Ideas on splitting bills/expenses in relationships?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I think you are right in terms of your subjective experience, but there may come a time that your perception shifts.

I have a friend right now whose wife has post-partum depression. She has had it for over a year. She can't work or bring herself to do much, but he is fine to carry all that weight right now for his wife and child until she gets better.

That may not be for everyone, but there are certainly circumstances that can change that 50/50 share at times.  

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Of course there are exceptions to every rule.  I'm speaking more generally and not taking into consideration extenuating circumstances which of course could apply to specific relationship situations.

[Anonymous]

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@vanillabean wrote:

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@rmduhon wrote:

If someone is working less hours they should take on more of the housework.

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Say she earns one time more hourly than he does. She works half a day, while he works a full day. How do they distribute their daily payments and chores at home?

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Payments could still be 50-50 based on equal income levels still and you'd figure that chores would be a bit more accessable to the person that's home more, that is, physically able to perform them more often.  I could see an argument being made however that if the person in this example that's working the half day and thus doing more chores could possibly contribute slightly less financially (maybe 40/60) even at equal income levels if the couple is able to somehow quantify that the extra time/effort being put into chores equates to X amount of money.  That would be a conversation for the couple to have of course.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

My personal opinion is that the more you judge a relationship like a boxing match both of you are going to go down losing in a TKO

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Well, I think the take away here is that you shouldn't have to judge it like a boxing match.  Relationships are give and take.  Someone may contribute more financially, but then the other person naturally by knowing that will tend to contribute more with household chores.  Or maybe they cook dinner every night.  Or maybe they make their kids breakfast and pack their lunch the next day.  I mean there's a million different ways to find the balance that as written above by others can't be easily quantified. 

But, like judging a round in boxing, you go off of how you "feel."  There's no way to quantify who wins a round in boxing, which is why with 3 judges you'll see 2 of them score a round 10-9 and the third scores it 9-10.  The judges are looking at the same things, that is the same scoring criteria, but may weigh the criteria differently which can cause them to score a round differently.  A couple could write out a list of all their household chores and put their names next to each one that they do on the list.  They could hand that list to 10 different people, and 5 may say that one of them carries the tougher load where the other 5 may feel the other person has more to do.  The reason why there are differing opinions is that these 10 different people are "scoring" the chores differently relative to what they find easy/hard or enjoyable/annoying to do.

Couples can score relationship criteria differently as well.  Money is easily quantified so there's no argument there.  It's all the other stuff though.  I may love cooking and don't find it to be all that much "work" so I cook 5 out of 7 days a week.  She may not particularly like cooking, finds it to be hard work and thus cooks 2 out of 7 days.  Since she may value this quite a bit since to her it's "hard work" she may in turn "score" cooking way higher than I do.  For me it may just sort of be a fun so I don't score myself much for it, but she really appreciates it and weighs that factor heavily.  As a result, she may have no problem knocking out laundry where I hate to do it.  She doesn't find it to be hard work or annoying like I do.  She'd much rather do X hours of laundry than X hours of cooking and that may work perfectly for me.  It's a give and take, a compromise if you will.  These two factors may "even out" and result in both people feeling like they're relative equals in terms of household duties. 

What's important at the end of the day is that the couple verbally agrees that they both "feel" like equals relative to what they're contributing.  Maybe Person A in the relationship does 7 things out of 10 on the household chore list and Person B only does 3, but the couple agrees that at the end of the day based on how each person feels about each of those things on the list that they are contributing equal amounts.  Maybe those 3 things are the hardest/most time consuming on the list for Person B and the 7 others are quicker ones that Person A doesn't mind doing at all and actually may enjoy to some degree. 

What's important is that communication takes place about these things.  If one person feels like they are contributing considerably more, they need to vocalize that and have a conversation about it.  Resentment will be the only result if these feelings go unspoken.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

My personal opinion is that the more you judge a relationship like a boxing match both of you are going to go down losing in a TKO

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Well said, Irish.

[iced]

Each person in a relationship does what he or she can. If you love someone, you don't care how it breaks down. The housework/child raising are not measured in my relationship and we do not try to assign tasks. Just because someone earns more or work longer hours doesn't mean they shouldn't also try to do as many household chores as they can. We're usually racing each other to see who can do the chores first.

If I were living alone, I would be paying 100% of the bills and doing 100% of the housework, and since I like to prep for the worst case, I wake up each morning prepared to do 100% of both. Anything my SO does to help is a bonus.

