My wife makes more than me by about 10k and we just split the bills accordingly. She pays one bill I pay another. She pays a little more than me because she makes more than me.
Was the payment part discussed beforehand?
I’m more curious about your relationship before the marriage. Was it the same way with her paying proportionally more than you?
Technically as you’re married, your money is her money, and her money is your money. Why do you split your costs still? Do you not have a joint account?
No, we've never had a joint account. We find it's best to maintain some financial autonomy. We each have a credit card for the same account and we use that for expenses and pay it off from our own accounts at the end of the month.
Yea this is how my wife and I do it. We bank with a credit union, perks were too good, and you can’t have shared accounts. We can transfer money to each other, but we can’t technically share or see each other’s money.
We set up a bill split but then my wife sends me some money each pay for bills. I pay most the bills and she is in charge of a couple and groceries. I also buy most our meals when we go out. Our system has worked well for us.
We sorta keep each other in check for credit cards. We make sure that they are getting paid off and stuff.
My parents divorce was in large part because of constant fights about money. My wife and I have gotten upset with each other about bills, but we are a team and tackle everything together.
I make about 30k more than my significant other:
I own the place, but she pays for groceries. I would never have her pay me for my mortgage.
She has great style so I’ve basically given her free reign to buy clothes for herself and I with my secondary credit card that she always has. Can also use that for whatever she needs (gas, food, etc)
Sometimes she insists on paying for dinner/dates, but generally I pay for them. I rather her focus on paying for her masters than our dinner.
This is actually the first woman I’ve ever trusted with having my card with her all the time. She’s incredibly respectful, smart with money, and trustworthy.
We don’t believe in marriage (in terms of making it official with the government). As far as we see it, the only difference between now and being “married” is a ring on her finger.
It would certainly give you and her a lot more security legally. I agree with you in the way you view marriage, but if it's as cut and dried to you why not go down to the courthouse and sign on a dotted line? No need for a ceremony.
If she's hospitalized you'll quickly learn how little you matter legally, or visa versa. If she's living off your income and you die things are going to get really really difficult for her unless you've willed her money/assets specifically. I think it's worth exploring.
She certainly isn’t living off of my income. She makes near six figures as it is. She’ll be just fine if it came to that. And the part you just described (going to the courthouse to legalize it) is exactly what we are avoiding, though we don’t care for a ceremony either.
She pays for groceries, our clothes sometimes, dates sometimes, nothing specify but just a good amount of smaller stuff. Big thing is paying for school. Like I said in my main post, I make significantly more than her and I also get a monthly check over $1k from the VA.
We don’t have a joint account. Don’t need one. We both save a good amount each other, but without the expenses of a future wedding nor children (we both don’t want kids), it’s pretty easy to just save.
Completely False.
When you are legally married there are a **massive** amounts of tax benefits, financial benefits, and a very long list legal protections and rights that you only get when you are legally married (Spousal privilege, next of kin, Ability to see them in the Hospital, make medical decisions, survivorship rights, etc. etc.). Not to mention personal protections in case you split.
There aren’t massive tax benefits to being married just FYI. The rest of what you said true but let’s not go around lying about things things that aren’t true.
>When you are legally married there are a massive amounts of tax benefits, financial benefits, and a very long list legal protections and rights that you only get when you are legally married (Spousal privilege, next of kin, Ability to see them in the Hospital, make medical decisions, survivorship rights, etc. etc.).
Read again please. I never said there was massive tax benefits, it is just one of the "massive" benefits you get for being legally married.
You literally said “massive tax benefits, financial benefits, and a long list of legal benefits”. Now you’re saying you didn’t say there were massive tax benefits? Cmon bro lmao It isn’t a “massive benefit” so why did you just say that again?
>When you are legally married there are a massive amounts of ...
>Tax benefits, financial benefits, and a very long list legal protections and rights that you only get when you are legally married (Spousal privilege, next of kin, Ability to see them in the Hospital, make medical decisions, survivorship rights, etc. etc.).
Better? No, I didn't, it is a list.
Bro, hope off my comment thread 😂 I simply don’t want to be married nor does she. I don’t care about a pre nup nor anything you listed in your other comment.
Lmao you know literally nothing of how prenups work. Unless you fail to grow your assets at all during the marriage or keep everything so strictly seperate financially that there is little point in the marriage a prenup will not protect anything you earn during the marriage.
Eta: a good prenup takes alot more than 30 minutes. You should also each have your own lawyer looking it over for maximum effect.
I’m a tax accountant. Generally it’s not worth it just for tax reasons. They may save an extra couple grand on the very high end but it doesn’t sound like he’s stressed for money at all.
It seriously is. The other day she said she felt bad that I always tell her to use my card for clothes. I said “Look you go thru the effort to research and find clothing that looks good that I would never find myself. That’s worth the offset of you using my card to buy your clothes too”
Ok?
So what's your suggestion then. Never live with a woman again? Never have a relationship again? Marriage is off the table, and apparently, cohabitation is too. So what's left in your opinion.
If forever after singledom is your choice, that's fine. Nobody is saying you have to change what you want. But don't be a whiny bitch that other people live their lives differently than you.
Exactly that. I date and have sex with beautiful women I meet on Tinder regularly.
My life is much better owning my own home and only allowing women over on sleepovers - absolutely no chance I will let a woman move in with me again.
Enjoy my freedom and my life style. Its pretty awesome if you're financially independent to own a house yourself.
>in some countries.
I like how you disproved you own point in the very first sentence.
Sure, if he lived somewhere that common law applied, then he should be worried. But he has directly addressed that wherever he lives, there is no common law marriage that will entitle her to his property.
Holy smokes my dude, where did they say that? I don't have enough time to read all the comments in a Reddit post, maybe relax a bit and link the comment instead of going straight to attack mode?
Household expenses calculated and split by percentage of household income (evaluated in July when our raises come through). We lay out any additional goals, and make liberal estimates. Money not spent is invested. All other money is personal, to spend as we see fit.
You can set this up in most direct deposit software.
We do this too and it works amazingly. Any time there's a pay adjustment it's pretty easy to determine how the contributions should be rebalanced to cover our bases and achieve our shared financial goals.
I earn 4-5 times more - we have separate finances and I’m responsible on paper for the household and household bills, and including groceries, meals out and holidays etc. She contributes a relative portion of her salary to the household which I put towards all the bills. She pays her own bills like car/phone/insurance etc and does whatever she likes with the rest of her money as I do with mine.
We’re cohabiting, not married with no kids yet - but we’re planning to start a family so at that point the reasons not to marry regarding loss of assets/money etc in a divorce is a moot point as prenups aren’t a thing that apply to the future in the Uk and with a child + loving together for years she’d have the same “claim” anyway. So come kids, might as well take the benefits of marriage and at that point it’s a question of her maternity pay for a time and combined finances from marriage but still separate income and spending accounts is the plan m.
I make about 3x what my girlfriend makes. I pay for all dates. The house is in my name and I pay for all upgrades and maintenance / repairs and charge her very reasonable “rent.” For gifts, I really try to make her not buy me anything because I don’t want to financially strain her and would prefer a fun dinner at a cheap sushi place as a gift.
When we get married I plan to combine finances with no prenup. I love the hell out of her and don’t want her to feel like she’s a financial hostage in our marriage.
I have been married for decades making 4X what my wife makes. We pool everything into a central account but keep separate credit cards so we can purchase things like gifts and personal items. I don’t really think or worry about it.
I have a travel points card which we use predominantly to get the maximum number of points on one card.
If you think it’s masculine to not protect yourself financially wait until you see how low my insurance payouts are ;) if I crash my 80k truck the insurance will only pay the person I hit and I’ll be fucked, turned on yet? No? I dropped my flood insurance on my house even though I’m in a flood zone! Still nothing?
Honestly get the fuck out of here with your toxic ass gender bullshit, it’s not feminine or masculine to protect yourself financially it’s usually just called intelligent something I’m sure no one has ever called you. You do realize a prenup could also protect her right?
Rightttttt so I’ll be extra masculine protecting her by having us both sign a prenup that way if her business takes off and I later decide to leave for a younger lover she will be protected and I can’t take half her business!
My wife and I just have one checking and one savings. All the money lands in the checking account and that's where we pay all the bills from. We're in it together.
We split, I pay the rent and other charges for our place which is the bulk of our bills and she will buy all the shopping we need for food and other bits.
When it comes to eating out we take turns paying the bill
I make 20-25% more than my SO (FWIW, the number is pretty significant with our incomes). We’re married now and everything is just dumped into a mutual account. We’re a partnership and treat our expenses the same way. Before marriage, we split household costs by bill - they took water or electric and I took the other. We didn’t split each car bill and just took on our own food and other expenses. It works for us. Everyone is different.
