Moving in together, and bill costs..

SeduLOUs

Yea I wasn't trying to impose my method at all, just giving ideas of what we do. You'll figure out what works for you over time.

I knew a couple once who didn't share money. She went on holiday with her mates and bought 4 Mulberry handbags a year. He could barely afford to go down the pub. Was really sad to see but they seemed happy enough so none of my bl**dy business really!

LandyAndy

Kitty777 wrote: »

Part of me moving away from here is hoping there will be better chances for me down south...or at least, a change of scenery

Lolol, Oxford is very definitely not 'the south' 😉

I agree that proportional contribution is the way to go though.

Frogletina

Kitty777 wrote: »

I do believe I have slightly more savings than him, so I have considered paying more deposit than him....which makes sense really.

How do you see the savings when you are together? Will you see them as joint or will you maintain your own savings accounts? You say your partner earns a lot more than you, but has less savings.

I've been through different scenarios. At one time I was a mother of three and stayed at home. Our income was my husband's wages and child benefit. We had equal spending money (was not much with 3 children), but I did manage to save a little from time to time.

Later I worked and had a lesser wage than him but we each paid 50% to joint expenses and kept the rest of our income and savings separate. It did mean that he had more savings than I did but I have to confess that I never really thought about that at all. I was just glad to be able to pay half the expenses and we now had enough money of our own to spend or save as we wished.

There are several ways to deal with your scenario, you need to find one that you both feel is the right one for you.

frogletina

Frogletina

wileycat wrote: »

I do it with my partner now.
We split all the bills 50/50.
But we proportion the mortgage 66/33 and will split this at the end the same way. But anything we make in growth we will share evenly.
It works fairly well for us, but its everyone to their own - we do it informally but I know the worst that could happen is we split it 50/50 and that doesn't bother me enough to formalise it.

I bought a house with my previous partner. We split the mortgage 30/50 as I paid a 20% deposit.

We did it informally and by the time we split I had already paid off my 30%. When it was valued he agreed that I owed half of the property and the rest was his equity and what was owing on the mortgage - I bought him out of the property by paying off the mortgage and paying him his equity.

In this scenario, we both earned the same money but he was a spender and I was a saver.

I do wonder how things might have turned out if we had decided at the outset that our money was joint. My savings would have been much less, that's for sure.

frogletina

SeduLOUs

Frogletina wrote: »

I do wonder how things might have turned out if we had decided at the outset that our money was joint. My savings would have been much less, that's for sure.

frogletina

We are pretty like minded around save/spend so don't have these problems fortunately. It does help to explain why there's no such thing as a 'one size fits all' solution, and couples need to figure out what works best for them.

I save a bit of my personal spending money, and I have no idea whether he does. We have joint savings for the house deposit/emergency funds etc, but the personal pots are the one bit we can do whatever we want with - if he wants to squirrel it or spend it it will make no difference to me and vice versa.

arbrighton

LandyAndy wrote: »

Lolol, Oxford is very definitely not 'the south' 😉

I agree that proportional contribution is the way to go though.

It's Thames Valley and pricing like London etc

OP, property to rent in Oxford itself is v expensive and unlikely to have parking- look at surrounding towns such as Abingdon and Didcot

lynsayjane

When my now ex moved in with me we had two situations. Firstly when I had a one bed flat, I continued paying the bills, he paid for the grocery shopping. While we were together we moved to a three bed house, the mortgage was solely mine and in order for there to be no dispute of this we paid 50/50 the bills that were shared (groceries, sky, bb, council tax etc) and the mortgage was 100% mine to pay.

I'm not keen on the idea of fully joint finances (that may change if I ever marry). I did earn slightly more than the ex but more importantly after years of Martin's advise I was smarter with my money too. In our case though I didn't get to holiday etc due to him not having money, I'm not sure if I'd have gone off on fancy holidays without him.

I agree that the idea of proportional sharing seems a good suggestion in your case, then you can up the proportion you pay as and when you earn more.

PasturesNew

One way of looking at it would be to suggest that he'd have to pay the rent if he were alone, so your opening bid is "half of the household basic bills" - that's council tax, gas/water/electric, phone line, Internet, TV license, contents insurance.

Then there's the food. You could suggest half the food, or half the food you eat, with each of you paying for your own "treats" separate to the actual food shopping. e.g. if you go shopping for bread/milk/potatoes and spend £20 on that and you pick up 2 cushions for £5/pair and he buys two bottles of wine at £12/2, then you'd put in: £10+£5 and he'd put in £10+£12. That focusses the mind on those "extras" and where the money's coming from/who is paying for it.

Then there's just the rent to divvy up. So, at this point you could have a %age of your "spare cash left over after basic bills" until you reach half. So you might offer half your disposable income.

Doing some figures: £6k/year = £500/month. If basic household bills are £300/month then you'd put £150 into the pot. That'd leave you £350 in your hand. Give £175 towards the rent that month and with the remaining £175 you pay for your half of the basic food shopping + your own treats and your own life costs (transport, clothes, going out, etc etc).

If you then got a job at £12k/year, you'd have £1000. Pay £150 to bills, leaving you £850. Hand over £425 for rent (unless that is more than half) and what's left's yours.

calydon

We have a similar approach to Sedulous, but without having a joint pot of general spending money. Instead we put enough money into a joint account that everything 'joint' is covered, in such a way that we are left with an equal amount each in our own accounts.

So, say I take home £3000 per month and my OH takes home £2000.

Our monthly outgoings (bills, food, car expenses) total £1500.

£3000 + £2000 = £5000.
£5000-£1500 = £3500
£3500/2 = £1750

So... We each need to be left with £1750 in our own accounts, which means I contribute £1250 into the joint account and my OH contributes £250.

It means everything is covered, but we still get our 'own' money to fritter away on what we like without causing arguments.

This has worked well for us for 5 years, and taken us through house purchase, maternity leave and paying for childcare.

We review contributions when we get payrises etc to keep things balanced.

SeduLOUs

calydon wrote: »

We have a similar approach to Sedulous, but without having a joint pot of general spending money.

We don't really have a joint pot of spending money other than for the essentials like groceries and a general pot for the amounts we don't know precisely like car maintenance, dentists, prescriptions etc.

We also have joint savings allocated before sharing out as we'd like to buy a house together eventually and don't want to discover that one of us has saved a substantial sum and the other has managed nothing!

The remainder is the 'fritter' money, but at the moment it isn't very much because we are hammering the debt and then savings quite hard. We just discuss what's available and agree how much we'll get - whatever the figure is we both get the same.