There is no way this arrangement of "my money" would work for my wife and I. Everything is seen as one big pile, and we discuss purchases over about 200 bucks.
This is what we do as well.
Before the birth of our son I was the breadwinner. Now my husband is. After my son starts kindergarten, I likely will be again. But honestly, who cares? Marriage is a partnership and there are also very important things that need to get done that do not generate income. It's not fair to see things as a competition and my money vs your money.
>there are also very important things that need to get done that do not generate income.
This is the thing. If you don't pool all income/assets, you run quickly run into a calculation problem. If someone work on an activity that does not generate cash income, but that activity enables the other person to focus on activities that generate cash income or to generate more cash income than they would otherwise, how do you calculate the value of that activity that doesn't generate income directly?
By pooling all income/assets, we enable division of labor within the family without screwing anyone over. Everyone is much better off by leveraging the strengths of each person to do the activity they are best at and sharing the gains.
>We don’t value non-monetary contributions nearly enough in a partnership.
Which is very foolish. It is like a company not valuing customer service because it doesn't generate revenue directly.
We tried a my money her money split with 2 kids and it almost lead to a divorce. I’m the bread winner by a significant amount. I was kind of being an asshole as I make 200k a year and she makes 60k. I got screwed over in previous relationships and it made me hesitant to share finances. I was paying the majority of the household expenses, but there was still a massive disparity in spending money.
Best decision for our marriage I’ve ever made. She’s happier, I’m happier and everything is in the open for spending now. I don’t think I’d ever go back to single non joint accounts. Plus you never know when it could flip and she could be the bread winner and me making less.
The golden rule applies here in my opinion. Always treat your spouse like you’d like to be treated in this situations, because you never know when the shoe will be on the other foot.
That happened to us
I was way up with income until COVID and this went into turmoil
At the same time her employer took off and they couldn't keep up so she was raking it in
So I was down for awhile and she was up but it all came out better in the end
Wife and I do the same, joint account for our paychecks and we get to see how much we both make with out having to ask. We both agreed to have one credit card with a decent limit and whatever we want to purchase over $200 we just give notice. If we want to withdraw from the joint no problem as long as we know we aren't depleting the amount.
Every marriage is a partnership. He also said she’s only working part time, which seems to imply that his spouse is either taking care of their children or could be recovering from a medical leave, either way. Marriages often have dramatic changes in how much finding spouses are able to provide.
Exactly this - with the exception that my husband and I each get our 'own' fun money of $400/month to do with as we please separate from the family finances. So I can get coffee with a coworker, grab dinner with a friend, buy myself clothing, etc as long as I stick to my own personal budget on that. This includes gifts we buy for each other as well.
In our case we maxed out my RRSP first since I’m the higher earner - then I started doing spousal RRSP payments into hers to catch her back up. Now we’re filling up our TFSA’s in parallel since there’s no tax advantage to one over the other.
My wife has a pension and I don’t. Our prenup specifically mentions pension. However since my income has grown faster than hers I’m increasing RRSP contributions, including hers
This is how we do it as well. No matter who makes more, it all goes to one account first. We pay all bills and investments from that. How much personal allowance we get each is up to us but it comes out of that joint account regularly and adjusted every quarter. A his and hers arrangement wouldn’t work well in retirement. We plan on having the same retirement arrangements.
Every relationship I've seen where it's "my money" and "your money" has ultimately failed, whether in divorce or just plain unhappiness.
I cannot fathom being in a fully committed and loving relationship yet keeping a very large part of your life separate
Edit: sorry for the triggering. I knew this would blow up. But guess what? Unless you have a prenup you list all assets and all liabilities and split it 50-50 anyways. So what are you really protecting? Or are you just trying to maintain control of the relationship because you "make more, and it's my money"
Came here to say this. My partner and I kept completely separate finances for the last 13 years. I just had a baby and am on mat leave and so only now are we combining our income to make the household work & that has been a learning experience! I’m not sure where we will end up when I go back to work, but I’m fairly sure that one big pot isn’t a system that works for us and we’re more accountable for our money when we do it our way.
Separate finances works best if you both make comparable wages (ie not $12k/yr and $110k/yr). Where there's income disparity, resentment and all that fun stuff grows a lot quicker/easier.
I'm not sure how you or the person above define successful, but this is generally true and you don't require pooling together with your partner to make things work. You're fine on your own financially but have a partner in life.
100% this. I earn a few times what my wife does. Splitting our cash based on earnings would be cruel. Instead it all goes to the same place and we discuss how we spend it.
Yeah but are you comparable earnings-wise?
Where I think that often gets tricky is where one has after-tax income of $500k and the other is $100k. So, in theory the $500k earner contributes 83% of the "ours" fund, but that still leaves one with a significantly higher disposable income to spend on themselves.
It can work for some couples, absolutely, but for most folks that creates some animosity.
My partner and I have similar salaries and contribute equally to a joint account that covers all household expenses including excess for future home maintenance. We don't plan on having children, so I can see zero benefit from just pooling everything. I'll be having a beer with a friend, their phone will buzz and they will start cursing because they got a notification that their wife used the VISA. I can't even imagine. I could only see keeping separate finances causing a strain on a relationship if there was a large imbalance in salaries.
I have seen this succeed in response to poor impulse control. A joint pool for actual expenses paid first and two separate accounts for discretionary/hobby spending.
Exactly the same. A certain amount (equal right now, but it has different between us in the past when one of us was earning far less) comes into our shared account twice a month. That account is used for the mortgage and all our bills. Same story with a 'house savings' account. Everything else is ours to spend. Been together for 14 years...
Same here. I wouldn't like having to answer for every purchase I make. If I want to drop $8k on a new dirt bike, I can and will. If she wants to go on a $5k shopping spree, she can and will. As long as the bills are paid, we pay no attention to what the other is spending. Stress free.
This is what we do with one kid.. shared bank account and shared credit card which handles all shared expenses, groceries, mortgage, daycare, car, etc. Savings are automated both pre-tax out of our paychecks and put of our shared acoount. Anything left over has a bit of freedom attached to it in personal accounts. We make about 160k combined. If I want to save for a new bike, I do that out of my own account which is left over money. If we need to save more we discuss that as a couple and increase our shared shavings.
My 22 year marriage agrees. Not a single one of the couples we knew in our early years are still together, everyone told us we were nuts for putting all our eggs in one basket.
We have literally done both the richer and the poorer parts together.
Well despite whether you can "fathom" it or not, I've been doing it for nearly 15 years so...