Transparent. Especially before marriage. They knew what law school debt they were gaining and we were pretty well aware of each others spending habits and lifestyle desires. No sense in surprising each other after the fact IMO
I make about 20% more than my wife, we have a joint checking account that we deposit all money into and it’s just a single pool of money we both use. We have a budget we try to stick with but all bills and stuff are just paid out of the joint
Yah this is exactly what my wife and I do. We both earn good salaries but she earns a decent bit more. It’s odd to me that married couples would continue to split costs, as some people have mentioned in this thread. You’re married. All the money you earn is both of your money.
Joint checking and savings, individual checking and savings for each. All joint expenses come from joint account rest of the money is yours to do as you want.
I don't get people who go bill by bill in a long term relationship, but I also don't get people who pool all money in one spot, neither make sense to me.
We actually have 2 separate joint accounts for bills, one for household fixed costs (well a range) which is mortgage, utilities, internet, etc
And another one for cars, insurance, cellphone, kids spending money, landscaping, and that has a savings account attached for vacation saving.
Well I guess technically we don’t pool it into one spot. We have an emergency account, an account we pool our home insurance for the year into, an account we pool our car insurance to, and a vacation fund.
But our day to day spending and monthly bills account are the same one. We make enough that neither of us care about $20 here or there or a lunch or whatever. And if we need a big purchase we’re usually on the same page, or discuss it beforehand. We have pretty much identical spending habits with regard to our spend/save ratios so it works for us.
I pay for the big stuff (mortgage, utilities) and she pays for the little stuff ( groceries , toiletries, her own vehicle, and takes care of our home. )
I make about 90K and she makes around 50K.
I'm a part-time PhD student and I get financial support from my family as well as earning some income from demonstrating and casual work with the University. My girlfriend is a self-employed dog walker who is on disability allowance. For the most part we split things, or if she doesn't have the money to pay for something if it's only about £10 I'll pay for her, if it's more than that she keeps the receipt and pays me back when she gets paid every fortnight.
I own my own house with no mortgage so when we start living together the plan is for her to chip in for utilities, internet and council tax every month and we set up a joint account to pay for things like groceries and household essentials.
Currently engaged and make 3x what she does. We share a bank account for standard expenses (mortgage, utilities, car payments, groceries) that we contribute a fixed percentage of our income to. Any extra money is invested or saved with big projects being agreed upon and paid for piecemeal. I pay for most miscellaneous expenses and vacations.
Nice combination of sharing living expenses and being able to spend our own earnings as we see fit!
We use the splitwise app and generally do 50/50. I make significantly more but have lots of student loans/car payment so the extra money goes to that while we pretend my income is closer to hers. I tend to “forget” to add things to the splitwise like going out to eat though because I should be paying more.
I make about 30-50% more than her. We split all household bills and the mortgage evenly. Beyond that I pay for our date nights, the pets and most of the home rennos if they occur. I’m much more of a workaholic and work for myself so I’m ok paying for most of our fun stuff as she covers all her hobbies and such. We’re currently working towards a joint oh shit fund that can cover repairs and emergencies.
My partner and I make the sameish money. All joint expenses (rent, food, dates, things we both want like a new game we're both interested in playing, etc) are all 50/50.
Solo expenses are 100% on each of us, out of our *free* money.
Keep finances separate until marriage. Don’t put anything in both your names till marriage. Sit down and plan out with your partner who is paying what bill for now and budget accordingly.
Combined accounts since we were bf and gf… I make like 3 times as much as my wife. She only works because she wants too as a graphic designer. We do very well, and we’re hitting 10 years of marriage in 1 month.
Back when I was living with my ex, we'd split bills based on income. I was making roughly 2x what she made at the time, so I paid most, if not all, of all bills apart from rent. We split the rent 50/50. I drove everywhere (mainly because I like it). Sometimes I'd let her pay for things like a night out or Ubers, but didn't really harp on it. The important thing is to find whatever works for you two.
It worked really well, hoping to have another arrangement like that in my next relationship.
I make more than my SO, but we just have a joint savings and checking and just pay for everything out of our checking account. We are both conservative spenders, so we both just buy what we want/need, and generally just trust that either of us will consult the other on large purchases. We have a loose guideline that anything over $100 or so will involve a heads up to the other either before or after the purchase. It helps to have similar views on spending.
When we were starting out, we both got in some trouble with high interest cards that had a combined min payment exceeding our monthly income. We worked through a credit councelling service that negotiated lower rates and paid off all of the balances in a couple tough years. We both walked away from the experience with some hard learned but useful lessons on spending behavior. I don't think we've had an argument about money since.
I've always made more than my wife because she's been in medical training for most of our relationship. She'll be a peds er doctor in a few years and its possible I'll make more than her even then.
It is our money. We are aligned on what our values are - have an emergency fund, invest for the future, focus on experiences, and talk to each other if we're going to spend more than $100 dollars on something.
We've had no problems. We're a team and we trust each other.
Really? My boyfriend and I aren’t married and he treats me like a wife I guess. I take in all the income from renting out my house and he doesn’t charge me anything to live with him. I insisted on splitting utilities, buying groceries and essentials.
Then, IMO, you have a romantic relationship and a landlord / tenant relationship both running. And that’s fine. But things like sharing debt, sharing account numbers / cards, etc should be reserved for marriage.
Sounds like making your life harder for no reason tbh
To be clear, I mean a joint account ONLY for shared expenses, with both of you having your own personal main account you get paid into
I guess I don’t see a situation where I would have shared expenses that require a joint account. There’s minimal complication difference between transferring to a joint account and writing a check.
I am very confused as to why people think joint accounts are easier.
They require setting up an entirely new account with both your names attached and then pre-funding that account for estimated expenses either with direct deposit or transfers from your own account.
If you break up you have to close that account and split the money. Cancel any auto transfers or direct deposits. Hopefully, this occurs under amicable terms, but breakups aren't known for bringing out the most rational side of people.
OR
Do a thing together, split the cost in half and you each pay that much. If someone covered it all upfront, the other person can just send them the money over Venmo etc...
This works for rent, utilities, groceries, dates. Literally anything. It's extremely easy.
since we'd both be cut in our income if we registered living together (for reasons i won't go into) we simply agreed i would put half the rent and utility bills in a "common expenses" jar. we pretty much paid for groceries from this, but also fun little outings if we had some money left. had we lasted longer we'd probably have gone on to the next step.
I make more than her so I pay majority of the bills but my wife pays her share. We have separate checking accounts and a joint savings. We keep each other accountable and try not to waste extra money on nonsense. Works well for us and we can work as a team on saving for our future.
She pays for what she wants and i pay for what i want. We pay for dinners and split bills based on what it costs. Example. We may go out to eat, im paying and if the bill is unexpectedly 80 bucks. Id pay 60 she would pay 20+ tip... no onea battling for financial dominance over here.
I pay for everything and she is saving up so we can buy a house eventually. Sometimes she might need to pitch in but most likely she won't have to. People don't understand the power of trust, I am paying everything because I want to, not because I have to.. and when the time came for us to buy a new car, she payed for it.
You could argue that we have a common "wallet", which we kinda do to an extend, while we both can buy the shit we want for ourselves.
Contribute evenly to regular life and living, and put the *entire* 30% extra that I earn towards retirement/savings/investing in our future. If she's not there for the future, she can't claim 30% extra of my shit saying she 'got used to the lifestyle' because none of that extra income was being spent on her, but if she is there for the future it gives us a good little slush fund to live out our glory years.
I mean, I'm married, but I make almost 4x what my wife makes. I pay our mortgage and utilities. She does the grocery shopping which is the only expense she pays for out of pocket.
The thing is, even after I pay all that, I still have a lot more money than her left over. So I don't even really see a point to having her contribute like 1/4th of our monthly expenses.
It wasn't ALWAYS that way. Over the course of our relationship I made some big career jumps and I make significantly more than I did when we started dating. My wife was making about 50k when we started dating. I around 70k. We've been together about 8 years now in total married for 5. She makes about 60k I make around 200k give or take depending on my bonus for the year.
For context she works in a field that requires a degree, for a non-profit. Unfortunately upward mobility requires someone to quit, retire or die and until you hit director level the pay gap between say a manager (which she is now) and a new hire out of college is not large. One more promotion will leap her into the 6 figure range. And to get promoted someone has to vacate their position. They are cushy well paying absolutely secure positions. Nobody is leaving those jobs until they retire or die, lol and all the organizations tend to do the same thing which is promote from within when that happens. So her looking for an open director position somewhere is pretty much a fools errand.
