How do you split expenses in your household?

Giddytimes

My view was always that the split should be according to % of total household income. If we both earn the same net wage we split all bills and the mortgage 50/50, if I earn 60% of the household net income then I pay 60% of the mortgage and bills, OH pays 40%. I also think we should transfer the agreed amount to a joint account every month and the rest of our wages are kept separate to do with as we please.

By household bills I mean rent/mortgage, utilities, food, any repairs, TV licence etc.
Car costs, travel, haircuts, toiletries, holidays, gifts & entertainment to be paid for individually.

Is this fair? Logically I feel it is, this is the method I followed with my ex, but we earnt roughly the same amount.
I'm doubting myself as once I'm debt free I will be moving in with my OH and at present he earns more than I do (hopefully not forever ). I want to have this conversation with him but I'm not sure he will see it the same way. It also makes me uncomfortable that I'll only be paying about 33%, yet any future house purchase will be 50% mine.

How does everyone else split their household expenses?

Plans_all_plans

I'm married so we just pool everything. All the money in the account is ours. I work part time, husband works full time - he earns treble my salary. I wouldn't be happy with it any other way, as I feel I contribute to the household in other ways, that benefit us just as much e.g. childcare and housework.

ETA: if I was your boyfriend, I wouldn't be happy to be paying out more money than you on the mortgage etc, but for you to own 50% of the house if you split. I think you can speak to a solicitor and get it written down that if you split, you only get out what you've paid in.

VfM4meplse

I am 100% self-reliant and wouldn't want it any other way. Although I'm happy to help people out, the thought of pooling my finances with an irresponsible man makes my blood run cold.

Kimberley82

I am married with 2 children, my husband pays all the bills, my money I normally spend on fun things.

Quenastoise

We used to follow the system you describe but there was resentment on his part because, say, he was responsible for all things car-related but I didn't contribute to the car costs, so perhaps I shouldn't be a passenger ? (petty, I know). Now, we pool everything. It helps that he's slowly getting round to my MSE ways - I wouldn't suggest doing that if one part of the couple is thrifty and the other spends freely

Giddytimes

Plans_all_plans wrote: »

ETA: if I was your boyfriend, I wouldn't be happy to be paying out more money than you on the mortgage etc, but for you to own 50% of the house if you split. I think you can speak to a solicitor and get it written down that if you split, you only get out what you've paid in.

I thought about suggesting that, but my thinking is that this is a constantly changing calculation, everytime one of our incomes changes we redo the calculation. In the medium term it's more likely to be me receiving any pay increases, putting a % split in the contract wouldn't work.
I don't know if it's possible to have a contract which specifies we receive back what we paid in, nor how easy it would be to calculate or enforce, maybe it's an option we could explore with the solicitor when the time comes.

Giddytimes

Quenastoise wrote: »

Now, we pool everything. It helps that he's slowly getting round to my MSE ways - I wouldn't suggest doing that if one part of the couple is thrifty and the other spends freely

Bizarrely although I am the one in debt it's my OH who is the free spender! It's painful trying to get him to agree to a budget for things like holidays, he'd rather just spend what we like when we're there and work out how much it cost us when we return.
Maybe MSE has changed me.

We will need two cars (both need to be mobile for work and I suspect my OH would have a fit if I suggested I'd drive his car :rotfl:) so hopefully there will be no disagreements about individually paying car costs.

Kimberley82

Kimberley82 wrote: »

I am married with 2 children, my husband pays all the bills, my money I normally spend on fun things.

Infact that isnt quite true, his wages go straight to my bank account, mine go into the business account. He asks when he wants money.

Luckyred

All our money goes into a joint account. Everything is paid for from that account. We both use it to take out spending money etc. We have never given a though to percentages and who earns the most/least.
We also have a joint savings account.

browneyedbazzi

Giddytimes wrote: »

My view was always that the split should be according to % of total household income. If we both earn the same net wage we split all bills and the mortgage 50/50, if I earn 60% of the household net income then I pay 60% of the mortgage and bills, OH pays 40%. I also think we should transfer the agreed amount to a joint account every month and the rest of our wages are kept separate to do with as we please.

I've recently been having similar conversations with my bf as we are planning to move in together. We've agreed to a proportional split like you suggest above - in our case I think it's pretty fair because I earn less than he does but will be moving to a more expensive part of the country to be near his work. If we didn't do a proportional split then he'd have to really compromise on the area and type of place we could get because living in a nice place in a good neighbourhood wouldn't be affordable for me.

JenE_2

We do as the OP has described, even though we're now married.
We also agreed a total amount we'd like to save jointly and that is also split based on our take-home pay. The only slight difference is that we take into account each of our travel to work costs, as I do 50 miles/day whilst OH does 14 so fuel costs are totally different.
I think we'll just go to one joint account we both pay wages into when (if) we have kids, though I'm a bit nervous about that as OH is more of a spender than me!