Splitting the bills? Is anything other than 50/50 unfair?

PenguinJim

chucknorris wrote: »

Your post followed mine so I think you are asking me? If so, we save/invest it.

Does it matter who's paying more towards bills if the remainder all gets put into joint savings and investments, then? If she's paying 4K and you're paying 10K, and the remaining 15K goes into joint savings and investments, what's the benefit in changing to 7K, 7K and 15K?

Or do you have separate savings and investments?

I'm genuinely curious, as my OH and I haven't sat down and sorted anything out. I've started keeping a file on our finances, but before this thread I'd never considered that we might need to count how much we each pay towards which bill. I'm looking for how this would benefit us.

PenguinJim

Person_one wrote: »

Then why did you describe your relationship as a way to counter the general trend? If you know you're an outlier, what was the point of bringing it up?

Person A says 100% of women do more housework.

Person B says it's not 100%.

Person One does not understand.

Edit:

PenguinJim wrote: »

You and (s)he are making the assumptions. I was just demonstrating that jaylee3's was wrong. I'll now demonstrate that yours is wrong by saying: I don't think my relationship is representative of every other. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Person_one wrote: »

Then why did you describe your relationship as a way to counter the general trend? If you know you're an outlier, what was the point of bringing it up?

Sorry, I've just seen your problem. When I said "quite the opposite", it was to mean that I wouldn't presume to say that we're at the top of the bell - not that I think we're always strange!

Oddly enough, if you Genericsearchengineverb the statistics, you'll see that the difference between housework amounts between genders is proportionally quite small, and could then largely be offset by the difference in working hours between men and women (maternal leave being longer than paternal leave, for example). The old-fashioned idea that most women do lots more housework than men should really be put to rest - yes, they do slightly more on average, but a relationship where the man does more housework than the woman is hardly an "outlier" (as you put it).

chucknorris

PenguinJim wrote: »

Does it matter who's paying more towards bills if the remainder all gets put into joint savings and investments, then? If she's paying 4K and you're paying 10K, and the remaining 15K goes into joint savings and investments, what's the benefit in changing to 7K, 7K and 15K?

Or do you have separate savings and investments?

I'm genuinely curious, as my OH and I haven't sat down and sorted anything out. I've started keeping a file on our finances, but before this thread I'd never considered that we might need to count how much we each pay towards which bill. I'm looking for how this would benefit us.

We have separate savings and investments, so yes it does matter. This has gone on for coming up to 10 years now.

PenguinJim

Will you be asking her to move 30K of her savings across to your name to cover the ten years of your lost earnings? Apply 5% compound interest?

Why are you getting it sorted now? Has something happened so that you don't trust her with shared money? Will you be separating and need to get your finances straight for a divorce?

If you're staying together, what do you think are the benefits of changing how you pay the bills?

chucknorris

PenguinJim wrote: »

Will you be asking her to move 30K of her savings across to your name to cover the ten years of your lost earnings? Apply 5% compound interest?

Why are you getting it sorted now? Has something happened so that you don't trust her with shared money? Will you be separating and need to get your finances straight for a divorce?

If you're staying together, what do you think are the benefits of changing how you pay the bills?

No what has past has past, I am looking for a fairer split moving forward. I don't think it needs more explanation than it should be based upon a fair split, by fair I mean I still pay more overall but less than currently. I accept some of her points like:

I wanted our dog (even though she now loves him) so I am happy to pay for him (she pays nothing). I use the car more, so I am happy to pay the most for that (she currently pays nothing).


But I am not happy with paying all of the food and eating out bills (she pays slightly more of the household bills which was supposed to cover that but it doesn't, in fact nowhere near).

PenguinJim

Oh yes, I had a similar setup with my housemates at university.

But in a death-do-us-part situation, what do you think will be the main benefits to you both when you change? Do you not have enough money in your current situation?

chucknorris

PenguinJim wrote: »

Oh yes, I had a similar setup with my housemates at university.

But in a death-do-us-part situation, what do you think will be the main benefits to you both when you change? Do you not have enough money in your current situation?

It isn't anything to do with not having 'enough money' the point should be that it should be fair, rather than it doesn't matter if it isn't fair because we would probably stay together until death-do-us-part. Forever is a long time, things can change, supposing it didn't end up as death-do-us-part.

PenguinJim

I was just looking for a tangible benefit to it being "fair" for my own situation. It doesn't sound like it's worth an hour of our time to sit down and work through the numbers, to be honest!

Good for you that it's best for your situation, though. Everyone's different!

Worry_Wart

I get paid a good bit more than my boyfriend of 2 years. I pay about 75% of the bills, and if I want to do any social activities with him, I pay 100%, as he can't afford it. Maybe in a couple of years I'll put my money in a shared account for us both to use, but for now I'd rather just feed all my excess into the mortgage or house improvements and for us both to be similarly skint but financially unlinked.

I pay a cleaner to come around every fortnight, and the rest of the chores get divided fairly equally. I mostly cook but he does if I can't be bothered. He looks after the plants and does the DIY. I decorate. I vacuum and he tidies. The only thing I regularly nag him about is the washing. I work away a lot and he never thinks to put a wash on when I'm gone. Drives me mad!

I'm in my mid thirties and a lot of my female friends earn as much if not more than their male partners. However, now most of them are pregnant or thinking of having children, that will probably change.

bellevie

Im sure this has probably been resolved as I cant see a recent post by the OP - but incase it helps....

2 experiences:

1) I was the lowest earner so we budgeted to my salary - we were only renting anyway, and I was the driving force behind this, as I wanted to be sure I could carry on, if something happened, redundancy, sickness, separation etc. It worked, we did separate a few years down the line and were both OK financially. Probably wouldn't work if you are banking on a larger mortgage due to his salary. If your otherhalf is fixed on 50-50 this will be your only option, you can't go above what you do not earn!

2) We paid equal % of our salary - so the highest earner paid a little more, but he was also left with more, we were both left with money to do what we pleased with. I can't remember figures, but for arguments sake, say 70% of my salary, 70% of his transferred into a fixed account that all joint bills came out of. Remaining salary was ours to do what we pleased with. This could work if you both agree on it, though again plans need to be thought out for when you decide to have children, your income may be non existent for 2-3-4 years either due to stopping work, or salary being wiped out by childcare costs.