Author Topic: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance  (Read 6119 times)

mistymoney

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #50 on: February 25, 2020, 06:34:05 AM »
Just an aside. For second marriages, especially among older people who are coming into the marriage with children and assets, prenups and nonsharing of assets is common. It protects the children. It also gives some protection from "purse and nurse" marriages.

what's a "purse and nurse marriage"?

I looked it up. It's purse or a nurse. It means men 60 and up are either looking for a "purse" (someone with more money than them) or a nurse (younger woman who will take care of them).

thanks.  I suppose "nurses with purses" are extra-hard for older men to find?

I know several women who in their late 40s/50's hooked up with older men (65ish) with virtually no assets and no relationship with their own children. On the very of retirement - they were about to be poverty-level. I saw the women buy their stories. Never recovered from a difficult divorce 15 years ago? Ex 'poisoned' relationship with their kids?

the women did indeed go on to support, then nurse them.

Maybe it was true love, but - let just say I have my doubts about it.

But - better than being a spinster? Seems that was the worst fate imaginable back in the day. Still a bit of a ghost of it with older women I think.

mistymoney

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #51 on: February 25, 2020, 06:38:42 AM »
I may be moving in with my girlfriend sometime in 2020.
If you are living as though married, then live as though married, and have a joint account.

Into this joint account will go your regular income.

Out of this joint account will come regular direct debits for predictable expenses, like electricity, rent, etc, and agreed-on amounts for other regular expenses like groceries, and a certain agreed amount which will go to joint savings, and personal savings. As well, you will each have a certain agreed amount to splurge day-to-day; the total amount of the "splurge" money may be questioned, but not specifically what it's spent on.

If you are not willing to live together as married, then don't.

This could be the worst advice I've ever seen on this forum.

What is the basis of such a suggestion? It isn't financially based. And both the OP and the GF should feel free to explore living together in any fashion that they mutually agree upon - as are other couples.

I would never comingle my monies in an account with anyone else. I did that once when married - and no thank you. Even if I married again - which I have no interest in - no thank you.

Some people may be up for it. So - good luck to them. But this mandate? No. Try again.

mistymoney

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #52 on: February 25, 2020, 06:43:32 AM »
Just to clarify, my reasoning for thinking a 50/50 split is as follows:

- We are dating and not married, and very much have separate finances. I've tried to teach her as much as she cares to know of what I've learned about personal finance, but our financial decisions and financial lives are 100% separate, at least currently.
- When we move in together, she would be the one who would want a nicer/pricier place than I would. Though her tastes are frugal enough that the resulting rent would be less than double what either of us currently pays on our own.
- In general, the idea for the higher earning partner to pay more in rent is to allow the lower earning partner to save more
- Since she has more saved (and it is legally hers right now, it's not conditional on one of her loved ones passing away. She could spend it all tomorrow if she wanted to) than I do, the idea above doesn't apply quite as much to this situation

I didn't quite consider how quickly I might catch up to her stash, although it will take more time than others suggested, as obviously hers will gain more interest each year. The source of her stash does not matter to me, I would have the same reasoning if she had earned that money by working or selling a business or winning a half court shot contest.

I don't care about this issue enough to allow it to impact our relationship, but it is interesting to see how different people's definition of a fair split is!

Where are you getting this idea? Most people out there - especially young couples - are not really saving at all. That isn't what the income-based split is based on. It is based on an different idea of month-to-month equity compare to 50/50.

however - it seems that you have made up your mind already rather than a question as posed in the OP so seems pointless to discuss any further.

NextTime

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #53 on: February 25, 2020, 07:00:13 AM »
The smartest thing to do is to ask her what she thinks is a fair split. Let her throw out the first number.

If she throws out 50/50 right away, then you are both on the same page.
If she throws out a different split, then you have some thinking to do.

Don't ever forget how low her salary actually is though. If she is paying half the bills, she has less left over for savings, apartment furnishings, date nights, nice vacations, weekend trips, etc.

When my wife was making around $40k/year, her take home was around $1,100 to $1,200 every two weeks. And that's without medical/dental/vision/etc (since I was taking care of that), and a small 401k contribution (just for the match since her plan was awful). So you may want to take a look at her paycheck and the perceived expenses before you decide what's fair.

