moving in together - how to divide up finances

jimbob_3

Hi,

had a look and couldnt find a similar query so apologies if it has been asked before..

My partner and i are planning to move in together in July, or put more accurately she is going to move into my house.

Currently her salary is about half mine, but should rise fairly rapidly over the next few years. Because of this, i have said i dont really want anything more than about £100 per month at the moment , just enough to cover the extra council tax, heating and water costs.

However she is keen to pay an equal share. At the moment, including the mortgage, regular bill outgoings are about £1,000 a month, so split evenly it would be about £500 each.

Although i hope we will spend the rest of our lives together, i am realistic to know that this may not be the case. Therefore if we do split up after a few years and she has contributed half , i am wondering what would happen to the equity that is currently in the property (about £150,000)?

Does anybody have any ideas both as to what would be the best way to split the bills eg Would it be best for her just to pay the non mortgage bills and save her 'half' of the mortgage payment? or to what we should do prior to her moving in?

Re reading this - it sounds a bit cold, but many years ago i moved into a partners property - and when we split i ended up with nothing. Whilst i dont want the same thing to happen to my new partner, neither do i want to have to sell the house if we split.

thanks for any advice.

J

alipops1986

I'm not an expert on this.....However, one possibility my eldest brother did was to get a rent book (As awful as that sounds!) and get your gf to pay "rent" rather than the morgage. Even if this was only £100 a month! I know it might sound awful but i can appreciate your concerns.

skintchick

THere have been a few posts like this and here's what I always say...

OH and I do it like this. In a nutshell , it involves working out who earns what percentage of the total income and then paying that percentage of the bills.

So, add up both NET incomes, then work out each individual income as a percentage of that total (i.e. if you earn 10k and she earns 5k, then total is 15k and you earn 66.6r % and she earns 33.3r %)

You then add up all household bills you wish to be joint, including annual ones like house insurance, and work out your percentages of those, and that is what you pay.

Should you wish to have joint savings, then work out a percentage you're happy to pay (could be same as bills, or could be a percentage of what you earn, whatever) and pay that into a joint account.

We felt this was the fairest way of paying the bills jointly, although we paid the same percentage (32% of net wages) each intot he joint savings account, but you could decide to save £x between you and use the same percentages as you use for the bills.

It depends how much money you earn because obviously you also need enough left over to have personal money.

Anyway, that's how we do it and it works very well for us (although it involves maths each times wages change!) We use an excel spreadheet to work it out, with formulas, cos OH is a Excel wiz.

smileykylie_2

we do the same as skintchick - but we don't have a house and are married so maybe different

just wish I did not earn the most!!

skintchick

smileykylie wrote: »

we do the same as skintchick - but we don't have a house and are married so maybe different

just wish I did not earn the most!!

We're married too and we do have a house (well, we have two at the moment but the other one has tenants who cover the mortgage).

ailuro2

She pays half of all food, heat, council tax, but contributes nothing towards the mortgage until she's been there for longer/you get married/have kids etc.

That way she can walk away without being owed anything.

Arrange to review it yearly.

This is the way DH and I worked it when he moved in, he used to pay £60 a week for board, and also contributed when I decorated, but never paid anything towards the mortgage.

When I fell pg then we moved house and everything went in the same pot, we take whatever money we need but discuss bigger purchases.

If she ends up with more savings than you, then that's OK, 'you the couple' will have a bigger deposit on the next home.;)

GucciMane

Why are you being such a cheapskate for? If your married to her then she is likely to get half of everything regardless. I think you lack trust in her.

Me and my man have joint account's in everything such as finances etc. We have the same accounts online and he even lets me access his emails and use his cards. Truthfully if you do this sort of thing, it is possible that it may put strain on your marriage.

Isn't it just better just being straightforward?

durham_girl

GucciMane wrote: »

Why are you being such a cheapskate for? If your married to her then she is likely to get half of everything regardless. I think you lack trust in her.

They're not married. That's the point.

efrieze

My DH and I split EVERYTHING 50:50. We have always earned roughly the same amounts and so it has worked for us. Took us a while from doing this - we used to go to the supermarket and have seperate parts of the same trolley and pay seperately - but we were flatmates before we were together! I don't remember when we started joint shopping but neither of us wanted to reliquish full responsibilty to the other - not a trust issue at all (been happily married almost 7 years) but more a control thing. Good luck whatever you decide to do.

skintas_2

my partner pays the rent, every week, his wages also pays food shop. my wages pays for everyhting else... money left over goes towards holidays and big purchases.. we have 2 kids togther 9 and 7.. i work part time..

Andyf33

Similar question is asked regularly on here so it must be an issue for a lot of us.

I work and the wife is a stay at home mum of 3 (no 4 on the way). Everything goes into one account to pay for the mortgage/bills/savings/investments etc then the rest just gets spent on family things. We dont specifically give each other a budget from this shared pot - but do discuss any big purchases one of us might want to make.

In general - i do as im told and the wife gets what she wants.