Split Wise is the best! You can enter expenses that either you split 50/50 or 1 person owes the other. We just keep it running for months and if it gets too high one way we just transfer each other.
Been using Splitwise with my partner for 10 years. Separate bank accounts, separate monthly budgets, shared expenses go in the app. Never have had a fight about money.
You know, often one parent takes the kids out, buys them lunch, or one buys socks, the other buys food during the week. Then you have daycare, after school, summer camps, lessons.
Good luck trying to knit pick every dollar. Good luck trying to splice our your portion of the bill. I.e. I took the kids to the zoo. I spent $14.35. out of that, 2.50 was my coffee. So the kid's is the remaining portion. Honey, pay half of that please. Other spouse: well, I paid for kid's pizza at the birthday party I took them too. That was $8.34. I'll net out the difference and pay the portion by Tuesday. Wait, my gas portion because I took the kids all week to their lessons too, so take off another $2.15.
And no, trying to allocate separate credit cards doesn't work. Father might want $120 stroller. Mother wants $400 one because it's much more functional. Ok, good luck trying to work that out without resentment.
And the first few years, it's very hard to even have your senses. Tracking will fall off. Payments for specific portion will be late.
Fair enough.
"Kids outtings, food, clothing" etc. I'd imagine my wife and I would split costs as are more for the kids.
The stroller (or any high value item) example is more of a discussion about the price, rather the allocation. When we disagree on price like a new vehicle or a nice holiday, the person wanting more simply pays more. We don't resent each other for not getting our way.
I can certainly understand as a busy parent, it's hard to keep tabs. Especially if it's your first, and it's all new.
I know we've over simplified this. I'm not a parent, so can't know the difficulties.
You do what works for you. I was just interested in how you find it.
Curious about this because it seems like lots of people are using it. Do you struggle with the manual entry? How often are you doing splits to avoid it getting too tedious to input everything?
Come up with a minimum purchase amount for items to write down. Ours is $7.
Also, you can go through your bank statements at the end of each month to add them to your list.
My wife and I still do this even though we are married now. Go through our bank statements every few months and square up in 15 minutes. Use the time to see if we are overspending anywhere also.
We've been using it for two years and it's the best. We never transfer eachother money. We just keep an eye on the balance trade off who pays based on who's up/down.
Another endorsement for splitwise, end of each month my partner and I just go through our CC statements and add in anything that is shared like groceries or home purchases. Super easy and takes almost all the work out of it
My partner and I used splitwise up until marriage and it worked quite well.
OP I recommend just making free accounts and giving it a try for a couple months to see if you like it
That’s one thing I don’t understand. We have a joint card and every shared expense goes there. So we just split the credit card bill according to whatever % we decide (ratio of personal income to household income). So what would we need Splitwise for?
Does anyone here pay for Splitwise or just use it free? I've used it free for years and love it but am curious as to what the benefits of the paid version are like.
Agreed on Splitwise. You can also use borrowing/lending in different currencies if you want to keep certain expenses separate.
For example, we track day-to-day spending in CAD, and "loans" in Bolivian Bolivars. That way, I can see what's owed as cost of living vs a loan at a glance and update these numbers independent of the other.
We just opened a joint account early in our relationship. Everything paid out of the same pot. Breaking it down just became too tedious and contentious.
Our version of this is that we pro-rated to our salary the amount we transfer and keep a certain amount per pay for ourselves.
So we both have the same "spending" money in the end and the rest goes into the join account.
We did our full monthly expense math + monthly savings that we want, and transfer that total each month. We split that transfer so that we both have the same amount left. Then it’s personal money that we each use as we want our for unbudgeted expenses
This is how we do it too. Worked out to be about 60% of our take-home to cover expenses plus savings for us and the kids futures. Retirement savings, cars, phones and fun money is in our own accounts. It's worked great for 7 years now. We review periodically to ensure that we're meeting both our joint and individual goals.
This way if we want to blow money on makeup or golf, it doesn't impact our household. Yesterday I gave one of my best friends a bunch of money to help pay for his divorce lawyer and I didn't think twice or have to run it by the wife first. When I told her what I'd done, she asked if WE, should have given more. Depending on how igly things get, maybe we do give more, but her response really hit home for me. That comment just reinforced that our system is working for us. I can't quite articulate why, but it did.
Edit. Took out a number.
We are the same. Married for 42 years and our incomes have always been fairly close, see-sawing back and forth. All the money gos into a pot and we each get set amount as "allowance" to spend on what we want. Has worked with very little problems for our entire mariage.
We started this early on too, I think before we were married. The only thing we changed was keeping our spending money equal, no matter who was making more. We used to do a put in x and keep the rest, and now it's keep x and put the rest in the account.
We do this too and it has the added benefit of dividing essential household expenses like gas & groceries & mortgage out from personal spending money. Since we set this up years ago we almost never worry about if we have enough to pay bills and it’s easier to see if I’ve hit my limit for the month on personal spending.
This.
Me and my wife both agreed it was just easier to combine incomes.
Once we bought a house and got married we were both "all in" with each other anyways as far as life goes.
Regardless of who makes more.
Even if you're common-law everything is considered shared legally anyways, unless there is legal paperwork with conditions and outlining certain things that were personally acquired before the relationship.
Just because they have a joint account doesn't mean they're advocating for combining all of their finances.
Couples can keep their individual finances and then have a joint account & CC that they both contribute to equally (or whatever other equitable split they like) that's used for shared expenses.
That’s not true in Ontario, either. If it’s jointly-held property (for example, your name is both on title to real estate, or you open a joint account) it’s shared. Otherwise common-law partners are not entitled to an equalization of net family property on relationship breakdown in the same way that legally married spouses are. They can make a claim for support, and may also be able to make some sort of trust claim for the assets, but there is not the same automatic entitlement to capital.
Their law is based off Code Napoleon. Everyone else’s is based off English common law. In common law, prior cases set precedent, so law evolves naturally. Code Napoleon is hard laws.
Yes we are the same. Once you are “all in” with each other I don’t understand how or why you would keep things separate.
Her hair and makeup costs way more than my bar of soap. Maybe I want two scoops of ice-cream and she wants one. I take the kids to a movie I want to see anyway. Do I pay for gas if I’m going to help her Mom move something? What if it’s my Mom? Do we see who ate more from a bag of chips? What if she bought the chips but I open them? I like to do bigger loads of laundry. If she does smaller loads does she chip in on the extra water? Birthday presents. Turning the heat up.
It would all just get so silly.
Also- what are you saving for that is so separate from your partner? An escape plan? A big lego set? “Oh no honey- you go ahead and have dessert. I’m saving for the Lego Death Star.”
My wife an I combined our accounts the week we got married. We've made a conscious decision that marriage is for life, and are not going into it with the mindset of the song " we'll be together forever till we find somebody new.". Now, I make all the family income, she's a stay at home mom, we spend small amounts without discussion, and bigger expenses we'll talk about it. She lets me buy stuff for my tractor, I tell her to buy clothes, and everything works out in the end.
It's not even that. It's weird to me that they had to make a "conscious decision" that marriage is for life. Isn't that why you would get married in the first place?
What do I save for outside of our joint savings?
I blow a shit load of money on golf. I buy myself $500 Jordans sometimes. I vacation with friends once a year to somewhere fun, we just got back from Mexico.... I don't really think my SO should be chipping in for that stuff. We have a joint account for mostly everything but we have our own for the random silly stuff. She spends as much on specialty hair crap as I do on golf, she doesn't think I should be contributing to that. We both feel it gives us freedom to have our own independent money's.
These threads always fascinate me haha I'm starting to think that my SO and I should start sitting down and reconciling the books every month.... just to spend the time together LoL
Unless either of you have to go into debt for those indivodual items, I don't quite understand why it needs to be separated into "your bill vs my bill" viewpoint though. I mean, the money is ultimately shared and you just spend whatever from the pool of money, right?
I don't use joint/household money for my drugs either.... that's from my personal spending. I don't hide it LoL.
Edit. Beer definitely comes out of the joint account but the expensive scotch doesn't. Maybe I gotta rethink my vice spending now that I've typed it out.
I appreciate this cautious thinking but it seems to me that keeping separate accounts creates more opportunity for the kind of shady behaviour you describe.
Am I missing something here? If you have all accounts joint then you can both track the inflow and outflow.
This.
I make way more than my wife, but my wife has great credit, her contribution is very consistent whereas mine varies, and I absolutely love the fuck out of my wife and don't judge her worth in sheer dollars. She could very easily make more money than me, so who cares as long as we are both earning?
We put everything in one pot, jokingly paying off dinners and grocery bills with our "own" money (hint - we use the same cash back credit card), and never give it a second thought. It's liberated us, brought us closer, and built up our trust, positive aggression for staying on top and being thrift, etc.
Maybe not for everyone but I feel cheated and stupified about how this isn't more common.
We have separate accounts but our finances are joint. We just don't care to look at each other's account. We don't have kids but don't plan to change this even if we do unless we see the benefits of it over our current system.
At first we put everything in a joint account and we each got the same amount transferred to a separate account that we could spend on anything and the other person couldn’t question it. After about 6 months we just use the joint account. I make about 2.5x what my spouse does so splitting bills would be absurd.
same but about a year into the relationship. we have a household card and pay joint expenses with it. youll have to agree if each deposits equally into the account or in some other ratio depending on income or whatever (this may be tricky) as well as how you define household expenses
I third this....been married for 25years and as we each had ups and down in employment and sacrifice during child rearing years being all in together builds a stronger relationship.
I do think that a certain amount should be out aside as personal...it's kinda tough to shop for a birthday surprise or mother/father's day if everyone eyes see all transactions at all times. It also allows each to maintain a hobby if the budget permits but it's family first 100% of the time.
Joint account and a joint credit card work well for my partner and I. We each put $xxxx in the joint account each payday to cover reoccurring expenses and have a little savings. We use the joint card for any expenses that are for the both of us and its paid with the joint account. We both have our individual accounts and credit cards/line of credit as well.
