Of love and money- how do you and your SO split householdfinances?

In My Humble Opinion
1

How do you and your SO solve these problems?

[ul]
[li] Whose (expensive) whisky is it? You bought it, but your SO finished with friends, which are not entirely your friends. (substitute whisky with car, space, equipment, or other stuff, as needed)[/li][li]You earn more or less then your SO, but neither of you wants to make a big deal out of it. [/li][li]You both earn money. You’ve made a division of who pays what. Yet, you also both feel you contribute ever so slightly more then your SO does. This feeling is only ventilated during really nasty quarrels, but you somtimes suspect it is lurking in the backs of both your minds. [/li][li]You want to buy some personal luxuries. Do you buy them with household money, pocket money, your “own” money? [/li][li]What do you do with all those receipts, clogging up your wallet ? [/li][/ul]

The financial system my SO and I worked out works fine for us, but it has the disadvantage that people think it is kinda “cold and calculated”.
So, I’m curious about other couples’ systems and how they work or not work.

2

This is our system. Note: we both earn, and don’t have kids.

The fixed costs for rent, car, insurance etc are split up according to a division standard we both feel comfortable with. Most costs are split 50/50, and some are split 40% for me - 60% for him, because that is the difference in our income.
The car is his, but I pay him 40 dollars per month for the rides we take together and the times I borrow the car for my own needs.
My SO pays all these bills and I pay him a fixed sum every month. The sum is indexed avery year or so to accomodate for new, or changed costs.

Groceryshopping, shopping for the house and going out to movies or restaurants; the one who pays keeps the receipt in his wallet. Every two weeks or so, the amounts on the receipts get written on a “household list” pinned to the kitchen door. When in doubt (is it *our * new chainsaw or my new chainsaw) we ask “Honey, is it okay if I put the new chainsaw on the household list?”. (Meaning: “will you pay half of it and thus own half of it?”).
Personal items, such as clothes, cosmetics and fun-things don’t go on the list.
Once every two months, I add the prices on the household list. That results in a sum I have to pay my SO, or he has to pay me.

I keep the old household lists (there are only six for every year) for reference, years later, whose chainsaw it was. :slight_smile: And, also in case I ever get round to analysing my spendign behaviour.

3

Here’s a thread I started on this a while back.

4

Rent: Split 50/50, though we usually alternate paying the rent in full because I don’t like having to give or receive money from my SO. It feels weird.
Car insurance/gas: He pays, because I don’t drive, though I sometimes chip in for gas.
Food: Generally 50/50, alternating, though it’s not strict. In the case of the whiskey (or other expensive food item which I bought for myself but he finished), I’d tell him in advance that I don’t want him to drink it and that would be that. Though that example doesn’t work in our case because my SO doesn’t drink.
Bills: He pays the cable/internet bill, I pay water and electric. They’re roughly equal.
Personal items: I pay for these myself, same for him.
Bank accounts: Separate, but we’re not married so that’s not strange.
Differences in income: Right now I have no income, but I do have savings. He’s the opposite. We don’t really discuss or care about it.
Receipts: Throw them away. We don’t have to make every little thing square. I figure that it will all work out 50/50 in the end. If there was a major inequality it would be brought up, but so far there haven’t been any big problems.

I think a system like the OP’s would drive me crazy, but to each their own.

5

We’re married and we happen to consider this to signify a more fundamental merger than just a convenient contractual connection and fully subscribe to the clause ‘all my worldly good I thee endow’ (plus a few other implied or explicit parts of the vows). Sorry if that sounds preachy, it isn’t meant to be anything more than the backstory.

We have a joint account into which both of our salaries are paid directly, all of our household bills are debited directly from this same account and from this account is provided a pair of debit cards and cheque books.
We have a joint savings account, into which surpluses may be swept.

Day-to-day spending just happens - if either of us needs or wants something, we buy it; if this entails serious spending, we talk about it first.

When we first met, I was a typical skint bachelor, my wife(to be) was a typical careful saver; if she resented bringing more wealth than me to the relationship, she never showed it. For the first five years or so of our marriage, she was earning a fair bit more than me, but that gradually changed and now I’m the primary wage earner.

The only finances that are really kept separate are things like gifts and prizes that are specifically given to/won by one or the other of us; Ordinarily, wage bonuses have also been kept separate, but we have decided that my Christmas bonus this year (if I get one) will just go in the pot or be spent on something specific for the whole family.

6

Married, not earning, small kids.

I’ve never understood the splitting philosophy. I guess it works for some couples, but my husband and I have never made any distinction between his, mine, and ours and we have yet to have a money-based argument in the 12 years we’ve lived this way. Our communal spending pot was born 4 years before we even talked of marriage and thrived through a spectrum of lifestyle changes including marital status, living arrangements (we actually lived 200 miles away from each other for over a year), parental status, and individual earning capabilities.

We are both professionals. He’s IT and I teach special education, so it’s unlikely that I will ever earn more than he does. In fact, when I left teaching to work full time on the farm business and to raise our children, he was outearning me 3 to 1, and according to my state’s teacher pay scale, the gap would have widened to nearly 5 to 1 by today.

While I understand why couples may want to keep their money separate, I have a hard time getting my mind around day to day, harmonious living under this system. If the pay gap is as wide as ours, illustrated above, do you really have two classes of people living in the same household as a unit? and how does that work for you? What about the kids? Do they get to ride in Dad’s new Volvo or are they condemned to tooling around in Mom’s 11 year old Subaru? And birthday/Christmas gifts? Well that’s a parental competition just waiting to explode.

We’ve heard financial experts whom we otherwise respect suggest new couples open 3 separate accounts - 2 individual and 1 communal into which both pay proportionately according to earnings. This may be sound financial advice, but I think it’s shitty family advice. We see ourselves as a unit and have successfully kept language like ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ out of all financial discussions that don’t center on life insurance. (we both have the same amount if it matters. Farmman realizes I would be expensive to replace.)

What about divorce? Well, since I didn’t step off the cliff not expecting to make it all the way to the ground, I don’t make marital decisions based on the possibility that our marriage will fail. I fear such prophecies tend to be self-fulfilling for one reason or another. A dissolution of our marriage would probably come from one or the other of us turning into a complete arse, and I have no doubt that the deserving individual would get what he/she has coming.

Back to the OP and some points I’ve missed:

Personal luxuries are entirely up to the individual. We tend to pre-clear any purchase over $100 with the other, but since we both have an understanding of our finances and we share common financial objectives, wild spending on frills has never been an issue for us…we both chose mates wisely in this regard.

The receipts are stuffed into an envelope at the end of each month and I do the data processing.

7

I let him pay for everything.

I haven’t had a paying job since 1998. BK we just flushed our money together down the toilet of life. We have no regrets over it and had no debt either. Not like now. Whoooo Hooooo.

8

Well, I don’t have an SO, but I do have my dad. We use the following system. My dad pays the rent. I pay everything that is not the rent, including both of our car payments. Each of us pays our own car insurance. This works out to approximately the same thing per month; depending on what the bills are, I pay slightly more or less than my dad does. Neither of us cares.

If we want stuff, expensive or small-time, we buy it with our own money. If we both want something (anything from communal groceries to a new TV), we split the cost 50-50. If we do something together (say, dinner and a movie), one of us just pays, and we don’t keep tabs. Now, when I say we don’t keep tabs, I mean we really don’t keep tabs. I do not remember who payed last time we went out to dinner, and that was two nights ago. I’d be very surprised if my dad, whose bank account consists of a plastic bowl on top of the fridge, kept any better track. Neither of us has any idea how much money the other one has at any given time. If one of us needs a few bucks, we ask the other one, and repay him in a couple days. This doesn’t happen much.

This system has been working for us for the past two years. Then again, every other couple (be it roommates or a romantically-involved pair) to whom we’ve described it has balked at the suggestion. I don’t know why. I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s because it works. People don’t like things that work, because they don’t involve any compromise. Neither me or my dad feels like we’re doing the other any favors; we’re just living together and doing stuff we feel like doing. Members of a couple seem to feel they need to give something to the other party, to make it seem as though they’re trying to make the relationship work. This almost inevitably develops into a mind game of self-sacrificial one-upmanship, leading in turn to pent-up hostility toward the other (either for lack of appreciation, or for “taking advantage” of the person’s generosity). Bitterness grows, arguments ensue, and nothing ever gets resolved because both people feel that they are the one who “gives more” to the other. I’m 20 freakin’ years old, and I’ve seen the above scenario played out between various people more times than I care to remember. To recap, the key points of the Roland system:

  1. Figure out a way to split up the bills. Try to equalize the ratios of money earned : amount payed for each of you. Don’t split individual bills, as this requires figuring out how much you owe each other and paying/collecting every month. Once you know what bills you’re paying, pay them and shut up.

  2. Communal money is a BAD IDEA. If you both want something, split the cost 50/50. If the other person doesn’t want it, either pay the cost yourself or don’t buy the thing. Communal money inevitably leads to one partner using it to buy something the other wouldn’t have been willing to go 50/50 on, which creates trouble, especially if the other person doesn’t voice their objection immediately.

  3. Don’t ask, or make any effort to find out, how much “personal money” the other one has. As long as their share of the bills get paid, who the hell cares anyway.

Seriously, folks. The “giving” part of any relationship has nothing to do with finances. It has to do with giving each other your love (or, in the case of roommates, your simple respect), tolerating the other person’s little quirks, respecting their privacy, and being open with one another. When you start splitting up individual bills on anything other than a 50-50 basis, or keeping track of how much money “the household” has, you’re just asking for trouble…and trust me, you’ll get it.

NOTE: I’m aware that this system only works for dual-income couples. The single-income couple is far simpler: the one who makes the money controls the money. He/she needs to pay the bills, then work out a system, be it a weekly allowance, unlimited access with permission asked before each purchase, or whatever, that is agreeable to the other person. Then, they need to stick to it. If it turns out not to work, switch to a more practical system, reboot, try again. Bada-bing, bada-bang, bada-boom.

9

Wait a minute! You mean to tell me you can actually get women to pay for stuff? :eek:

No, but seriously, with all my GF’s and ex-wife (who I still pay her mortgage for!) I pretty much pay for everything and they pretty much spend what they make on whatever the hell they want. Now granted usually when we go out for dinner or what not SHE picks up the tab (usually :rolleyes: ) but thats about it.

The thing about this is; I totally realize this is the new millennium and I should probably let them pay more of the bills in all. But my Dad pretty much hard wired this programing into me from day one. I’d really feel weirded out if it were any other way.

I hope that doesn’t make me a control frreak…

10

We’re both earning, but I earn quite a bit more than her. Our system works pretty well for us.

We have a joint account into which we both pay half the mortgage and a bit of contingency money.

I pay for everything else: utilities, car insurance, gas, groceries. I also usually pay for dinner, drinks, and so on, when we’re socialising, though I do like her to dip into her pocket occasionally.

Everything left over from this sits in our respective bank accounts, and we do what we like with it. No arguments.

11

None of these are really problems at Casa Dave-Guy.

Both my wife and I work. She earns more than I do, always has. It’s not a big deal, it’s just the way it is.

We have always had joint bank accounts, and all our money goes into the pool, to be used as needed.

As far as expensive whiskey and such, it’s a non-issue. I’m the only one who drinks beer and coffee, but I don’t need to squirrel away funds for them.

There is no division as to who pays what. I actually sit down and write the checks to pay the bills, but again, it all comes from the same fund, to which we both contribute. It’s not “her” money and “my” money. It’s “our” money. Ditto for the debt. It may be my credit card, but since we’re partners, it benefits both of us to keep it current.

As for luxuries, they don’t crop up that often, as we try to live fairly simply. Going out and buying a couple of DVDs doesn’t put a big dent in the budget, so it’s a non-issue. For larger purchases, we tend to talk it over, but if it’s something that won’t strain our finances, it’s no biggie.

12

My wife and I joined our accounts a week after we got engaged. Since then, neither of us has individual private property.

If one of us wants to buy something expensive (definition of “expensive” being dependent on our current finances) they have to ask the other for permission. Certain objects (like clothing) are “personal” as a matter of courtesy. If she drinks my bourbon I’ll get mildly peeved, just as she will if I eat her chocolate mints.

13

I make more than Gunslinger, but he’s a full-time student with a part-time job, so he works more. I don’t care what proportion of the money in our checking account comes from which of us. We have the one checking account, and we pay our bills and everything out of it, and everything we own is joint property except for the things we brought into the relationship, none of which are things that one of us could “use up” in any way. If one of us wants an extra treat, we both determine where it fits into the budget. There might be a bit of a sense of “well, I get the next treat, then” but it’s not codified.

I don’t know what we’re going to do about Christmas money, but it will probably end up being just the same - we’ll each take some cash out of the joint account, and use that for our Christmas money (since we both have access to the bank book, if we used checks or debit we’d have to write down where we spent the money, so the presents wouldn’t be as secret.) That’s the only “his money/my money” issue I’ve encountered so far.

14

We are pretty much exactly like this. I consider us to be a single unit that will prosper or go down together. At the moment, we’re prospering.

15

My wife has two jobs, so naturally, she makes more than I do. No matter, all of our pay is direct deposited into the checking account. All the bills that can be paid online via debit are done that way. She decided she wanted to do the books, so she takes care of that and sends out the checks to pay the remaining bills. We have debit cards, and can get some cash back if we need it for anything.

Your first scenario doesn’t apply to us - she and her friends don’t use my stuff.
As for her earning more than I do, it’s a non-issue. Our being together isn’t to amass a bunch of individual personal wealth, it’s to pay what we owe and get ourselves out of debt. When that day happens, we’ll look at it again. Probably won’t change anything, though. We have never had a quarrel, and wouldn’t stoop to using that kind of tactic if we did.
If either of us wants to buy something, we look at the bank book to see if we can afford it. There is no “my money”, it’s our money. If there is enough to get whatever it is, then we get it. We both agree that paying the bills comes first, and if we don’t have enough to get whatever it is, we will wait until there’s enough money for it.
Receipts for purchases get recorded in the checkbook, and then they get filed in the blue box (of household records).

16

We’re similar to this but without the joint account. I make little to nothing and hubby makes way way more. He gives me a certain (extremely generous) amount a month (I get raises when he does, heh) with which to buy household stuff - groceries, appliances, clothing/shoes, plants, small furniture, etc. Whatever is left (in addition to what I make) is “mad money” to be saved or spent as I choose. He covers stuff like the mortgage and utilities but doesn’t have to be bothered with the small stuff. Large purchases (a large appliance/furniture piece or household upgrade) are discussed by both, decided upon, and then purchased/paid for by him around xmas or my birthday and usually counts as a gift. (I suppose most women would not appreciate getting a chest freezer for their birthday, but hey, I’m practical!) The exception is our cars. We both bought our own cars and pay for their upkeep seperately, because, dammit! That’s PERSONAL you know? Hell, I’ll share a toothbrush with someone before I’d “share” a car.

Anyways, there certainly isn’t any receipt saving or finger pointing. If he wants to buy an obnoxiously expensive golf club with his money, that’s his business, and if I want to blow mine on liquor and shoes, that’s mine. As long as the important stuff is covered we’re cool with whatever happens. Even when we both made a lot less money, I don’t remember having any stress about dividing everything up. It was more an issue of “can you get this this and this if I cover this thing and these guys?” If you have a roof over your head and shoes on your feet, why bicker about who drank how many cans of beer, or whatever? The next step after that is “who is hogging the remote” and “who is using too many blankets” and you don’t want to end up being that couple.

If we had kids everything would have to be different, I suppose, but thank Jebus that’s not an issue. I can only assume I’d get a bigger “allowance” to cover costs for the kids and we’d have less golf club and liquor money at the end of the month.

17

Married, two kids, I’m a SAHM who works a little tiny bit.

We do everything jointly. Although my contribution to the home is not monetary, we consider it just as (if not more so, he has sometimes said) important as the cash. It’s our money, and we decide together what to do with it. This usually means that we don’t spend more than about $100 without prior discussion, though that can vary depending on the item. We both trust each other not to spend too much on frivolous things. Since we have very similar money philosophies, we’ve never had too much trouble, which is really nice.

18

Mrs. Giraffe and I both make roughly the same amount. Before we got married, we split all the common costs proportionally to our incomes and spent whatever was left over how we wanted. After we got married, we merged our finances completely, so there is no money that is just mine or hers.

As for spending, we sat down and worked out a budget. (We’ve since sat down again several times and refined it.) Included in the budget is “allowance”, i.e. money that we can spend on whatever we want (e.g. books, CDs, etc.) without any input from the other. This is just a budgetary construct, however – either of us can buy things beyond that, but if it’s significantly more than our monthly allowance budget, we just discuss it with the other first. We’ve both bought ourselves big things at various times out of household funds without any resentment from the other. We’re lucky in that we have similar spending tendencies – I don’t know if our system would work if one of us wanted to spend a lot more than the other.

In terms of the example in the OP, if I bought a treat for myself like expensive whiskey and my wife used it up with her friends, she would replace it and we would probably list what was used as either a household expense (entertaining friends goes under household) or under her allowance, depending on the situation.

As for receipts, I track everything with our online banking statements and Quicken, so we only keep receipts for big things.

19

You might want to rethink that, at least until you see the purchase turn up in the online statement. Once we ordered a pizza, and somehow a $24 charge got turned into $2,400. I kid you not. I logged into my bank account and saw that I had a negative balance of about $2,000. I’m sure I could have gotten the matter adjusted even without the receipt, but having it did expedite the matter.

As for our finances, I bring in substantially more than she does, but we just put everything into our joint account. It all belongs to both of us.

20

When **Dangerosa ** and I first combined finances, we had a joint account into which all of our salaries went, except that each of us had a small allowance ($200 a month or so) going into separate accounts. The joint account took care of mortgage, utilities, groceries and any jointly-agreed-upon purchases. Allowance was used for individual expenses – lunches at work, comic books, et cetera – and was not subject to any form of review. It was a pretty good system.

Our current system is looser. All money is pooled, and we have an agreement that no purchase exceeding a couple of hundred dollars is undertaken without first consulting (in my case) or informing (in hers) your spouse. She manages the finances, so she’s aware if we can afford a purchase, thus the difference.

Under the old system, this would be regarded as having transferred the item to the communal ledger – we both wanted/used it, so it’s joint. I’d then get to either purchase a new one from joint funds, or claim remuneration from the joint fund.
In the new system, I’d just get a new one.

She used to earn more but it was not a big deal. I now earn more but it is not a big deal. Our system has always rendered this a non-issue – we contribute all of our incomes and then spend them jointly. No dollar-for-dollar comparison.

We still get this, but not about money. She does a lot more taking care of the kids, I do more laundry and dishes. When we remember to communicate, it’s a non-issue.

Under the old system, personal money from the “allowance” account. Under the new system, if they are below the threshhold, joint money. If they are above the threshhold, ask first, then joint money.

Throw them away, after removing any personal data like credit card numbers.