looking for some perspective. I’ve been sharing a home with a partner for a while and we split our shared expenses proportionally to our share of the household income, based on gross income (i.e. I make 60% and pay 60% (at least, often more) of what we’ve agreed are the shared expenses). we then do our best to evenly split household chores and tasks as we choose.
another option could be to structure contributions such that we have equal personal money after making our shared contributions.
I’d think it would be simple to determine what a “fair share is” but in practice it’s not, plus I’m facing criticism for my focus on “fairness” itself in this sort of exchange.
how do you do things? is it working for you?
The libs on here not using labour vouchers. Shameful.
We’re married so all our income is in single account which pays everything. We’re both pretty low maintenance, so we don’t usually do any big purchases. If we do, we always check with the other person and make sure its okay. Otherwise we just pay from main account without bothering to let other know.
Chores are mainly just whoever feels like it.
edit forgot to mention, i make 3x what my spouse does.
Yeah I’m honestly kinda baffled that people do it other ways, we are planning long term for shared goals as a team, why would we sequester money away from the family? To what end? I guess technically we have separate retirement funds but we talk about what’s in them as an assessment of how we would pay for things collectively.
My partner has issues with money from growing up poor and eating bread for dinner too many times. Has an extreme dislike of spending money and will stress on stuff like grocery bills when we have years of rent in the bank. It took us being married for about 5 years before they become comfortable enough to merge bank accounts.
Before that, they would feel like they could never spend any money because they didn’t make as much as I did. Essentially staying within their portion of the overall budget, which made them live a less lavish lifestyle but to their own detriment. I would ‘treat’ them by paying for stuff they wanted or needed but would not buy themselves.
After merging accounts, they still kind of feel that way because I still make more and they feel like they are spending ‘my’ money. We’re working through it and it’s probably a more unique scenario but throwing it out there.
I know other people keep them separate when they want to keep a sense of independence. As long as bills are paid, they can spend whatever they want without needing to consult the other person.
For sure, I don’t mean to denigrate people who do it other ways, it’s just really difficult to even imagine trying to plan for long term stuff with separate accounts. Or the idea that I wouldn’t cover an expense that came up because I’d be using ‘my’ money for it. It’s a completely different way of thinking about the financial resources we have.
yeah im a big believer in getting married and completely merging all assets and working together as a team.
Do what you can when you can, contribute what you got when you got it.
I make most of the money and have the most normal schedule so I pay 60% of the rent, do 70% of the cooking, 60% of the chores and pay for 100% of the groceries. My partner saves what they can and shares the rest with their dependent mother.
Married, our structure is that we have our own separate checking and savings accounts, but also a joint checking account that we both pay into at a relatively proportional amount. The joint account is used to pay most of the “common” costs, and anything we use out of our personal accounts is treated as a wash. That way the “family” expenses are roughly fair, but then spending on ourselves isn’t being done by committee.
The key there being “roughly,” you don’t want any party feeling overburdened but at the same time nitpicking every last cent isn’t healthy either.
This setup has been working for my household too. I do roughly cover more of the food and grocery expenses to account for my larger caloric intake.
Well your partner is reaping the benefits of that thicc-ass booty
My partner and I go 50/50 on everything. Chores are done by whoever has energy that day.
We have never really thought about it and done well for over 20 years at this point. Been relatively poor most of the time and had kids. When my partner had work, he paid most things. Now that I do, I pay most things. It’s our life and our expenses.
With chores pretty much same. Now that I work, he does most of them. When he worked, I took care of more. Our gender roles have always been a bit reversed and we are both neurospicy. I hate doing dishes so he always does them. He dislikes doing stuff like planning foods and stuff so I do that. And so on. It isn’t really planned, it just is our life.
Married, all finances are merged together.
Same. Everything goes into the pot and it all gets spent on the kids stuff.
I’m a SAHW, so it really is no surprise that we use a joint account for everything. We do have separate savings for personal expenditures that we put an even amount into every paycheck.
When someone enters the polycule and moves in, they pay into the joint account and we split expenses, but this only happened once. Anything large is discussed between those in the polycule if the third+ individual is paying in. We’ll see if that stays the same if we find another person to join us again.
Admittedly I wish I could work, but I can’t, so that really shapes how things work here.