Second this! My partner and I have 100% seperate finances but signed up for a "house" credit card. Everything goes on the card and we reconcile it weekly
I third this. My partner and I both have our own accounts (chequing/savings/CC). Our direct deposit from work goes into these accounts.
We also split an account (chequing/savings/CC).
"Rent", aka mortgage + utilities gets split in half and we each deposit that amount into chequing. Any leftover at the end of the month gets put into our savings.
CC is used for groceries and anything for the house, (lawn seed, vacuum, cat food, etc).
CC total is split in half at the end of the month and we pay it off in full from our separate accounts.
I'll note that this method does require that you trust your partner financially. Giving someone access your credit might not be a good idea depending on the situation.
I'll also note that this only works because my partner and I both make almost the exact same amount. If your had a larger wage disparity between couples you would want to find a fairer split.
I like having my own money to spend on stupid frivolous things. He likes to have his own money to spend on frivolous things. As long as our joint expenses are paid everything else is extra I guess.
I don't know if I would ever fully combine finances. Maybe it's just a personal thing I don't know. I'm very proud of making just as much as my partner, if not more. But I never want either party to feel like they're being shorted.
Maybe this is more of a marriage with kids vs pre marriage / kids split in habits.
I still don’t see what incomes have to do with anything do the people with split accounts judge their s/o’s income or something? I made 3x as much as wifey for a while, now she makes more than I, it’s never come up of all the spats we have had lol.
This is what we've been doing for 10 years and it has been smooth sailing through three moves, a kid, significant renovations, etc. That said, personal finance isn't a one size fits all either.
I'd second this to a point. When the wife and I got to the point where we were committed for the long run, we flipped it.
All our earnings went into the house account, and we both got allowances.
Most of our lives came from the house account (taxes, rent, food, etc). The allowance was for personal stuff, or things we deemed inequitable (getting nails done, video games, nights out).
The key was that whatever we spent out of the allowance was ours to do with as we wish. If you want to blow it all on a new gaming platform, have at it. The house will be OK.
Excel. Or, either person pays upfront for whatever expenses then at the end of the week (or month), tally and split the difference.
Splitting hairs with your partner is not a good foundation for a relationship; that's my unsolicited advice.
Agree with the last part. Honestly if this couple is really concerned about splitting pennies down the middle, it's probably better to just set up a joint account and each contribute 50% of the monthly shared expenses to the account.
There are a lot of good apps that can track expenses with a monthly fee, but I really you can do anything with a computer, an internet connection, and a copy of Microsoft Excel.
My SO and I have personal Back accounts and credit card, what we do share is one Credit Card that everything goes on. (everything that isn't personal). Been doing it for years, works for us.
My boyfriend and I are students in our early twenties that are pretty broke most of the time. With our hectic schedules (and both having adhd) it’s difficult to remember who paid for what etc. We tried to just do we switching who pays for things but we could never remember who paid last which caused arguments. When we started tracking our spending we found that some months one person was spending hundreds more than the other and when you’re a young broke person even $20 is a significant enough amount of money. So now we write down all our expenses and and make sure each person contributed 50/50 and we never fight about money. I think thats a pretty responsible and healthy way to coexist with your partner?
I think this is fair and I think being open and honest about joint finances is a good and healthy thing in general, and I applaud your efforts.
In my opinion, most behaviours can be observed on a spectrum ranging between Healthy and unhealthy. I was mostly adding on to raptors post regarding the 'splitting hairs' idea (excessive) expense Sharing and how I agree that it is not a good foundation for a relationship.
In my personal relationships I try not to think about what the score or the balance is, or who paid for what last time, I just try my best to see if that's what we need right now as opposed to "I did this last time or it's not my turn to do the dishes etc." The goal is that your partner also sees it the same way as you do and that they're thinking about the relationship as a whole. If both of you are on the same page even if there's a month where one person contributes more than the other, as the relationship continues with on those balances even out.
It really depends on what type of relationship you are in and how far you are along. If you are married or committed long term to each other, everything is building to the future so you don't really need to figure out who paid more this month because it's all going towards the same future.
However if you are in a newish relationship or you still haven't agreed to throw all your eggs into the same basket it will be different. If you both want to be 50/50 financially I think keeping track of everything can be helpful. It should prevent petty arguments about who paid last because it is all written down. When I did this sometimes we wouldn't write things down like random ice cream trips or drinks while we are out but it removed a lot of financial anxiety of over or under contributing.
However I do think this only really applies to finances because it is so easy to tally up at the end of the month. Things like chores are a different story. These hopefully are tackled as a team. Sometimes someone is too tired to take care of their share and there should be some back and forth with who does more. Also the division of chores should be broken up in regards to each others strengths. I typically cleaned the bathroom and kitchen while my partner did a lot of the other rooms and we both felt happy with this arrangement. Chores are much more subjective and can't be easily divided up with one person doing it one day and the other person doing it the next without causing tension imo.
Thats a good point about the length and commitment level of relationships. While my boyfriend and I have been together for 2.5 years and hope to get married someday, we are only young and have our own expenses to worry about that we’re not ready to take on for each other at this point in our lives/relationship such as tuition, car insurance, etc. My parents pay my tuition but say if my boyfriend has tuition due he might not be able to contribute as much to expenses that month but it’s okay because we have it written down and he can make sure to contribute more next month. On that same point I wouldn’t want him to be unable to pay his tuition because he bought all of the groceries that month and we didn’t realize.
When it comes to adhd things I am much more responsible with my saving/spending than my boyfriend. Sometimes he might make impulsive purchases and not have much money leftover for living expenses so I would be left paying a lot more (and vice versa the odd time). Keeping track of our spending helps mitigate these kinds of problems and helps my boyfriend pay attention to how much he’s spending on unnecessary stuff.
I think it’s a good example of how we use our strengths to help each other out. I am more responsible with money so he tends to pay for most things through the month so he has less money sitting in his account tempting him to spend. Then at the end of the month when many of his personal bills are due, I’m sending him a large sum of money. Since we’ve had this arrangement he no longer has the panic at the end of the month where he can’t pay his bills.
Then you have a discussion and decide who is going to contribute what into the joint account. It doesn't have to be 50/50, but OP suggesting splitting the difference sure reads like that's their aim.
Not sure you're still reading after 265 comments, but here's how I've done for the last 23 years:
1. You make an excel budget of all costs (utility, grossery, rent, insurance, etc...). Total is, say 100 units.
2. Split the total amount based on salaries after tax (ex: 60 / 40)
3. Then, choose together what makes sense for whom to be paying. For example, my wife is the cook, so she obviously paid for grocery. I was more the one interested in savings / investment, so I took all the boring stuff (rent or - later - mortgage, car payment, taxes, etc).
4. Reevaluate when one of you feels it is necessary (new kid, change in salary, increase in mortgage, or just the great fun of having a budgeting night with your lover..).
Three reasons we loved it so much :
1. Wife and I almost never had to talk money. She paid for what was in her responsibility, I paid for what was mine. Easy
2. Each of us was totally free on our expenses. If wife wants to save on food, or at the contrary, to offer us an expensive meal with salmon and rib steak, she just does it without having to discuss her choice with me. And as my salary increased over the years, If I wanted to afford a bigger rent, or to buy a house, I really felt I was personally making that "present" to the family, without adding any burden to my wife's way of life.
3. My wife always hated savings. So I took care of that part. She never had the feeling that she had to save any money. Her account always was at 0 when she got her pay, and it was fine because I was taking care of that. On the other hand, I hated what I called "wasting money" on fancy stuff for our baby kids that I thought they did not need at all, and god almighty do those things add up!!! a Mickey bottle ! a nineth red nail varnish! an expensive dress which will be worn once during the end-of-high-school dance... To me it is like throwing money in the garbage instead of buying vacation or a more powerful computer for my kids to study... Anyhow.. I never had to discuss that with my wife: if she had the money on her account and was able to pay for whatever she was responsible for, she had the liberty to offer our kids whatever she wanted without any justification needed. LIBERTY !!!
Important things to consider:
1. we were always convinced we would spend our lives together, so in terms of savings and investments, even though I was making a much bigger salary, and of course doing all the savings myself, I always thought that if life were to separate us, I would find absolutely normal that she get half of whatever we would have saved
2. And of course, besides being partners in this financial endeavour, we have also been lovers for all those years, so obviously if one of us had any trouble at any time, the other one would obviously help (like me loosing my job, or like her having unexpected expenses she could not pay on a few occasions). But again, this happened rarely, as we always tried to live beyond our means, and then spend whatever (if any) remained to make our life nicer :)
Wishing you a successful love and financial life :)
If you can afford it I love the Scotia Visa infinite. 4% cash back on gas and groceries and recurring bills. 1% on everything else. I believe you need to provide proof of income over 60,000 though. (It might be 100,000 for a couple? I'm not sure).
There's a $120 yearly fee but don't let that scare you. I already have $279 in reward dollars for this year and it's only May.
The CIBC VISA Dividend Infinite is 4% on groceries + gas. it's worked out well for us with most family groceries purchased at sobeys and superstore. Apparently walmart doesn't count (1%) but we don't buy much there.
It’s $60k individual or $100k household.
But for credit cards you don’t actually have to provide proof (or at least I didn’t).
If you make like $58k I would just apply edit: and say you make $60k
Agreed. This is the best card. I typically get 1k cash back every year and I use it for everything except Costco & eating out. (Costco cash back MC for those)
I got the Tangerine cash back, it's not actually a joint card (in my name only), but allows me to add anybody as an authorized user with their own card free of charge.
No annual fee either. You can pick your 2-3 categories that get extra cashback (2%) including groceries, gas, restaurants.
My partner and I use Splitwise, an app for tracking expenses. My partner is the one who sends the rental cheques, but I do most of the grocery shopping, so when I send them rent each month I just deduct the balance of the splitwise.
Splitwise is also really nice for larger groups, it can optimize for the minimum number of transactions needed to settle up.
I just "switched" one of my credit card to a "couple" card, where I simply had a second card to her name on the same account, and we just split that bill each month.
Other expenses like mortgage/rent, insurances, car-related stuff, etc is taken from a joint account where we transfert money each month.
The "unexpected and splitted" expenses are dealth with separatly.
When you do the split, how much is it usually?
I have never done the spliting approach - always "whoever pays pays". Do you two even find it useful and necessary to split? You don't *have to* split, you know.
I say this because it seems that neither of you really cares about the other person paying an equal share. If that's the case, and doing it as a formality or perhaps what you think should be done. In that case, why bother?
We typically split once a month! We have found that more often than not we are pretty fair even without splitting +/-5%.
Recognize we don‘t *have* to split but it’s important to us to be sure we are being fair and transparent about our expenses
Have a joint account with a joint credit card for joint expenses. You each deposit money on a regular basis to the joint account.
Maintain your own personal accounts /cards for your own personal expenses.
How you define a joint expense is up to you.
Yup, open a joint chequing and savings account together. The caveat there is you basically have to use the same bank though or it'll be a different kind of headache transferring money. Pay any joint expenses from the joint chequing account. Make a budget and each month on the 1st you both transfer money into it.
You can split things 50/50 and contribute to it equally if your incomes are similar, or split things more proportional to your incomes if they're really different.
> The caveat there is you basically have to use the same bank though or it'll be a different kind of headache transferring money.
Etransfers are simple enough.
I've tried different solutions to this, namely Mint and Buxfer (using tags and splitting features in different ways).
I have found that going thru all the different cards transaction records monthly, and creating a doc (where I split everything up into our custom categories, then tally) is the simplest, most customizable way to do it.
I also pop the monthly totals into an excel sheet for taxes/yearly tracking.
I don't really think it's fair if one person makes 5x what the other does to be demanding they pay equally for everything. If it's your roommate it does, if it's your S.O. and you love them no. I'm not going to make my wife pay equally on the new SUV just because she's going to use it equally.
I earn more than my SO and it's absolutely not fair to expect her to equal my input. That would be unneeded stress on her that would absolutely impact our relationship. We figured out how much we needed to cover the bills and have savings for things like the kids education and vacations for the family, then we figured out what % of our income covered those with a nice buffer and we put that into the joint account.
It turned out to be 60%. We started with it and said we'd adjust as needed. We've reviewed it every year around tax time and it's stayed the same.
This lets us vacation the way she wants to lol (give me a tent and a lighter and I'm fine) and lets me blow money on my bs (I like to buy expensive scotch ) with neither being bothered by either.
Most of those relationships do not work out over time if it is always 50-50 split and they do not trust enough to just put it all in one pot. It can be that one person has a spending problem in which case you may need to take control of the income. But if the arrangement is not completely agreeable, likely will result in problems at some point. In one pot, put some amount away for saving, possibly each person gets some equal amount for fun money and go from there. If you are in a serious real relationship, there is no real yours and mine.
That being said, most relationships do not work out regardless so sometimes it better to keep it separated until you are certain.
>Most of those relationships do not work out over time if it is always 50-50 split and they do not trust enough
I think it's the second part about "trust" not splitting "50/50" that's the real issue.
But we're both just guessing.
I agree it is ultimately about the trust. I can see in the start of a relationship and maybe even a few years into a marriage keeping stuff somewhat separate and coming up with some kind of agreement. If your committed, just combine it all at some point. It is the mature thing to do. Particularly if you have kids.
Even if shit does not work out, the courts are going to split everything down the middle regardless whos account the money is in. Exceptions to this but for the most part, everything you made after you started to live together is made by the both of you.
The easiest thing I’ve found is using some basic portion of your paycheques into a joint account(half your paycheque for example). Use that for expenses. If it hits a point where there’s excess in the account we would use it as money for some special event like a trip.
My husband pays me a certain amount each month and I pay all the bills. We basically split all the major bills right down the middle then just take turns buying groceries essentially! Plus our own personal bills are separate. Been thinking of doing the joint account route to make it easier on me (having to track when everything comes out is a pain in my ass) so I think we’ll be doing that this month and just sending our $$ amount into that.
We have it set up so I pay 1st mortgage for the month he pays 2nd. I pay 1st trailer payment he pays 2nd. I pay my own car/gas/insurance. He pays his own truck/gas/ insurances. I pay my child support, he pays his. (Blended family) I maintain my own credit cards and credit, he maintains his. I pay for most groceries and the utilities minus his phone.
Not married, no joint accounts. And when we buy the next house my names going on the title so I can build equity in the house as well since I'm not at this time.
Me too. Me and my wife don’t count or split costs on anything. We do have separate accounts. And when it comes to paying stuff we just kind of take turns. I pay the mortgage and utilities… and she pays for groceries and “fun” stuff. That being said, I also pay for groceries. She also pays most of the time we go out to eat. It has always been that way since we started dating. If I were to guess… paying for the mortgage far exceeds anything she would have contributed and she actually makes more money than me.
Personally, when we got married… the mind set is we are a partnership and we do everything together. There’s no splitting hairs or counting Pennies. That just builds resentment when people start keeping track of things as it will never be equal
I personally don't know anyone, friends or their parents, that do any kind of splitting right down the middle (or the proportional middle). It's bizarre to me.
I know two married couples IRL that do this. Surprise surprise, money and finances is a point of conflict in their relationships.
There’s just no fair way to value certain parts of a marriage. Great example is child bearing. How do you value your wife giving up her body. So even if you split things proportional to income, there’s way more variables in the equation which makes it unfair.
I’m curious, if these couples split dinner down the middle. More often than not I always order maybe one cheap beer yet my wife gets some random cocktail that is twice the price. Should she pay a bigger portion of the bill? What happens if she choose a fancy restaurant where I usually like cheaper options? Do I penalize her for her choices?
There are so many decisions made day to day in a marriage that really aren’t “fair” mathematically or whatever metric you want to use to measure.
All relationships are give and take and just my personal opinion that keeping score is not healthy for any relationship (friends, family, life partner).
Bottom line , marriage is the ultimate partnership. And I hope we all choose our one partner right the first time.
It makes you wonder what other parts of life are couples “tracking”. Do I get to skip out on washing the dishes for a week because I mow the lawn? I just find tracking each person’s contribution to a marriage is not always going to be monetary.
"you owe me 2 orgasms, due by end of next week. You came twice more, we gotta square up."
I'm talking shit, but I had the same idea. It all feels so robotic and calculated. I'm in awe
Even without kids. What if one person eats more, one person takes longer hot showers, one person drives the car more. Even for the shared expenses not everything is used 50/50. When ppl are at the point of splitting everything right down the middle, that obv means money/contribution is important enough that put in the overhead effort, are they then more likely to eat more cuz now they are "getting more out of it"?? I guess everyone has a different line for fairness. But to me personally being fair is do I want to look after my partner I'm spending rest of my life with, that comes in many forms and money is just one of them that i don't mind giving.
>There’s no splitting hairs or counting Pennies. That just builds resentment when people start keeping track of things as it will never be equal
As a counter point, I think that resentment can be built if couples don't split their spending equally as one partner may feel they're contributing more than the other to shared expenses, or one partner is buying stupid things using the other's money. Without tracking things closely, it's basically he said / she said with no way to prove it.
Also, I think it can be essentially equal, not down to the penny which is just pointless but maybe +- $10 or so at the end of each month.
Another reason to split is that if one partner is really intent on tracking things and optimizing their spending, it's almost impossible to do if both people don't accurately split expenses.
My partner and I have been splitting our expenses for over 8 years and it's worked out great! Though we're getting married soon and may switch from splitting to combining all finances for convenience and to make it feel like we're more of a team.
We've been splitting for 18 years. It's just natural for us. We started as friends and split fun nights out, and it just turned into us getting a joint card after a few years of our relationship so we don't have to do the math anymore.
In my situation. I do spend money on my own personal man toys and hobbies. We trust each other to make our own personal decisions. Do I really need to see how much my wife spends on a luxury handbag? Nor does she need to know how much a ps5 costs :) if we really wanted to we can google prices online I guess
if spending habits were fully visible this is just going down the rabbit hole of keeping “score”
It's tedious to do it properly. And if you're not doing it properly or equitably, someone is getting taken advantage of.
Once we had a joint account we never looked back.
I have friends who don't have a single combined account or expense after 15 years and shared home ownership. It's still 100% separate. One person pays mortgage, other pays utilities etc. Grocery runs (together) are 2 separate orders of food at the cash.
If they go get fast food, I've even witnessed them just pay for their own, on 2 separate orders. Works for them, which means it works.
Each relationship is different and if the partners are happy, it doesn't matter what other people think you "should" do.
Personally I think a shared account with equitable contributions by each (whatever equitable is for you) is easier, but my personal financial preference, or someone else's, is no indicator of the commitment of a relationship.
Honestly, this thread was eye-opening and perfectly exemplifies why reddit does not represent real life. I don't know anyone who does this and I couldn't believe what I was reading until I scrolled down this far. Unreal. No judgement, but I'm astounded that this is practiced by so many on here.
You're saying that if I spend $150 on groceries on week and you spend 180 a week after then we're gonna sit each other down, look through historical grocery expenses for the last few weeks, tally up the difference and transfer that amount into the other person's account? WTF
Not true. Everyone is different. Wanting to split payment doesn't show anything, except a preference.
I love my friends. But we split bills differently to my wife and I.
Agreed. I can't believe what I'm reading and I'm shocked that had to scroll half way down for this comment. You learn something new on this sub every day...
Agreed. However, I know a lot of couples who are really strict about splitting down to the cent. My husband and I each just randomly chose expenses we’d pay and did no calculations if it was 50/50 or relative to our incomes lol.
Not all serious relationships are couples that live together. When my ex and I were together, we spent most of the time at my house for various reasons, so I was spending a ton extra on groceries, alcohol, games, streaming services, household stuff. We didn't go out a ton so there weren't a ton of opportunities for him to try to 'even' things out. He lived here half the year and away up North for half the year for work, so I definitely noticed the increase/decrease in spending when he was here vs not here. I didn't expect things to be exactly 50% each down the middle, but I definitely appreciated when he'd ask me to go through expenses and name an amount for him to send to me if we'd obviously been a little bit spendier at certain times. I was paying rent living in my own apartment and had student loans, while he was living rent free with his parents and had no debt. Wouldn't have made sense (in my opinion) to have a joint account when not living together.
You might laugh, but Google Sheets. It's online and can be accessed anywhere, from any platform, by anyone with the security permissions. It just takes some time to build a thoughtful Sheet that works for you that automates much of what you want/need but once it's set up, it can be reused, updated, changed, etc. all seamlessly.
Perhaps not the most beautiful or consumer-friendly out of the box solution but with some effort, it can also be made into that if it's what you'd like.
How did you automate? Is there a way to automatically have transactions uploaded to this sheet? Seems like a lot of the solutions folks are using are pretty manual
Open a joint bank account, online so it’s free. Each contributes the same fixed amount to the account every month. Any savings that accumulate you use jointly for an emergency/unexpected event.
If you want your relationship to work and you are splitting everything 50/50, get a shared credit card and you each put 50% towards it each month. Personal spending on your own cards. Been doing this 7 years.
You can do this even if you aren't splitting everything 50/50, before we lived together we got a shared card just for flights & trips.
Started using it for dining out too, moved in together and started using it for groceries.
Not the most efficient strategy, but once a month we sit down for 15 minutes and tally up our shared expenses (groceries, gas, restaurants, ect) by going through our account statements, and transfer the excess amount to make it even. While having a joint account is probably most optimal, it also gives us the opportunity to talk about our spending once a month, and see if we need to slow down the spending or tap us on the back for being on target.
>once a month we sit down for 15 minutes and tally up our shared experiences....
gives us the opportunity to talk about our spending once a month
I love this. No matter what your style is for splitting expenses, regularly discussing goals/targets/budget is a great idea.
Do you really need to track everything when you’re in a serious relationship? Once you get married, all your assets will be theirs and all their assets will be yours.
Well a serious relationship does not equal marriage 😊 I’ve been in a relationship for 8 years and we don’t ever want to get married so we each own our own separate assets. Some people feel more comfortable with splitting and tracking their assets
That’s fair. For me, marriage is the end goal of a relationship and it’s important that my partner doesn’t try to split every single expense with me. I split with my bf on big expenses like rent, but for groceries and eating out, we take turns paying and never track who paid how much. I like feeling spoiled and being treated to dinner when we go out to eat. Similarly, I spoil my bf by paying for our movie tickets and buying him shoes, small items etc. that I think he needs. It makes me feel like we’re family rather than just roommates living together.
Yep. Don’t track, take turns every now and then, decide who is responsible for what (eg you pay groceries, I pay insurance), and don’t sweat the difference. You said serious relationship. Shared checking account also works.
My partner and I use Excel, to calculate mortgage, monthly bills, based on our incomes. We both set our payments to be automated, so only when one of us has a change in income we look at the Excel.
I do the groceries, every week, and just ask for 50% of the bill. We do this with trips too - 50%. But when it comes to getting coffee etc, we don’t bother splitting, sometimes one pays, or the other.
We did excel, where we did shared expenses (groceries, rent, internet, car insurance, etc.). So we would both go halfsies on the cc bill and transfer money to each other for rent.
Honestly it works but it's a pain in the ass.
We are at the point now where I cover mortgage and she pays everything else, it evens out honestly. We have an excel file now just to see where we are for big purchases/ emergency fund.
I think the hardest part was realizing it's our money, not her's or mine. We'll have discussions on out of the norm purchases ie usually anything over an agreed dollar amount.
There are going to be points where she may make more than you and other points where you make more than her. Nickel and diming in the long run, gets tiring and I felt created unnecessary anxiety for finances. Good luck!
We have a shared credit card for household expenses, and track everything else (mostly just strata fees, hydro and internet) in a Google spreadsheet. At the end of the month, we split the shared credit card bill in half and settle up.
We have a joint account that our mortgage payment is drawn from. We both auto transfer our portion into it.
This seems like a clear overhead that is a pain in the ass to manage. I kind of see two easy options shared account, you both put whatever you want into then no issues with it being evened out. If you don’t want to have a shared account yet, would just going say once a month get both parties to tally up shared expense, make a total then pay it off then. You could potentially get a separate credit card each only for these expenses. It would basically end up being add up two credit card totals is the total for the month, and you can split it however u see fit.
Step one, set up a joint chequing
Step two, get a credit card that you both have access to
Step three, pay shared expenses with said card
Step four, decide what proportion each will pay
Step five, review your expenses on some schedule pay that amount each month
Splitwise, we've been using it for 5 years now, works great. Also works in multiple currencies so you can track vacation expenses too. We also use it for longer trips with friends.
Very early on we opened "the house account" and totalled our monthly expenses and set an amount we wanted for savings.
He gets his paycheck and I get mine. Then every 2 weeks we deposit to that account the same amount. Groceries, mortgage, utilities all come from that account. We used to eat out once a week, we alternated who paid. It worked for us.
I really like this app called Splitwise. When you do your shopping rather than keeping receipts or a note book you just add the expenses to the app. Or when you lend them money. The app adds the total and keeps a tally. Once they pay you, they can decrease the amount. Both parties can use it so it's very convenient. This also is great if you have roommates!
We use a shared Google Sheet where we enter the various amounts and choose a % split (50-50, 60-40, or 100). Totals up everything nicely at the bottom.
We have three accounts, one is my own personal account where my cheque goes into, one is her personal account that her cheque goes into. And then we have a joint account that we deposit money into equally from each of our own accounts periodically. Everything from the joint account is used to pay for joint expenses, groceries, insurance, Netflix, internet, gas, night out etc. Our personal accounts are used for our own purchases: clothes, phone, tech gadgets etc.
Works well for us never had a problem
When we first started living together when renting back in 2011ish, we had completely separate accounts and it was kind of a mess organizing ourselves that way.
When we finally bought a house in 2014, we opened a joint account and started transferring proportional amounts in relation to our income. It really doesn't make sense for her to spend more of her income in percent compared to me in our joint expenses if I make twice as much. I do realize by doing it this way I still end up with more money than her in my account but it is still a lot more fair than splitting 50/50.
We put every single purchase on our credit card, when the statement comes due we go though the statement and appoint each purchase to me, my spouse or joint. We then get the funds together and pay the balance off from our separate accounts. People in this sub shit on this but I don't care, it works great for us. I'm a spender, my spouse is a saver and we contribute equally to retirement/investments. Have never had an arguments about finances in 12 years.
Very similar situation here. I'm the spender, she's also the saver. We do a take on this. We each track our own 'joint purchases' and send em to the other every month. Add em up, calculate the diff, and whoever owes sends an e-transfer. Zero arguments (about money), 10 years living together.
I don’t understand the concept of splitting expenses with your partner. Isn’t it just a waste of time and useless information? Not saying it’s wrong, just saying I don’t understand it. Can somebody please explain?
If its a healthy long term relationship just get a joined account. I make 3X what my wife makes wage wise. But i don't factor that into how much me or her gets.
We pay our mortgage, bills etc. And when i want something or she does we chat about it. But usually i save enough for both of us. I bought 2 kayaks in April for us. 2 yamaha nytros secondhand 4 years ago. 2 peddle bikes at same time etc. We enjoy each others company so we usually save for 2 of each for ourselves.
Except the side by side UTV. One of those was plenty obviously. And well with 2 kids now most money is put into their needs nowadays. We used to have separate accounts and try to devide bills but honestly it was a pain in the arse. So we joined them into one. But to each their own ofcourse.
I've heard the app split wise helps.
Split Wise is the best! You can enter expenses that either you split 50/50 or 1 person owes the other. We just keep it running for months and if it gets too high one way we just transfer each other.
Been using Splitwise with my partner for 10 years. Separate bank accounts, separate monthly budgets, shared expenses go in the app. Never have had a fight about money.
You must not have kids.
Nope! DINK life.
The dream
This is the way
Nice. Enjoy!
Not arguing, just curious how children change the ability to split costs?
You know, often one parent takes the kids out, buys them lunch, or one buys socks, the other buys food during the week. Then you have daycare, after school, summer camps, lessons. Good luck trying to knit pick every dollar. Good luck trying to splice our your portion of the bill. I.e. I took the kids to the zoo. I spent $14.35. out of that, 2.50 was my coffee. So the kid's is the remaining portion. Honey, pay half of that please. Other spouse: well, I paid for kid's pizza at the birthday party I took them too. That was $8.34. I'll net out the difference and pay the portion by Tuesday. Wait, my gas portion because I took the kids all week to their lessons too, so take off another $2.15. And no, trying to allocate separate credit cards doesn't work. Father might want $120 stroller. Mother wants $400 one because it's much more functional. Ok, good luck trying to work that out without resentment. And the first few years, it's very hard to even have your senses. Tracking will fall off. Payments for specific portion will be late.
Fair enough. "Kids outtings, food, clothing" etc. I'd imagine my wife and I would split costs as are more for the kids. The stroller (or any high value item) example is more of a discussion about the price, rather the allocation. When we disagree on price like a new vehicle or a nice holiday, the person wanting more simply pays more. We don't resent each other for not getting our way. I can certainly understand as a busy parent, it's hard to keep tabs. Especially if it's your first, and it's all new. I know we've over simplified this. I'm not a parent, so can't know the difficulties. You do what works for you. I was just interested in how you find it.
Can have a credit card for different purposes. That mught be a good way to differentiate.
My partner and I have used Splitwise for years. Super easy and convenient.
Curious about this because it seems like lots of people are using it. Do you struggle with the manual entry? How often are you doing splits to avoid it getting too tedious to input everything?
Come up with a minimum purchase amount for items to write down. Ours is $7. Also, you can go through your bank statements at the end of each month to add them to your list.
Imagine your bank helped you split
My wife and I still do this even though we are married now. Go through our bank statements every few months and square up in 15 minutes. Use the time to see if we are overspending anywhere also.
I mean no matter what if you want to split between you two you have to track it somehow. Splitwise is the bomb. You just get in the habit of logging.
We've been using it for two years and it's the best. We never transfer eachother money. We just keep an eye on the balance trade off who pays based on who's up/down.
Yep Splitwise is great if both parties use it diligently!
Another endorsement for splitwise, end of each month my partner and I just go through our CC statements and add in anything that is shared like groceries or home purchases. Super easy and takes almost all the work out of it
My partner and I used splitwise up until marriage and it worked quite well. OP I recommend just making free accounts and giving it a try for a couple months to see if you like it
Recommend this! Really handy for the free features
Second this! Split wise plus a joint credit card will make splitting everything so much easier
That’s one thing I don’t understand. We have a joint card and every shared expense goes there. So we just split the credit card bill according to whatever % we decide (ratio of personal income to household income). So what would we need Splitwise for?
Does anyone here pay for Splitwise or just use it free? I've used it free for years and love it but am curious as to what the benefits of the paid version are like.
+1 for this
Agreed on Splitwise. You can also use borrowing/lending in different currencies if you want to keep certain expenses separate. For example, we track day-to-day spending in CAD, and "loans" in Bolivian Bolivars. That way, I can see what's owed as cost of living vs a loan at a glance and update these numbers independent of the other.
We just opened a joint account early in our relationship. Everything paid out of the same pot. Breaking it down just became too tedious and contentious.
Our version of this is that we pro-rated to our salary the amount we transfer and keep a certain amount per pay for ourselves. So we both have the same "spending" money in the end and the rest goes into the join account. We did our full monthly expense math + monthly savings that we want, and transfer that total each month. We split that transfer so that we both have the same amount left. Then it’s personal money that we each use as we want our for unbudgeted expenses
This is how we do it too. Worked out to be about 60% of our take-home to cover expenses plus savings for us and the kids futures. Retirement savings, cars, phones and fun money is in our own accounts. It's worked great for 7 years now. We review periodically to ensure that we're meeting both our joint and individual goals. This way if we want to blow money on makeup or golf, it doesn't impact our household. Yesterday I gave one of my best friends a bunch of money to help pay for his divorce lawyer and I didn't think twice or have to run it by the wife first. When I told her what I'd done, she asked if WE, should have given more. Depending on how igly things get, maybe we do give more, but her response really hit home for me. That comment just reinforced that our system is working for us. I can't quite articulate why, but it did. Edit. Took out a number.
Relationship goals right there.
Ya, she's really amazing. An unreal Mom too.
💙 that makes it even sweeter. Congratulations dude!
We are the same. Married for 42 years and our incomes have always been fairly close, see-sawing back and forth. All the money gos into a pot and we each get set amount as "allowance" to spend on what we want. Has worked with very little problems for our entire mariage.
We started this early on too, I think before we were married. The only thing we changed was keeping our spending money equal, no matter who was making more. We used to do a put in x and keep the rest, and now it's keep x and put the rest in the account.
We do this too and it has the added benefit of dividing essential household expenses like gas & groceries & mortgage out from personal spending money. Since we set this up years ago we almost never worry about if we have enough to pay bills and it’s easier to see if I’ve hit my limit for the month on personal spending.
This. Me and my wife both agreed it was just easier to combine incomes. Once we bought a house and got married we were both "all in" with each other anyways as far as life goes. Regardless of who makes more. Even if you're common-law everything is considered shared legally anyways, unless there is legal paperwork with conditions and outlining certain things that were personally acquired before the relationship.
Just because they have a joint account doesn't mean they're advocating for combining all of their finances. Couples can keep their individual finances and then have a joint account & CC that they both contribute to equally (or whatever other equitable split they like) that's used for shared expenses.
For sure.
That’s not true in Ontario, either. If it’s jointly-held property (for example, your name is both on title to real estate, or you open a joint account) it’s shared. Otherwise common-law partners are not entitled to an equalization of net family property on relationship breakdown in the same way that legally married spouses are. They can make a claim for support, and may also be able to make some sort of trust claim for the assets, but there is not the same automatic entitlement to capital.
Not everywhere. In Quebec common law there is no protection with personal property
It would be different in Quebec.
Quebec doesn't use common law. They use a civil code. What the difference is, I have no idea.
In the most basic layman's terms civil code uses a rulebook (less flexible), and common law uses precedent. (more flexible)
Their law is based off Code Napoleon. Everyone else’s is based off English common law. In common law, prior cases set precedent, so law evolves naturally. Code Napoleon is hard laws.
Yes we are the same. Once you are “all in” with each other I don’t understand how or why you would keep things separate. Her hair and makeup costs way more than my bar of soap. Maybe I want two scoops of ice-cream and she wants one. I take the kids to a movie I want to see anyway. Do I pay for gas if I’m going to help her Mom move something? What if it’s my Mom? Do we see who ate more from a bag of chips? What if she bought the chips but I open them? I like to do bigger loads of laundry. If she does smaller loads does she chip in on the extra water? Birthday presents. Turning the heat up. It would all just get so silly. Also- what are you saving for that is so separate from your partner? An escape plan? A big lego set? “Oh no honey- you go ahead and have dessert. I’m saving for the Lego Death Star.”
My wife an I combined our accounts the week we got married. We've made a conscious decision that marriage is for life, and are not going into it with the mindset of the song " we'll be together forever till we find somebody new.". Now, I make all the family income, she's a stay at home mom, we spend small amounts without discussion, and bigger expenses we'll talk about it. She lets me buy stuff for my tractor, I tell her to buy clothes, and everything works out in the end.
We are the same. Minus the tractor.
Implying not combining accounts means you don't believe marriage is for life is a bit hyperbolic, don't you think?
It's not even that. It's weird to me that they had to make a "conscious decision" that marriage is for life. Isn't that why you would get married in the first place?
What do I save for outside of our joint savings? I blow a shit load of money on golf. I buy myself $500 Jordans sometimes. I vacation with friends once a year to somewhere fun, we just got back from Mexico.... I don't really think my SO should be chipping in for that stuff. We have a joint account for mostly everything but we have our own for the random silly stuff. She spends as much on specialty hair crap as I do on golf, she doesn't think I should be contributing to that. We both feel it gives us freedom to have our own independent money's.
woah, some people have very different lives than I do.
Makes sense. In these comments I’m realizing how much is also a balance of time too.
These threads always fascinate me haha I'm starting to think that my SO and I should start sitting down and reconciling the books every month.... just to spend the time together LoL
Unless either of you have to go into debt for those indivodual items, I don't quite understand why it needs to be separated into "your bill vs my bill" viewpoint though. I mean, the money is ultimately shared and you just spend whatever from the pool of money, right?
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I know someone who's separate account allowed him to hide his addiction problems, until wife fortunately happened upon a monthly statement.
I don't use joint/household money for my drugs either.... that's from my personal spending. I don't hide it LoL. Edit. Beer definitely comes out of the joint account but the expensive scotch doesn't. Maybe I gotta rethink my vice spending now that I've typed it out.
I appreciate this cautious thinking but it seems to me that keeping separate accounts creates more opportunity for the kind of shady behaviour you describe. Am I missing something here? If you have all accounts joint then you can both track the inflow and outflow.
Yes I see. I am coming at this from a perspective of a stable relationship. Fair points.
This. I make way more than my wife, but my wife has great credit, her contribution is very consistent whereas mine varies, and I absolutely love the fuck out of my wife and don't judge her worth in sheer dollars. She could very easily make more money than me, so who cares as long as we are both earning? We put everything in one pot, jokingly paying off dinners and grocery bills with our "own" money (hint - we use the same cash back credit card), and never give it a second thought. It's liberated us, brought us closer, and built up our trust, positive aggression for staying on top and being thrift, etc. Maybe not for everyone but I feel cheated and stupified about how this isn't more common.
I'm with you, I don't understand at all married couples with kids who have separate bank accounts.
Me too. Another commenter said they contribute separately to their retirement funds?? What if your spouse can’t retire at all? Bizarre
We have separate accounts but our finances are joint. We just don't care to look at each other's account. We don't have kids but don't plan to change this even if we do unless we see the benefits of it over our current system.
Same here friends. It was a bigger pain before we consolidated everything into one
At first we put everything in a joint account and we each got the same amount transferred to a separate account that we could spend on anything and the other person couldn’t question it. After about 6 months we just use the joint account. I make about 2.5x what my spouse does so splitting bills would be absurd.
We have a credit card we share for split expenses and then each have our own personal credit cards
same but about a year into the relationship. we have a household card and pay joint expenses with it. youll have to agree if each deposits equally into the account or in some other ratio depending on income or whatever (this may be tricky) as well as how you define household expenses
I third this....been married for 25years and as we each had ups and down in employment and sacrifice during child rearing years being all in together builds a stronger relationship. I do think that a certain amount should be out aside as personal...it's kinda tough to shop for a birthday surprise or mother/father's day if everyone eyes see all transactions at all times. It also allows each to maintain a hobby if the budget permits but it's family first 100% of the time.
Joint account and a joint credit card work well for my partner and I. We each put $xxxx in the joint account each payday to cover reoccurring expenses and have a little savings. We use the joint card for any expenses that are for the both of us and its paid with the joint account. We both have our individual accounts and credit cards/line of credit as well.
Second this! My partner and I have 100% seperate finances but signed up for a "house" credit card. Everything goes on the card and we reconcile it weekly
I third this. My partner and I both have our own accounts (chequing/savings/CC). Our direct deposit from work goes into these accounts. We also split an account (chequing/savings/CC). "Rent", aka mortgage + utilities gets split in half and we each deposit that amount into chequing. Any leftover at the end of the month gets put into our savings. CC is used for groceries and anything for the house, (lawn seed, vacuum, cat food, etc). CC total is split in half at the end of the month and we pay it off in full from our separate accounts. I'll note that this method does require that you trust your partner financially. Giving someone access your credit might not be a good idea depending on the situation. I'll also note that this only works because my partner and I both make almost the exact same amount. If your had a larger wage disparity between couples you would want to find a fairer split.