We even plan our finances with the assumption we're each alone so we each should have sufficient funds in his/her retirement accounts/emergency savings/etc.

[garagebandking]

I'm the high earner in the house and the one with better credit, so the house and pretty much everything else is in my name. We aren't married, but have been together 10 years.

Breakdown is pretty simple, she pays 1/3 of household expenses (mortgage/utilities/cable/sewer/etc) each month since she happens to earn exactly 1/3 as much as I do.

That money is given to me whenever she gets paid.

We keep separate accounts and keep open dialog about finances.

[Anonymous]

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@iced wrote:

Each person in a relationship does what he or she can. If you love someone, you don't care how it breaks down. The housework/child raising are not measured in my relationship and we do not try to assign tasks. Just because someone earns more or work longer hours doesn't mean they shouldn't also try to do as many household chores as they can. We're usually racing each other to see who can do the chores first.

If I were living alone, I would be paying 100% of the bills and doing 100% of the housework, and since I like to prep for the worst case, I wake up each morning prepared to do 100% of both. Anything my SO does to help is a bonus.

We even plan our finances with the assumption we're each alone so we each should have sufficient funds in his/her retirement accounts/emergency savings/etc.

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Right, so I assume that if you are living together but you are still paying 100% of the bills and doing near 100% of the housework that you'd take issue with that breakdown, regardless of if "you love them."  Regardless of how certain things are measured, there are situations where no matter how you cut it no one could ever consider it "fair."

[iced]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@iced wrote:

Each person in a relationship does what he or she can. If you love someone, you don't care how it breaks down. The housework/child raising are not measured in my relationship and we do not try to assign tasks. Just because someone earns more or work longer hours doesn't mean they shouldn't also try to do as many household chores as they can. We're usually racing each other to see who can do the chores first.

If I were living alone, I would be paying 100% of the bills and doing 100% of the housework, and since I like to prep for the worst case, I wake up each morning prepared to do 100% of both. Anything my SO does to help is a bonus.

We even plan our finances with the assumption we're each alone so we each should have sufficient funds in his/her retirement accounts/emergency savings/etc.

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Right, so I assume that if you are living together but you are still paying 100% of the bills and doing near 100% of the housework that you'd take issue with that breakdown, regardless of if "you love them."  Regardless of how certain things are measured, there are situations where no matter how you cut it no one could ever consider it "fair."

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I would not take issue with that breakdown.

[Anonymous]

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@iced wrote:

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I would not take issue with that breakdown.

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Understood.  So you're alright with doing 100% of the housework and paying 100% of the bills while your significant other doesn't contribute at all.  If that's the case, who wouldn't want you as a significant other eh?

This thread is called about splitting up these things (compromising).  It seems you're content with them not being split?

[iced]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@iced wrote:

I would not take issue with that breakdown.

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Understood.  So you're alright with doing 100% of the housework and paying 100% of the bills while your significant other doesn't contribute at all.  If that's the case, who wouldn't want you as a significant other eh?

This thread is called about splitting up these things (compromising).  It seems you're content with them not being split?

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In our relationship, we're both content with doing everything. We're also equal partners who won't let the other do everything for us.

I mentioned early on in the thread we have no joint accounts and have divided the expenses between us. This lack of joint accounts requires us to split things up, but there are no rules or lines in the sand regarding who has to pay what. Bills on autopay, like mortgage payments and cable bills, are paid by one individual consistently, not because it's his or her obligation, but because that's just how things landed when we set them up. In the end, I make more so I feel I should pay more, but she'll never say that to me. She shouldn't have to.

For the non-financial matters, there are similarly no rules in our relationship. If she starts to clean the house and I notice her cleaning, I'll jump in to help. If she wants something from the store and it's cold outside, I'll put my shoes on and trek through the snow to the store to pick up whatever she wants. Some days I cook dinner and she washes dishes. Other days she cooks and I wash dishes. Still others I both cook and wash dishes, and there's days where she does both. I'd rather do both cooking and dishwashing. However, she won't let me do both with any regularity, even if it means running in to cook dinner while I'm in the restroom or doing dishes while I'm still eating, but I digress. 

The point I'm making is that while things do get split up, it's not premeditated. We both sometimes think the other is doing too much so we step up and pitch in more. The result is whatever it happens to be. It might be balanced one time and not balanced another, but honestly we don't care. We're both happy and we both know it'll all balance out in the end. This has worked well for the two of us, but I get that it may not be for for everyone.