MONEY MORAL DILEMMA: Should Paul & Heather go 50/50?

johnroberts07

no it should be 60/40

roxystaff

my OH takes home over £600 a month more than me, I work fulltime and earn my full potential, now we're married all our money goes together which I still find hard as he earns so much more than me but he says its a partnership so not about who earns what, its about working finances out together so you both have a good happy life together.

As others have said we both have different expenses healthwise and hobby wise but putting the money together works for us as we both afford to live happily.

We lived together for 2 years and we used to split everything 50/50 but he always paid more on nights out,.

pnutshreddie

No way. This is exactly the same situation as me and my boyfirend. We do 50% of our earnings into a joint account. This covers Mortgage payments, bills inc food and sometimes if we eat out it will come out of the joint. I was always told by some of my 'older' friends to always keep my own account with my own money. This way, we always have our own spends for our personal things.

It's a good plan and it works.

allotmentgirl

Definitely not. I think that the important thing is that both parties should be left with the same disposable income. If Heather paid her half of the bills she may have no money left and would be dependant on Paul to buy her lippy and give her an independant existance. Don't do it Heather!!

daisylove

I earn more than my partner ( i am a social worker and he is a carpenter) and we do go 50/50 on most things. When we bought our flat i put down most of the deposit as i had been saving for longer and planned a bit more for the future than he did. We have agreed that if we should go our seperate ways ( not married at present) then i will get my extra deposit back and we will split the rest.

We ahve a joint account for mortgage and house related stuff but my money is mine and his is his. I work for it and want to do with it what i want.

It is important to discuss this before moving in, we didnt and i ended up paying for alomst everything when we first moves in together as i didnt want to bring up the subject.

amyjdavidson

When my boyfriend and I moved in together he was in his first year of secondary school teaching and earning £19K a year and I was working two jobs and cobbling together £15K. I also had larger debts that he did which I am still paying off. My boyfriend suggested he pay extra towards the flat becuase in faireness I couldn't afford it and he could. He even bought himself toys like surround sound and a Dyson hoover which I couldn't contribute towards but he claims are still half mine. Now I have a much better job and we earn pretty much exactly the same amount of money so we just share and 50/50 everything.

However we don't believe in joining bank accounts. We each have our own account and we have one joint one which is where all of our bills come off of. This means that we never argue about money because as long as the shared bills are paid the rest is each individuals to do with as they please.

hannahdive

I am also a post grad scientist and bought a house with my boyfriend. I earn half what he does. Reading the issue I'd say definitely shouldnt be 50/50 yet actually we do and it works well! My boyfriend put down the house deposit so that remains his and after that it is owned 50/50. we each pay half the mortgage and bills/. However I know that the house is half mine and am happy to pay my way. The compromise comes where, as we agreed when we we worked out our finances b4 buying, that he pays for holidays and subsidises our social life!

It is not charity nor do I feel loss of power, it is merely a recognition that we both work hard, but at this stage of my career I earn less.

It works- I own half of the house yet we share quality of life. In the future I'll probably earn more than him and it'll balance out

jammin69

It really annoys me that we are becoming more selfish as technology etc. advances.
I don't believe that your money should be cohorted until you are married but I don't believe in 50/50 especially if the man earns more.
At the end of the day in most instances , the woman will contribute more to housework,childcare and so on.
I would not marry or would consider my position in a relationship with someone as selfish as this.
I know someone who is heavily pregnant and struggling to do agency work because of this selfish system.
I am a feminist but I believe that some aspects of feminism worked out for the benefit of men and left women worse off.

chog24

I'll bet Paul doesn't do half the housework!

All (other) things being equal I'd suggest to these two that the rent and bills should be split proportionally, but that said inequality like that does tend to cause problems with flatmates (I've never experienced inequality like that with a partner so can't comment).

EDIT:

I've realised, actually, having read other replies, that there's a bit of a gender issue going on here, too.

It's assumed that the man in a heterosexual couple earns more and this is often the case. However it's not ALWAYS the case. I have a friend whose salary (before she quit work to have kids) was probably twice that of her husband, given their respective jobs. Should she pay more towards the rent and bills? If she did, how would that make her husband feel (there could be repercussions on his self esteem if he feels that he's being supported by his wife)? Her job required that she dress smartly (his, quite the opposite) and so she had to spend considerably more money on clothes... should such expenses be 'deductable' from the communal funds, so to speak?

There were also other inequalities which would need to be brought into the equasion. Despite working a longer day than her husband, she usually ended up doing the majority of the cooking and housework (partially because his job was more physically demanding, but not entirely). She was also less likely to spend her evenings (and disposable income) at the pub than he was.

Before anyone asks, I don't know how they split their mortgage and bill payments, but I simply wanted to throw something into the discussion to mix things up a li'l.

JewelBee

Whats going to happen if they have children? Will he still force her to contribute 50%?
Seems to me that nowadays men are much less willing to take on the role of 'provider' in relationships. Its not like they need to interrupt their career paths in order to have children, therefore they will in the majority have access to better pay.
I wouldnt even contemplate moving in with him, he's too mean!!
I have been in the positon of contributing more than a partner, less than a partner and the same as a partner, even though nowadays through being burnt I shy away from joint accounts, seems to me ridiculous for one to struggle and one to flash their wad of dosh around. How loving is that?

As far as protecting investments go, should they indeed have kids at a later date, he wouldnt get his 50% back anyway, assuming they do indeed marry.

Percentage contributions seem much fairer!!