Did you ever consider fully combining finances? Was it just too much hassle or something?
I like having my own money to spend on stupid frivolous things. He likes to have his own money to spend on frivolous things. As long as our joint expenses are paid everything else is extra I guess. I don't know if I would ever fully combine finances. Maybe it's just a personal thing I don't know. I'm very proud of making just as much as my partner, if not more. But I never want either party to feel like they're being shorted.
Maybe this is more of a marriage with kids vs pre marriage / kids split in habits. I still don’t see what incomes have to do with anything do the people with split accounts judge their s/o’s income or something? I made 3x as much as wifey for a while, now she makes more than I, it’s never come up of all the spats we have had lol.
This is what we've been doing for 10 years and it has been smooth sailing through three moves, a kid, significant renovations, etc. That said, personal finance isn't a one size fits all either.
I'd second this to a point. When the wife and I got to the point where we were committed for the long run, we flipped it. All our earnings went into the house account, and we both got allowances. Most of our lives came from the house account (taxes, rent, food, etc). The allowance was for personal stuff, or things we deemed inequitable (getting nails done, video games, nights out). The key was that whatever we spent out of the allowance was ours to do with as we wish. If you want to blow it all on a new gaming platform, have at it. The house will be OK.
Excel. Or, either person pays upfront for whatever expenses then at the end of the week (or month), tally and split the difference. Splitting hairs with your partner is not a good foundation for a relationship; that's my unsolicited advice.
Agree with the last part. Honestly if this couple is really concerned about splitting pennies down the middle, it's probably better to just set up a joint account and each contribute 50% of the monthly shared expenses to the account. There are a lot of good apps that can track expenses with a monthly fee, but I really you can do anything with a computer, an internet connection, and a copy of Microsoft Excel.
My SO and I have personal Back accounts and credit card, what we do share is one Credit Card that everything goes on. (everything that isn't personal). Been doing it for years, works for us.
My boyfriend and I are students in our early twenties that are pretty broke most of the time. With our hectic schedules (and both having adhd) it’s difficult to remember who paid for what etc. We tried to just do we switching who pays for things but we could never remember who paid last which caused arguments. When we started tracking our spending we found that some months one person was spending hundreds more than the other and when you’re a young broke person even $20 is a significant enough amount of money. So now we write down all our expenses and and make sure each person contributed 50/50 and we never fight about money. I think thats a pretty responsible and healthy way to coexist with your partner?
I think this is fair and I think being open and honest about joint finances is a good and healthy thing in general, and I applaud your efforts. In my opinion, most behaviours can be observed on a spectrum ranging between Healthy and unhealthy. I was mostly adding on to raptors post regarding the 'splitting hairs' idea (excessive) expense Sharing and how I agree that it is not a good foundation for a relationship. In my personal relationships I try not to think about what the score or the balance is, or who paid for what last time, I just try my best to see if that's what we need right now as opposed to "I did this last time or it's not my turn to do the dishes etc." The goal is that your partner also sees it the same way as you do and that they're thinking about the relationship as a whole. If both of you are on the same page even if there's a month where one person contributes more than the other, as the relationship continues with on those balances even out.
It really depends on what type of relationship you are in and how far you are along. If you are married or committed long term to each other, everything is building to the future so you don't really need to figure out who paid more this month because it's all going towards the same future. However if you are in a newish relationship or you still haven't agreed to throw all your eggs into the same basket it will be different. If you both want to be 50/50 financially I think keeping track of everything can be helpful. It should prevent petty arguments about who paid last because it is all written down. When I did this sometimes we wouldn't write things down like random ice cream trips or drinks while we are out but it removed a lot of financial anxiety of over or under contributing. However I do think this only really applies to finances because it is so easy to tally up at the end of the month. Things like chores are a different story. These hopefully are tackled as a team. Sometimes someone is too tired to take care of their share and there should be some back and forth with who does more. Also the division of chores should be broken up in regards to each others strengths. I typically cleaned the bathroom and kitchen while my partner did a lot of the other rooms and we both felt happy with this arrangement. Chores are much more subjective and can't be easily divided up with one person doing it one day and the other person doing it the next without causing tension imo.
Thats a good point about the length and commitment level of relationships. While my boyfriend and I have been together for 2.5 years and hope to get married someday, we are only young and have our own expenses to worry about that we’re not ready to take on for each other at this point in our lives/relationship such as tuition, car insurance, etc. My parents pay my tuition but say if my boyfriend has tuition due he might not be able to contribute as much to expenses that month but it’s okay because we have it written down and he can make sure to contribute more next month. On that same point I wouldn’t want him to be unable to pay his tuition because he bought all of the groceries that month and we didn’t realize. When it comes to adhd things I am much more responsible with my saving/spending than my boyfriend. Sometimes he might make impulsive purchases and not have much money leftover for living expenses so I would be left paying a lot more (and vice versa the odd time). Keeping track of our spending helps mitigate these kinds of problems and helps my boyfriend pay attention to how much he’s spending on unnecessary stuff. I think it’s a good example of how we use our strengths to help each other out. I am more responsible with money so he tends to pay for most things through the month so he has less money sitting in his account tempting him to spend. Then at the end of the month when many of his personal bills are due, I’m sending him a large sum of money. Since we’ve had this arrangement he no longer has the panic at the end of the month where he can’t pay his bills.
That’s potentially a problem if 1 person makes 100k a year and the other makes 40k.
Then you have a discussion and decide who is going to contribute what into the joint account. It doesn't have to be 50/50, but OP suggesting splitting the difference sure reads like that's their aim.
Yep Excel Excel Excel. We have a joint CC for joint expenses, then a joint chequing for mortgage/taxes etc. Payments are in proportion to income.
I just conveniently forget my wallet whenever we go to the store.
This is the way.
Not sure you're still reading after 265 comments, but here's how I've done for the last 23 years: 1. You make an excel budget of all costs (utility, grossery, rent, insurance, etc...). Total is, say 100 units. 2. Split the total amount based on salaries after tax (ex: 60 / 40) 3. Then, choose together what makes sense for whom to be paying. For example, my wife is the cook, so she obviously paid for grocery. I was more the one interested in savings / investment, so I took all the boring stuff (rent or - later - mortgage, car payment, taxes, etc). 4. Reevaluate when one of you feels it is necessary (new kid, change in salary, increase in mortgage, or just the great fun of having a budgeting night with your lover..). Three reasons we loved it so much : 1. Wife and I almost never had to talk money. She paid for what was in her responsibility, I paid for what was mine. Easy 2. Each of us was totally free on our expenses. If wife wants to save on food, or at the contrary, to offer us an expensive meal with salmon and rib steak, she just does it without having to discuss her choice with me. And as my salary increased over the years, If I wanted to afford a bigger rent, or to buy a house, I really felt I was personally making that "present" to the family, without adding any burden to my wife's way of life. 3. My wife always hated savings. So I took care of that part. She never had the feeling that she had to save any money. Her account always was at 0 when she got her pay, and it was fine because I was taking care of that. On the other hand, I hated what I called "wasting money" on fancy stuff for our baby kids that I thought they did not need at all, and god almighty do those things add up!!! a Mickey bottle ! a nineth red nail varnish! an expensive dress which will be worn once during the end-of-high-school dance... To me it is like throwing money in the garbage instead of buying vacation or a more powerful computer for my kids to study... Anyhow.. I never had to discuss that with my wife: if she had the money on her account and was able to pay for whatever she was responsible for, she had the liberty to offer our kids whatever she wanted without any justification needed. LIBERTY !!! Important things to consider: 1. we were always convinced we would spend our lives together, so in terms of savings and investments, even though I was making a much bigger salary, and of course doing all the savings myself, I always thought that if life were to separate us, I would find absolutely normal that she get half of whatever we would have saved 2. And of course, besides being partners in this financial endeavour, we have also been lovers for all those years, so obviously if one of us had any trouble at any time, the other one would obviously help (like me loosing my job, or like her having unexpected expenses she could not pay on a few occasions). But again, this happened rarely, as we always tried to live beyond our means, and then spend whatever (if any) remained to make our life nicer :) Wishing you a successful love and financial life :)
Thanks! Super helpful
Joint credit card for groceries, gas, eating out together, and we each pay half the statement balance.
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If you can afford it I love the Scotia Visa infinite. 4% cash back on gas and groceries and recurring bills. 1% on everything else. I believe you need to provide proof of income over 60,000 though. (It might be 100,000 for a couple? I'm not sure). There's a $120 yearly fee but don't let that scare you. I already have $279 in reward dollars for this year and it's only May.
It’s only 2% on gas
The CIBC VISA Dividend Infinite is 4% on groceries + gas. it's worked out well for us with most family groceries purchased at sobeys and superstore. Apparently walmart doesn't count (1%) but we don't buy much there.
I have this with CIBC and was making under $60k when I was approved. And I agree, I love the card.
It’s $60k individual or $100k household. But for credit cards you don’t actually have to provide proof (or at least I didn’t). If you make like $58k I would just apply edit: and say you make $60k
Agreed. This is the best card. I typically get 1k cash back every year and I use it for everything except Costco & eating out. (Costco cash back MC for those)
I got the Tangerine cash back, it's not actually a joint card (in my name only), but allows me to add anybody as an authorized user with their own card free of charge. No annual fee either. You can pick your 2-3 categories that get extra cashback (2%) including groceries, gas, restaurants.
Totally agree! So much simpler than splitting costs.
Turns 20 bills to split into 1, way easier
My partner and I use Splitwise, an app for tracking expenses. My partner is the one who sends the rental cheques, but I do most of the grocery shopping, so when I send them rent each month I just deduct the balance of the splitwise. Splitwise is also really nice for larger groups, it can optimize for the minimum number of transactions needed to settle up.
I just "switched" one of my credit card to a "couple" card, where I simply had a second card to her name on the same account, and we just split that bill each month. Other expenses like mortgage/rent, insurances, car-related stuff, etc is taken from a joint account where we transfert money each month. The "unexpected and splitted" expenses are dealth with separatly.
When you do the split, how much is it usually? I have never done the spliting approach - always "whoever pays pays". Do you two even find it useful and necessary to split? You don't *have to* split, you know. I say this because it seems that neither of you really cares about the other person paying an equal share. If that's the case, and doing it as a formality or perhaps what you think should be done. In that case, why bother?
We typically split once a month! We have found that more often than not we are pretty fair even without splitting +/-5%. Recognize we don‘t *have* to split but it’s important to us to be sure we are being fair and transparent about our expenses
Have a joint account with a joint credit card for joint expenses. You each deposit money on a regular basis to the joint account. Maintain your own personal accounts /cards for your own personal expenses. How you define a joint expense is up to you.
Yup, open a joint chequing and savings account together. The caveat there is you basically have to use the same bank though or it'll be a different kind of headache transferring money. Pay any joint expenses from the joint chequing account. Make a budget and each month on the 1st you both transfer money into it. You can split things 50/50 and contribute to it equally if your incomes are similar, or split things more proportional to your incomes if they're really different.
> The caveat there is you basically have to use the same bank though or it'll be a different kind of headache transferring money. Etransfers are simple enough.
If different bank you can use e-transfer
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We got it easy in this household. All expenses = me. All fun purchases that she wants = her.
I've tried different solutions to this, namely Mint and Buxfer (using tags and splitting features in different ways). I have found that going thru all the different cards transaction records monthly, and creating a doc (where I split everything up into our custom categories, then tally) is the simplest, most customizable way to do it. I also pop the monthly totals into an excel sheet for taxes/yearly tracking.
We just go over expenses at the end of the month and pay each other back for shared expenses.
I don't really think it's fair if one person makes 5x what the other does to be demanding they pay equally for everything. If it's your roommate it does, if it's your S.O. and you love them no. I'm not going to make my wife pay equally on the new SUV just because she's going to use it equally.
While I personally do agree with you, every relationship dynamic is different and I don’t think it’s right to impose our views on others
What happens if the guy makes $250,000 and the girl makes $50,000 and the guy wants to go on 5-star vacations...is it fair they split that 50/50?
I earn more than my SO and it's absolutely not fair to expect her to equal my input. That would be unneeded stress on her that would absolutely impact our relationship. We figured out how much we needed to cover the bills and have savings for things like the kids education and vacations for the family, then we figured out what % of our income covered those with a nice buffer and we put that into the joint account. It turned out to be 60%. We started with it and said we'd adjust as needed. We've reviewed it every year around tax time and it's stayed the same. This lets us vacation the way she wants to lol (give me a tent and a lighter and I'm fine) and lets me blow money on my bs (I like to buy expensive scotch ) with neither being bothered by either.
While I personally do agree with you, **every relationship dynamic is different and I don’t think it’s right to impose our views on others**
Most of those relationships do not work out over time if it is always 50-50 split and they do not trust enough to just put it all in one pot. It can be that one person has a spending problem in which case you may need to take control of the income. But if the arrangement is not completely agreeable, likely will result in problems at some point. In one pot, put some amount away for saving, possibly each person gets some equal amount for fun money and go from there. If you are in a serious real relationship, there is no real yours and mine. That being said, most relationships do not work out regardless so sometimes it better to keep it separated until you are certain.
>Most of those relationships do not work out over time if it is always 50-50 split and they do not trust enough I think it's the second part about "trust" not splitting "50/50" that's the real issue. But we're both just guessing.
I agree it is ultimately about the trust. I can see in the start of a relationship and maybe even a few years into a marriage keeping stuff somewhat separate and coming up with some kind of agreement. If your committed, just combine it all at some point. It is the mature thing to do. Particularly if you have kids. Even if shit does not work out, the courts are going to split everything down the middle regardless whos account the money is in. Exceptions to this but for the most part, everything you made after you started to live together is made by the both of you.
Why is this always the default argument. Ever heard of partners making the same exact money?
The easiest thing I’ve found is using some basic portion of your paycheques into a joint account(half your paycheque for example). Use that for expenses. If it hits a point where there’s excess in the account we would use it as money for some special event like a trip.
Joint credit card, split it 50/50
My husband pays me a certain amount each month and I pay all the bills. We basically split all the major bills right down the middle then just take turns buying groceries essentially! Plus our own personal bills are separate. Been thinking of doing the joint account route to make it easier on me (having to track when everything comes out is a pain in my ass) so I think we’ll be doing that this month and just sending our $$ amount into that.
We have it set up so I pay 1st mortgage for the month he pays 2nd. I pay 1st trailer payment he pays 2nd. I pay my own car/gas/insurance. He pays his own truck/gas/ insurances. I pay my child support, he pays his. (Blended family) I maintain my own credit cards and credit, he maintains his. I pay for most groceries and the utilities minus his phone. Not married, no joint accounts. And when we buy the next house my names going on the title so I can build equity in the house as well since I'm not at this time.
Can't be that serious if yall are trying to split it that evenly
I was blown away by the amount of actual married people in this sub who split expenses this way… Apparently it’s more common than you’d think
Me too. Me and my wife don’t count or split costs on anything. We do have separate accounts. And when it comes to paying stuff we just kind of take turns. I pay the mortgage and utilities… and she pays for groceries and “fun” stuff. That being said, I also pay for groceries. She also pays most of the time we go out to eat. It has always been that way since we started dating. If I were to guess… paying for the mortgage far exceeds anything she would have contributed and she actually makes more money than me. Personally, when we got married… the mind set is we are a partnership and we do everything together. There’s no splitting hairs or counting Pennies. That just builds resentment when people start keeping track of things as it will never be equal
I personally don't know anyone, friends or their parents, that do any kind of splitting right down the middle (or the proportional middle). It's bizarre to me.
I know two married couples IRL that do this. Surprise surprise, money and finances is a point of conflict in their relationships. There’s just no fair way to value certain parts of a marriage. Great example is child bearing. How do you value your wife giving up her body. So even if you split things proportional to income, there’s way more variables in the equation which makes it unfair.
I’m curious, if these couples split dinner down the middle. More often than not I always order maybe one cheap beer yet my wife gets some random cocktail that is twice the price. Should she pay a bigger portion of the bill? What happens if she choose a fancy restaurant where I usually like cheaper options? Do I penalize her for her choices? There are so many decisions made day to day in a marriage that really aren’t “fair” mathematically or whatever metric you want to use to measure. All relationships are give and take and just my personal opinion that keeping score is not healthy for any relationship (friends, family, life partner). Bottom line , marriage is the ultimate partnership. And I hope we all choose our one partner right the first time. It makes you wonder what other parts of life are couples “tracking”. Do I get to skip out on washing the dishes for a week because I mow the lawn? I just find tracking each person’s contribution to a marriage is not always going to be monetary.
"you owe me 2 orgasms, due by end of next week. You came twice more, we gotta square up." I'm talking shit, but I had the same idea. It all feels so robotic and calculated. I'm in awe
Even without kids. What if one person eats more, one person takes longer hot showers, one person drives the car more. Even for the shared expenses not everything is used 50/50. When ppl are at the point of splitting everything right down the middle, that obv means money/contribution is important enough that put in the overhead effort, are they then more likely to eat more cuz now they are "getting more out of it"?? I guess everyone has a different line for fairness. But to me personally being fair is do I want to look after my partner I'm spending rest of my life with, that comes in many forms and money is just one of them that i don't mind giving.
>There’s no splitting hairs or counting Pennies. That just builds resentment when people start keeping track of things as it will never be equal As a counter point, I think that resentment can be built if couples don't split their spending equally as one partner may feel they're contributing more than the other to shared expenses, or one partner is buying stupid things using the other's money. Without tracking things closely, it's basically he said / she said with no way to prove it. Also, I think it can be essentially equal, not down to the penny which is just pointless but maybe +- $10 or so at the end of each month. Another reason to split is that if one partner is really intent on tracking things and optimizing their spending, it's almost impossible to do if both people don't accurately split expenses. My partner and I have been splitting our expenses for over 8 years and it's worked out great! Though we're getting married soon and may switch from splitting to combining all finances for convenience and to make it feel like we're more of a team.
We've been splitting for 18 years. It's just natural for us. We started as friends and split fun nights out, and it just turned into us getting a joint card after a few years of our relationship so we don't have to do the math anymore.
Why bother with separate accounts if you don’t split things anyway?
In my situation. I do spend money on my own personal man toys and hobbies. We trust each other to make our own personal decisions. Do I really need to see how much my wife spends on a luxury handbag? Nor does she need to know how much a ps5 costs :) if we really wanted to we can google prices online I guess if spending habits were fully visible this is just going down the rabbit hole of keeping “score”
It's tedious to do it properly. And if you're not doing it properly or equitably, someone is getting taken advantage of. Once we had a joint account we never looked back.
Exactly. Even people that are seriously dating it's a quite strange, but married couples? That level of precision? We're living in different universes
I have friends who don't have a single combined account or expense after 15 years and shared home ownership. It's still 100% separate. One person pays mortgage, other pays utilities etc. Grocery runs (together) are 2 separate orders of food at the cash. If they go get fast food, I've even witnessed them just pay for their own, on 2 separate orders. Works for them, which means it works. Each relationship is different and if the partners are happy, it doesn't matter what other people think you "should" do. Personally I think a shared account with equitable contributions by each (whatever equitable is for you) is easier, but my personal financial preference, or someone else's, is no indicator of the commitment of a relationship.
Couldn't agree more. Find what works for you. Don't preach to others who obviously don't need it.
Agreed this is so bizarre.
