Assuming from my relationship, that you make 30% more than your girlfriend, what kind of financial relationship do you have with her?

46 comments

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. Both paychecks go to one account – when it comes to who pays all that matters is who’s closer to the card reader.

  8. I never had financial distribution with girlfriends because they were not wives, and it was none of their business.

  9. 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.

  10. 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.

  12. 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.

  13. I’ve seen several economists suggest splitting the household expenses by income ratio. Assuming you live together.

  16. Wife has not worked since our 2nd child was born. I bring the money, she brings the fun. Has worked well for 25 years.

  17. 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.

  18. We live together and I earn significantly more than her. We split all shared costs (household, groceries, vacations, etc) based on our net income ratio.

  19. 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

  20. 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.

  21. 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.

  23. 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.

  24. 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.

  25. 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

  26. 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.

  27. 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.

  28. 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.

  29. Prenup, separated the bank with just a few shared accounts for food, savings account and fixed expenses.

  31. 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.

  32. 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.

  34. 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.

  35. 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.

  36. 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.

  37. 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.

  38. 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.

  39. 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.

  41. 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.

  43. 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!

  44. 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.

  45. 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.

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