How do you split expenses?

GwylimT

I pay our mortgage, utilities and food etc. My wife has monthly medical bills so it would be pointless for her to put that money into a joint account for it to be spent a couple of hours later.

I earn more than her, her medical costs are similar to what I pay. She pays for her carer etc at work as that is what her DLA is for.

ladymarmalade

It depends on your relationship. I'm a teacher and my husband earns a considerable amount more than me in IT. We have both our wages paid into the same account. We transfer the right amount into a bills account for all outgoing like the mortgage, utility bills, cars, contact lens etc. Then we both get an allowance paid into our personal accounts. We put a certain amount a month aside for things like improving the house, holidays and dinners out and then what's left goes into savings and overpaying the mortgage. We do not do this proportionately, we treat our salary as one amount. Whilst this means that my husband contributes more than me it does work both ways...when he lost his job two years ago I supported both of us for two months. Neither of us had any personal spending money and no savings were made but we made it work. For me once you live together in a serious relationship, you become a team. Equally when I (one day) go on maternity, I know my husband will work on the same principal...I won't have my allowance taken away because of my reduced income as having a child will have been a joint decision.

ALIBOBSY

As the other posters say its one of those things you have to work out between you and it also may well be something that will have to change over time as your personal situations change.

My OH and I have been together over 20 yrs, lived together 19 and just recently had our 18th wedding anniversery and in that time our incomes have varied enormously. We started off with me earning quite a bit more than him, then about the same, then him more than me and then alot more than me as I went through having our 4 kids and part time work/maternity etc.

We had a joint account from quite early on and especially once you have a mortgage and kids it is far easier and makes more sense to work as a team and all income to be joint and bills to be joint. TBH between us I tend to do the "books" so to speak. I discuss stuff with OH and then sort it, so the idea of keeping everything separate seems odd to us and really wouldn't have been flexible enough over the years.


Ali x

Petra_70

PasturesNew wrote: »

Talk about wanting to have your cake and eat it! My god you're ungrateful.

They're bending over backwards to stop you whining and you're still not happy, so have come to the Internet to find people that agree with you.

Top tip: There won't be any here.

They earn more, they DESERVE to keep more of their money.

Compare what you have to living in a studio bedsit and paying your way every month without anybody upping your lifestyle!

No way is this even CLOSE to true. What an awful attitude, and what a horrible relationship that would be; if one person says 'I earn more, therefore I will SPEND more!' I would run a million miles away from someone with this attitude at 100 mph.

How you split finances and expenses and bills varies MASSIVELY. And there are many things to take into account. The person earning less may contribute more with doing housework, or doing paperwork and admin and paying bills and doing chores and shopping etc.

Or they may be a parent who is looking after the kiddies more, or the person who is looking after their partner's parents or grandparents, or entertaining/babysitting their partner's sisters or brothers or nieces and nephews, and taking them out places, and generally contributing more of their time.

I don't think I have ever read such a sweeping generalisation as you have posted here.

'I earn more money so I am keeping more and spending more on ME' is a horrible, toxic attitude, and would make for a very unpleasant life for the person with less income.

As i said I would run at 100mph away from someone with this attitude!

Thankfully, the majority of posters do not agree with you (although from your post, I believe you thought they would!)

VfM4meplse

Petra_70 wrote: »

'I earn more money so I am keeping more and spending more on ME' is a horrible, toxic attitude, and would make for a very unpleasant life for the person with less income.

This is not how I read PN's statement.

Perhaps because the OP smacks of entitlement and jealousy. There is no mention of anything other than money and the sense of how they may encourage their partner to contribute more than half.

Petra_70

VfM4meplse wrote: »

This is not how I read PN's statement.

Perhaps because the OP smacks of entitlement and jealousy. There is no mention of anything other than money and the sense of how they may encourage their partner to contribute more than half.

Well smacking of entitlement and jealousy is not how I read the OP's original post.

enthusiasticsaver

queryy wrote: »

My partner and I live in a rental house. I earn less money than them, and I pay more to get to work in rail fares. How should we split our bills and travel expenses? Should I pay more because I spend more? Should we split 50/50? Or should they pay more because they earn more? Even if they pay more, they will have more to save at the end of the month! If we pay proportional to our income, should this be for all spending or only for bills and travel? Thanks for your advice!

I actually think that if you don't have children and are not married or have come to another arrangement the fair thing is that just bills are split in half and you are each responsible for your own personal and travel expenditure. Your partner is not obliged to make up the difference between your salary and his and presumably it was a joint decision where you lived so this should have been considered then if it costs you more to get to work. If at the time he wanted to live there and you had reservations about it due to the cost of travel then you could quite rightly have pointed this out and he could have then offered to cover some of this and in that case that could be considered along with the bills as a joint expense.

enthusiasticsaver

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

As the other posters say its one of those things you have to work out between you and it also may well be something that will have to change over time as your personal situations change.

My OH and I have been together over 20 yrs, lived together 19 and just recently had our 18th wedding anniversery and in that time our incomes have varied enormously. We started off with me earning quite a bit more than him, then about the same, then him more than me and then alot more than me as I went through having our 4 kids and part time work/maternity etc.

We had a joint account from quite early on and especially once you have a mortgage and kids it is far easier and makes more sense to work as a team and all income to be joint and bills to be joint. TBH between us I tend to do the "books" so to speak. I discuss stuff with OH and then sort it, so the idea of keeping everything separate seems odd to us and really wouldn't have been flexible enough over the years.


Ali x

We have exactly the same arrangement. We have been married 33 years and when we had children, both me and my husband earned the same level of salary and had similar career prospects prior to me going on maternity leave. It was a joint decision for me to stay at home to look after the children as he did not have the sort of job which allowed us to share childcare - erratic hours, lots of travel etc etc.


Over the years I have worked full time and part time and my salary has suffered due to limited promotion opportunities and my OH's has increased but our money has always gone into joint accounts and we pay ourselves a personal allowance which has varied over the years but is always the same even though he earns more. He has always been supportive of that as I do most of the household tasks as I still work part time although our children are now grown up.


The OP though is not married and they have no children so unless they agree on a similar arrangement it does not seem fair for their partner to be giving her part of his salary to "make it fair" as she earns less than him. If he is happy with that then fine that is a mutually agreed arrangement but I don't think she should feel entitled to that.

Person_one

pollypenny wrote: »

How many of you are involved?

You keep saying 'them' and 'they'?. If it's just two of you, divide joint expenses and go from there with him or her,

Very careful not to reveal genders, wonder why?

JIL

Person_one wrote: »

Very careful not to reveal genders, wonder why?

Why would it matter? Would the answer be any different if they were a same sex couple?