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

skintchick

Person_one wrote: »

They're moving in together for the first time, it wouldn't make sense to go 'all in' right from the word go before they know if its going to work out or not.

I see it from the other viewpoint - why would you move in with someone and make that commitment if you hadn;t thought it through and didn't think it would work?

Couples who live together often say they consider themselves married, so how does that fit with the "try before you buy" mentality?

Living together is a big commitment, similar to marriage and should be treated the same IMO.

To answer the OP, the way that I think is fair is what others have suggested - work it out on percentages. So if you earn 10k and he earns 30k, then you pay 25 per cent of all joint outgoings and he pays 75 per cent. The rest is then your own. 50/50 actually is only fair if you are flatmates rather than a couple.

And I'm glad someone picked up on the whole "help" thing" He won;t be helping unless you consider all domestic jobs to be your responsibility? And I hope you don't. They are his chores jointly, too, and he should do his fair share (how you decide what is fair depends on both of you. Perhaps by comparing commutes and saying if there are 7 hours a week of chores, and he commutes 2hrs a day while you commute 1, then you do 2/3 of the chores and he does 1/3, worked out in time taken).

If you don;t resolve this conversation then you will end up resentful.

sulkisu

PenguinJim wrote: »

Why is it "your money" and "his money". Are you life partners or business partners?

My OH and I have never discussed it, but she knows she's welcome to any of our money at any time. I earn three times her salary, but so what? It's not like she's working less hard than I am. My salary is not my money, and her salary isn't hers - it's ours.

At the moment, they are a couple who are about to buy a home and live together for the first time. Most of the people advocating the 'my money is his/her money' appear to either be married, have children or have been living together for a long time, none of which apply to OP.


Maintaining separate finances now, seems prudent (to me anyway). It's not a question of trust or commitment, it is simply the fact that you do not have the same automatic legal rights or protection if you are not married. This is even more important if one or both of you have children outside of the relationship.

heartbreak_star

Do people really sit down and "divvy up" chores like in a share house? I find that a bit odd, we just do stuff that needs doing when we see it, whoever sees it first does it. I generally do more laundry and he generally does the bins, but that's just the way it works out.

I genuinely have no idea how much OH earns. It's "a bit more" than me, but not "shedloads" more. He has no idea what I earn either. The house belongs to him (bought with ex) and I'll be on the deeds once my credit report is back up to scratch. I give him a set amount per month towards "house stuff" and buy groceries.

Works for us, has done for nearly 3 years now

HBS x

GobbledyGook

sulkisu wrote: »

At the moment, they are a couple who are about to buy a home and live together for the first time. Most of the people advocating the 'my money is his/her money' appear to either be married, have children or have been living together for a long time, none of which apply to OP.


Maintaining separate finances now, seems prudent (to me anyway). It's not a question of trust or commitment, it is simply the fact that you do not have the same automatic legal rights or protection if you are not married. This is even more important if one or both of you have children outside of the relationship.

they've already made the biggest step to join finances with a mortgage so surely it's more prudent to just share everything, start as you mean to go on and get everything running smoothly from day 1?

Hermia

heartbreak_star wrote: »

Do people really sit down and "divvy up" chores like in a share house? I find that a bit odd, we just do stuff that needs doing when we see it, whoever sees it first does it. I generally do more laundry and he generally does the bins, but that's just the way it works out.

Some people just won't do any chores if you don't do that though. My friend's husband moved from his parent's house to hers and he had never done any chores. If she hadn't drawn up a rota she would have ended up doing everything as he seemed to think the magical housework fairy did everything. Some people genuinely don't see what needs to be done.

Anatidaephobia

heartbreak_star wrote: »

Do people really sit down and "divvy up" chores like in a share house? I find that a bit odd, we just do stuff that needs doing when we see it, whoever sees it first does it. I generally do more laundry and he generally does the bins, but that's just the way it works out.

We split the chores because there are certain things that he hates but I don't mind doing (so I do those tasks) and a couple of things that I hate but he doesn't mind (so he does those ones). This works for us perfectly and seems fair as well We didn't sit down and make a list or anything, it just came up during a conversation one day. There are also other household tasks that are shared and, for those, we operate the same way that you do

skintchick

heartbreak_star wrote: »

Do people really sit down and "divvy up" chores like in a share house? I find that a bit odd, we just do stuff that needs doing when we see it, whoever sees it first does it. I generally do more laundry and he generally does the bins, but that's just the way it works out.

You find that odd but don't know how much each earns? I find THAT odd.

But yes we do divvy up chores in this house because otherwise I end up doing it all because my husband is happy to live in a house with dirty dishes everywhere, toys all over the floor, and no clean clothes.

When he got a small pay rise, and we worked out it was about £80 a month, I persuaded him that we should spend it on two hours' cleaning a week and that has really helped my resentment levels

Anatidaephobia

ska_lover wrote: »

I have not encountered much gender bias towards men (and earning more for the same job) in my industry - but am aware that it does still go on - and it makes me very angry. I would never stand for that in the workplace, and would demand the same as men, or would find an employer who would pay my worth. Women allow themselves to get treat in this way - if we all moved away from these shoddy employers who enable this type of behaviour, then things might change

Some women don't even know they are being paid less. I know a woman who worked in the same place for 10+ years and only discovered after she left, by chance, that she was paid less than her male colleagues doing the same job that entire time.

ALIBOBSY

highjewelgreen wrote: »

Thanks for your reply, no he hasn't suggested that. We haven't really talked about it in that much detail. With whatever we do now we always split everything down the middle or there abouts. It feels sort of funny asking him to contribute more.

OK as someone who has been married for over 17 years and lived together before that I can honestly say if you can't feel comfortable and at ease discussing these sort of issues with a partner no way should you commit to buying a property together.

If you marry or not, living together means you become a partnership-buying is even more of a major commitment. TBH you are both commiting to a long term relationship that may or may not include marriage and kids later on. You will likely have changes of income for both of you, repeatedly, and there will likely be times when financially as a couple things are really tight and you need to be able to discuss and work things out or you will be lucky to stay together more than a couple of years.

Long term in a relationship there will be good times and some really tough times and unless you are open and able to discuss anything and everything it won't work.

Sit down and get the whole thing out there and keep sitting down and talking to each other about pretty much everything.

Good Luck

Ali x

KxMx

Anatidaephobia wrote: »

We split the chores because there are certain things that he hates but I don't mind doing (so I do those tasks) and a couple of things that I hate but he doesn't mind (so he does those ones). This works for us perfectly and seems fair as well We didn't sit down and make a list or anything, it just came up during a conversation one day. There are also other household tasks that are shared and, for those, we operate the same way that you do

And then there are people who are open about not liking cleaning, and that extends to not doing much at all, and thinking things like leaving bin bags open in the house are fine.

Still needs to be done like it or not but not everyone seems to get that!

:rotfl: