I'm getting married in august (YAY!!!) and my fiance and I have been living together for quite sometime. We have never had any issues splitting the bills because we make exactly the same amount of money...
He just got promoted and will be making WAY more than I will and I'm curious how you other married couples do it? I hate feeling as if I'm not pulling my weight but I don't want to be struggling and he be living comfortably.
Any ideas?How do you married couples split the bills?
When my husband and i were married we had a joint checking account and a budget. Both our pay checks were deposited into our joint checking. Each month I paid all our bills using the money in the joint checking so it counldnt be like oh well i paid this and this.. so you need to pay this and this.. or well i paid half of this bill you need to pay the other half. You are getting married.. everything becomes one. In my opinion ONE person needs to be responsible for paying all the bills that way you cant be like oh well i thought you paid the car insurance.. and then your husband is like oh no i didnt pay it i thought you did.. WAY to much room for error.. If that is not ok then i suggest it be some thing you do together.. like every time you get a bill sit down and pay it together so you KNOW its done so there is no bickering over who paid what and when.
SO since i had a budget i knew exactly what we had to pay and how much money SHOULD be left over each month.. Part of that went directly in to the savings and the other part was what we were allowed for ';spending money'; It did not matter that he made more than me.. all that matter was that the bills were paid.. money went in the savings and there was money left over for anything extra that we wanted...
If you manager the finances well you should not feel like you are not ';pulling your weight'; yes my husband made quite a bit more than me.. however i KNOW that if i let him manage the finances we would not have any money in savings because he has the mind set that if the money is there he will spend it. So we were able to live comfortably debt free because i managed it well.. to me that is more important than who makes more .. because your husband can make all the money in the world but if its not managed well you will still struggle..How do you married couples split the bills?
First of all, Congratulations. Don't split the bills or the income. Marriage
is about two individuals coming together to make ONE couple. You will both retain your unique individual qualities. You should be striving to answer the question: Who are we. There will be some compromise, and it will sometimes be painful. It is worth the work. DO NOT believe
that just because you have been cohabitating that it is the same. Get some good book about marriage and read together. Good luck.
The way you can stop 'competing' with him is to make all my money your money into our money. Finances is the number one reason for divorce. Don't let yourself get caught into that drama. Remember if in your marriage divorce is never an option you won't use it. Many blessings to your marriage. Also make sure before you say 'I do' that you two discuss this financial matter very clearly and come to an agreement. It's not an after we get married discussion but a before!
When two people get married, the entire point is to become one, to share in the joys and sorrows of one another s worlds. You get a place ';together';, you share checking accounts, you have debts together and hopefully one day children. Money is the number one cause of divorce in this country and something that needs to be talked about before the wedding vows.
When you two tie the know, you need to have a joint checking account where ALL of the money goes in to. During bill time, you two sit down together and make all of the payments coming due. Get your groceries, whatever other things you have agreed upon and then you see what's left. That money belongs to the both of you. How you choose to split it or spend it will be up to the two of you. If he makes more than you, then great! that means the two of you will live more comfortably than you are now. I make way more than my husband, but his check goes with mine into a joint account. I pay the bills and we agree on what gets spent after that. Good luck~
When we got married it was like you and your fiance. We both made the same salary and shared the bills equally..right down the middle. We had a Household Account that we both funded equally. Then I had to quit my high pressure job due to health reasons and I went to work making 1/2 of what I had been making. I still funded the Household Account but percentage wise it was 50% less. Now that your husband has gotten the raise I think it would be great for him to pay a little more than 50/50 like the way it was before the raise. Have a heart to heart talk with him and get his feelings on this. Believe me, you better get this settled BEFORE the wedding. Finances is not something you want to argue about later on,.
At the moment, I pay them all while he's home with our infant daughter. Once he goes back to work, things will resume normalcy. We'll split things 50/50. I make more money but all of our medical benefits, life insurance, Thrift Savings, etc. comes out of my pay so we end up having about the same amount of money after all of the deductions.
If your fiance is making a significant amount more than you, household expenses may be best divided by taking a percentage of your pay rather than a dollar amount, to cover those expenses. That way, you're pulling equal weight.
Well things should remain the same. His raise should be some extra cash for him or anything he decides to do for you. Dont change anything with the finances, him getting a raise is very exciting to him, let him enjoy it.
If he offers to pay more then let him, but dont bring it up, he may become resentful.
It always best to have one joint account for bills, then personal accounts for personal money i.e anniversary/B-day gifts, clothes, nails, hair, junk food...whatever...
But yea, trust me...just leave his raise money alone.
We have always shared the expenses equally. Whatever the income, whoever is bringing home more ( it has changed over the years ) all the money goes into the checking account. The bills are payed first and then necessities: food, toiletries, shoes or clothes for kids... What is left is for savings and a little spending $. Usually we will both get, and ';allowance'; I guess you could call it. That is our $ to spend however we want. Otherwise we check how much we have left and talk about what we want... ie dinner out, something for the kids, day trip...
It should not be his living comfortably and your struggling...
personally, because you two are married (not just in a relationship) i honestly feel that the money is basically for both of you equally, so both of you got a raise in essence. if he wants to keep all the money to himself or something, i find it selfish. he should get to enjoy his new found cash, but i think you two should talk about him coughing up a little more your mutual bills
One way is to split bills based on %age of income.
e.g. If you make $40k and he makes $60k then you pay 40% of the bills and he pays 60%.
Another way, is he pays for the essentials and you pay for the extras.
Straight up 50/50 is what is fair.
Your quality of life is not going down because your husband got a raise.
The most troubling thing about your post is that you do not seem to be sharing your quality of life with each other. Sad really.
Communication....is the best platform for a great marriage..My bf makes way more then me but as for our relationship i feel that i can pay for half the mortgage and food and still live comfortably while he pays for the other half of the mortgage and the car, utilities, and our date nights....and its all because we spoke about what we can afford and what will leave us hanging....Congrats on getting married and remember just talk with him he will understand..
Get a joint checking account, as well as each of you having your own personal accounts. Allot yourselves a personal allowance each pay period to be directly deposited into your personal accounts, and have the balance deposited in the joint checking account for bills to be paid. This is also a good time for YOU to increase your 401(k) withholding.
We just add up the household expenses including car payments and split them. We are each responsible for our own credit card bills. We get paid on opposite weeks so when we go grocery shopping whoever just got paid buys and the next week the other person buys. It seems to work well, we have no issues with money in our relationship. Good Luck.
My wife and I split the mortgage. I pay the utilities and she pays the health insurance. We have our own checking accounts and we have a joint savings account. This has worked for us for 7 years now but I was 51 when we married. When I was younger I wouldn't have thought of trying this. At that point I believe a joint account is a must.
Joint accounts all the way. Separate accounts is nothing more than divorce planning, and the courts will ignore it anyway. My wife is joint on all my accounts and I'm joint on all of hers. This includes loans. We live in marital bliss.
We don't.
My husband pays all of our bills through our joint checking and savings accounts. We pool our income together into the bank accounts.
I thought when you get married you share everything?
Me and my husband got a checking account together.
the best way to do it is dump the income of both if both work into the bills.....
That split stuff results in a blame game...
trust me
My hub covers the mortgage (he also makes double what I do) and I cover the utilities/cable.
We do not split the bills. Everything is ours, our money, our bills.
We don't have separate anything. We share it all good and bad.
dont change anything, stay the same
keep doing what you are doing !!!!!!!nothing changes!!!!!!!
You should work together. Everything that was/is mine is also my wife's. Well not everything little thing but you know what I mean. Being financially successful in marriage is like having a business. You need to have more money coming in then going out after expenses. I would take a look at all the money coming in as a whole. That's all your money and all his money. Who cares what who makes. You both work hard together weather you both work or if someone stays home with the kids. I would minus all your expenses (house/bills) from the total amount of money. Then decide how much to save and how much you need to live comfortable. Of coasre you need your own spending money so decide that together. My wife and I have the same amount of spending money. If I need more money the she gives it to me. If she needs more then I give it to her. To my wife and I the ultimate goal is to be successfull together. That means the bills are paid, are credit is good, saving money and also having a comfortable life style. This will make it much easier to budget your life. Now that he's making more money most likely this will be your max income for a while. So now you can take a look and see what needs to be inproved. If you need more spending money then you may have to cut expenses or put less in savings. It IS that simple if you let it be. If you are both working for each other then why should he have more money then you. If you work together then you both get the things you need and the things you want. No matter how much money people make, we can always inprove our lifestyle. The best way to do that is work together.