StashingAway

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #54 on: February 25, 2020, 07:47:35 AM »
I would never comingle my monies in an account with anyone else. I did that once when married - and no thank you. Even if I married again - which I have no interest in - no thank you.

Some people may be up for it. So - good luck to them. But this mandate? No. Try again.

I both strongly agree and strongly disagree with this. I agree that it isn't a mandate; there's no hard rules and there's no one way of doing things.

I disagree with your personal sentiment of "good luck to them" on those who choose to do so. I think that it should be a lifestyle option to strive for, not one to dismiss with conviction. It sounds like you had a bad experience with marriage- bad enough to shadow your view of the whole establishment, which is fine, but you do recognize that it does work quite well for others, right?

PoutineLover

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #55 on: February 25, 2020, 09:16:42 AM »
I don't think it's inherently wrong to do a 50/50 split if both partners are on board and agree to it, especially if it's not meant to be an explicit step towards marriage/forever relationship. You can always reevaluate later as the relationship progresses. I do think that the current stash should be kept out of it if both of you are still in accumulation phase. It doesn't sound like she plans to retire on the 500k, but it is a good head start considering her low income otherwise.
Overall, if I was earning 1/3 of my partners income, I would want them to pay a bit more towards living expenses, so that I wouldn't have to spend all my income on bills while they were able to save a significant amount. If I was earning the larger income, I'd probably also want to pay a larger share, as long as my partner wasn't using me as a cash cow to wildly inflate our standard of living. But either way, it would be good to keep the shared cost to something that could be shared if each of you were earning the same lower salary.
A joint credit card is also a useful way to split shared expenses, if you put all household bills on the same card you can split it either 50/50 or according to whatever percentage you decide.

marty998

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #56 on: February 25, 2020, 01:24:21 PM »
I may be moving in with my girlfriend sometime in 2020.
If you are living as though married, then live as though married, and have a joint account.

Into this joint account will go your regular income.

Out of this joint account will come regular direct debits for predictable expenses, like electricity, rent, etc, and agreed-on amounts for other regular expenses like groceries, and a certain agreed amount which will go to joint savings, and personal savings. As well, you will each have a certain agreed amount to splurge day-to-day; the total amount of the "splurge" money may be questioned, but not specifically what it's spent on.

If you are not willing to live together as married, then don't.

This could be the worst advice I've ever seen on this forum.

What is the basis of such a suggestion? It isn't financially based. And both the OP and the GF should feel free to explore living together in any fashion that they mutually agree upon - as are other couples.

I would never comingle my monies in an account with anyone else. I did that once when married - and no thank you. Even if I married again - which I have no interest in - no thank you.

Some people may be up for it. So - good luck to them. But this mandate? No. Try again.

Have been following this thread with interest (no pun intended) and have to agree here.

It's fine if they are both broke engaged 19 year old college students with no assets who will marry soon. It's problematic when both parties are coming in with varying levels of income and net worth i.e. established financial lives and patterns.

I will have to grapple with this problem one day. One of a number of realistic scenarios will be me having a NW over a 1.5 million, living in a mortgage free home earning three times as much as my partner who might be in net debt due to student loans.

There isn't any way known that 50/50 is a reasonable proposition here, and both sides will agree for different reasons as already explored in this thread. People are entitled to draw a line of their choosing around their financial selves - their partners can take it, leave it or negotiate it.

simonsez

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #57 on: February 25, 2020, 01:30:24 PM »
People keep talking about this "once married it's all one pot anyway".  But what does this mean?  They still might have disparate incomes.  If I say my wife and I don't have any joint accounts and I take care of about roughly 3x the expenses she does - how is that any different than "one pot" where my share is still paying for 3x.  It's a case of semantics I don't really follow.

