Great 'financial harmony in relationships' hunt

sunshinejoclaire

samizdat wrote: »

This seems very reasonable. However, my wife claims, I think with some justification, that being a woman is just inherently more expensive than being a man. Women need to spend more on clothes, haircuts, cosmetics and so on, whereas men only spend more on beer and by eating more. Am I so under my wife's thumb that I have lost perspective or do others agree there is something in this?

I agree to a slight degree, female grooming can cost more than male grooming.

We got round this by haircuts for both of us come out of the joint account, and yes mine cost more than his as I have long hair and he has short. Also my basic make up which I use in my working life (foundation, mascara blusher etc) and my regular waxes come out of the joint account.

Clothes? he spends more on them than me :rotfl: but unless they are work clothes, they come out of our personal spending.

cosmetics such as shower gel, deos etc for both of us are normally bought by me through hanging out on the Bootsing thread

mouche

OH and I earn different amounts. When we were first married, he earned 45% of our household income. So we worked out our monthly costs (including rent, council tax, utilities, groceries, a fixed amount for gifts, eating out and furnitutre) and every month, when we were paid (into our individual accounts), he would pay 45% of the household budget into the joint account and I would pay 55%. We also decided a fixed amount we wanted to save every month for a deposit and would put 45/ 55% of that into our individual savings accounts.

When my salary went up we adjusted the percentages to 40%/60% and when he got a new job, we changed it back to 45/55%.

When I take a break to have a child, my income will go down to 0% so he will first fill the household expenses, then the savings and then our pocket money. His salary will just about cover the expenses so there will be no savings and we will pay ourselves our pocket money from our savings accounts. When I go back to work, childcare costs will be added to household expenses and the same system will continue.

This way of doing it means we contribute to the house, save and spend proportionately to our income. We don't have to justify how we spend our pocket money to each other. For example, I am a saver so I save quite a lot of my pocket money for holidays, expensive gifts for OH etc. OH is a spender and spends much of his pocket money on taking me out to dinner etc. If I run short (mainly because my travel expenses are high while he walks to work), he's always willing to lend me some and vice versa.

I handle the bank accounts and he's willing to leave it in my hands. We never wanted the only-joint-account route because we do a lot of shopping online and we don't want to know what the other one spends (especially if it means we find out in advance what the 'surprise' birthday gift is!)

Every couple is different and needs to work out what works best for them.

tara747

eireaine wrote: »

Hi All
I was quite interested to read this thread as we have the odd hiccup financially so I hoped to get some good advice, however I am concerned to note that so many of you are on different salary's and paying the same amount twords joint expenses. I believe it is very rare for a couple to have the same salary so this is a huge issue and I really think the only fair way to divvy up the bills etc is on a pro rata basis. Work out all the bills, savings, holidays, rainy day fund and so on and then allocate who pays what pro rata based on earnings. When you get married or make a life commitment to somone you are taking them for richer or poorer and you need to bear this in mind. Putting the person who is on the smaller wage under pressure to live up to the financial commitments of the person who is on the higer wage is not fair and won't work in the long run. Be honest with each other about your financial situations and any accept any debts as somthing you need to work on together. Open the post together, discuss bills and debts and make decisions that increase your debt (and how you will pay this off) together.
Be nice to each other and live long happy married lives
Good Luck :)x

I agree with your post. OH and I contribute equally to all household bills even though our salaries are different - but only by about £1k. I don't think that £1k is enough of a difference to make it worth calculating percentages, but if the disparity increased we would certainly reconsider. I am the higher earner at the moment and would have no problem contributing more proportionally, I would hate to see him short if I had plenty of disposable income.

1sue23

I manage the money coming into the house my husband has nothing to do with it ,when he gets paid I divide it between the bills,savings etc all the rest is divided between us and this is the cash we use each month ,we have a competition each month as to who has the most left over .I also have 3 tins one for small change ,one for meals out and treats as a family ,and the other for birthdays and Christmas ,this seems to work well for us and we never fall out except for friendly banter over what is in the tins .

ElusiveLucy

Eek! Reading this thread has opened my eyes for me and made me realise that some of the pain I have been through in the past with my OH was me being reasonable and not a money-grabber (as he called me once).

My OH moved in with me over 18 months ago and although he kept on a small flat for about the first year it had no mortgage and all he paid was electricity standing charge, water rates and single person council tax. He lived in my house for a good year like this, contributing every other week to the food shopping. All this time he earned 1.5 times what I did. I kept telling him I didn't think it was fair that he wasn't contributing to the household running costs and eventually he paid half the bills. Each conversation ended in an argument with him giving me the silent treatment, and of course resolving nothing. After the first year when he had moved into my house formally and rented out his flat I still had to battle to get him to contribute to the mortgage cost. He argued against it and in the end I had to give him options - contribute to my mortgage, move back to his flat and go our own separate ways, or rent out my house and rent somewhere together where he was expected to pay half the rent etc. Finally I got him to contribute and we set up a joint account to pay for food shopping and household expenses such as boiler service, which does work well. It has been a battle from day one, and I do still wonder if I should have just given up and called it a day, as I don't believe it should have been that tough. Even now I still pay half towards all our holidays (including all cattery costs, since the cats are "mine") and I still earn a lot less (30k less) than he does. With bills going up, I can feel another conversation coming on....brace yourself!!! :eek:

ema_o

:eek: He sounds like an absolute tight git, I can't believe he had the cheek to call you money grabber!! I'm sure he has positive points, otherwise you wouldn't still be with him, but I don't know them so my comments don't take that into account!! I'm glad you got something sorted with the joint account, but things don't seem fair at all especially with the big difference in earnings and the fact that you were paying most of his living costs for so long. I hope you manage to have that conversation with him xx

ljbnotts

Interesting thread.

Me and my other half have lived together for 2 years and have a joint account for the 'house' and our own separate accounts. Our own salary is paid into our own accounts. We then both put a set amount into the joint account and this covers;
water rates
rent
council tax
virgin media package
TV license
food shopping
gas
electric
Our own accounts pay for everything else that we each want, mobile, holiday, days out, games etc.
We bot have access to the joint account but i am the one who does the food shop so i use my card weekly. OH doesn't even know his pin number for the joint account! Our joint account is with the same bank as OH single account but the cards look identical and he's worried he would spend from the wrong account!!

This way works really well for us and if something unexpected comes along we split it 50/50. Any money left in the joint account at the end of the month is used to put towards spending money for our joint holidays. (possibly soon to turn in to a saving account for a house deposit).

OH does earn much more than me but I'm not bothered as long as i can afford the joint payment each month! If we go out for meals we take turns paying but he does treat me more often than i treat him! (because he earns more!)

ninky_2

My husband has been on a lo/no wage for all our nearly six years of marriage. I pay all the bills, mortgage, both our mobiles, both our gym memberships etc etc. I also paid entirely for our wedding. I think this is fine as I really do believe in "for richer for poorer". He pulls his weight with DIY, fixing the car, cooks a fair bit (I do too). Certainly don't agree I shouldn't do any housework just because I pay the bills - he is not my slave just because I have a well paying job. He starts regular work next week (10 hour days six days a week) but will still be earning less than a quarter of my salary. I think you should choose your partner on personality and feelings rather than what they are earning.