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Recently, my fiancé and I had the big pre-wedding money talk. Some people have this talk before moving in together, some before the wedding, and some slowly over time. It is something that should come up every time you make a big life change to make sure you are both on the same page. Matthew and I have lived together for nearly six years now. We’re mature adults that are pretty good with money and we split our expenses, but until now we haven’t merged everything.
Most people don’t talk about money and even less so when it comes to how they split finances with a spouse. I honestly don’t feel like it is some great big secret and I truly believe that people would be less confused and have more of an idea of what they wanted to do if people were more open about it to start with. There are no true right or wrong answers, simply what is right for the both of you. If you are both very happy with your arrangement, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
I am going to be sharing everything and I hope you won’t judge. Perhaps you may even disagree with our most recent solution for splitting our finances, but it really works for us. We had to try things in order to learn more about what worked and what didn’t. We had to make our own mistakes. We needed to learn how to merge our opposing money mentalities. You don’t have to do things our way or anyone else’s way. My best suggestion is to talk openly together. Don’t let close family members dictate how you run your relationship. Try something and if it does not work, try something else. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. You can always renegotiate.
When we got our first place together back in 2012, I was making significantly less than Matthew. We split our expenses accordingly: 40-60. I was paying less, but at the time that gave Matthew the idea that he had more say in our home and every disagreement usually ended in, “Well, I pay more for rent.” (I promise, he has grown a lot over the past six years! We often laugh about this now, especially our first ever living together disagreement about where I was allowed to keep my hair brush in the bathroom. It can be tough merging two entirely different lives together. You live, you learn.) My young self wasn’t having it. “50-50 everything!,” I declared. Even if I had to skip lunch, I was going to pay my fair share.
No matter the difference in our salaries, where we were living, any financial crisis we faced, or how much rent cost, we kept it 50-50. I am not going to lie. It was hard; I hated living in Maryland at the time and we moved to a more expensive place one year. I resented paying a high rent for a place I did not want to live in and I hated living paycheck -to-paycheck. Still, I could not afford to even rent a studio on my own in Maryland at the time (most studios in a safe area started at $1200 a month.) And for a short while when I was making much more than Matthew when we first moved to Connecticut, we still kept it 50-50.
We have kept everything 50-50 until now. Partly because each of us has our own hangups about keeping things fair. I come from a family that consists of mostly single mothers who had to get things done. We have a lot of pride and want to make sure we’re taking care of ourselves without help or taking advantage of others. And my fiancé comes from a family where the men are the providers and the women stay home. (They are vastly different lifestyles to merge together.) He was afraid of having to “take care” of me, which is funny because I had the same fear! The last thing I wanted was to have to ask my man for money like a child asking a parent every time I wanted to get something for myself.
Like the Destiny’s Child song, “Shoes on my feet; I bought it. Car I’m driving; I bought it!”
“So all the honeys making money, throw your hands up at me.”
I don’t want to single out people living this lifestyle. If it works, it works, but it does not work for me. But to be honest, 50-50 is not always fair either. Matthew is a junior engineer working on his degree in electrical engineering. No matter what, it is safe to say that he is going to be making a whole lot more than me, even if my blog and business does take off in a big way. I am proud of how hard he works at doing something he loves even though the income difference is going to be more pronounced once he finishes school. And he is proud of me for not giving up with my entrepreneurship. I don’t want to have to change career paths and work extra hard doing something I hate just to make more money to keep up. I have a less is more approach to life. I gave up the rat race, I don’t want to be playing a game of “catch up” with my future husband. Thankfully, he not only respects that about me, he loves me for it.
I make enough to cover all of my own expenses, pay off my own college loans, and do what I want to do. I am so proud of Matthew for all his hard work and chasing after his dreams and I know that he is just as proud of me. I am not less ambitious than my fiancé, but we have vastly different goals and that is ok. But when it comes time to buy a house we will feel the difference. I couldn’t possibly pay 50-50 for a house, especially when his tastes are more extravagant than mine. Plus, we’re getting married. (And before you ask, yes, we split the wedding costs 50-50 too.) “Yours, Mine, and Ours,” is not going to be just an old movie any more.
I always felt it would be more fair to open a joint account for our mutual expenses: rent, utilities, our cell phone plan, groceries, etc. We would still have our own accounts for personal spending and savings, but we were merging our lives in every way and that should count for our lifestyle as well.
In the past, no matter what, if one of us was struggling we would help the other out. I would take care of his half and he would take care of mine. We learned early not to keep track of the “score.”
And just recently without any prompting at all, Matthew told me he wants to open a joint account too. We will place 85% of our incomes directly into the account every pay period for our mutual living expenses. The other 15% will go to our personal accounts to spend any way we choose. We now have “Yours, Mine, and Ours” accounts. I am relieved. I feel that the division of expenses is truly fair this way. Instead of 50-50 it is income based.
I am sure we will have some more to figure out: what is considered a personal expense and what counts as joint? Sometimes the lines are a little blurry. Gas for work counts as an expense, but gas for long solo trips out of state are personal expenses. Hygiene products for the home are mutual, but my makeup is personal. Our student loans are now pooled together as a mutual expense. This one was hard for me to grasp because I feel that my student loans are strictly my responsibility. I wouldn’t dare to have Matthew pay for them, but he won’t be. My money will be going into the account too and I will pay it just as I always do, but this time it will simply be coming from our joint account.
Vehicle maintenance is also considered a joint expense. We have each other’s backs. We always have, but this time we don’t have to think too much about it or ask each other for the extra boost. At the end of the month, we won’t have to ask the other for their half to pay next months bills; it will already be there.
But most of all, I am excited that this means that we will be funding our future together. This will streamline our expenses so we can live our dreams and save for our plans like paying for our wedding, travelling, and perhaps even living in France one day soon.