It's more than semantics. Once you are together, all of your decisions become a team effort. Someone gets a career fulfilling job in a different city? You both move. Now the other partner might take a lower paying job or none at all. Do you still now re-adjust all of you bills to reflect the new pay ratio? Is the other person now "penalized" for moving with you or staying at home to raise kids? In your case, they would be because they have a lower income. The point of being married (as I see it in most cases) is that everything is shared. It's not my income and your income, its OUR income. It is partially symbolic, partially practical, and partially just to commit to the perception that you are making unified decisions. Keeping income separate works for many people in many circumstances, but I think the default should be to go all in and share it. Keeping tabs on the separate ratios would be no different than an individual putting their paycheck from two jobs in separate accounts, then paying their bills using splits of those accounts.
Maybe I'm just not fully grasping what you're saying - how would a spouse in my case be penalized due to a lower income?  Yeah, if one of us has a significant raise or decrease in pay - bills could be changed if that's what we decided.  My wife, a teacher, is finishing her Master's degree next year and will have a decent initial pay bump (~10%) plus yearly ~5% bumps for several years as her new pay scale separates from the Bachelor's scale.  I expect at some point we'll discuss if our bill allocation should change or not.  My guess is that most couples look at their finances together (bills, retirement, taxable accounts, vacations, gifts, etc.) from time to time regardless if they have joint accounts or not.

The part that I bolded seems like the definition of semantics, it all works out the same which is my point - when it's not a 50/50 split someone is paying more regardless if the accounts are joint or not.  My wife and I have separate accounts not to shut each other out or anything, just because it seems (or seemed, and now we're too lazy to change since this works and we're used to it) easier for the main purpose of paying bills in line with take home pay.  We have most of them automatically withdrawn from our paychecks so that the leftover amount each month is roughly the same for both of us.  It's de facto lazy budgeting and mitigates nitpicking leisure spending, I'm not claiming this is a panacea by any means, just what works for us and has since we first moved in together (which was right after the decision to move to the East Coast for a career).  Of course all our major life decisions are joint - that has very little to do with how bills are paid or who makes more money, it's much more about respecting each other as equitable complements of the relationship.

Some (many?) couples share a social media and/or non-work email account.  We do not do that either.  Whatever works, variety is the spice of life.

Kyle Schuant

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #58 on: February 25, 2020, 03:49:24 PM »
This could be the worst advice I've ever seen on this forum.

What is the basis of such a suggestion?
A successful marriage.

And that of a friend of mine who wrote a book on ordinary people's finances, which many people have followed with both financial and relationship success. One of the things he suggests is a monthly "financial date night" where you sit down and discuss your mutual desires and goals financially. Over time as you get things sorted there's less finance talk and more other talk. Obviously there are other ways to do it, but the point is that you're a couple and you sort things out together, and check in regularly to see if anything's changed.

We watched Marriage Story recently, and felt this depicted a lot of failed marriages we've seen. They didn't have any fundamental incompatibility, they just got caught up in the everyday bullshit and grind, and the woman sort of feebly raised some of her dreams which he ruthlessly ignored in favour of his own. Having regular talks one-on-one about their goals and lives might have avoided that.

I've been reading Mistakes Were Made: But Not By Me recently, and they've a whole chapter on marriage, saying, "self-justification is the assassin of marriage." We all do good things and bad things, but are the things I do because of circumstance, or because it's who I am? Are the things you do because of circumstance, or because of who you are?

If I yell at the kids and my wife, is it because it was a busy hot day, or because I'm an arsehole? If my wife yells at the kids and me, is it because it was a busy hot day, or because she's a bitch? Obviously, some people are fundamentally incompatible, some are abusive or unfaithful, and so on. But a lot of the time it's just self-justification. "I yelled at you because I had a rough day, this is forgiveable - but you, you yelled at me because you're a bitch!"

I would suggest that a financial date night or something similar, if approached with an open mind, not seeking to justify your own misdeeds while condemning the other for theirs, can improve the chances of a successful marriage. But the basis of this must be trust, and trust requires a leap of faith. At some point you must go all in.

As well, consider that many jurisdictions will treat a couple cohabiting for a certain period as married. In many cases, the law will treat your finances as one big pot whether you like it or not. You may as well get ahead of the law and act that way anyway. Some people think that because the relationship may end some day, they should approach it with defensive wariness. I think approaching marriage with defensive wariness makes it more likely it'll end.