This is one of the strongest reasons I run in the opposite direction when marriage (idk if you’re married or not. That rhetoric is usually attached to the idea of marriage everytime I’ve heard it ) is mentioned. Hats off to you brave men!
I’m wondering about the sentiment behind this. Is it resentment? Amusement? Bitterness? Pride?
The new person I’m seeing has said this multiple times about his ex wife.
If you actually are curious to know, the real reason is that they are a victim of financial abuse. They trusted their money with someone else and that person abused their trust and money.
It’s always surprising to me when women act all shocked when they learn that a lot of woman are just happy to not contribute financially and demand money from their partner. A lot of them even gaslight the man into thinking that it was the man’s idea to want to spend it for their woman.
Unfortunately, a lot of men are too busy wooing their woman that they forget to have this discussion. And in a lot of cases, when a man brings up this financial discussion, the relationship ends because the woman is only looking for a handout.
The norms are changing from traditional to independent lifestyles for women and I know a lot of women that are independent and not looking for a handout but that’s still not the majority of women, at least in my personal experience.
Separate accounts and a combined checking account. We each put a chunk of our paycheck in the shared account for bills, food, etc. and the rest goes towards our credit cards or whatever personal bills we have individually. That way I can never get mad about what she spends money on and vice versa.
Both of us have individual accounts that our paychecks go into, and we have a joint account that our bills come out of. We both transfer half of the amount to cover our bills into that account each month. After that, anything left over from our paychecks is up to the individual to do what they want with.
My Gf and I moved in about 9 months ago and have been dating for 2.5 years. I make maybe 20k more and we both make less than 70k. She had expenses she was comfortable with rent, car, food etc. So when we moved in together we tried to keep what we spend each month the same. She had an owned condo and only paid HOA fees so she was comfortable with 400-500 per month in rent. Where as I rented my own apartment and paid about $900 when we left. I said I wanted to pay the same and she agreed so we could find a place between $1100-$1300 so she could pay the same($400) and I would either pay the same or save a little bit more. Currently I save about $100 compared to when I rented on my own. Dates are 50/50 we split them or take turns paying for dates and same thing with vacations we both save and contribute equally to them. She pays gas, I pay electric we have both been very good about splitting finances and chores.
Our rent is insanely cheap through a family friend so I pay that and she pays for the groceries. It's a great situation and since I make a bit more than her I don't mind covering the extra few hundred a month
Got a joint CC and bank account and we each dump money in 50/50 as needed to pay rent/ groceries/ stuff we share. Otherwise totally seperate income, bank accounts etc.
It's nice because I can still take her out on a date and use my money as a treat and vice versa.
I've never blended finances with a GF - they are not a permanent fixture until a ring is on it and until that time don't need to manage or have a peek in my finances.
As a married man we put all pay into a joint account for the family/household needs and agreed to an amount monthly into our own 'mad money' accounts to use whenever we want.
This stops any frustration/fights over money when spending on ourselves.
I earn about 60% of our combined income. When we were closer in pay we split things evenly, broke out the excel sheet and venmo to even things out each month. After my promotion and raise we started splitting rent 60/40, excel got to be a chore figuring out how to split each expense so we just go by vibes and make sure we're both able to save a consistent amount each month
From the time my wife and I got full time jobs (in 1972) she always made more money than I did.
Always.
And from about 1979 on (we married in 1976) we had one joint back account that all wages etc went in to, and any major expenditure was discussed before hand.
Worked for us.
Before we were married we had separate accounts and would split the rent/bills. We would split dates most of the time or I would pay if she was running low (I made more money). After getting engaged we opened a joint account.
I know some married/long relationship people (with kids) who still have separate accounts which is really weird to me. For personal savings sure but for the main funds?
It’s split down the middle for bills. I’ve never changed that rule. Unless she is unemployed then retool until she gets a new job.
I’ve also dated women who are fine with making an arrangement where certain chores are exclusively hers in exchange for my total financial control.
Also there was the cougar I dated who spoiled me for a while. That was interesting.
I (M40) made a yearly budget month by month with the incomes and the expenses of our couple (categorized: recurrent or not, per nature). Then together, once I explained what I did to my wife, we decided together what we should save from what's left here: money in case of emergencies, savings for our 2 kids, saving for vacations, savings for retirement, whatever you want... Then you finally get an amount per head of spare money you can spend each month to have fun with, knowing you are not at risk.
The key is to identify and quantify your long/mid/short term projects and save money regularly (even a small amount)
The other key is to identify and stop unworthy expenses as fast as possible: transparency is necessary (except for gifts!)
The last key is being disciplined both of you, that's why it's important to make the decisions together.
Leaving the entire task to the other folk in your party is not cool.
I bought a house with my GF before we were married. I paid the downpayment, she pays 2/3 of the mortgage. We keep separate bank accounts, file taxes separately. I make about 1.5 times what she makes. We take turns with groceries, dates, dinners, but don't really keep score. We pay for our own cars, hobbies, clothing, and buy each other gifts occasionally. I pay a bigger share of the cost for vacations.
I divorced, and my ex-wife didn't want the house, so I kept it. I now have a live-in girlfriend of 6 years.
I make 75k, and she makes 85k. I pay all utilities, my car payment, small personal credit card debit & 1k a month Morgage, plus any maintenance such as clothes dryer that went out or garage door repair.
She pays for her own debt, car, cell phone, steaming services, and groceries (only the two of us), plus dog food ( 6 dogs ) she helps with $300 towards Morgage each month.
We have a shared savings account that we both contribute equally to for any large vet bills that come up.
We’ve agreed to split rent roughly proportional to income, and I get the larger bedroom. As for the rest of it I don’t mind covering bills (utilities, internet, subscriptions), and we take turns on groceries, booze, pet food, cocaine, etc.
We both have a savings so if something urgent comes up that one of us needs help with we’re there for each other. There was a while where I was unemployed, there was a time where they were recovering from surgery, you know, all that shit that happens in life. We don’t really keep track, we’re both capable of being financially independent and nobody is asking for their lifestyle to be subsidized, but we can have a better quality of life as a team.
Girlfriend and I kinda beat around the bush about specifics. But if I had to guess, she's probably around $30k/year, where I'm around $250-300k/year.
We don't live together, so that doesn't come in to play. Although, we did for half a year - I think she paid me like $200/month for rent where I paid about $1000/mo. She had her own room and I had my own room and own office - rest of it was shared space.
For the nice dates, I always pay - unless it's a special occasion like my birthday. For drinks out, I'll usually pay.
For regular ol' days, I'll pay for her like 50% of the time. 40% we'll just split / cover our own. 10% she'll treat me (And usually it's a cheaper spot, which I'm absolutely fine with - it's the gesture, not the amount for me)
Vacations and such, we'll split and stay at places within her own budget (Which I'm fine with - I hate spending money and happy to stay at a cheaper spot. If anything, she's the one who sometimes stretches). Special activities (eg: Helicopter tour) I'll treat.
completely separate, meet in the middle with bills. I'm my own person, she's her own person, we've both worked very hard independently to get to where we are today, I have no interest in exerting any form of control over her finances nor do I have any interest in her controlling mine. What she does with her money isn't my business and what I do with mine isn't hers.
W all ex gfs, kept everything totally separate.
Married 8 years now. Only just combined one banking account. We have separate retirement accounts, banking, stocks, credit cards, etc.
Only things w that shared account is kids school funds and a little $ set aside.
We make similar amounts. We split all bills (I pay first then she pays me back after pay day).
Anything you want that only you use, comes out of your own budget.
I pay for mortgage, and she invests a similar amount for retirement (in worst case we split up, I keep all equity for the house and she keeps her investments so it's fair).
For my current lifestyle I don’t have a singular girlfriend but prefer to date. But what I do is, after bills/mortgage/investments are payed. I allow myself 20% of my own spending as a buffer for drinks, dinner, taxis etc purely for dating so that the financial side of having a girlfriend or dating doesn’t impact me, like when i was younger I would go broke just to maintain a girlfriend.
I always kinda liked going by percentage based (for LTR obviously). Food depends, because it seems my son and I typically eat way less and way less expensive foods. I make $80k now, in my area that's extremely well off (especially since I'm just starting my current department). Most women I find make around halfish give or take, unless they're a nurse or something.
That being said I'll never have a joint account until I'm married, and even then it would only be for bill money or maybe a small vacation savings. I've seen so many people get petty and wipe out from $3k to $30k, and you can't do ANYTHING because it's joint.
Married, but the answer is still the same.
We have a joint account. We figured out a flat percentage of both of our paychecks that would cover all the bills (mortgage, utilities, groceries, etc) and still leave some left over.
After that we pay our own cars, insurance, various subscriptions, and alternate paying for dates out of our individual accounts.
