Sharing salaries.bills, etc

geelamch

Reading this post leads me to the belief that I must be old fashioned. ( or old fogey ).we save and invest quite a lot and as I earn x 3 of wifes salary this all comes from my salary as my employer allows us to do all allotments direct . Any money left goes to joint account that my wife runs ,this does household ,clothes leisure etc .if we go out she just gives me money etc . I am quite happy with this and if she said she was short we would just lift some savings .
If all the joint acc was spent then I would believe it must have been for a reason ie. were the bank of mum and dad lol.
As long as we're still saving . If I go for a few beers she just says there's the bank card !
It's a mans world lol.
I don't know if this attitude of ". I earn this much etc " would ever work long term as it's a partnership not a business.

burnoutbabe

if she does overtime does she mean she would do more hours than you?

Or, as is often the case for a higher salary, you do more hours anyway as have to do "whatever it takes to do the job".

if its 1 then i suppose its fair, you could get a part time job to even it out. But if you do more hours anyway and regular unpaid overtime then not at all fair. I'd go with the "i'm getting a nice 5% bonus, oh what shall i spend that on" as the starting point for equality.

Maybe with bonus's overtime one can keep half/half into the pot. So you can splash out on something frivolous but both benefit.

cakeforbrains

heartbreak_star wrote: »

Yes. OH buys me hobby-gifts for birthdays etc. It's his money...I didn't earn it!

I do wonder if I might feel differently if our relationship dynamic was differnet - e.g. we had children or there was a bigger gap between our salaries (there's <£5k pa difference atm).

HBS x

Yeah, you might possibly.

I'm a stay-at-home mum with only some child support from my ex and a bit of child benefit coming in. We have three children. My OH earns just under £50k a year. So if we didn't have joint money then I'd have nothing.

The way we see it that, currently, I enable him to go off and earn the money by looking after the children so we're both earning it.

I can understand that couples without children might keep things more separate, but money is very powerful and that can set up inequalities in relationships.

StuC75

But who's decision was it to buy a more expensive house? the OP's GF did express concern at the size of the mortgage in the first instance... So may have actually wanted to spend a more modest amount based on what would have matched to her salary..

What if the GF had wanted to pay 50/50 on a 150k mortgage, but the OP sold to her that 225k was still affordable and so needed to commit to a bigger draw on there earnings?

When there is such a gulf in expectation of living 'standard' then the one pushing sometimes needs to cover that - i.e. I split bills 50/50 with an ex - but she never wanted sky tv so I paid that 100%..

We don't know how big the earnings difference is.. I would think that as long as the bills amount has been covered then the benefit of the extra pay ought to be hers alone

- After all she may feel that has to work that much more now to have left over what would have had if only spent less on the mortgage... Something which you were pushing for.

Be careful how you push this as it may cause resentment on her part, wouldn't want this to become a Girl Friend has moved out, how do I get her to pay towards the mortgage thread.

hgotsparkle

My OH earns more than me, but on the (very often currently!) occassion that I do get enough in overtime payments to eanr more than him, I will treat him and buy us something for the house, or offer to pay when hes buying something.


Our set up, we have a joint account that he pays in his pay cheque to (as it clears quicker in our joint than his own), he takes some out and puts some in his own account for his direct debits. I have all my wages paid into my account and have a standing order of my half of bill and rent money go over the day I get paid, anthing else left in my account is for food/fuel/direct debits and spending.

suejb2

O.P put a spin on this, why don't you match the amount your girlfriend pays into the "bill" account and keep the surplus in your seperate account.If this new joint amount doesn't cover the necessary or less goes into the "fun" account it will show to your girlfriend that you need the overtime money.

kierze

burnoutbabe wrote: »

if she does overtime does she mean she would do more hours than you?

Or, as is often the case for a higher salary, you do more hours anyway as have to do "whatever it takes to do the job".

if its 1 then i suppose its fair, you could get a part time job to even it out. But if you do more hours anyway and regular unpaid overtime then not at all fair. I'd go with the "i'm getting a nice 5% bonus, oh what shall i spend that on" as the starting point for equality.

Maybe with bonus's overtime one can keep half/half into the pot. So you can splash out on something frivolous but both benefit.

I understand what you mean by working hours. However, upon leaving school I made a decision to become more educated, and have put a lot of hours and effort in to gaining the position and salary that I receive, so that I could have a good work life balance and earn more. My partner on the other hand did not. She left school and partied, didn't go to uni or peruse a career.

Seanymph

No she isn't being fair.

She's loading it in her favour in each decision.

A better way would be all of everyone's wages into joint account - same amount of 'spendies' creamed off to personal accounts each month.

Then anything left over in joint account at end of month to savings or investments or overpayment on the mortgage or whatever.

burnoutbabe

but you chose her as a partner so i would not use this as an argument.

kierze

StuC75 wrote: »

But who's decision was it to buy a more expensive house? the OP's GF did express concern at the size of the mortgage in the first instance... So may have actually wanted to spend a more modest amount based on what would have matched to her salary..

What if the GF had wanted to pay 50/50 on a 150k mortgage, but the OP sold to her that 225k was still affordable and so needed to commit to a bigger draw on there earnings?

When there is such a gulf in expectation of living 'standard' then the one pushing sometimes needs to cover that - i.e. I split bills 50/50 with an ex - but she never wanted sky tv so I paid that 100%..

We don't know how big the earnings difference is.. I would think that as long as the bills amount has been covered then the benefit of the extra pay ought to be hers alone

- After all she may feel that has to work that much more now to have left over what would have had if only spent less on the mortgage... Something which you were pushing for.

Be careful how you push this as it may cause resentment on her part, wouldn't want this to become a Girl Friend has moved out, how do I get her to pay towards the mortgage thread.

It was not me who pushed for the house, it was my partner. She asked me if we can afford it if we put our money together. I calculated this based on our basic salaries and what was left over after bills was split