Living with new partner

Tlctrickster

What do people do?
When you meet the right person and move in , They have  children that they still pay for, maybe there's debts, Do you share your money?
Do you put in in together or keep your own money? How do you divide bills and child maintenance?

Teapot55

Keep your own bank account. Whatever money you have coming in should still go into that account. 

Rent or mortgage, council tax, gas, electric, phone, broadband, water etc probably should be half each. Whoever pays those bills already, the other one of you should pay them their share. In time a joint bank account that is for the bills is a good idea. You’d both pay something into it every time you get paid. 

kuratowski

Teapot55 said:

Rent or mortgage, council tax, gas, electric, phone, broadband, water etc probably should be half each. Whoever pays those bills already, the other one of you should pay them their share. 

This is exactly what we do.  And the same for supermarket spends, or eating out, or holidays.  Some people prefer a joint account, but it's perfectly possible to do without.

Also, off topic but always good advice, make a will.

blue.peter

Teapot55 said:

Rent or mortgage, council tax, gas, electric, phone, broadband, water etc probably should be half each.

As your "probably" appears to recognise, 50:50 might not work for every couple. My nephew, for example, lives with his partner. They don't share bills equally. There's a considerable disparity in their income, so they decided that it would be fairer to split the common bills in proportion to their income. His salary is about three times hers, so he pays about 3/4 of the bills and she pays about 1/4.

The important thing is to discuss the subject between you and reach an agreement that both of you.can accept. It might not be perfect for either of you, but any perception of unfairness on either side can become a festering sore over time. You might start by separately thinking about the way that you'd like to do things, then look at each other's proposals. Who knows? You might even both reach the same conclusions independently. That'd be great!

General_Grant

Teapot55 said:

Keep your own bank account. Whatever money you have coming in should still go into that account. 

Rent or mortgage, council tax, gas, electric, phone, broadband, water etc probably should be half each. Whoever pays those bills already, the other one of you should pay them their share. In time a joint bank account that is for the bills is a good idea. You’d both pay something into it every time you get paid. 

But unless 100% sure that the relationship is permanent, be wary of contributing to the mortgage unless you are named on it.  Don't just hand over cash covering different elements of the cost of occupying the property.  However, if you would otherwise be renting and your "share" of the mortgage payment is no more than you would expect to pay in rent, then you may feel that does not matter.

blue.peter

Teapot55 said:

In time a joint bank account that is for the bills is a good idea. You’d both pay something into it every time you get paid. 

Yes, but I've a cautionary tale about this.

I knew two men. Let's call them Bill and Ben. Both were aged about 20. They couldn't afford to live on their own at that stage, but both wanted to move out of their parental homes. They'd been friends since primary school. They moved into a flat together and set up a joint account to pay the common bills. After a while, Ben disappeared. Bill discovered that not only had Ben emptied the joint account, but he'd run up a hefty overdraft. Nobody knew where Ben went. Bill found that he was liable for the debt on the joint account.

This was about 40 years ago, and I haven't heard anything more of Ben since then.

They were in the same year at the same school as me, as it happens, and that's how I knew them.

funkycredit

When I met my wife we moved in pretty quickly, and literally just shared everything from day one. I guess in our cases we knew each other was right so we didn't care about money. 

I was earning 5x what she was. Still didn't affect anything and hasn't some 25 years later! Still my best friend and forever partner. Funny, a family member with a money oriented mindset has been divorced 3 times and always keeps their money separate. Baffles me how money can prevail over love but hey, that's the beauty of being individual.