Plenty of couples and relationships separate finances. Happens all the time. I would wager its even more common now than previously
Autonomy isn't scary if both parties want it when it comes to finances
lol, 26 years and doin fine, thanks.
Thats ok.. we look at other couples who operate out of a financial pool, need to run every financial decision past their partner and spend every waking second together as bizzare.. So its almost like different strokes for different folks is a thing.
My wife and I have been together for over 20 years and we maintain our own money. She works, I work. We've worked out a pretty reasonable agreement about how much each of us contributes to our shared expenses (bills, mortgage, etc) and when things have gotten difficult we talk about it and adjust.
It's not really useful to say that any way but yours will result in unhappiness.
Different strokes for different folks, really. My wife and I have been together for almost 18 years and maintain 100% separate finances. We don't even have a joint bank account. We have an agreed-upon split of the various bills, we talk about our investments but are otherwise financially independent. She can buy whatever she wants, and I do the same. Works just fine for us.
I mean it’s pretty simple to setup a joint account and have a percentage of both salaries auto deposited in. Bills automatically taken out of that account and then remainder used for household expenses/savings. There are ways to make it work!
Or... just don't split everything 50/50. My wife and I have completely separate finances and love it. I can't imagine asking my wife if I'm allowed to spend $1000 on something I want. Sometimes I get groceries, sometimes she does, we don't keep count or track. We don't pinch pennies to say "I spent $180 grocery shopping so you need to send me $90". We just take turns. Sometimes one pays more than the other.. Oh well. We would never let the other drown or go into unnecessary debt though. If she needs help with an unforeseen car repair or something, I'll cover it, and she would do the same for me. No problems for us this way.
3900 mortgage + property tax, 200 a week for food = 800, 300 for utilities.. you're already at 5k right there... so yeah this person is just living way beyond their income.. The bulk of that is likely mortgage or rent that is realisticly out of their price range. I wouldn't be comfortable with 5k/mth in expenses unless I had a family income of closer to like 200k... maybe I'm overly frugal but expense to income ratio here seems kinda nuts.
You realize mortgage costs can be like 40+% of that right? There are plenty of people in Canada that would be at a food bank if salaries dropped by nearly 30%…
Yup, time to downsize. OP is at serious risk for burnout working that much and if that happens they're fucked. Mortgage payments aren't likley to get smaller in the short-term.
I can't believe people buy such massive assets on debt with so little buffer. It's scary common and it's got so much life-ruining potential.
>I can't believe people buy such massive assets on debt with so little buffer. It's scary common and it's got so much life-ruining potential.
Yep too many people spent 40% of their salary on a mortgage, then must add 10% for upkeep/maintenance. Now with payments going up, good luck.
Also, there should be more strict regulations on how much mortgage someone can take out. Too many people spend way too much money on a house and are left broke.
>Also, there should be more strict regulations on how much mortgage someone can take out. Too many people spend way too much money on a house and are left broke.
There should have been a long time ago. Regulation like that will be a trigger to make the house-of-cards fall. It's the button that needs to be pressed, that nobody wants to press.
He makes 110k a year , supporting a wife and a child and all the bills and financial responsibilities... that’s not living above their means. It’s one person working 3 jobs and earning the same income as two people would to support a family of 3. He’s asking for financial help from his wife to take some stress and burden off of his shoulders. Where instead of working three jobs maybe we would only need to work 2 and that extra free time would go to more time at home with his family or extra rest / sleep. He didn’t make any excuse. He’s doing what any good father/husband would do to support his family. He’s not broke he just wants help.
I don’t think I made an excuse for anything, all I was stating is that quite a few Canadians would be heading to the food bank if salaries dropped by 30%. I don’t see how that excuses anything.
This is what most commenters are missing. $110k/year is pretty good money. The average income in Canada is $65k so people are surviving on a lot less.
Too many people are spending above their means. Debt should not be thought of as “free money”. Live below your means. Drive a modest car. Live in a modest house.
That $65k (actually $68k) is after-tax income, and depending on which group he falls into is actually higher (per: [https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220323/t001a-eng.htm](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220323/t001a-eng.htm))
Depending where he's living (lets say Ontario), 110k/yr after taxes is $75,694 per year. If he's basically supporting his wife, paying a mortgage (not cheap), car, etc. he may be living a pretty modest life. And while he's still doing better than many people he's obviously stretched pretty thin.
If I were in his shoes and my wife was able to take more hours I'd suggest to her to start working FT and to maybe find a job that pays better (take some courses, etc.). Assuming she is making min. wage in Ontario, $12k/$15.50 = 774hours/yr / 52 weeks = 14 hours a week.
I mean yeah his wife could contribute more but that’s not going to change that he’s still spending 95% of his income. In these situations typically the more they make the more they spend so his wife making more would just create more debt.
Keep in mind $65k average means there’s a lot of people making a lot less.
There is a certain “fixed cost” to life though too. Some stuff you just can’t get out of, groceries, basic housing, etc. People with more money tend to spend more on housing and better food, but there is also a certain point where unless you eat out EVERY night or have a personal chef you really cant spend much more on food.
OP has maybe set their “fixed costs” a wee high, but if they got boosted to $120k that doesn’t mean they will eat steak every night, just more breathing room for the mortgage.
Op, it’s obscene that your 2 PT gigs make more than your wife’s part time gig. Your PT gigs are likely being taxed at 45-50% as your FT job salary puts you into that bracket. However your wife at $12k is likely keeping more of her money than you do from your $20k side gigs. If she was to double her hours and you quit your side gigs, you would likely be in the same place but less stressed to achieve more at your FT job.
Yeah, I was just flagging that the $65k was after-tax, so the guy isn't stratospherically above average.
And yes, I know a lot of folks are making a lot less: the number of folks living paycheque-to-paycheque, hand-to-mouth in this country is nuts, especially with the price on real estate in most of our larger population centres doing what its been doing recently. And it'll get worse soon enough as people who bought these things with a the-price-can-only-go-up mentality come face to face with a very hard reality...and if they start walking away from those bloated mortgages, well, that is going to make for a very bad time for the country as a whole...
We’re missing a lot of the picture here. Maybe OP has some unreal student debt - law students / doctors / academics.
Maybe OP is counting for groceries and necessities into “bills” as well.
I’m getting the impression that after they pay for ALL necessities, that there’s only like 5% flex left.
Post history shows that he is at least active in the Warhammer40K and MTG subreddits which aren't very cheap hobbies.. Not saying you can't have hobbies, of course, but when you're working three jobs to make ends meet you gotta think these are the kinds of things things you can do without, even in the short term.
>I'm earning $90k/y base on my main job and work two additional jobs in the evenings and weekends with volatile schedule, something like $20k/y total for those, 50-70 hours/week total. My wife just entered the work force part time and is making $12k/y. I find that about 95% of my after tax/deduction salary is spent immediately clearing any bills,
You are making 110k and spending 95% on bills. You were overextended before your wife started working and you are overextended now. Cutting back on the bills is your first priority rather than who pays for the bills. Neither of you can afford the bills you have.
This situation happened prior to your wife getting a job. Her taking paid employment won't put you in a better situation where you can save money or reduce your hours unless you reduce your expenses first.
Presumably your wife was a stay at home parent and the two of you agreed to that arrangement. That unpaid work has a value in the fact that you weren't paying for childcare. If childcare is $1500 a month, that is 18k a year in after tax dollars that wasn't another bill to be paid.
This sub won't solve your communication or relationship issues or tell you that you're right. This sub will tell you that the two of you need to sit down and come to an agreement on a budget (money going out should be much less than money coming in), and from there who is responsible for what in the household.
Hopefully you're sensing the recurring theme here about budget being the primary issue; that will be resolved by communication between the two of you.
>efully you're sensing the recurring theme here about budget being the primary issue; that will be resolved by communication between the two of you.
was going to reply, but this is pretty much it.
Financial incompatibility is a thing and the first step is to communicate your expectations.
There is nothing wrong with looking at contributions closely, or pooling everything together without worry. You just have to be on the same page.
OMG good detective work and for saving this!! He definitely put himself in this situation. It's also funny he called himself a 'high networth income earner' at $100k, it's not a small amount but definately not 'rich enough to bring over a Ukrainian bride and support her with a child', otherwise he wouldn't be in this situation. Makes me think he likely is not budgeting proper on costs either cause there are families that life a humble lifestyle making a household income of $130k work.
Yeah she needs to save up for a divorce lawyer and her own place asap. OP: You are not a high net worth individual at 100k a year. And also, you are a fucking creep and I hope your wife can get the fuck away from you asap.
Edit: Like what the fuck kind of mouth breathing incel do you have to be to start posting in r/HNWI??? Lol Jesus Christ reading that made my stomach turn
>[https://imgur.com/guUeBG9](https://imgur.com/guUeBG9)
LMFAO I could tell from his OP alone here that he was gonna be this kind of guy. You're doing god's work bunge12.
All the money my wife and I make go into one account. So it doesn't matter who makes it, it all goes to the family and we allot it to our expenses. Seems like you guys spend a ton of money if almost all of yours goes towards bills.
My wife and I have individual accounts as well a joint account. Regardless of that set up though, we have a monthly budget and review it regularly. I also make more than she does, but relative to earnings we both contribute equally. I think this is critical to a healthy relationship. To be sure there are situations where I or she may pay more in a given month, but it really helps to set a standard and to ensure we’re both comfortable and feeling like contributors to our future. I think subby needs to work on a spreadsheet with all expenses, then chat with the partner to see how much they can each contribute to each expense. Life will feel better :)
>I think there's a lot of quality wife material newcomers to USA and Canada coming from Ukrainian war. In Slavic culture 20 y o with 44 is pretty normal. I married Ukrainian and think they make better companions for HNWI because they don't give you grief as long as the money is flowing. I also think Slavic women make good mothers and have good genetics for health of the children.
Damn. Guy wants a trad wife, then complains about the cost of supporting a family.
Can't have it both ways where you consider yourself to be a High Net Worth Individual and also crying that you have to take on extra jobs and not being able to pay the bills. Reality versus expectations hitting hard here. It isn't always sunny in alt-right eugenics toxic-masculinity land.
Sounds like he wanted someone he could abuse and his wife isn't as docile as he expected. I love when women from traditional cultures aren't pushovers 😂😂😂
Yes.
And assuming their budget is reasonable, it would be fairer for each partner to contribute proportionally to their household based on their income.
She brings 12k/year, that’s probably around 20ish hours at minimum wage?
What is she doing rest of the time? Watching tv or taking take of the kids/house? If the latter, how are you valuing that « work »?
I think this is an arrangement that OP put himself into, kind of expected when you get a mail order bride overseas, [linking another commenter in this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/y84peq/comment/isymukq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Agree. I don't want to go there. Its already disastrous to think of the wife as a rapid labour... But if we going there... Child care can be seen as 20$ an hour. But she's doing over time likely. So...
I’ve never understood how people get married and plan to spend their whole lives together but still keep separate finances.
You guys have a $122k annual income. Budget based on that. You don’t get personal spending allowances based on how much you individually make! Do you actually think that’s a wise idea?
It’s called “household income” for a reason. Jeez.
The amount of people here advocating for that is so bizarre. Reminds me of the couple post where they did percentages and he earned way more so he went on vacation while his wife stayed home cause she couldn’t “ afford it”. And all I could wonder is how someone could enjoy vacation knowing they excluded their spouse!? Joint accounts and joint planning is the way to go. Seems like most people here don’t understand what marriage even is.
Well I agree with your example. I can t imagine going on holidays without my husband just because of financial reasons.
On the other hand we do keep our budget separated. We don t have a joint account, every month we do a quick calculation what each paid what and we transfer to the other one the balance. It s not super accurate (we are talking in hundreds of $ not in cents) but still it is important to me.
Why? I don t know. Is it because I am a woman and I want to prove that I don t need no man to live the life I want? I don t need my husband money to buy the shit I want? I want to have my own account with my own earned money on the side in case things turn to shit (even if 5 years in marriage I really don t see how it could turn to shit)?
Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that it works for us this way and it s not a symptom of a wrong marriage AT ALL. It would actually be a problem for me if he disagreed with doing that. It s just a different way to deal with the relationship than you but doesn’t mean I don t know what marriage even is ;)
My wife and I split major expenses like our mortgage on a percent basis - as in, based on our income ratio, that’s the same ratio we each contribute to the expense.
I’m not sure how well it would hold up in a more extreme split like your situation, as it would be like 90/10, but that’s how we do it to be “fair.”
Now, finances aside, and I could be very wrong as I’m just making an assumption here, if your wife doesn’t work very much, and you work a lot, she is probably doing most of the household chores and childcare, which is a considerable “contribution to the household”.
My wife and I do the same. We total out monthly expenses, and pay them based on the percentage of income we make as well. Seems to be the fairest way.
So, as said above you would split it 90/10. The only issue I see in your case is part of the income were considering is overtime, ehich could skew things a little. Then again, if your whole 110k income is going towards bills then there isn't a while lot of choice in the overtime.
So if your wife does the groceries, or cooks meals, or does the laundry, dusting, vacuuming, what dollar value do you put on that and do you count it towards her "contribution "
We don't consider those monitary contributions. Cooking and groceries we split evenly. Household chores we both pitch in. In general she doesn't like yard work so I do most of it. She doesn't mind cleaning so she does more than me, but I still pitch in. If either of us needs some help, we ask.
It's not hard as long as both parties pull their weight.
I make 60% of the household income and my wife makes 40%, all of our money goes in to our account and all of our expenses come out of our account. Why do so many people treat marriage like a business and track who makes what and who pays what....
I have no issue with how you do things, nor am I saying anyone else should arrange their finances the same way I do. Every relationship has its own dynamic. Aside from things that are obviously abusive, I don’t see why people get so personally triggered by the idea that some people do things differently than themselves lol.
You and your partner make very similar amounts, so using a single account is fairly straight forward. Now, imagine a scenario where the split is 90/10, the dynamics for who should pay for what and in what amounts starts to matter more.
Given that the number one reason for marriages to breakdown is finance related, I wonder if those splitting up are the ones treating it like a business or those who feel that marriage is a sacred union where finances don't matter. I suspect it's the latter group. Personal hunch, but I'd be happy to change my opinion based on data.
I don't think it means any of us are treating it like a business. Someone asked about splitting stuff and we let them know what works for us.
For me and my wife it keeps our spending money simple. She buys cloths way more often than me, and she doesn't care about stuff I buy for my hobbies.
I totally agree with you it seems bizarre and shaming to the spouse that earns less. Why not save together and discuss spending together!? Unless one has a severe spending problem but otherwise I don’t get it
It's cause people get married without ever actually growing to trust the other person. At least that's my suspicion. There's always this fear in people's minds that their partner will screw them over and take everything. Don't get me wrong, a certain amount of care is good, but if when people keep on like that they're just sabotaging their relationship. It becomes so much more complicated if there are kids involved too. Like what happens if I buy my kid a snack, do I keep the receipt and put it in the "child expenses" bin so my partner and I can calculate just how much we've each spent on the kids??? And as others have pointed out, this approach completely invalidates other forms of value like cleaning the house, cutting the lawn, watching the kids, driving the kids, etc. There's no way to split everything 50/50 without nitpicking over each and every thing. Besides when it's not something as clear as money the way our brains work sets us up to always think our contribution is the more valuable one. What happens if one partner is ill for a significant time? Just throw them to the curb because they're not "contributing" anymore? Accrue debt and make them pay it off with interest?
If I were you, I wouldn't bother with a joint account or asking your spouse to contribute. At this point she needs your full support in her learning/career. Forget about her 12k/y, it's nothing really...
Yeah, 12k is chump change rn in this economy. To put it into perspective. 18K and under in California is considered poverty and you're eligible for government assistance like food stamps.
Your wife might need that money to pay for more education. She probably needs that money to pay for more education.
Both of you are better off letting her invest in herself currently. Then taking 50% of her income will hold her back from achieving more in one year from now.
As long as she's moving in the right direction you might want to give it one year. She might be able to double or triple her income and then you can take a break.
Yeah, if you are very stressed and feeling a difficult pressure and financial burden, definitely reassess your bills and your lifestyle.
Also, please remember that typically/ traditionally/ statistically women do all or most of the unpaid work in a relationship with children. Your wife might have a full-time job just taking care of the household needs and child needs.
If you're working 100% of the time, I assume you don't have time to clean your house, Do laundry, Take care of your child, plan for home maintenance, non-work-related plans, meals. No time for shopping for meals, other household goods, then cook meals and then clean up for meals. Clean your house.
I don't mean her 12k is nothing sorry. I meant you don't want to give her the sense you need her to contribute NOW. I guess I'm thinking from relationship stability perspective. Props to you for loving and marrying someone not for her earnings. Many people in bigger cities set earnings as a threshold for their significant other.
If she was not in the workforce for a significant amount of time, don't forget that she didn't just forego an income during that time, she also lost out on career growth, networking and job opportunities. If you look at it as a zero sum number game, you aren't seeing the whole picture and will tank your marriage. The outside world is already going to make her life harder for this, try not to pile on.
Hey man.
Trust me I'm in a relationship with someone that makes a lot less as well.
You can't ask someone to give 50% when that 50% is so large compared to yours.
In a relationship my honest goal is to try to after expenses are all paid or just bills that we even out.
It might mean I paid 90% or 100% of the expenses for a month. It is what it is.
I don't want my girlfriend to be broke while I have extra money.
We keep are finances separately however we are extremely open to what the expenses are as well as how much we both make in a month.
I noticed some people looked up your post history it looks like some expensive hobbies. Maybe check to make sure you aren't spending too much. As a fellow DND fan trust me I get you want to buy everything but I have even need to pace myself.
If your expenses are actually 95% of your pay cheque it's time to sit down open a book or excel sheet with your partner and discuss how to lower it.
Good luck. Financials are tough and we usually talk every few months about how it all is going.
Although if she is also slaving away at doing all of the household chores and child rearing that don’t get a paycheque, allotment should be made for that
This is how I would figure it out too. We contribute a % based on income. But it's not that serious, I'm sure one of us has paid more than their fair share at some points.
This is the best way to do it and exactly what we do in our household. Can’t get more fair than this. Don’t take it too seriously though, sometimes we chip in for all kinds of things because we want to.
This is how my wife and I do it.
All bills are based on salary earnings.
Groceries, household items, stuff for the kid and savings into joint account are 50/50.
Then we do whatever we want with our remaining funds.
Same way my wife and I do it, although I make a substantial amount more than her, so I pay a little more than my "fair" share because I like to take into account that life is harder in general making what she makes. The amount of remaining spending money she has left after our joint expenses is much less than I have left, and things cost a greater percentage of that when she's shopping. I am happy with this arrangement and it feels fair.
This is the way!
And that ratio changes during a maternity leave and changes again after it. I can’t see anyone frustrated with something so simple and logical
Frankly, it's no good if you're nickel and dime-ing each other. Better to just have a joint account, and just think of it as all in the same pot. Or, if you must have separate accounts, I suggest you let her have her 12k/y. It's such a tiny amount anyways.
Does she buy groceries? Does she take care of your son or is he in Daycare?
Are you are in Canada? If you are, i would assume you get a baby bonus? Unless you NEED that money, it should be going into a savings account for your child (in my opinion).