Not currently living with a partner, but based on salary differences with my previous partner, we decided to set a minimum monthly saving for each (we had separate finances) since at the end of the day the important thing for us was that both of us would be able to save up money at an adequate rate.
If you aren’t in a legally binging relationship, it’s important for both/all people to have adequate savings btw. Once a relationship becomes financially burdensome with no way out it changes massively.
Everyone should feel like they’re able to move on comfortably, even if it’s not in the cards immediately, it’s just one of those things that can spiral really quick.
Yeah, definitely glad we did that. The relationship ended up not working and I’m glad we both had the means to live independently after.
It’s good for when you need it, but it’s also something that can start souring a relationship really quickly too.
There’s a kinda dependance spiral that kicks in at some point and it gets really messy and uncomfortable. Someone always feels guilty, or trapped, or taken advantage of and everything becomes transactional.
We also do the percentage thing since I make quite a bit more than my partner. We use Kitchenowl to record our expenses which gives the ability to put percentages like that and once in a while we transfer money to reset the owned total. It also shows statistics for what categories are our biggest expenses, and a graph month by month etc.
my partner makes like twice as much as me(and i make decent money for where i live, not amazing but much better than many others probably).
We split all the bills like utility, water, mortgage, internet. But we don’t keep strong track of everything else. She probably does pay for my groceries a decent amount but we kinda have separate diets(she doesnt really eat what i eat esp now having to be gluten free, ill eat pretty much anything she makes) so i still go to the store on my own for stuff but ill ask her if she needs anything and i just buy it.
She’s better at and enjoys cooking so she does that more often, but i do alot of cleaning/tidying and taking care of 4 cats esp since I work from home 4-5 days a week(feeding them, cleaning after them, vet visits). I also do more with taking care of the house maintenance whether i do it myself or am dealing with repair guys while i work from home.
We don’t have any shared bank accounts we just use venmo for the bills we split. So whatever is left is our play money. She definitely likes to buy her own treats and i have the ones i like. She has def paid more than 50% for some of our vacations too, but her end year bonus is like a quarter my salary sometimes so she recognizes that.
Anyways, i think if you make substantially more then one should pay more but if youre making enough money it’s worth it to not nickel and dime everything. If i die pretty much everything I have(savings, retirement) is going to her and my sister 50/50.
Most purchases we talk over. We budget and give everyone in the house some spending money a month. We both basically worry about it lol.
I make roughly double, rent is split 50/50, but I pay for utilities, the car, car insurance, groceries, dining out, vet visits, vacations, etc.
Just got an average of those expenses charted up and I spend a little more than double on our shared expenses than she does.
Chores are simple, with some room for headache but it’s a fine system the way it is:
I clean the cat litter, she does the laundry
Whoever cooks, the other washes the dishes (cooking nights get handed off, I usually cook twice a week and we both make enough for leftovers the next day)
Vacuuming I usually do, we have cats, but live in a small place, vacuuming the area up every few days takes minutes of effort and you can do in between tasks.
Things that happen biweekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. that aren’t on a set schedule are usually done by both of us in sync on a day we’re both not busy (usually a sunday).
I’ll deep clean the bathroom while she does a deep clean of the kitchen / fridge. Dusting and all the other tasks that are done irregularly are usually done at this point as well.
I think the system is fine how it is, we both contribute what is necessary, and we don’t hold anything over each other’s heads. If I want to cook two nights in a row to try out a recipe, I’m not holding it over her head. I broke my knee recently and she picked up cleaning the litterbox / cooking for a while, with no expectation of me “paying it back”.
Single income, we share all expenses as far as laws allow. However, due to gift tax laws in my country, I cannot give money to my spouse without declaring it as a gift and paying taxes on it. For example, we couldn’t jointly apply for a mortgage together if she wasn’t paying 50% into it. (Technically, we could, but then I would owe gift tax on the proportional amount of ownership “gifted” to her.) So the mortgage is solely in my name. If we divorced, she would get half of it anyway, so it doesn’t really matter in the end.
We decided that when she finds a job, I’ll pay for our shared expenses from my salary, and she will buy things in her name to bring her assets closer to 50/50.
Others in the thread basically have already said it: be proportional in a way that makes sense. When I was making way less than my partner we split rent 70/30, though I’d generally get groceries. Once I started making more than her, we made rent 50/50 but I took on utilities etc.
It’s ultimately about finding an arrangement that feels equitable.