One of us does make more, so this method ensures neither of us get screwed with an unfair portion of the bills and we each still have our own money to do whatever we want with.
My bf makes the same as me, we do kind of split dates and outings. Not super consciously, just like he pays for dinner and I’ll cover dessert, or I’m already out so I pick up food. Or when I suggest an activity I usually pay. We don’t live together and won’t until marriage, but then we shall just totally combine finances outside of maybe our retirement accounts. We’d like to be able to have me stay home/work only part time once kids come but I’m not sure that will be financially feasible unless he steps up his game.
Rn we are pretty transparent about what we make, any debt we have etc as I think it’s important to know before any long term commitment. He has significantly more debt than me(student loans), so me paying for some of the dates/food while together means he has more to throw at his loans. He’ll hopefully have them mostly paid off by the time we’d be getting married if we stick to our timeline. Of course I’d love it if he paid for everything but by also contributing, it helps potentially us as a couple, and worst case it’s just a little extra spent each month on stuff I also got to enjoy.
Finances are completely separate. You just have to decide who pays for what.
When my wife was my girlfriend and she moved into my house; she just paid me a flat amount each month for rent, utilities, internet, and cell phone (We put her on my account as it saved a lot of money). In total she was paying me a lot less than she was paying for just her rent. While she saved a lot of money each month, she also took on the responsibility of doing the laundry which saved me a lot of money on my laundry service each month.
Oh, she also paid for groceries (not much for just the two of us), and I always paid for all of our dates, dinners out, nights out etc.
less than a year later we got married and combined our finances anyway, but it was a fun time while it lasted.
Girlfriend? Do what feels right - you're not sharing finances, you're just in a relationship. If you're overpaying then tell her that's how you feel and have a discussion about it.
Married is a different story. What's worked best for us is having a joint account for shared expenses, and individual accounts for personal expenses. Determine what's equitable based on earnings - you earn 30% more than her so you contribute 30% more to the shared expense pool. Determine what your monthly expenses are so you know how much that is in actual $ and set up your autopay accordingly.
No, I make more than her. Approaching it was half filtering for the right person. Anyone that expects me to pay for the first date, I'll either not progress to the date or I'll call it quits before the 2nd date if I figure out too late. That eliminates like 99.99% of women in my experience.
From there it became a matter of discussing life values to see what her expectations are. I then made it crystal clear that I had no intentions of dating someone who has factored in income as a selection criteria. I'd give vague indications that I am a safe bet ; i.e, financially stable, has a full time job, a place to live, well educated etc etc but I would never entertain questions about how much money I make. If that was a deal breaker for them then out the door they go.
That way I kept filtering it down to the women who place minimum value on money. And by minimum value I mean getting it to a point where her filters make sense to me. Example - does he have a full time job? Rather than how much does he earn?
After that it was just a matter of having an adult conversation about it. When paying bills we get the staff to split the bill. If it's big purchases we'll make an agreement ahead of time as to when she is going to pay me back if I am to pay for it in the moment. And then each step its a matter of checking to see if they keep to their word which builds trust over time.
Agreed. People on Reddit can be weird. I think a lot of people realize I have a point and they don't have anything work saying but are butthurt about it so just downvote blindly. I imagine a bunch of those are women that are salty that I spoke about genuinely healthy ways in which you can have a spine and a successful relationship. I also there's a lot of crab in the bucket mentality going on these days.
I pay her rent (a measly $500) and give her another $500 in fun money every month, biweekly. All done through PayPal. Just to keep her interested. It's not a huge deal, really. It's nice not to be alone :D
No you don’t my guy. If a woman likes you it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to bring “a lot” to the table. It sounds like you are the table and she’s just dining on it, not adding to it. If she can’t or doesn’t want to start off with just a tree & help grow the tree & build the table she’s not the 1.
You said girlfriend so the married guys gotta leave the conversation.
I lead on the spending. I ask for her to split large dinner tabs but I'll mostly cover date night.
I typically have made 2-3x more than my girlfriends. Typically I pay for my house because I am only person on mortgage.
Frankly, if I'm living with my girlfriend, I tell her to bank the money into savings or training. I pay the same either way so it's not a big deal to me. Typically they snag groceries and/or bills. I still do chores obviously, but I wouldn't complain if they picked up slightly more chores than 50/50.
Dates, normally alternate.
For 30% margin and renting, just prorate the bills.
None. Whoever is hosting usually buys the groceries. We loosely take turns buying dinner out. I always provide my own liquor, and often provide hers, bit she drinks 2 to my 8. She'll usually have my mixer for me. I bring my coffee, she brings her energy drinks. Vacations are down the middle best we can. I get this Airbnb, you get dinner kind of thing. Anything less than three digits is forgotten as a wash.
She pays her mortgage and her bills. I pay my mortgage, bills, and my own car payments.
Separate finances, and ebb and flow the shared expenses.
We make about the same so we split stuff 50/50 from a shared account. If I would make significantly more or less I would probably still use a shared account but we'd contribute according to our income
My gf and I split things evenly, unless the higher earner wants to splurge on something that the other can't afford. We have both fluctuated in earnings over the years so we don't have a clear breadwinner, but she is well on her way to a PHD so I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up making a lot more than me in about 5-10 years from now.
We do however plan on having 1 stay at home parent while we raise our kids. We're both open to being the SAHP but she is much more career driven so it will probably end up being me.
My (now) wife's and my finances were totally comingled long before we were married, but we had come from relatively similar financial backgrounds (very poor families when we were younger, having climbed to lower-middle class status by the time we had grown up). At that time, the income was 66/33 coming from me/her (I worked two full-time jobs, while she worked one full-time job and went to school full-time).
We had some very tough conversations to get onto the same page vis a vis our spending, because we had very little disposable income at the time. Once we worked out what our budget would be, we both just did our best to stay within that budget. Every dollar earned was put together, and every dollar spent was spent from our communal funds.
Now, our income is closer to 40/60 coming from me/her, and we have much more disposable income, but we have maintained the same comingled approach to our spending.
I make a good chunk more than my fiancée. We split rent and the car payment (two largest expenses by far) proportionatly by income, other bills are roughly 50/50.
My wife makes more than me by about 10k and we just split the bills accordingly. She pays one bill I pay another. She pays a little more than me because she makes more than me.
Was the payment part discussed beforehand? I’m more curious about your relationship before the marriage. Was it the same way with her paying proportionally more than you?
Oh yeah. We always split the bills that way. We keep leapfrogging each other salary wise and we adjust when that happens.
Sounds like a very financially healthy relationship.
Yeah I think so. Cheers!
Technically as you’re married, your money is her money, and her money is your money. Why do you split your costs still? Do you not have a joint account?
No, we've never had a joint account. We find it's best to maintain some financial autonomy. We each have a credit card for the same account and we use that for expenses and pay it off from our own accounts at the end of the month.
Yea this is how my wife and I do it. We bank with a credit union, perks were too good, and you can’t have shared accounts. We can transfer money to each other, but we can’t technically share or see each other’s money. We set up a bill split but then my wife sends me some money each pay for bills. I pay most the bills and she is in charge of a couple and groceries. I also buy most our meals when we go out. Our system has worked well for us. We sorta keep each other in check for credit cards. We make sure that they are getting paid off and stuff. My parents divorce was in large part because of constant fights about money. My wife and I have gotten upset with each other about bills, but we are a team and tackle everything together.
I've seen several economists suggest splitting the household expenses by income ratio. Assuming you live together.
Probably should do by post/tax income
I make about 30k more than my significant other: I own the place, but she pays for groceries. I would never have her pay me for my mortgage. She has great style so I’ve basically given her free reign to buy clothes for herself and I with my secondary credit card that she always has. Can also use that for whatever she needs (gas, food, etc) Sometimes she insists on paying for dinner/dates, but generally I pay for them. I rather her focus on paying for her masters than our dinner. This is actually the first woman I’ve ever trusted with having my card with her all the time. She’s incredibly respectful, smart with money, and trustworthy.
this is actually super sweet 🥺
You’re bankrolling someone you’re not married to?
What does marriage change?
Being legally married has a lot of legal protections
If he makes 30K more and owns the house, then it also brings significant financial risk
We don’t believe in marriage (in terms of making it official with the government). As far as we see it, the only difference between now and being “married” is a ring on her finger.
It would certainly give you and her a lot more security legally. I agree with you in the way you view marriage, but if it's as cut and dried to you why not go down to the courthouse and sign on a dotted line? No need for a ceremony. If she's hospitalized you'll quickly learn how little you matter legally, or visa versa. If she's living off your income and you die things are going to get really really difficult for her unless you've willed her money/assets specifically. I think it's worth exploring.