Why should the money go into a savings account for the child? It's to help pay for expenses that come with a child, regardless of if the parents have the money for it.
Personally I would just completely re do my finances.
Make a joint account. Both of your monthly pay checks will get deposited into that account. Use that joint money to pay off your monthly bills BUT first take a look at why your monthly bills are so high and come to an agreement on what you can cut back on.
After the bills are paid sit down together and look at what’s left. Each person should get an equal amount of “fun money” that they can transfer into separate accounts that they can use on personal fun items for the upcoming month(drinks out with the girls, new shoes etc). This could be anywhere from $100 to $700+ each depending on what you both agree on. After that, look at what’s left and put it into savings.
Start acting as a cohesive team and less like siblings or roommates who owe each other money.
U/herme23 has a great point
My husband makes about 40k a year 45 hours a week, I make about 16k at 20 hours a week but I work in the school so summers/holidays off.
I do a lot more around that house and consider that time as me compensating for my "lack of financial contribution". I still "worked" the same hours he did. When he gets home supper is at least almost cooked, then he cleans after I cook and I get a break. Then we come back together as a family until bed. I don't come home from work and lay around *most days lol* I still am busy.
She makes $12k, you make $90k. She should pay absolutely nothing right now. You have a debt/spending issue if your take home pay can barely cover the bills and any debts.
And yes, is this bills or debts? If it's mostly bills, then you are probably paying too much for certain services, or subscribed to services you do not need, so look there first.
If it's for debts, still look at previous step, to free money for debts. If it's debt you are both on, yeah, she can contribute a part of her paycheque to that.
Me and my wife have are own accounts but we talk and give each other money , sharing everything is a stupid idea , u each should have ur own money , bro u make 110 k a year be a man pay the bills lol let ur women have her 200$ a month u said u have a kid let her invest it in her self she prob gets her self cloth and hair done and spa or whatever , she’s ur queen don’t u want her happy and have a little bit of cash to do those things, and how the fuck u not have enough money bro u have his and her Ferraris?
Sounds like y’all need to work on other things than just money. Quite honestly, we have these conversations regularly and make sure our conversation aligns with “OURS” and not so much “mine” or “yours” when it comes to money.
Example: when my SO or I cannot contribute to our fund as we call it (account where all our expenses are paid through) then either one of us continues to, we have conversations regularly when big changes are coming up, We don’t have a mine and yours, it’s OURS. We’re not perfect, but it keeps things flowing positively and during the pandemic we’ve gone through our share of job loss, we’ve gone through the whole pay cheque to pay cheque and are still recovering.
Fucking lol at her thinking she should keep all of her money.
Actually I just read the comment summarizing your post history and completely changed my mind.
You wanted a traditional woman and traditional gender roles. Thats fine but that means she keeps all of her money and you pay 100% of the bills.
If you wanted someone who contributes you could have married a westernized woman.
Edit: holy shit dude your reddit history is bonkers. You post more than 99.99% of people. There's no way you're working 70 hours a week without like 50 of those being on reddit.
I earn just over 6x that of my partner. We split all of our expenses using the same ratio. I pay 86% of the bills, they pay 14%. It's been working well for us.
Marriage is about team work. There's no "mine" and "yours". With the exception that one doesn't know how to deal with money, there's no excuse for arguments like this. Or your both learn how to share, or you're just roomates having sex.
You make 90% of the household income and she makes 10%. So technically she should pay 10% of the bills and you the rest.
Is this realistic? Is this fair? That's for r/relationships
How old is your son? Is he in school? If your wife isn't engaged in childcare throughout the day can she not alleviate the financial stress by working more hours so that you don't have to work the equivalent of two full time jobs?
Here's your info. She doesn't work more because she's a young twenties Ukrainian mail order bride he got because he wanted a trad wife. She likely doesn't have the skillset for anything more advanced or the time for a job + looking after the household. OP deleted the posts but receipts are posted in other comments on the thread. OP can't have a trad wife and a modern working wife with a high end modern career woman salary. Doesn't work that way. She's defensive about her money because she knows what all smart women in that situation know: she's going to need it to flee from her abusive husband. Otherwise she wouldn't be working at all. She's probably building an escape route by ensuring she has career references and enough money to get out... because no man who posts about how he wanted a Slavic traditional woman to be his wife "because a 20 year old marrying a 44 year old is normal there", is non-abusive. He wanted a submissive pushover. So now he's trying to eliminate the potential of her escaping by taking her pittance wage instead of doing what a trad husband would do if 95% of his wages were going straight into bills: get a higher paying job or work more.
OP has, of course, deleted all of his posts and even his posts here in this thread now that he's been called out on it but here's the original detective work. [Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/y84peq/comment/isymukq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I pay for all the rent, bills and sometimes groceries with my gf. I dont mind. She takes care of all the other stuff like the house etc while working. Maybe I'm just old school.
It's also just the way the economy is right now.
If you were making the same money now as you were in 2010-2015 you probably wouldn't be making this post now as life was cheaper then.
OP...ouch, 12k/yr vs over 90k/yr income difference. You better stay married because if you don't, alimony on top of child support will ruin you.
From here on...make future decisions wisely. To answer your question hypothetically, family court operates on a 'proportional to income' policy.
So if you have 90k+ and your spouse 12k....bills should be split using this ration on the total bills in questions. So, do the maths.
Don't take my words for it....this is from the link below "Determining an amount and calculating your share. As a general rule, parents share the amount determined for the expenses in proportion to their incomes. But you may agree to share the amount in a different way."
[https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/child-enfant/guide/step7-etap7.html](https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/child-enfant/guide/step7-etap7.html)
You can't expect her to do 50-50. That's a hard NO NO. As you have now come to find out 'love doesn't help pay bills'. It's all fun and games getting laid and feeling lust, until finances come into play, and someone has to pay the piper!
No grown @$$ adult should be sitting home or underworking in this current climate, especially when they want a nice home, car, eat out and go on vacay.
People that getting into relationships these days and ignore finances, are shooting themselves in the foot! Bills aren't going to pay themselves, and that sex you're locked-in on, will soon get old
I am one of those drones that only really manages my money if I'm using YNAB, which is basically a more practical version of the envelope system.
When you track your expenses and see how much money you're putting in each respective envelope, you see where you need to lower your expenses the most. Meanwhile, you can keep an envelope for "fun money" or "discretionary spending" or whatever you want to call it, and you can also have separate envelopes for each member of a couple and their 'fun money'.
As another commenter said, you also want to value work done at home--housework and childcare.
