sharing the bills

hulagirl79

Hi

I am just looking to see if this is right and fair to hubby and me.

my hubby earns over £1000 per month more than me so when we bought our house we agreed to split the bills 2/3 him and 1/3 me.

I take home £1480.
He takes home £2700.
At the moment i put in £550 per month in our joint account.

our household bills a come to £1189.00 per month, that does not include our individual savings or personal loans. which we both pay seperatly.

So working on this basis i should be putting in about £400.

Does this sound fair or should i keep the amount £550.

thanks for any views.

funky-footprints

When we wee both working we just used to chuck all ours into one account, my dh's tax bill alone was more than i earned. at the end of the month we then knew what we had for spends/savings for the following month.
if you can afford the extra, i dont think there is any harm in over paying if the account is used purely for joint bills.

pinkshoes

My OH earns more than me, but we pay 50/50 into our joint account, because it's through his own shear hard work that he makes that extra money, so I don't think he should have to spend any more of that on bills. It's for him to spend on boy toys!

If I wanted, I could probably get a job that paid as well as his, but I just don't want that sort of stress or the long hours that go with it, so it's my own choice to have less money.

If/when we have kids, obviously this will change!

He does by me nice things every now and then though

belfastgirl23

It depends on so many things. Do you need the money? And who came up with the allocation of money to start with? What do you both do with your leftover cash? And would he have a problem with changing it?

I guess I'd say leave well enough alone unless you need it. And over time readjust as bills go up etc. Or find something else for him to pay for to even things out.

But that's me and I sense there's more to this than just the allocation of bills....

MrsTinks

Are you asking because you need the extra money or just because you think it's "unfair"?

My Dh earns a lot more than me and yet I earn pretty well - we have our own debts but ultimately he pays the mortgage and council tax. I pay all the other bills. It just works for us - however he's struggling a bit at the moment so I'm paying off his overdraft and his car insurance to help him out - ultimately we're an "us" and therefor there might be a little more in my account but it might as well be sat in his account It doesn't matter a hoot to us - it's OUR money and OUR debts although they might only be in one name
We work as a team and that means there is no question of if it's fair I pay more or less than him - I guess it might be different if he wasted loads of money on stuff I didn't have any benefit from but he doesn't

liney

I used to pay all the household bills and my DH paid for everything else including joint savings. When i was on maternity leave the roles reversed with him paying all the household bills and my part time wages paying for everything else. Ultimately we are a couple so we share.

If you decided it was 2/3 to 1/3 ratio who's maths was out in the first place? Perhaps you could point out that you are overpaying slightly and that could be your contribution to the family holiday each year?

Mojisola

hulagirl79 wrote: »

Hi

I am just looking to see if this is right and fair to hubby and me.

my hubby earns over £1000 per month more than me so when we bought our house we agreed to split the bills 2/3 him and 1/3 me.

I take home £1480.
He takes home £2700.
At the moment i put in £550 per month in our joint account.

our household bills a come to £1189.00 per month, that does not include our individual savings or personal loans. which we both pay seperatly.

So working on this basis i should be putting in about £400.

Does this sound fair or should i keep the amount £550.

thanks for any views.

You don't say how much your OH pays into the account. If you are paying £550 and he is paying in £1100 then that's fair and your joint account must be well in the black. If he's paying less than that, then you need to talk it through and do the maths again!

Zoetoes

He's only paying £89 a month more yet earns £1,220 a month more so I don't really think it's fair based on just this.

But if he pays for other things that are extra say holidays etc then it's not quite as bad.

If you agreed between you that you pay 1/3 and he pays 2/3, how did you come to £550 you and £639 him?

hulagirl79

Hi
Thanks for your replys
I will give you a little more background.
we bought our house 2 1/2 years ago using the money for the sale of his flat as a deposit.
Once we moved in we decided on the 2/3 to 1/3 split of the bills,
I set up an joint account and transfered most of the bills over but he has never transfered over the mortgage or council tax, [even though i keep asking him to]so every month he takes out the money i put in the joint account to pay the mortgage.
Then in march our mortgage deal came to an end, we went on a fixed rate deal for 3 years and have saved £400 per month.
So i still put in £550 per month even though our bills have gone down from £1600 to £1189, so he is saving money now but i am not.

With all my outgoings [car insurance, mobile, savings, loan] i have £250 left every month whereas he has over £800 left.
So i just feel as we are saving £400 every month, the amount of money should be readressed.

I understand the 'we' not 'ours' aspect but i like having my own money and account and think it works pretty well using the joint account. [if he uses it] it is very important to me that i do pay my share and am very happy to do so.

thanks again

onlyroz

If you're unhappy with the situation then just say that you're decreasing your contribution because the mortgage has come down. Seems like somewhere between £400 and £450 a month would be fair for you.

skintchick

Why not do it totally equitably? This is how me and my husband do it.

We added up the amount of money coming in, in total, from both of us.

We worked out each of our wages as a percentage of that total.

We pay that percentage of the household bills each.

We additionally save 32 per cent of our wages into a joint account.

What is left is our own out of which we pay for our cars, and anything personal such a gym, mobile, etc.

My husband ends up with more money left over than I have available to pay the bills (!) but at least I know we are paying a fair percentage eah, and he usually pays when we go out as he knows he has so much more money than me.

This works for us and means I don;t get resentful of him having so much more than me, as I know the bills are paid fairly.

Could you do this too?