How do you spilt the bills with your OH?

Idiophreak

tara747 wrote: »

Hmmm...

As the higher earner in our relationship, I'm not sure where I stand on this one! Your friends are right, women's grooming etc does cost a lot more. And I think that I've earned my disposable income to spend as I like.

Have to say, this rings pretty true with me.

GF and I have been discussing lately how we'll handle the finances when we move in..have decided that we'll get a joint account for *everything* we both use, then just have whatever's left each to spend on ourselves. Thing is, I earn about 50% more than she does, so she wants a 60/40 split in contribution to the joint account.

On the one hand, it makes sense, seeing as I earn more, blah blah blah.

On the other hand, it's not luck I earn more...I worked hard to get where I am, I do a job that I don't particularly enjoy (don't get me wrong, it's OK). The OH, meanwhile, does a job she really enjoys, but gets paid less for. There's a part of me that really resents the fact I'm not going to be much better off than her at the end of the day, despite my deliberate pursuit of a profitable career.

I guess the reason I wanted money in the first place was so that I could afford to provide for her etc etc, but it still smarts somehow...

hayley11

Idiophreak wrote: »

Have to say, this rings pretty true with me.

GF and I have been discussing lately how we'll handle the finances when we move in..have decided that we'll get a joint account for *everything* we both use, then just have whatever's left each to spend on ourselves. Thing is, I earn about 50% more than she does, so she wants a 60/40 split in contribution to the joint account.

On the one hand, it makes sense, seeing as I earn more, blah blah blah.

On the other hand, it's not luck I earn more...I worked hard to get where I am, I do a job that I don't particularly enjoy (don't get me wrong, it's OK). The OH, meanwhile, does a job she really enjoys, but gets paid less for. There's a part of me that really resents the fact I'm not going to be much better off than her at the end of the day, despite my deliberate pursuit of a profitable career.

I guess the reason I wanted money in the first place was so that I could afford to provide for her etc etc, but it still smarts somehow...

But would you rather she paid the same as you and then had hardly any money for the month whereas you had lots? Hopefully in the new year OH is going to get a new job and will be earning twice as much as me but he's still going to get the same amount of "spends" as I am. We're a couple and he would hate for me to be skint all month while he was living it up!

It's odd that you're resentful towards her though, surely happiness is more important than money?

Also I don't agree that women spend more than men, my OH loves computer games at £40 a pop, he plays football twice a week, likes playing poker, likes renting DVD's etc. Whereas I don't really have any regular outgoings like that. All i'd get is my hair done probably once every 6 weeks at about £50 a go. And buy the occassionally item of clothing or something.

Idiophreak

hayley11 wrote: »

But would you rather she paid the same as you and then had hardly any money for the month whereas you had lots?

Well, the thing is, that's kinda her choice, isn't it...If she's bothered that she doesn't have enough money, she can suck it up and go and get a better paid job, like I had to.

(I don't mean to sound uncaring, it's just the way I am...I tend to see numbers, money and things in a very "black and white" kinda way)

And if happiness is more important than money, surely she should be happy with the "hardly any" money she'd have left at the end of a month? Obviously, if I had loads of money and she had hardly any, I'd end up spending most of my money on her, anyway, so I don't suppose it matters.

I guess if I thought she was earning as much as she was capable of, I don't think I'd have a problem, but as it is I feel like I'm subsidising her lifestyle choices. Lifestyle choices which I no longer have - as we need my higher wage to actually pay for stuff...So my ability to take a backwards/sideways step in my own career is pretty much removed. Which is fine, I suppose, but I think I'd have liked to have had a choice in the matter, that's all.

clairewp

Ok here goes
me and hubbie have several accounts, we are both unemployed at mo due to our job ending( both worked for same company).. but when we were working the main acc ( where his wages went) paid all bills , food gas etc and my account paid for extras. eg children' s clothes, house stuff.. sofa's, decorating, school trips, presents etc... and we both had spending money
The thing is you cant allocate say £!5 for hair each because mine costs £70 and his £10, it.s all about being realistic, and working it out between you whats best.

kirstle99

Me & OH have one joint account, no others. We are in a DMP so I guess it's a bit different in that case, he works full time I have just started work full time.

I manage the money as he admittedly is totally rubbish with it. He has a bank card for the accoutn but he doesnt even know the PIN & says he's not bothered! I give him money from our budget for his monthly lads night etc, and if we get any extra my mum is putting it into an old savings account she doesnt use herself so we wont spend it (trying to save up for the cheapest nicest wedding ever).

All bills come in & out of the one bank account, I do a spreadsheet of the in's and out's every month. If we need something we have to save up for it. This way, we have only ever gone overdrawn once in 18 months, and all the bills have been accounted for every month.

jackieb

Dh gets paid on the 25th of the month. On that same day money is transferred by a standing order from our current account into our bill paying account. Everything is paid out of this account - mortgage, council tax, insurances, Sky, phones, etc. And that's it. I don't have to remember to pay anything. It doesn't matter which day a direct debit comes out I know there's enough money to pay them.

Idiophreak

Catwoman1975 wrote: »

Do you do half the housework, half the cooking, half the washing, and half the food shopping? I tend to find that the higher earner (usually the man) does less of this in a relationship, so the financial split should be fairer to compensate for this. Keeping a home running smoothly is just as important as bringing in the money.

We've not moved in yet, so can't be sure...but she works something like 50% more hours than I do in a week, so I imagine I'll end up doing at least half of this stuff..

panpipe

OH was living in his house before I moved in, so everything was already set up for bills etc. When I did move in, I set up a standing order for £200 a month to go into his account to go towards the bills - I keep checking with him if it's enough as I'd hate for him to be worse off because of the extra spending for two people. We tend to take it in turns with the food shopping.

When we got engaged we got given quite a bit of money, so we did open a joint account to put this into. We haven't actually used it for anything yet, but it's intended to be used for getting things for the house.

Not sure what we'll end up doing when we get married, I think we'll go for the joint account for bills etc, paying in in relation to our salaries (he earns more than double what I do...), but still keep our own accounts for independent spending.

nearlyrich

We have seperate personal accounts, a jont account for bills and we split food shopping etc weekly. Never had a row about money in almost 20 years we have been together so it works for us.

newlywed

We keep our accounts separate. He is still financially with his ex due to an outstanding joint loan. I'm on a DMP. So it seemed easier to make sure our money stayed separate, and see which credit rating improves out of the gutter first :rotfl:

His income varies due to self employed work. I earn more over the year than him though.

He pays rent, council tax, and some other home bits. I pay food (I do all food shopping and cooking anyway), gas and electric - works out about even. I also pay for the car costs, although we share the car it's all in my name OH cleans it though

Works for us. If one of us is short of money, then we borrow off each other - as we both have fairly tight budgets.