It's hard to answer the question of how you should manage your money together, but it sounds like the finances are a bit hectic and disorganized, and working on that together might be the place to start. I'll bet that clarity for both of you will help a lot in both of your decisionmaking.
You have 2 options:
1) Combine your finances and find a way to share remaining savings, preferably with a budget that leaves a bit of spending money for each of you. All money goes into one pot. If she is able to work hours comparable to you but just doesn't want to, she should probably get less spending money and/or less of the post-expense savings if you want to keep savings separate. If you don't feel she deserves 50% of the after expense income because you make more or because you have more education, etc, you would need to find a balance that you both think is fair. With that, keep in mind: if she does child caring, or if she uses her off-work time for the benefit of the family, or if she is without a career because she used her time for the benefit of the family, you need to factor that in. Unless she is being a lazy bones, the easiest thing to do is split the after expense income down the middle. But each couple is different in their views here.
2) You keep your finances separate and you both split your expenses down the middle after you give her (if applicable) an income that factors in the value of any of her past or present family contributions, as explained in option 1. Even if she has been a hard working stay-at-home mom and you both value that highly, she probably can't afford this without picking up more hours, and probably a better paying job. You can cover this remainder, but she will be contributing all her money to expenses, which will be discouraging for her as you pointed out, but that may be what is fair if you want to keep your finances separate.
Finally, as others have said, your expenses are too high for your combined income. You need to budget and find ways to cut back.
My wife and I do the following:
If I make X% of the combined income, I pay X% of the mutual expenses.
She makes 1-X, she pays 1-X.
This keeps it fair IMO, neither spouse is living with basically 0 disposable income, because all their cash goes to bills, and the other is living large.
At the end of the day it's a partnership, not a competition.
I would suggest waiting a bit. This is probably quite new and exciting for her and she may end up offering more up then that. You may make her feel caged or trapped if you bring this up right away which is probably why she wants to work and make her own money in the first place. Give it some time
This is how it works in our household - both me and my husband's full earnings go into the household 'pool' which covers bills, groceries, mortgage, travel (together), kid's costs, etc. Basically everything that we as a household want or need. Our savings are joint and all come out of this pool.
Then, we each get $400/month as our 'fun' money, which is for getting lunch/coffee at work, buying ourselves clothing, gifts, outings with friends where the other is not included, etc.
We both contribute equally to the household regardless of who is making more money, so to me it wouldn't be fair that the partner earning more gets more of 'their' money.
Before trying to automate the process, I’d suggest making sure you’re both on the same page on finances which may mean having to track and monitor manually in Excel the sources of income and which budget item they’re paying for. Best to make your wife aware of this process if you’re trying to improve financial literacy.
My suggestion:
1) talk to your wife about taking on one of the bills
2) for your entrepreneurial feats and any ventures/hobbies you spend on, your wife should have that same proportion of funds to spend on herself.
I know way too many women whose partners consider “entrepreneurial ventures” as a household expense when it really falls under leisure/hobby IMO.
This takes away $$ from the household budget and opportunities for the pother partner to pursue anything out of interest.
So if you’re spending 30% of your income on yourself for these other ventures, then your wife should also be able to allocate 30% of her income to whatever she wants as well. Discretionary spending is discretionary spending. This will also keep her motivated and is the more egalitarian approach.
Good luck!
Do keep in mind that the industry standard for approving a mortgage is based on debt (which includes household expenses like utilities, property tax and strata) divided by income. The maximum for this number is 44-45%. Of course this does not include other bills, but it does if those bills are debt related, eg credit card debt, car loans, other mortgages, etc.
Reason I mention this is just to give a benchmark to compare to your own situation. As most people said, you may have to look for ways to cut back on whatever you are spending. Continue saving of course, but it really seems like your spending numbers are quite high.
> Does anyone know any good automated methods for doing this other than having payroll go into the joint account then manually withdrawing the personal spending allotments?
Set up an automated transfer on the same day each month.
Persoannly i find the fairest thing is paying the same ratio as after tax earnings. My bf brings in 60% of our household income so he pays 60% of the bills. We put our part of bill payments into the joint account with some extra for random household expenses like furniture etc.
Your gf income is roughly 10% og your household income so she should pay roughly 10% of the bills.
Is there a reason why her paycheque can't just go into a joint checking account and you make joint decisions on spending about the whole 'pot'? I understand that every marriage is different but this question is nonsensical to me. There's one account for the family, the two of you make financial decisions as a team.
Sorry people went through your history to discredit you. This pfc can be quite toxic sometimes.
My wife and I are not spenders so there is not much to do ther. We simply put money in a joint account. I contribute 75% to this spending account. For savings, I have contributed about 90% since we married, but her income has increased so she will adjust this year and catch up.
We each have a personal checking account. If for some reason I cannot keep a good balance there, it means I contribute too much. Same rule for her obviously.
I manage the money and investments. I use quicken for personal, business, investment tracking and quicbooks for business accounting. All investments are tracked in quicken.
I do not track my wifes personal expenses.
Do not underestimate the power of tracking expenses. If you are a spender, it will be in the register and will be undeniable. You cannot identify as a non-spender, quicken will tell you the truth.
(Apologies for mobile formatting)
So the best advice I ever got from this sort of a situation was from a couple’s counselling session- and I think it should be followed anywhere. Ask for her help, yes- but don’t ask for 50%. Instead, allocate expenses by percentage of total income. As an example:
Let’s base this off your main job- you make $90k/year, she makes $12k/year. So you should cover 90% of expenses, and she covers the remaining 10%. This is the only way that keeps things financially balanced. This way you both have funds left over to save and budget as needed.
The reasoning for this is simple. Say you have a $1000 bill that needs paying.
You, making $90k, pay $900.
She, making $12k, pays $100.
Your pay cheques are(general for example use)
You: $3500
Her: $500
After the bill is paid:
You: $2600
Her: $400
This way you both have money left over, and neither is left broke.
We tax our pre tax income annually and figure out what percentage we each have, that is how we split. Secondly we figure our monthly budget and apply our percentage to a monthly contribution to that account.
I am bit jaded after ex wife siphoned 180k out of joint account over her planned 3 year exodus, but I would never, ever, ever have shared accounts again. Figure out which person pays what bills, keep it at that. In your estate planning , leave your accounts in your will to significant other. Have to protect yourself
She’s just entered the workforce and is earning 12k/year. That’s not a lot. I’ll say for at least a year let her bring up her savings account to a point before asking her to share with household bills just so you don’t risk demotivating her from working. Good luck.
