Real life MMD: My hubby earns more. Should he pay more of joint bills?

busman100

Marraige is definitely a "partnership", there should be no "thats yours and this is mine" no matter who earns what.
My wife and I were, unfortunately, only together for 15 years prior to her death 15 months ago. But, we had a joint account which paid all our bills, Joint or otherwise, and after all the bills were paid whatever was left, which was not a lot, we used ourselves, jointly.
My advice to you would be to talk to each other, you are in a partnership:)

minicooper272

I think he should pay more. My experience of flat shares is that, if they earn more than you, they don't mind using more, but you still need to pay for the extra expense. In that case it's better to get the high earner to pay a bit more, so they feel the impact equally as hard. With higher bills coming in now especially...

Is he earning twice as much as you before or after tax? If it's before tax, then account for the extra tax deductions and split something like 60:40, if it's after tax income, split it 65:35. It's what I'd do!

emmacakes

I earn more than my husband, but the way we get round it is to both pay 75% of our wages into the joint account. That way we both have money to spare, and any extra in the joint account goes into a joint savings account for rainy days etc. Works much better than paying in the same amount of money each.

Valli

jamespir wrote: »

i think when you are married you should split things 50/50 so i dont think he should pay more

A fairer system would be to put ALL income into 'the pot'; pay the bills etc, and share out some pocket money.

There's a reason I'm no longer married:p

hannerrbabes

I think that's slightly mean.
Unless the bills have doubled therefore in conjunction with his wages, maybe he should pay a little more. But if they have, they shouldn't have because you can't afford them in comparison to yours husband.
Also, I think if you want more disposable income then either cut down on your outgoings or get a better paying job like your husband.

lilmissreading

Having worked very hard to pay off debt and loans accumulated through my education myself, I was very pleased to have paid the last of it off in September 2011, other than the government one that comes directly out of my account which is still considerable.

I met my lovely fiancee in June 2010. In July 2011, he packed in his job, moved in with me and started a full time English degree in September 2011. Thanks to him being a canny saver, he has enough to pay his fees, his lodger (from my fiancee's house) pays his rent direct to me which I have dropped from the amount I charged my lodger who moved out to let him move in. The chances are I will forever be the higher earner.

I have to be honest and say that having spent until my 30s being very careful in order to pay off debts, I'm not massively keen on carrying on doing that for my finance to go through full time education. Unfairly perhaps, I think that it involves sacrifice for him as it did for me. This is his second undergraduate degree. He definitely has a better level of living, food and entertainment than I had as a student. As the higher earner (he does work 16 hours a week), I feel entitled to the odd blowout that he can't afford, either for myself (clothes shopping) or together (weekend away, meals, drinks out, good bottle of wine at home). In exchange he cuts back (but doesn't eliminate) on non essential items (coming with me to London when I visit my friends, DVDs etc).

Therefore, we don't have the same earning power now or in the future and the aim is in the future (when we have kids) for us both to work part time. I am worried I'd be resentful at him being a full time house husband as it's something I would want myself but couldn't do so without a serious drop in lifestyle that neither of us wants.

We have had this conversation about money and we have very similar attitudes to money. As he was working rather than going to education out of school he appreciates why the freedom of finally having spare money is appealing for me. Also due to this he has a lot more of his house paid off than I do and I am finally in a position to over pay my mortgage. Of course, this benefits us both when we go to buy together and we will hopefully be bringing similar amounts to the mortgage. All his savings are going on his education and mine will go on making up maternity leave to give me a year off if we are lucky enough to have children and our parents are very generously funding our wedding.

I agree that this is something you need to discuss together. We did have one minor hitch recently. I love good wine and for Christmas asked my dad for some wine as my Christmas present. I got upset when he had friends to visit (never met girlfriend before, the friend 2/3 times) and he wanted to use the Christmas wine. Might sound petty but it was my Christmas present and while I naturally share it freely with him, felt a bit miffed at sharing it with, to all intents and purposes with complete strangers. Explained this to him and he understood my point of view and went and bought some bog standard wine (on the joint credit card so I paid half). We were both happy with this as a solution but could have boiled over if we I hadn't just talked to him about it. He's also very sweet about offering to pay for things which feels important for me not to feel taken advantage off (don't know if I would but still relatively early days for money sharing).

Good luck and remember: it's good to talk!

MrsE_2

qetu1357 wrote: »

Husband earns £2000, wife earns £1000, bills are £1000.

Husband pays bills so both husband and wife are left with £1000.

This is the fairest way.

Will you marry me:)

ConfusedAgain

My long term boyfriend and I split our bills 50/50. Most of the time it works for us but, as he does earn slightly more than me, there is an element of frustration.

But that frustration is not so much that I end the month with less disposable income than him. It's more than he sometimes tries to get us into situations where he can comfortably afford his half but I have to stretch to pay mine. Food shopping is the usual biggie but we've also had this conversation when it comes to when to turn the heating on and what broadband provider to go with. Every time he comes out with "But we can easily afford this" I just want to drop rational conversation and scream "No, you can easily afford it - I can't!!" :: scream :: It's usually solved by rational conversation - the only thing I really worry about is, because my job is also less secure than his, that he wouldn't be willing to sacrifice his living standards - whether that means, say, moving to lower the rent or having less disposable income because he pays more of the bills - to help me out a bit if I was to be income-less for an extended time.

But I digress....

I think that at the end of the day different things work for different couples so, rather than asking us about whether we think it's fair, you should be having that conversation with your husband. Personally, I wouldn't think it was unfair to pay 50/50 - provided it didn't mean one of you was facing particular hardship by doing so and it just meant you didn't have as much disposable income as you would like then, IMHO, I just put that down to one of life's hard cheeses - but I can see how that would cause tension between and be unfair to other couples so I really do think it's best to sit down and explain your feelings.

tescobabe69

A question for the "splitters" please, what if your partner became unemployed and the JSA ran out ?

Chipstick2004

Firstly, there are a few saing that being married means money should be joint.

Whilst I did agree with this statement I now have my finances seperate from my husbands. The reason for this is that all our money used to go into the joint account, the bills were paid and then we spent from there.

In the end I found this completely unfair. My husband spent alot more than me on his own treats (alcohol, cigarettes etc) which meant I could never afford anything for me. So I'd be working, paying the bills and not even able to afford a new top or a day with the kids or anything but he didn't miss out on lifes luxuries.

So 12 months ago I split the accounts. As I work part time for childcare reasons I earn alot less and so anything from tax credits and child benefit comes to me which then makes our earnings more or less equal. If I didn't receive them I'd still feel it fair for him to be paying more as he's earning more.

We pay our fair share towards the bills and anything left is our own.....now I am ALWAYS in credit and hes ALWAYS overdrawn.....I have tried to help but at least I am not stressed over the state of our finances and I know it was not me causing debt!