StashingAway

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #59 on: February 25, 2020, 06:39:05 PM »
The part that I bolded seems like the definition of semantics, it all works out the same which is my point - when it's not a 50/50 split someone is paying more regardless if the accounts are joint or not. 

What I'm saying is that it's NOT semantics when you fundamentally change the nature of your relationship. Any money earned is family money. Any money spent is family money. No one is paying more because there are not two different spenders, nor two different earners. There may be two different incomes (similar to a person having two jobs), but the idea is that you are now working as a team. You win and lose together. The commitment is the point.

  My wife and I have separate accounts not to shut each other out or anything, just because it seems (or seemed, and now we're too lazy to change since this works and we're used to it) easier for the main purpose of paying bills in line with take home pay.

It's not that hard to combine accounts. If you wanted to, you could make it work. I'm not saying you need to (or that you're a bad person for not doing so). But combining accounts, from a technical perspective, is quite easy in terms of hurdles to cross for a marriage couple.

I'm not passing judgment on your choices, by the way. If you're happy then far be it from me to throw a wrench at ya. Just pointing out a different view.

Edit, here's how I think we're differing in conversation:
https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/09/18/
« Last Edit: February 25, 2020, 06:47:07 PM by StashingAway »

Goldielocks

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #60 on: February 25, 2020, 07:07:37 PM »
...
People keep talking about this "once married it's all one pot anyway".  But what does this mean?  They still might have disparate incomes.  If I say my wife and I don't have any joint accounts and I take care of about roughly 3x the expenses she does - how is that any different than "one pot" where my share is still paying for 3x.  It's a case of semantics I don't really follow.

When you are married, and it is one pot -- that means that you don't get a "My share" anymore.  It all belongs to the marriage.  Think of marriage like a business entity and you and your spouse are co-owners / employees.   

Your portion or "My share" is actually only the small cash spending allowance that you may or may not set up each month.   Even your savings / retirement accounts created during marriage in your indivduals names are technically owned by the "Marriage" in many states, and split equally.

This works because many marriages have vastly differing incomes, (due to training, one person becoming trailing spouse, illness, child care, other reasons) yet should have common goals.

Some marriages maintain separate accounts, at least in name.  That is not what the other poster was describing.

Goldielocks

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #61 on: February 25, 2020, 07:16:27 PM »
Just to clarify, my reasoning for thinking a 50/50 split is as follows:

- We are dating and not married, and very much have separate finances. I've tried to teach her as much as she cares to know of what I've learned about personal finance, but our financial decisions and financial lives are 100% separate, at least currently.
- When we move in together, she would be the one who would want a nicer/pricier place than I would. Though her tastes are frugal enough that the resulting rent would be less than double what either of us currently pays on our own.
- In general, the idea for the higher earning partner to pay more in rent is to allow the lower earning partner to save more
- Since she has more saved (and it is legally hers right now, it's not conditional on one of her loved ones passing away. She could spend it all tomorrow if she wanted to) than I do, the idea above doesn't apply quite as much to this situation

I didn't quite consider how quickly I might catch up to her stash, although it will take more time than others suggested, as obviously hers will gain more interest each year. The source of her stash does not matter to me, I would have the same reasoning if she had earned that money by working or selling a business or winning a half court shot contest.

I don't care about this issue enough to allow it to impact our relationship, but it is interesting to see how different people's definition of a fair split is!

Mostly a logical answer.  One option would be to find a place where 50% of the rent is no more than she is paying now.

BUT -- you are not realizing that with the income differences, it may end up that she takes on more of the house care / cooking / household tasks.  Maybe not.  I know lots of guys that are very particular about their places, but most often, the guys I know are more relaxed about it, are perfectly fine not stopping someone else from taking these chores on, are fine with ordering take out for their cooking night (because they make a lot more), etc.

At least with the large $'s invested, you don't have to worry so much that your disposable income would be VASTLY different from hers.

Have you thought about 50/50 split for now, and you take your extra contribution and put it into an account to use for her savings / student loan debt, or whatever, that you hand over after you are married?