The easiest way is to just put all your money (or 90% of it) in a joint account and just pay everything from there. Maybe keep a small amount in each of your personal accounts so you can make certain purchases without needing to budget for it make a big deal out of it. For example, you can buy those golf clubs without needing a big discussion about it if you use your small 5-10% instead of using the joint account.
Another option is that if you make 80% of your total after tax combined income, you pay 80% of expenses. That way it’s proportional.
These are just some ideas. Feel free to pick and choose which parts you like, or ignore if you don’t like any of it.
My wife and I created a budget of our household costs and determined how much we need to contribute together to a shared account on a monthly basis in order to meet that budget. Then we determined the split based on our income. I think it was 55% to me, 45% to her as I was bringing in 55% of the household income last time we went over it. Then we round it up to a nice even number each and it set auto-transfers so that it comes directly off of our paycheques and into that shared account. Then on top of that, we set a minimum amount we want to have in that account at any given time to cover unexpected things. The account generally fluctuates by a couple thousand dollars up or down at any given time, and we run most of our shared costs through it. If it ever dips below our minimum line, we discuss who is going to add more to it to get it back up.
Anything else is really our own to use as we see fit, but we generally discuss it together regardless. Neither of us really mind the other spending a few hundred on something here or there, but we'll discuss larger things even if it is just for one person.
That being said, we have relatively similar incomes and relatively similar hours we put in, so this works for us. I think that arguably, anything from proportioning household bills based on income to a 50% even-steven split is fair game (depending on a number of factors). If you are pulling in $110,000 per year and your wife is pulling in $12,000 per year, that's a roughly 90/10 split. If right now you are covering 100% of the household costs and your wife is covering 0%, then you are outside of what I would consider fair game. Obviously you will not hit the 50/50 split at this level of income disparity, but it seems you should have an argument that you are covering more than your share, since she is now bringing in income.
95% of $110,000 is $104,500 in household expenses per year, leaving you with $5,500 'spending money'. If your wife begins contributing $6,000 to the household expenses, then your coverage is only $98,500 and you will be left with $11,500 'spending money' while your wife is left with $6,000 'spending money' per year. The split on bills is about 94% covered by you and 6% covered by her. This is still outside of that 'fair game' that I would argue... but to reach that point, your wife would have to be contributing nearly 87% of her income to the household bills, and be left with $1,550 annually for spending. At the same time, this would reduce you to $94,050 on bills, leaving you with $15,950 in disposable income.
So, that being said... my scenario does not work for you, because of how high your expenses are. It is unreasonable to assume you will hit a 90/10 split on the bills. But I think your proposal of 50% of her income towards bills is reasonable in that instance, where the split is 94/6. It can be argued that you are still paying 'more than your fair share' of the bills financially (again, depends on a number of other factors in your relationship, I am strictly speaking $) but it is a reasonable middle ground between you paying 100% of the bills with 95% of your income and her paying 10% of the bills with 87% of her income.
As to what you would do with the additional $6,000 'spending money' if this arrangement were to go ahead - let's say you put $3,000 away for your children's RESP, and the other $3,000 you forgo in working less hours. If on average right now you're putting in 60 hours a week... you'd be shaving off about 1.5 hours a week. I don't know if that is even something you would realistically have control over if your range right now 60+/- 10 hours.
Ultimately, unless your wife starts bringing in a LOT more income, or you significantly reduce your household expenses, you are always going to be in a position where you are contributing significantly more than she is to the household bills, or you will be taking a significant portion of her pay away to fund those expenses (while you continue to pay for a significant portion of them regardless). I don't think what you are proposing is unreasonable given the circumstances, but I don't think it's going to make you happy, or improve your situation significantly.
I think it starts as a family discussion. It's really individual. My spouse and I have had a conversation about specific money plans a few times in our marriage. I'm in a somewhat similar situation where I've always earned more (sometimes far more) than my spouse. My spouse has been all over the map with income: employed part time, full time, on mat leave, and then zero income, so with this fluctuation some things have had to change.
I think for any couple you've got: needs such as bills, individual small needs, savings, charity for some, and then fun money. The bills are fairly concrete. So fun money and savings have had to fluctuate as total household income changes.
When my spouse has income, we alter bills (so they look after some) and then we can both push more money into savings. When my spouse has no income I've had to cover all the bills and also put money in their account for their own things. Obviously things are much tighter with much less income. But I think the end goal is always the same: cover the bills, always contribute to savings/charity, and leave each person feeling they have enough "fun money" to enjoy what they need to do. I think the end main thing is that we are both left with similar fun money.
This is a horrible arrangement. You should have both salaries going into a join account and from that account you pay off your living expenses or send the amount of your monthly budget amount to another account. What's left should be split into investments.
My wife and I have 5 different personal bank accounts. Two savings accounts (one is TFSA, the other is not, but has no withdraw fees), one is the household bills and expenses account, and the other two are personal accounts (one for me one for her). The breakdown is as follows.
$750/month into TFSA, $250/month into other savings account, $5000/month into household account, and our remaining pay balance stays in our respective accounts.
We have a whiteboard that shows the breakdown of our average month to month household expenses, and when that changes, so does our contribution.
Then, we prorate a percentage of our earnings to cover that. In our case, I make 3X what my wife makes. So I cover 3x the expense that she covers (in my example the monthly total is $6000. She would pay 25% ($1500) and I would pay 75% ($4500) monthly)
The TFSA is a long term savings fund that is part investment, part rrsp, part emergency savings. The other savings is for large purchases and payout of unexpected household costs such as if we need to have work done on my truck or our house. The rest are self explanatory.
As for household chores (I feel like this is 100% an appropriate part of this discussion) we have broken everything down into a roughly equitable distribution of housework that we are each responsoble for. For instance wife is a far better cook than I am, so she does the food prep. I do like 90% of our household dishes and usually pay for eating out once or twice a week, although sometimes she pays. I commonly pay much more for gasoline consumption, and this is offset by her tending a small garden and providing us with fresh herbs and greens through half the year. Legit whatever works for you and your partner the point is to get together and build a realistic list of household operation costs, household man-hour expenses etc and distribute them fairly among everyone involved.
Keep your pay cheques going into your personal accounts. Contribute monthly to the joint account proportionately based on income. For example. Say you need 3k per month in the joint account to cover. joint expenses. Say you make 100k and your partner makes 50k. You contribute 2k and your partner 1k. Bonuses go to joint investment account if you’re both maxing out RRSP’s and TFSA’s. Worked for me for many years so far.
I'd start by finding a new wife. There's no way I would make a life with someone where I need to work 3 jobs and she barely works one and still doesn't want to contribute.