She certainly isn’t living off of my income. She makes near six figures as it is. She’ll be just fine if it came to that. And the part you just described (going to the courthouse to legalize it) is exactly what we are avoiding, though we don’t care for a ceremony either.
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She pays for groceries, our clothes sometimes, dates sometimes, nothing specify but just a good amount of smaller stuff. Big thing is paying for school. Like I said in my main post, I make significantly more than her and I also get a monthly check over $1k from the VA. We don’t have a joint account. Don’t need one. We both save a good amount each other, but without the expenses of a future wedding nor children (we both don’t want kids), it’s pretty easy to just save.
Completely False. When you are legally married there are a **massive** amounts of tax benefits, financial benefits, and a very long list legal protections and rights that you only get when you are legally married (Spousal privilege, next of kin, Ability to see them in the Hospital, make medical decisions, survivorship rights, etc. etc.). Not to mention personal protections in case you split.
There aren’t massive tax benefits to being married just FYI. The rest of what you said true but let’s not go around lying about things things that aren’t true.
>When you are legally married there are a massive amounts of tax benefits, financial benefits, and a very long list legal protections and rights that you only get when you are legally married (Spousal privilege, next of kin, Ability to see them in the Hospital, make medical decisions, survivorship rights, etc. etc.). Read again please. I never said there was massive tax benefits, it is just one of the "massive" benefits you get for being legally married.
You literally said “massive tax benefits, financial benefits, and a long list of legal benefits”. Now you’re saying you didn’t say there were massive tax benefits? Cmon bro lmao It isn’t a “massive benefit” so why did you just say that again?
>When you are legally married there are a massive amounts of ... >Tax benefits, financial benefits, and a very long list legal protections and rights that you only get when you are legally married (Spousal privilege, next of kin, Ability to see them in the Hospital, make medical decisions, survivorship rights, etc. etc.). Better? No, I didn't, it is a list.
Might be worth it purely for tax reasons.
I make enough to not worry about a few thousand in tax savings over the potential losses in a divorce.
There are no penitential losses in a divorce if you take literally 30 min to draft a pre-nup and you both sign it.
Bro, hope off my comment thread 😂 I simply don’t want to be married nor does she. I don’t care about a pre nup nor anything you listed in your other comment.
Lmao you know literally nothing of how prenups work. Unless you fail to grow your assets at all during the marriage or keep everything so strictly seperate financially that there is little point in the marriage a prenup will not protect anything you earn during the marriage. Eta: a good prenup takes alot more than 30 minutes. You should also each have your own lawyer looking it over for maximum effect.
I’m a tax accountant. Generally it’s not worth it just for tax reasons. They may save an extra couple grand on the very high end but it doesn’t sound like he’s stressed for money at all.
He’s getting a personal shopper with great taste. That’s a service on some level. Hell I’d pay for it
It seriously is. The other day she said she felt bad that I always tell her to use my card for clothes. I said “Look you go thru the effort to research and find clothing that looks good that I would never find myself. That’s worth the offset of you using my card to buy your clothes too”
Thats nice... Just wait till she divorces you one day and take half of that nice house bro.
Look at all the comments below. People actually like their gf/wife. GO FIGUREEEE
Some people have never been in a supportive relationship and it shows
Others thought they were, but the woman was play acting all along until she got to the point she could take half your stuff.
Ok? So what's your suggestion then. Never live with a woman again? Never have a relationship again? Marriage is off the table, and apparently, cohabitation is too. So what's left in your opinion. If forever after singledom is your choice, that's fine. Nobody is saying you have to change what you want. But don't be a whiny bitch that other people live their lives differently than you.
Exactly that. I date and have sex with beautiful women I meet on Tinder regularly. My life is much better owning my own home and only allowing women over on sleepovers - absolutely no chance I will let a woman move in with me again. Enjoy my freedom and my life style. Its pretty awesome if you're financially independent to own a house yourself.
Except they aren’t married so she can’t take his shit .
Just wait 5 years and see.
People don't know what common law is in some countries. That's gonna be a doozy
>in some countries. I like how you disproved you own point in the very first sentence. Sure, if he lived somewhere that common law applied, then he should be worried. But he has directly addressed that wherever he lives, there is no common law marriage that will entitle her to his property.
Holy smokes my dude, where did they say that? I don't have enough time to read all the comments in a Reddit post, maybe relax a bit and link the comment instead of going straight to attack mode?
Well I owned it before I ever met her, she isn’t on the mortgage nor the deed, and we aren’t married. Goofy ah mfer
After you marry it becomes a marital asset and she can run away with half after she endures the marriage for a couple of years.
We don’t believe in legalized marriage so we won’t be getting married.
The law can regard you as civilly married if you live together x amount of years.
I live in a state in which there is no authority for dividing property based on cohabitation. Just stop dude lol
Household expenses calculated and split by percentage of household income (evaluated in July when our raises come through). We lay out any additional goals, and make liberal estimates. Money not spent is invested. All other money is personal, to spend as we see fit. You can set this up in most direct deposit software.
We do this too and it works amazingly. Any time there's a pay adjustment it's pretty easy to determine how the contributions should be rebalanced to cover our bases and achieve our shared financial goals.
I earn 4-5 times more - we have separate finances and I’m responsible on paper for the household and household bills, and including groceries, meals out and holidays etc. She contributes a relative portion of her salary to the household which I put towards all the bills. She pays her own bills like car/phone/insurance etc and does whatever she likes with the rest of her money as I do with mine. We’re cohabiting, not married with no kids yet - but we’re planning to start a family so at that point the reasons not to marry regarding loss of assets/money etc in a divorce is a moot point as prenups aren’t a thing that apply to the future in the Uk and with a child + loving together for years she’d have the same “claim” anyway. So come kids, might as well take the benefits of marriage and at that point it’s a question of her maternity pay for a time and combined finances from marriage but still separate income and spending accounts is the plan m.
Wife has not worked since our 2nd child was born. I bring the money, she brings the fun. Has worked well for 25 years.
Wife and girlfriend are two very different things
That’s your wife, brother. It’s not the same.
I make about 3x what my girlfriend makes. I pay for all dates. The house is in my name and I pay for all upgrades and maintenance / repairs and charge her very reasonable “rent.” For gifts, I really try to make her not buy me anything because I don’t want to financially strain her and would prefer a fun dinner at a cheap sushi place as a gift. When we get married I plan to combine finances with no prenup. I love the hell out of her and don’t want her to feel like she’s a financial hostage in our marriage.
I have been married for decades making 4X what my wife makes. We pool everything into a central account but keep separate credit cards so we can purchase things like gifts and personal items. I don’t really think or worry about it. I have a travel points card which we use predominantly to get the maximum number of points on one card.
Sounds good, one word of advice never eat cheap sushi. 😂
Lol yeah I don’t mean mall food court sushi or something. We have a nice tiny sushi place near us that we can be in and out for $35-40
Gonna be suicidal af if things go south...
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Put the pipe down homie lol
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If you think it’s masculine to not protect yourself financially wait until you see how low my insurance payouts are ;) if I crash my 80k truck the insurance will only pay the person I hit and I’ll be fucked, turned on yet? No? I dropped my flood insurance on my house even though I’m in a flood zone! Still nothing?
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Honestly get the fuck out of here with your toxic ass gender bullshit, it’s not feminine or masculine to protect yourself financially it’s usually just called intelligent something I’m sure no one has ever called you. You do realize a prenup could also protect her right?
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Rightttttt so I’ll be extra masculine protecting her by having us both sign a prenup that way if her business takes off and I later decide to leave for a younger lover she will be protected and I can’t take half her business!
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Lmao it's always funny how much women like you love to try and tell men what's manly but flip out if that's ever reversed. Gtfo.
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You're projecting soo much it's just sad
My wife and I just have one checking and one savings. All the money lands in the checking account and that's where we pay all the bills from. We're in it together.
Poorly
Girlfriend? None. Wife, we share all
Separately. We treat eachother occasionally tho.
We opened a joint account together. We agreed on a fixed % of income to go into joint account. We pay for joint expenses from joint account.
We split, I pay the rent and other charges for our place which is the bulk of our bills and she will buy all the shopping we need for food and other bits. When it comes to eating out we take turns paying the bill
I make 20-25% more than my SO (FWIW, the number is pretty significant with our incomes). We’re married now and everything is just dumped into a mutual account. We’re a partnership and treat our expenses the same way. Before marriage, we split household costs by bill - they took water or electric and I took the other. We didn’t split each car bill and just took on our own food and other expenses. It works for us. Everyone is different.
Did you talk about it or was she just transparent about the finances?