Also,  please make 100% certain that she agrees to the "roommate / split" concept and is not thinking "long term pre-married coupling up / merging our efforts, etc".    Again, it really sucks to be thinking the second and then seeing your SO with tons and tons of spending cash while you have very little monthly cash flow.

mistymoney

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #62 on: February 26, 2020, 05:51:15 AM »
I would never comingle my monies in an account with anyone else. I did that once when married - and no thank you. Even if I married again - which I have no interest in - no thank you.

Some people may be up for it. So - good luck to them. But this mandate? No. Try again.

I both strongly agree and strongly disagree with this. I agree that it isn't a mandate; there's no hard rules and there's no one way of doing things.

I disagree with your personal sentiment of "good luck to them" on those who choose to do so. I think that it should be a lifestyle option to strive for, not one to dismiss with conviction. It sounds like you had a bad experience with marriage- bad enough to shadow your view of the whole establishment, which is fine, but you do recognize that it does work quite well for others, right?

I said I wouldn't do it and good luck to those who want to. You're reading way too much into this. It was a sincere good luck, not anything else.

Most will do ok with combining, some will do awesomely, and some will get burned. A few - really badly burnt. So - good luck to those who do want to. I don't get what you find dismissive?

mistymoney

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #63 on: February 26, 2020, 05:57:38 AM »
This could be the worst advice I've ever seen on this forum.

What is the basis of such a suggestion?
A successful marriage.



OP is not asking about marriage. You advocated full combining of finances for a non-married couple because.....

?




SaucyAussie

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #64 on: February 26, 2020, 07:10:44 AM »
For the sake of simplicity I would do 50/50 on rent and utilities.

Maybe you could help out in other areas like picking up the tab for dinner, or paying for vacations.

As time passes, and you both approach FIRE, you could come up with a plan for you both to reach the finish line at about the same time.

Bourbon

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #65 on: February 26, 2020, 07:53:03 AM »
This could be the worst advice I've ever seen on this forum.

What is the basis of such a suggestion?
A successful marriage.



OP is not asking about marriage. You advocated full combining of finances for a non-married couple because.....

?

100% agree that combined finances is best setup for marriage, at least for me and my sample size of 1 marriage.

While dating though, I disagree on combined finances but would still advocate a 50/50 split on expenses.

StashingAway

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #66 on: February 26, 2020, 08:24:38 AM »
I said I wouldn't do it and good luck to those who want to. You're reading way too much into this. It was a sincere good luck, not anything else.

Very fair! I definitely read the tone of that wrong based on your response ;)

ToTheMoon

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #67 on: February 26, 2020, 08:33:43 AM »
When my (now DH) and I first lived together we split our expenses based on percentages of our incomes at the time. He made 3x what I did (similar to you guys) so he paid roughly 66% of our expenses and I paid the rest. (For the record, I was working close to 60 hours/week between my two jobs - I just did not have the earning power he did.)

For us that meant he paid the rent, and I paid all of our household bills.

For groceries and most of our other fun stuff we kept a similar thing going - he picked up the tab twice as often as I did. We never calculated this consciously but seemed to gravitate to it naturally. Once we got married, he helped me clear out my (small) student loan and we have had shared accounts ever since.

We always considered ourselves a team, so we operated like one, and that was well before marriage was even on the table.

OP- If you are going to move in together and are going to be hyper-aware of ever dollar so that things remain "fair" (not saying you will, but be aware) you are already setting yourself up for failure. The picture you have painted for us thus far seems to indicate that she pulls her own weight, and if you are considering moving in together you obviously care for each other a lot. Do what your heart says is right for your relationship, just do not be foolish. :) Clear as mud, right?

Linea_Norway

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Re: How to split rent: I make more, but she has an inheritance
« Reply #68 on: February 26, 2020, 03:35:21 PM »
When DH and I first moved in together, he made 150% of what I did. We had a shared account where we contributed 60/40 and used that for paying all household bills. That worked well.
I would find it only reasonable that a person who makes that much more contributes with more than 50% of common expenses. Just to give her the option to also save some money. Or spend a bit more of her own money on herselv. Still, you should not contribute with more money in total than what you are willing to pay on rent. So maybe you should not be looking for an apartment that costs 2 x your current rent, but rather 1,5 x your current rent.