Planning to live together - how to split bills with big earning difference?

shiny76

Snugglepuss wrote: »

Rent wise he currently shares with his brother as a council tenant and pays around £200 per month. I pay £950 per month for my 1 bed flat. <stuff cut> I massively downsized when I moved to Bristol 2 years ago and I've realised I really am missing the space.

Would £1150 get you any more space in your area?

I realise that it would massively skew the percentage dynamics but whilst you're figuring things out it might be helpful to maintain your current spending powers!?!

System

TeamPlum wrote: »

When I moved in with my GF (now wife) we got a joint account. I earned more at the time - everything came out, and all our money went in.

Now my wife earns a lot more, the situation is reversed, the money still goes in and it's just our money.

If you're serious about being together, what does it matter? You're in it together as far as I'm concerned.

This happened to me. GF was a student, earned next to nothing, I on the other hand have always had a steady job. I said I did not want a joint account as I earned lots more...tables turned when she was qualified as now she earns a third more than me and I have a huge pension contribution AND student loan...I'm on a lot less and we split the bills 50/50, meaning I have little left over.

Snugglepuss

shiny76 wrote: »

Would £1150 get you any more space in your area?

Good point. One of the things we are also compromising on is location. I currently live in a desirable area in the city centre (I pay a premium for my postcode!). I actually want to move slightly further out anyway plus it works for him better as well. (He lives 10 miles out of the city in a small town.) So by moving further out of the centre then yes we can get a good 2 - 3 bed house for around £1150 - £1200.

Rain_Shadow

Snugglepuss wrote: »

My suggestion (we're sitting down to look at it this weekend) is going to be that we split it based on the percentage of our earnings. So if for example between us we earned £100,000 (we don't - it's just an easy number to work with!), and I earned £70,000 but he earned £30,000 - he would pay 30% of the rent / bills and I would pay 70%.

.

We did something like this.

We each paid a fixed percentage of our net pay into a joint account to cover all joint expenses. In our case it was 72%. That is a percentage that has varied over the years.

Pay ratios do change though. When we got together I earned 2.5 times what Mrs Shadow earned. Now she earns 6 times what I earn.

The most important thing is that you are both happy with the arrangement and you will only get that by discussing it.

enthusiasticsaver

My husband and I always did joint accounts but I understand where you are coming from and I think your way sounds fairest so long as the 30% of bills he is paying still leaves him enough to do other stuff.

Worst thing is if one of you is having to watch pennies and the other has plenty of cash to splash around unless you are happy to pay more each time you do anything.

The exception to this is if one of you wants something like an expensive sky subscription. I have read on this forum of one woman whose husband was unemployed but still wanted her to pay his £80-£90 sky subscription as well as all other bills. There is no way I would do that.

motorguy

TeamPlum wrote: »

If you're serious about being together, what does it matter? You're in it together as far as I'm concerned.

It matters a lot if you're the person on the much smaller salary.


Even very simply, you might use up all your salary just to pay the bills, while the other person has a load of expendable income left each month.

LMG1305

We earn similar amounts now but in the past my OH has earned more than me. However we have always just worked out what our BASIC monthly bills are (mortgage, utilities, phone, internet etc) and divided by 2 to work out how much we both pay. Then we work out the luxuries like Sky TV etc and come to an agreement on how much we pay towards it. At one point I remember paying half of the basic Sky package and then because my OH wanted extras like movies and sports he paid the extra for that. It was worked out in a way that still left us both with enough spending money for things like nights out together and with friends, clothes, haircuts or anything else we chose to spend money on. It was really an understanding that although we both earn our own money and have some independence, we also knew that if either of us ran out of money we could rely on the other if we needed to. There were times I would run out of money before the end of the month and OH would give me money for fuel or he'd pay for a takeaway for us on a Friday night and equally I would do the same for him.

Now that we earn almost identical amounts we just work out our total joint bills, including all luxuries like Sky TV, window cleaner etc and split it 50/50. Anything leftover is our own, but again is often used for joint things like holidays, treats etc.

Littlefrugalcottage

Hello!

Myself and the other half bought a house over a year ago together and I earn more than him, we did exactly what you are proposing, so that we have the same amount of spending, I worked hard for my money and so did he. We just put the money into a joint account where all the bills and household items come out from. Anything we don't spend we put into a savings account for anything from the rates to saving for new windows.

HTH

Person_one

Snugglepuss wrote: »

In terms of salaries I'm on over £50k

For some reason I've always been in relationships with people where I've been the main earner.

Are you sure you can't figure out the reason? You're on nearly double the average wage, its only to be expected!

I think you are being pretty sensible in your approach, but I would gently advise you to be careful about letting your past experiences leave you feeling too defensive and having your guard up too much. Don't forget to put yourself in your partner's shoes from time to time. He's on a very low wage and has health issues, its a pretty vulnerable position when in a new relationship with someone who has far more power and control over their situation.

malky39

My fianc! and myself have a joint account for mortgage,household bills etc. We each pay 50/50 of the amount that needs to go into this account. We then have our own accounts that we keep the rest of our salary in. So our disposable income is our own to do with what we want. We have a similar base salary, but I quite often do overtime and my work place pays bonuses so I tend to earn maybe £200-400 more than her depending on the month. She can do overtime but chooses not to.This won't work for all but it means there no arguments if one of us wants to buy something