like his idea of buying a house together to rent out - eh? if he's thinking of marriage in future why involve you in purchase, it's shared assets anway, if he doesn't plan to marry for years, then why co-own a property? Just a tiny bit questionable!

Essex, obvs!

OP didn’t say how ‘wealthy’ her boyfriend is .... or exactly how many properties he owns...or whether he owns them outright. He might just have bought a doer upper to rent out / sell ..got lucky on that one and been able to secure funds to buy more properties....if he has mortgages it’s not that unusual (or much of a red flag). Maybe he had a decent job at one stage that left him with the funds to buy to rent or maybe bank of Mummy and Daddy helped. Unless he has multi-millions in the bank he just sounds like a normal bloke that’s invested wisely/a builder/someone who watched a lot of day-time property programmes in their 20’s...these spawned a generation of would-be buy to let landlords.

If an overly invested Mum posted here saying she’d discovered her adult sons gainfully employed girlfriend of three months had moved in with him and wasn’t contributing much maybe some suspicion would be aimed at the girlfriend...along with comments that she should let them get on with it I expect, at 34 and 29 these people are well into adulthood.

OP as you are working, I think you should contribute an amount equal to however much the bills will increase plus whatever a room in a nice shared house would cost or at least whatever you paid choir Mum...if you don’t, he may be fine with it, but you might end up feeling like a sponger.

Half the bills surely? But not half his mortgage.

Save and buy a property of your own. The risk is that if you split after 20 years youll have no house of your own.

FFS, people on this thread are paranoid.

OP, move in with him if you would like to. Do not pay rent or bills or anything at all if he is happy for you not to - after all, you live with Mum to save money. So save your money as you did at your Mum's - be honest about that with him. You don't want to be financially worse off, and he seems not to want that either. If you and he agree, then great.

If any of the paranoid fantasies on this thread turn out to be true, leave him. Go back to Mum. Lesson learned, savings intact.

I hope you are very happy together. If not, I hope you are smart and strong and know when to leave. Good luck!

Omg. Bless him. He sounds like a guy who is financially secure and responsible, mature, domestically settled, generous and kind. He is a dream. The point is: you will have a lovely life with him.

Struggling with money is a true nightmare. He's got the money sorted. I would continue as you are, move in, take him at his word and not pay but rather save up what you would have paid so you can contribute to a property purchase. Don't question this. He's just a nice guy who is sorted.

This is really a great chance for you actually to build up your own capital. And he's quite right imo that there's no need to pay for the sake of it. He's got it covered. So save your money for buying your own rental property.

Omg just enjoy such a nice life. Enjoy it.

And you can say to him ok if I'm not paying bills I will save up towards a property - maybe a joint one.

I remember asking MN about a similar issue ( how much to pay DP when moving in with him and he said I should pay much less than market rate). Posters said he shouldn’t expect me to pay his mortgage and walk away with nothing. But the alternative was for me to rent on my own for loads more money and still walk away with nothing. So I moved in with him and paid more than he asked but still less than market value. The relationship didn’t work out but I don’t regret that decision- it allowed us to live a nice comfortable life and I walked away with some savings.

Make sure things change if you and your boyfriend decide to have children, or you could find yourself in a mess.

Do not get pregnant unless you get married first. It is so sad reading the post on here of "common law wives" leaving with just the kids as in reality it means "common law nothing"

When do you see your friends OP? What hobbies and interests di you pursue outside of your relationship?

If any of the paranoid fantasies on this thread turn out to be true, leave him. Go back to Mum. Lesson learned, savings intact.

& there goes someone who clearly knows absolutely nothing about Narcissistic abuse, yet feels qualified to diss others who do 🙄

Thing is op could live at home another 18 months or rent her own place for a year etc then move in and then discover he's a total dick who thinks he's buying a maid. She could wait a year, fall pregnant so move in and then feel trapped.

This way she's moving on as risk free as it gets. She hasn't invested the approved 10 years of dating before cohabitation, if he's a wrongun she can move back to Mom's. No financial outlay altho of agree to review after 3 months, put at least the £200 rent into savings and give it a whirl

Hmm, can’t help thinking that if the OP was written by a woman saying her new DP was moving in to her home and that she was happy to cover most bills, that the boyfriend was 29 and had lived mainly with his Mum, whether concerns would be different. Might get flamed but seriously doubt anyone would hint the OP was love bombing or potentially abusive...possibly people would warn the OP to be cautious.

I’ve been in sbusive relationships before and been love bombed but he is completely different we just click and want to spend as much time as possible together!

My family all think go for it including my dad, they all think he’s great and mature and stable with his head screwed on and can see he adores me! And they think I’m not signing up to anything so what have I got to lose! I’ve met all of his family too and they’re all lovely and he’s really close to them.

He’s not dodgy in the slightest he had a business for ten Years which made him a lot of money to be able to invest in properties and rent the rooms out.

I see my friends still go for dinners, drinks etc and we’ve even been out for dinners with my couple friends and his - I wouldn’t drop my entire life for him of course!

And I didn’t meet him on a walk I met him on tinder, I do genuinely believe I’ve just been super lucky and struck gold and found a good one, and I’ve sure had my fair share of bad ones so for now I’m going to go with the flow and enjoy it and hope it continues - and if it doesn’t, Im strong enough to walk away because I know what I want and What I will and will not settle for!

@SingingInTheShithouse

If any of the paranoid fantasies on this thread turn out to be true, leave him. Go back to Mum. Lesson learned, savings intact.

& there goes someone who clearly knows absolutely nothing about Narcissistic abuse, yet feels qualified to diss others who do 🙄

This.

This set up has so many red flags over it 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

1. Op has limited life experience for a 29 yo ( Always lived with mum )

1. This is her first serious relationship

1. There’s a large disparity in their incomes

1. They’ve only been dating 3 months (mostly during lockdown, so more like 6 weeks normally ).

1. They are already effectively living together ( 6 nights a week ) so she has no time to see friends or family or do hobbies. If OP ever had any, I assume she’s dropped them.

1. He “ waits on her hand and foot “ = not normal

1. He doesn’t want her to make any financial contribution to living there, not even pay towards bills or food = not normal

1. He wants her to “ help around the house “ - sounds a lot like ‘be a cleaner / housekeeper’. Why would be need this if she’s out at work all day and he’s at home with nothing to do?

1. He “ doesn’t work “ but has a large income ( that’s NOT how people who manage property companies describe themselves ) . He also has no friends, Family, hobbies or social life as he spends 6 days a week with the OP.

10. He apparently owns many properties but has a large mortgage on his own.

11. He wants to buy a property with the OP to rent out ( why? ) and is talking about marriage and kids after three months ( most of which was under lockdown so they were not even dating normally ) = Love Bombing

So he’s 34, very rich, amazingly charming and lovely and single but already keen to marry her and have kids.

Do you now what - If something looks too good to be true, it probably is.