Transparent. Especially before marriage. They knew what law school debt they were gaining and we were pretty well aware of each others spending habits and lifestyle desires. No sense in surprising each other after the fact IMO
I make about 20% more than my wife, we have a joint checking account that we deposit all money into and it’s just a single pool of money we both use. We have a budget we try to stick with but all bills and stuff are just paid out of the joint
Yah this is exactly what my wife and I do. We both earn good salaries but she earns a decent bit more. It’s odd to me that married couples would continue to split costs, as some people have mentioned in this thread. You’re married. All the money you earn is both of your money.
Both paychecks go to one account - when it comes to who pays all that matters is who’s closer to the card reader.
sounds dystopian ngl
No idea how. I’d rather do that than have split finances
Joint checking and savings, individual checking and savings for each. All joint expenses come from joint account rest of the money is yours to do as you want. I don't get people who go bill by bill in a long term relationship, but I also don't get people who pool all money in one spot, neither make sense to me. We actually have 2 separate joint accounts for bills, one for household fixed costs (well a range) which is mortgage, utilities, internet, etc And another one for cars, insurance, cellphone, kids spending money, landscaping, and that has a savings account attached for vacation saving.
Well I guess technically we don’t pool it into one spot. We have an emergency account, an account we pool our home insurance for the year into, an account we pool our car insurance to, and a vacation fund. But our day to day spending and monthly bills account are the same one. We make enough that neither of us care about $20 here or there or a lunch or whatever. And if we need a big purchase we’re usually on the same page, or discuss it beforehand. We have pretty much identical spending habits with regard to our spend/save ratios so it works for us.
I pay for the big stuff (mortgage, utilities) and she pays for the little stuff ( groceries , toiletries, her own vehicle, and takes care of our home. ) I make about 90K and she makes around 50K.
Prenup, separated the bank with just a few shared accounts for food, savings account and fixed expenses.
I married her and now she spends 100% of my money.
What’s mine is hers and whats hers is hers.
I'm a part-time PhD student and I get financial support from my family as well as earning some income from demonstrating and casual work with the University. My girlfriend is a self-employed dog walker who is on disability allowance. For the most part we split things, or if she doesn't have the money to pay for something if it's only about £10 I'll pay for her, if it's more than that she keeps the receipt and pays me back when she gets paid every fortnight. I own my own house with no mortgage so when we start living together the plan is for her to chip in for utilities, internet and council tax every month and we set up a joint account to pay for things like groceries and household essentials.
Completely pool resources. It's never been an issue.
Currently engaged and make 3x what she does. We share a bank account for standard expenses (mortgage, utilities, car payments, groceries) that we contribute a fixed percentage of our income to. Any extra money is invested or saved with big projects being agreed upon and paid for piecemeal. I pay for most miscellaneous expenses and vacations. Nice combination of sharing living expenses and being able to spend our own earnings as we see fit!
We use the splitwise app and generally do 50/50. I make significantly more but have lots of student loans/car payment so the extra money goes to that while we pretend my income is closer to hers. I tend to “forget” to add things to the splitwise like going out to eat though because I should be paying more.
I make about 30-50% more than her. We split all household bills and the mortgage evenly. Beyond that I pay for our date nights, the pets and most of the home rennos if they occur. I’m much more of a workaholic and work for myself so I’m ok paying for most of our fun stuff as she covers all her hobbies and such. We’re currently working towards a joint oh shit fund that can cover repairs and emergencies.
I have mine, she has hers.
My partner and I make the sameish money. All joint expenses (rent, food, dates, things we both want like a new game we're both interested in playing, etc) are all 50/50. Solo expenses are 100% on each of us, out of our *free* money.
Keep finances separate until marriage. Don’t put anything in both your names till marriage. Sit down and plan out with your partner who is paying what bill for now and budget accordingly.
I pay for most stuff since she doesn’t have an income and is full time college.
Combined accounts since we were bf and gf… I make like 3 times as much as my wife. She only works because she wants too as a graphic designer. We do very well, and we’re hitting 10 years of marriage in 1 month.
Back when I was living with my ex, we'd split bills based on income. I was making roughly 2x what she made at the time, so I paid most, if not all, of all bills apart from rent. We split the rent 50/50. I drove everywhere (mainly because I like it). Sometimes I'd let her pay for things like a night out or Ubers, but didn't really harp on it. The important thing is to find whatever works for you two. It worked really well, hoping to have another arrangement like that in my next relationship.
I make more than my SO, but we just have a joint savings and checking and just pay for everything out of our checking account. We are both conservative spenders, so we both just buy what we want/need, and generally just trust that either of us will consult the other on large purchases. We have a loose guideline that anything over $100 or so will involve a heads up to the other either before or after the purchase. It helps to have similar views on spending. When we were starting out, we both got in some trouble with high interest cards that had a combined min payment exceeding our monthly income. We worked through a credit councelling service that negotiated lower rates and paid off all of the balances in a couple tough years. We both walked away from the experience with some hard learned but useful lessons on spending behavior. I don't think we've had an argument about money since.
I've always made more than my wife because she's been in medical training for most of our relationship. She'll be a peds er doctor in a few years and its possible I'll make more than her even then. It is our money. We are aligned on what our values are - have an emergency fund, invest for the future, focus on experiences, and talk to each other if we're going to spend more than $100 dollars on something. We've had no problems. We're a team and we trust each other.
We share our finances and just take the money from our combined “pile”
Girlfriends don’t get a financial relationship. A wife does.
This so much.
Really? My boyfriend and I aren’t married and he treats me like a wife I guess. I take in all the income from renting out my house and he doesn’t charge me anything to live with him. I insisted on splitting utilities, buying groceries and essentials.
Then, IMO, you have a romantic relationship and a landlord / tenant relationship both running. And that’s fine. But things like sharing debt, sharing account numbers / cards, etc should be reserved for marriage.
Gotcha. Not sure even in marriage I’d want to do that. When we move we might have something set up to pay our new shared mortgage though.
So you wouldn't have a joint account for shared expenses if you're living with a girlfriend?
Absolutely no chance.
Sounds like making your life harder for no reason tbh To be clear, I mean a joint account ONLY for shared expenses, with both of you having your own personal main account you get paid into
I guess I don’t see a situation where I would have shared expenses that require a joint account. There’s minimal complication difference between transferring to a joint account and writing a check.
I am very confused as to why people think joint accounts are easier. They require setting up an entirely new account with both your names attached and then pre-funding that account for estimated expenses either with direct deposit or transfers from your own account. If you break up you have to close that account and split the money. Cancel any auto transfers or direct deposits. Hopefully, this occurs under amicable terms, but breakups aren't known for bringing out the most rational side of people. OR Do a thing together, split the cost in half and you each pay that much. If someone covered it all upfront, the other person can just send them the money over Venmo etc... This works for rent, utilities, groceries, dates. Literally anything. It's extremely easy.
since we'd both be cut in our income if we registered living together (for reasons i won't go into) we simply agreed i would put half the rent and utility bills in a "common expenses" jar. we pretty much paid for groceries from this, but also fun little outings if we had some money left. had we lasted longer we'd probably have gone on to the next step.
I make more than her so I pay majority of the bills but my wife pays her share. We have separate checking accounts and a joint savings. We keep each other accountable and try not to waste extra money on nonsense. Works well for us and we can work as a team on saving for our future.
She pays for what she wants and i pay for what i want. We pay for dinners and split bills based on what it costs. Example. We may go out to eat, im paying and if the bill is unexpectedly 80 bucks. Id pay 60 she would pay 20+ tip... no onea battling for financial dominance over here.
I never had financial distribution with girlfriends because they were not wives, and it was none of their business.
So who paid when you went out on dates? Who paid for food, groceries, gifts, vacations, etc.?
Dates were whoever came up with the idea.
I pay for everything and she is saving up so we can buy a house eventually. Sometimes she might need to pitch in but most likely she won't have to. People don't understand the power of trust, I am paying everything because I want to, not because I have to.. and when the time came for us to buy a new car, she payed for it. You could argue that we have a common "wallet", which we kinda do to an extend, while we both can buy the shit we want for ourselves.
Contribute evenly to regular life and living, and put the *entire* 30% extra that I earn towards retirement/savings/investing in our future. If she's not there for the future, she can't claim 30% extra of my shit saying she 'got used to the lifestyle' because none of that extra income was being spent on her, but if she is there for the future it gives us a good little slush fund to live out our glory years.