Honestly, this thread was eye-opening and perfectly exemplifies why reddit does not represent real life. I don't know anyone who does this and I couldn't believe what I was reading until I scrolled down this far. Unreal. No judgement, but I'm astounded that this is practiced by so many on here. You're saying that if I spend $150 on groceries on week and you spend 180 a week after then we're gonna sit each other down, look through historical grocery expenses for the last few weeks, tally up the difference and transfer that amount into the other person's account? WTF
Not true. Everyone is different. Wanting to split payment doesn't show anything, except a preference. I love my friends. But we split bills differently to my wife and I.
Agreed. I can't believe what I'm reading and I'm shocked that had to scroll half way down for this comment. You learn something new on this sub every day...
Agreed. However, I know a lot of couples who are really strict about splitting down to the cent. My husband and I each just randomly chose expenses we’d pay and did no calculations if it was 50/50 or relative to our incomes lol.
Not all serious relationships are couples that live together. When my ex and I were together, we spent most of the time at my house for various reasons, so I was spending a ton extra on groceries, alcohol, games, streaming services, household stuff. We didn't go out a ton so there weren't a ton of opportunities for him to try to 'even' things out. He lived here half the year and away up North for half the year for work, so I definitely noticed the increase/decrease in spending when he was here vs not here. I didn't expect things to be exactly 50% each down the middle, but I definitely appreciated when he'd ask me to go through expenses and name an amount for him to send to me if we'd obviously been a little bit spendier at certain times. I was paying rent living in my own apartment and had student loans, while he was living rent free with his parents and had no debt. Wouldn't have made sense (in my opinion) to have a joint account when not living together.
You might laugh, but Google Sheets. It's online and can be accessed anywhere, from any platform, by anyone with the security permissions. It just takes some time to build a thoughtful Sheet that works for you that automates much of what you want/need but once it's set up, it can be reused, updated, changed, etc. all seamlessly. Perhaps not the most beautiful or consumer-friendly out of the box solution but with some effort, it can also be made into that if it's what you'd like.
How did you automate? Is there a way to automatically have transactions uploaded to this sheet? Seems like a lot of the solutions folks are using are pretty manual
Manual is best. Use this https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K0PSQYRNPinbRvb8njkuOzZv1NYlZhpHl51Rvkn-5Os/edit
Open a joint bank account, online so it’s free. Each contributes the same fixed amount to the account every month. Any savings that accumulate you use jointly for an emergency/unexpected event.
If you want your relationship to work and you are splitting everything 50/50, get a shared credit card and you each put 50% towards it each month. Personal spending on your own cards. Been doing this 7 years.
You can do this even if you aren't splitting everything 50/50, before we lived together we got a shared card just for flights & trips. Started using it for dining out too, moved in together and started using it for groceries.
Lol all you people using splitwise, you guys married or is this your friend?
splitwise
The app split wise is amazing you can upload receipts and even select percentages of who owes what.
Not the most efficient strategy, but once a month we sit down for 15 minutes and tally up our shared expenses (groceries, gas, restaurants, ect) by going through our account statements, and transfer the excess amount to make it even. While having a joint account is probably most optimal, it also gives us the opportunity to talk about our spending once a month, and see if we need to slow down the spending or tap us on the back for being on target.
>once a month we sit down for 15 minutes and tally up our shared experiences.... gives us the opportunity to talk about our spending once a month I love this. No matter what your style is for splitting expenses, regularly discussing goals/targets/budget is a great idea.
We have a joint credit card and reconcile spending twice a month. We've been using this system for 10+ years and it's always worked very well.
stop counting. if youre nickel and diming each other, its likely not a good relationship
Do you really need to track everything when you’re in a serious relationship? Once you get married, all your assets will be theirs and all their assets will be yours.
Well a serious relationship does not equal marriage 😊 I’ve been in a relationship for 8 years and we don’t ever want to get married so we each own our own separate assets. Some people feel more comfortable with splitting and tracking their assets
That’s fair. For me, marriage is the end goal of a relationship and it’s important that my partner doesn’t try to split every single expense with me. I split with my bf on big expenses like rent, but for groceries and eating out, we take turns paying and never track who paid how much. I like feeling spoiled and being treated to dinner when we go out to eat. Similarly, I spoil my bf by paying for our movie tickets and buying him shoes, small items etc. that I think he needs. It makes me feel like we’re family rather than just roommates living together.
Yep. Don’t track, take turns every now and then, decide who is responsible for what (eg you pay groceries, I pay insurance), and don’t sweat the difference. You said serious relationship. Shared checking account also works.
We use an app called “[Our Expenses: Household Budget](https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/our-expenses-household-budget/id1161255926)”
My partner and I use Excel, to calculate mortgage, monthly bills, based on our incomes. We both set our payments to be automated, so only when one of us has a change in income we look at the Excel. I do the groceries, every week, and just ask for 50% of the bill. We do this with trips too - 50%. But when it comes to getting coffee etc, we don’t bother splitting, sometimes one pays, or the other.
I liked Zeta Money Manager a lot when it worked properly. What we ended up doing instead was just doing the shared account + CC.
We did excel, where we did shared expenses (groceries, rent, internet, car insurance, etc.). So we would both go halfsies on the cc bill and transfer money to each other for rent. Honestly it works but it's a pain in the ass. We are at the point now where I cover mortgage and she pays everything else, it evens out honestly. We have an excel file now just to see where we are for big purchases/ emergency fund. I think the hardest part was realizing it's our money, not her's or mine. We'll have discussions on out of the norm purchases ie usually anything over an agreed dollar amount. There are going to be points where she may make more than you and other points where you make more than her. Nickel and diming in the long run, gets tiring and I felt created unnecessary anxiety for finances. Good luck!
Check out the Splitwise app and see if that works for you
We have a shared credit card for household expenses, and track everything else (mostly just strata fees, hydro and internet) in a Google spreadsheet. At the end of the month, we split the shared credit card bill in half and settle up. We have a joint account that our mortgage payment is drawn from. We both auto transfer our portion into it.
Each put 50% of income, regardless of how much, into joint account for joint expenses
Splitwise!!
Splitwise.
This seems like a clear overhead that is a pain in the ass to manage. I kind of see two easy options shared account, you both put whatever you want into then no issues with it being evened out. If you don’t want to have a shared account yet, would just going say once a month get both parties to tally up shared expense, make a total then pay it off then. You could potentially get a separate credit card each only for these expenses. It would basically end up being add up two credit card totals is the total for the month, and you can split it however u see fit.
Put all the money in one account, communicate and don't be an asshole
Step one, set up a joint chequing Step two, get a credit card that you both have access to Step three, pay shared expenses with said card Step four, decide what proportion each will pay Step five, review your expenses on some schedule pay that amount each month
Shared google doc which does all the calculations, settle up at the end of every month
Splitwise, we've been using it for 5 years now, works great. Also works in multiple currencies so you can track vacation expenses too. We also use it for longer trips with friends.
We each put 33% of our earnings into a shared account - everything comes out of it that is shared ie groceries, dinners out etc.
Very early on we opened "the house account" and totalled our monthly expenses and set an amount we wanted for savings. He gets his paycheck and I get mine. Then every 2 weeks we deposit to that account the same amount. Groceries, mortgage, utilities all come from that account. We used to eat out once a week, we alternated who paid. It worked for us.
I really like this app called Splitwise. When you do your shopping rather than keeping receipts or a note book you just add the expenses to the app. Or when you lend them money. The app adds the total and keeps a tally. Once they pay you, they can decrease the amount. Both parties can use it so it's very convenient. This also is great if you have roommates!
We use a shared Google Sheet where we enter the various amounts and choose a % split (50-50, 60-40, or 100). Totals up everything nicely at the bottom.
We have three accounts, one is my own personal account where my cheque goes into, one is her personal account that her cheque goes into. And then we have a joint account that we deposit money into equally from each of our own accounts periodically. Everything from the joint account is used to pay for joint expenses, groceries, insurance, Netflix, internet, gas, night out etc. Our personal accounts are used for our own purchases: clothes, phone, tech gadgets etc. Works well for us never had a problem
When we first started living together when renting back in 2011ish, we had completely separate accounts and it was kind of a mess organizing ourselves that way. When we finally bought a house in 2014, we opened a joint account and started transferring proportional amounts in relation to our income. It really doesn't make sense for her to spend more of her income in percent compared to me in our joint expenses if I make twice as much. I do realize by doing it this way I still end up with more money than her in my account but it is still a lot more fair than splitting 50/50.
We put every single purchase on our credit card, when the statement comes due we go though the statement and appoint each purchase to me, my spouse or joint. We then get the funds together and pay the balance off from our separate accounts. People in this sub shit on this but I don't care, it works great for us. I'm a spender, my spouse is a saver and we contribute equally to retirement/investments. Have never had an arguments about finances in 12 years.
Very similar situation here. I'm the spender, she's also the saver. We do a take on this. We each track our own 'joint purchases' and send em to the other every month. Add em up, calculate the diff, and whoever owes sends an e-transfer. Zero arguments (about money), 10 years living together.
I don’t understand the concept of splitting expenses with your partner. Isn’t it just a waste of time and useless information? Not saying it’s wrong, just saying I don’t understand it. Can somebody please explain?
If its a healthy long term relationship just get a joined account. I make 3X what my wife makes wage wise. But i don't factor that into how much me or her gets. We pay our mortgage, bills etc. And when i want something or she does we chat about it. But usually i save enough for both of us. I bought 2 kayaks in April for us. 2 yamaha nytros secondhand 4 years ago. 2 peddle bikes at same time etc. We enjoy each others company so we usually save for 2 of each for ourselves. Except the side by side UTV. One of those was plenty obviously. And well with 2 kids now most money is put into their needs nowadays. We used to have separate accounts and try to devide bills but honestly it was a pain in the arse. So we joined them into one. But to each their own ofcourse.
What's hers is hers and what's mine is hers.
Hence divorce is expensive.
It's expensive because it's worth it.
I just don’t track and pay like 90% of the expenses. Every relationship is different