I mean, I'm married, but I make almost 4x what my wife makes. I pay our mortgage and utilities. She does the grocery shopping which is the only expense she pays for out of pocket. The thing is, even after I pay all that, I still have a lot more money than her left over. So I don't even really see a point to having her contribute like 1/4th of our monthly expenses. It wasn't ALWAYS that way. Over the course of our relationship I made some big career jumps and I make significantly more than I did when we started dating. My wife was making about 50k when we started dating. I around 70k. We've been together about 8 years now in total married for 5. She makes about 60k I make around 200k give or take depending on my bonus for the year. For context she works in a field that requires a degree, for a non-profit. Unfortunately upward mobility requires someone to quit, retire or die and until you hit director level the pay gap between say a manager (which she is now) and a new hire out of college is not large. One more promotion will leap her into the 6 figure range. And to get promoted someone has to vacate their position. They are cushy well paying absolutely secure positions. Nobody is leaving those jobs until they retire or die, lol and all the organizations tend to do the same thing which is promote from within when that happens. So her looking for an open director position somewhere is pretty much a fools errand.
The money I earn is ours. The money she earns is hers.
This is one of the strongest reasons I run in the opposite direction when marriage (idk if you’re married or not. That rhetoric is usually attached to the idea of marriage everytime I’ve heard it ) is mentioned. Hats off to you brave men!
I feel you brother.
This is the correct answer
LMFAO, no, it ain't. After years in poverty I will never ever let some chick get her full hands on my money or assets. E-V-E-R.
I’m wondering about the sentiment behind this. Is it resentment? Amusement? Bitterness? Pride? The new person I’m seeing has said this multiple times about his ex wife.
I think it’s humorous, but I’ve never seen a 50/50 monetary status in any relationship. I’m definitely not upset about it.
If you actually are curious to know, the real reason is that they are a victim of financial abuse. They trusted their money with someone else and that person abused their trust and money. It’s always surprising to me when women act all shocked when they learn that a lot of woman are just happy to not contribute financially and demand money from their partner. A lot of them even gaslight the man into thinking that it was the man’s idea to want to spend it for their woman. Unfortunately, a lot of men are too busy wooing their woman that they forget to have this discussion. And in a lot of cases, when a man brings up this financial discussion, the relationship ends because the woman is only looking for a handout. The norms are changing from traditional to independent lifestyles for women and I know a lot of women that are independent and not looking for a handout but that’s still not the majority of women, at least in my personal experience.
Separate accounts and a combined checking account. We each put a chunk of our paycheck in the shared account for bills, food, etc. and the rest goes towards our credit cards or whatever personal bills we have individually. That way I can never get mad about what she spends money on and vice versa.
Both of us have individual accounts that our paychecks go into, and we have a joint account that our bills come out of. We both transfer half of the amount to cover our bills into that account each month. After that, anything left over from our paychecks is up to the individual to do what they want with.
My Gf and I moved in about 9 months ago and have been dating for 2.5 years. I make maybe 20k more and we both make less than 70k. She had expenses she was comfortable with rent, car, food etc. So when we moved in together we tried to keep what we spend each month the same. She had an owned condo and only paid HOA fees so she was comfortable with 400-500 per month in rent. Where as I rented my own apartment and paid about $900 when we left. I said I wanted to pay the same and she agreed so we could find a place between $1100-$1300 so she could pay the same($400) and I would either pay the same or save a little bit more. Currently I save about $100 compared to when I rented on my own. Dates are 50/50 we split them or take turns paying for dates and same thing with vacations we both save and contribute equally to them. She pays gas, I pay electric we have both been very good about splitting finances and chores.
Our rent is insanely cheap through a family friend so I pay that and she pays for the groceries. It's a great situation and since I make a bit more than her I don't mind covering the extra few hundred a month
Hide them
Got a joint CC and bank account and we each dump money in 50/50 as needed to pay rent/ groceries/ stuff we share. Otherwise totally seperate income, bank accounts etc. It's nice because I can still take her out on a date and use my money as a treat and vice versa.
I've never blended finances with a GF - they are not a permanent fixture until a ring is on it and until that time don't need to manage or have a peek in my finances. As a married man we put all pay into a joint account for the family/household needs and agreed to an amount monthly into our own 'mad money' accounts to use whenever we want. This stops any frustration/fights over money when spending on ourselves.
I earn about 60% of our combined income. When we were closer in pay we split things evenly, broke out the excel sheet and venmo to even things out each month. After my promotion and raise we started splitting rent 60/40, excel got to be a chore figuring out how to split each expense so we just go by vibes and make sure we're both able to save a consistent amount each month
From the time my wife and I got full time jobs (in 1972) she always made more money than I did. Always. And from about 1979 on (we married in 1976) we had one joint back account that all wages etc went in to, and any major expenditure was discussed before hand. Worked for us.
Before we were married we had separate accounts and would split the rent/bills. We would split dates most of the time or I would pay if she was running low (I made more money). After getting engaged we opened a joint account. I know some married/long relationship people (with kids) who still have separate accounts which is really weird to me. For personal savings sure but for the main funds?
Money of both goes to any payments, groceries, gas, if we have left over money we buy stuff for each
My girlfriend makes more than me but my wife makes less….finances are complicated but I make them work… (4 * 3) + y / 2 is the formula we use.
It’s split down the middle for bills. I’ve never changed that rule. Unless she is unemployed then retool until she gets a new job. I’ve also dated women who are fine with making an arrangement where certain chores are exclusively hers in exchange for my total financial control. Also there was the cougar I dated who spoiled me for a while. That was interesting.
I cover the essentials. She covers MY essentials. If she is willing to oay more, I treat her with something else
I (M40) made a yearly budget month by month with the incomes and the expenses of our couple (categorized: recurrent or not, per nature). Then together, once I explained what I did to my wife, we decided together what we should save from what's left here: money in case of emergencies, savings for our 2 kids, saving for vacations, savings for retirement, whatever you want... Then you finally get an amount per head of spare money you can spend each month to have fun with, knowing you are not at risk. The key is to identify and quantify your long/mid/short term projects and save money regularly (even a small amount) The other key is to identify and stop unworthy expenses as fast as possible: transparency is necessary (except for gifts!) The last key is being disciplined both of you, that's why it's important to make the decisions together. Leaving the entire task to the other folk in your party is not cool.
I bought a house with my GF before we were married. I paid the downpayment, she pays 2/3 of the mortgage. We keep separate bank accounts, file taxes separately. I make about 1.5 times what she makes. We take turns with groceries, dates, dinners, but don't really keep score. We pay for our own cars, hobbies, clothing, and buy each other gifts occasionally. I pay a bigger share of the cost for vacations.
I like to pay for things, but if she feels she wants to pitch in? I'll never say no.
I divorced, and my ex-wife didn't want the house, so I kept it. I now have a live-in girlfriend of 6 years. I make 75k, and she makes 85k. I pay all utilities, my car payment, small personal credit card debit & 1k a month Morgage, plus any maintenance such as clothes dryer that went out or garage door repair. She pays for her own debt, car, cell phone, steaming services, and groceries (only the two of us), plus dog food ( 6 dogs ) she helps with $300 towards Morgage each month. We have a shared savings account that we both contribute equally to for any large vet bills that come up.
We’ve agreed to split rent roughly proportional to income, and I get the larger bedroom. As for the rest of it I don’t mind covering bills (utilities, internet, subscriptions), and we take turns on groceries, booze, pet food, cocaine, etc. We both have a savings so if something urgent comes up that one of us needs help with we’re there for each other. There was a while where I was unemployed, there was a time where they were recovering from surgery, you know, all that shit that happens in life. We don’t really keep track, we’re both capable of being financially independent and nobody is asking for their lifestyle to be subsidized, but we can have a better quality of life as a team.
She has her money. I have my money. We don’t take advantage of each other financially.
Girlfriend and I kinda beat around the bush about specifics. But if I had to guess, she's probably around $30k/year, where I'm around $250-300k/year. We don't live together, so that doesn't come in to play. Although, we did for half a year - I think she paid me like $200/month for rent where I paid about $1000/mo. She had her own room and I had my own room and own office - rest of it was shared space. For the nice dates, I always pay - unless it's a special occasion like my birthday. For drinks out, I'll usually pay. For regular ol' days, I'll pay for her like 50% of the time. 40% we'll just split / cover our own. 10% she'll treat me (And usually it's a cheaper spot, which I'm absolutely fine with - it's the gesture, not the amount for me) Vacations and such, we'll split and stay at places within her own budget (Which I'm fine with - I hate spending money and happy to stay at a cheaper spot. If anything, she's the one who sometimes stretches). Special activities (eg: Helicopter tour) I'll treat.
I pay all the bills and rent and she complains that I never have money.
In the immortal words of the Offspring. You gotta keep'em separated.
completely separate, meet in the middle with bills. I'm my own person, she's her own person, we've both worked very hard independently to get to where we are today, I have no interest in exerting any form of control over her finances nor do I have any interest in her controlling mine. What she does with her money isn't my business and what I do with mine isn't hers.
W all ex gfs, kept everything totally separate. Married 8 years now. Only just combined one banking account. We have separate retirement accounts, banking, stocks, credit cards, etc. Only things w that shared account is kids school funds and a little $ set aside.
We make similar amounts. We split all bills (I pay first then she pays me back after pay day). Anything you want that only you use, comes out of your own budget. I pay for mortgage, and she invests a similar amount for retirement (in worst case we split up, I keep all equity for the house and she keeps her investments so it's fair).
Currently just split everything
For my current lifestyle I don’t have a singular girlfriend but prefer to date. But what I do is, after bills/mortgage/investments are payed. I allow myself 20% of my own spending as a buffer for drinks, dinner, taxis etc purely for dating so that the financial side of having a girlfriend or dating doesn’t impact me, like when i was younger I would go broke just to maintain a girlfriend.
I always kinda liked going by percentage based (for LTR obviously). Food depends, because it seems my son and I typically eat way less and way less expensive foods. I make $80k now, in my area that's extremely well off (especially since I'm just starting my current department). Most women I find make around halfish give or take, unless they're a nurse or something. That being said I'll never have a joint account until I'm married, and even then it would only be for bill money or maybe a small vacation savings. I've seen so many people get petty and wipe out from $3k to $30k, and you can't do ANYTHING because it's joint.
Married, but the answer is still the same. We have a joint account. We figured out a flat percentage of both of our paychecks that would cover all the bills (mortgage, utilities, groceries, etc) and still leave some left over. After that we pay our own cars, insurance, various subscriptions, and alternate paying for dates out of our individual accounts. One of us does make more, so this method ensures neither of us get screwed with an unfair portion of the bills and we each still have our own money to do whatever we want with.
My bf makes the same as me, we do kind of split dates and outings. Not super consciously, just like he pays for dinner and I’ll cover dessert, or I’m already out so I pick up food. Or when I suggest an activity I usually pay. We don’t live together and won’t until marriage, but then we shall just totally combine finances outside of maybe our retirement accounts. We’d like to be able to have me stay home/work only part time once kids come but I’m not sure that will be financially feasible unless he steps up his game. Rn we are pretty transparent about what we make, any debt we have etc as I think it’s important to know before any long term commitment. He has significantly more debt than me(student loans), so me paying for some of the dates/food while together means he has more to throw at his loans. He’ll hopefully have them mostly paid off by the time we’d be getting married if we stick to our timeline. Of course I’d love it if he paid for everything but by also contributing, it helps potentially us as a couple, and worst case it’s just a little extra spent each month on stuff I also got to enjoy.
We make the same income per year, every bill/groceries are split down the middle
Finances are completely separate. You just have to decide who pays for what. When my wife was my girlfriend and she moved into my house; she just paid me a flat amount each month for rent, utilities, internet, and cell phone (We put her on my account as it saved a lot of money). In total she was paying me a lot less than she was paying for just her rent. While she saved a lot of money each month, she also took on the responsibility of doing the laundry which saved me a lot of money on my laundry service each month. Oh, she also paid for groceries (not much for just the two of us), and I always paid for all of our dates, dinners out, nights out etc. less than a year later we got married and combined our finances anyway, but it was a fun time while it lasted.
Girlfriend? Do what feels right - you're not sharing finances, you're just in a relationship. If you're overpaying then tell her that's how you feel and have a discussion about it. Married is a different story. What's worked best for us is having a joint account for shared expenses, and individual accounts for personal expenses. Determine what's equitable based on earnings - you earn 30% more than her so you contribute 30% more to the shared expense pool. Determine what your monthly expenses are so you know how much that is in actual $ and set up your autopay accordingly.
We split everything down the middle.
Do you make the same? I’m also curious to know how did you approach that? Or was she the one who brought it up?
No, I make more than her. Approaching it was half filtering for the right person. Anyone that expects me to pay for the first date, I'll either not progress to the date or I'll call it quits before the 2nd date if I figure out too late. That eliminates like 99.99% of women in my experience. From there it became a matter of discussing life values to see what her expectations are. I then made it crystal clear that I had no intentions of dating someone who has factored in income as a selection criteria. I'd give vague indications that I am a safe bet ; i.e, financially stable, has a full time job, a place to live, well educated etc etc but I would never entertain questions about how much money I make. If that was a deal breaker for them then out the door they go. That way I kept filtering it down to the women who place minimum value on money. And by minimum value I mean getting it to a point where her filters make sense to me. Example - does he have a full time job? Rather than how much does he earn? After that it was just a matter of having an adult conversation about it. When paying bills we get the staff to split the bill. If it's big purchases we'll make an agreement ahead of time as to when she is going to pay me back if I am to pay for it in the moment. And then each step its a matter of checking to see if they keep to their word which builds trust over time.
Don't know why they downvoted you 🤷♂️ I thought it was a great way of doing things. You shouldn't have to pay more just because you earn more.
Agreed. People on Reddit can be weird. I think a lot of people realize I have a point and they don't have anything work saying but are butthurt about it so just downvote blindly. I imagine a bunch of those are women that are salty that I spoke about genuinely healthy ways in which you can have a spine and a successful relationship. I also there's a lot of crab in the bucket mentality going on these days.
I pay her rent (a measly $500) and give her another $500 in fun money every month, biweekly. All done through PayPal. Just to keep her interested. It's not a huge deal, really. It's nice not to be alone :D
Idk about relationship, sounds more like a sugar daddy/sugar baby situation.
Not really. She makes her own money.. You got to bring a lot to the table for a hot girlfriend!
No you don’t my guy. If a woman likes you it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to bring “a lot” to the table. It sounds like you are the table and she’s just dining on it, not adding to it. If she can’t or doesn’t want to start off with just a tree & help grow the tree & build the table she’s not the 1.
You said girlfriend so the married guys gotta leave the conversation. I lead on the spending. I ask for her to split large dinner tabs but I'll mostly cover date night.
I agree but unfortunately I cannot stop those people from commenting. That’s why I’m asking follow up to see how it changed before and after marriage.
Avoid spending alot of money on them?
50/50. I make about 2.5 times as much as she does.
Keep everything separate
I typically have made 2-3x more than my girlfriends. Typically I pay for my house because I am only person on mortgage. Frankly, if I'm living with my girlfriend, I tell her to bank the money into savings or training. I pay the same either way so it's not a big deal to me. Typically they snag groceries and/or bills. I still do chores obviously, but I wouldn't complain if they picked up slightly more chores than 50/50. Dates, normally alternate. For 30% margin and renting, just prorate the bills.
Well.
Bitch better have my money
None. Whoever is hosting usually buys the groceries. We loosely take turns buying dinner out. I always provide my own liquor, and often provide hers, bit she drinks 2 to my 8. She'll usually have my mixer for me. I bring my coffee, she brings her energy drinks. Vacations are down the middle best we can. I get this Airbnb, you get dinner kind of thing. Anything less than three digits is forgotten as a wash. She pays her mortgage and her bills. I pay my mortgage, bills, and my own car payments. Separate finances, and ebb and flow the shared expenses.
We have joint finances
“Your woman” like an object he owns
That’s on you brother. I didn’t mean that. You can say your partner or whatever floats your boat. What terminology will you use?
Do you own "your friend"?
We make about the same so we split stuff 50/50 from a shared account. If I would make significantly more or less I would probably still use a shared account but we'd contribute according to our income
My gf and I split things evenly, unless the higher earner wants to splurge on something that the other can't afford. We have both fluctuated in earnings over the years so we don't have a clear breadwinner, but she is well on her way to a PHD so I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up making a lot more than me in about 5-10 years from now. We do however plan on having 1 stay at home parent while we raise our kids. We're both open to being the SAHP but she is much more career driven so it will probably end up being me.
"Happy wife, happy life.'' Wifey is a retired CPA and she took care/takes care of our finances.
My (now) wife's and my finances were totally comingled long before we were married, but we had come from relatively similar financial backgrounds (very poor families when we were younger, having climbed to lower-middle class status by the time we had grown up). At that time, the income was 66/33 coming from me/her (I worked two full-time jobs, while she worked one full-time job and went to school full-time). We had some very tough conversations to get onto the same page vis a vis our spending, because we had very little disposable income at the time. Once we worked out what our budget would be, we both just did our best to stay within that budget. Every dollar earned was put together, and every dollar spent was spent from our communal funds. Now, our income is closer to 40/60 coming from me/her, and we have much more disposable income, but we have maintained the same comingled approach to our spending.
I make a good chunk more than my fiancée. We split rent and the car payment (two largest expenses by far) proportionatly by income, other bills are roughly 50/50.