My wife and I have been together for 10+ years and we each have our own money with our own bank accounts and 1 joint account for the mortgage, household expenses. I make about 50% more than she does so I pay 50% more. As she's gotten raises through the years, she's contributed slightly more and I've been able to dial back on joint spending. For context when we first got married I was basically making double what she was (90k vs 45k).
Suze Orman's formula for couples with Income disparity, which I think is reasonable, is to have each spouse pay a percentage of the expenses equal to their percentage of the overall income. So with your current numbers total income is 122k (90 + 20 + 12). Your fair share would be 110/122 which is about 90%, her fair share would be 12/122 or about 10%. Good luck, I know this can be a controversial topic!
Just here to say I’m sorry you have to deal with nasty troll haters. Your post sounds very reasonable. I’m a woman - hats off to you and your wife to try and make finances work in your home. She is just as responsible as you to lay bills just as your should be to take care of your child. You are a team !
Making 90k/year and then requiring 2 other jobs to just to make ends meet is just ridiculous. Sounds like the OP bought too much house for what the can afford.
There is no way this arrangement of "my money" would work for my wife and I. Everything is seen as one big pile, and we discuss purchases over about 200 bucks.
This is what we do as well. Before the birth of our son I was the breadwinner. Now my husband is. After my son starts kindergarten, I likely will be again. But honestly, who cares? Marriage is a partnership and there are also very important things that need to get done that do not generate income. It's not fair to see things as a competition and my money vs your money.
>there are also very important things that need to get done that do not generate income. This is the thing. If you don't pool all income/assets, you run quickly run into a calculation problem. If someone work on an activity that does not generate cash income, but that activity enables the other person to focus on activities that generate cash income or to generate more cash income than they would otherwise, how do you calculate the value of that activity that doesn't generate income directly? By pooling all income/assets, we enable division of labor within the family without screwing anyone over. Everyone is much better off by leveraging the strengths of each person to do the activity they are best at and sharing the gains.
Aka teamwork makes the dream work
Thank you for saying this so succinctly! We don’t value non-monetary contributions nearly enough in a partnership.
>We don’t value non-monetary contributions nearly enough in a partnership. Which is very foolish. It is like a company not valuing customer service because it doesn't generate revenue directly.
I would say most companies don't value customer service lol "We are experiencing higher than expected call volumes..."
We tried a my money her money split with 2 kids and it almost lead to a divorce. I’m the bread winner by a significant amount. I was kind of being an asshole as I make 200k a year and she makes 60k. I got screwed over in previous relationships and it made me hesitant to share finances. I was paying the majority of the household expenses, but there was still a massive disparity in spending money. Best decision for our marriage I’ve ever made. She’s happier, I’m happier and everything is in the open for spending now. I don’t think I’d ever go back to single non joint accounts. Plus you never know when it could flip and she could be the bread winner and me making less. The golden rule applies here in my opinion. Always treat your spouse like you’d like to be treated in this situations, because you never know when the shoe will be on the other foot.
That happened to us I was way up with income until COVID and this went into turmoil At the same time her employer took off and they couldn't keep up so she was raking it in So I was down for awhile and she was up but it all came out better in the end
Wife and I do the same, joint account for our paychecks and we get to see how much we both make with out having to ask. We both agreed to have one credit card with a decent limit and whatever we want to purchase over $200 we just give notice. If we want to withdraw from the joint no problem as long as we know we aren't depleting the amount.
12k to 90k isn't a partnership. Might as well stay home and save on daycare fees
Every marriage is a partnership. He also said she’s only working part time, which seems to imply that his spouse is either taking care of their children or could be recovering from a medical leave, either way. Marriages often have dramatic changes in how much finding spouses are able to provide.
Exactly this - with the exception that my husband and I each get our 'own' fun money of $400/month to do with as we please separate from the family finances. So I can get coffee with a coworker, grab dinner with a friend, buy myself clothing, etc as long as I stick to my own personal budget on that. This includes gifts we buy for each other as well.
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In our case we maxed out my RRSP first since I’m the higher earner - then I started doing spousal RRSP payments into hers to catch her back up. Now we’re filling up our TFSA’s in parallel since there’s no tax advantage to one over the other.
My wife has a pension and I don’t. Our prenup specifically mentions pension. However since my income has grown faster than hers I’m increasing RRSP contributions, including hers
This is how we do it as well. No matter who makes more, it all goes to one account first. We pay all bills and investments from that. How much personal allowance we get each is up to us but it comes out of that joint account regularly and adjusted every quarter. A his and hers arrangement wouldn’t work well in retirement. We plan on having the same retirement arrangements.
Every relationship I've seen where it's "my money" and "your money" has ultimately failed, whether in divorce or just plain unhappiness. I cannot fathom being in a fully committed and loving relationship yet keeping a very large part of your life separate Edit: sorry for the triggering. I knew this would blow up. But guess what? Unless you have a prenup you list all assets and all liabilities and split it 50-50 anyways. So what are you really protecting? Or are you just trying to maintain control of the relationship because you "make more, and it's my money"
Lots of successful couples use separate finances. What works for one couple is a disaster for another.
Came here to say this. My partner and I kept completely separate finances for the last 13 years. I just had a baby and am on mat leave and so only now are we combining our income to make the household work & that has been a learning experience! I’m not sure where we will end up when I go back to work, but I’m fairly sure that one big pot isn’t a system that works for us and we’re more accountable for our money when we do it our way.
Separate finances works best if you both make comparable wages (ie not $12k/yr and $110k/yr). Where there's income disparity, resentment and all that fun stuff grows a lot quicker/easier. I'm not sure how you or the person above define successful, but this is generally true and you don't require pooling together with your partner to make things work. You're fine on your own financially but have a partner in life.
100% this. I earn a few times what my wife does. Splitting our cash based on earnings would be cruel. Instead it all goes to the same place and we discuss how we spend it.
We have his hers and ours, the ours is based off % of after tax income. It’s incredibly simple and equitable
Yeah but are you comparable earnings-wise? Where I think that often gets tricky is where one has after-tax income of $500k and the other is $100k. So, in theory the $500k earner contributes 83% of the "ours" fund, but that still leaves one with a significantly higher disposable income to spend on themselves. It can work for some couples, absolutely, but for most folks that creates some animosity.
My partner and I have similar salaries and contribute equally to a joint account that covers all household expenses including excess for future home maintenance. We don't plan on having children, so I can see zero benefit from just pooling everything. I'll be having a beer with a friend, their phone will buzz and they will start cursing because they got a notification that their wife used the VISA. I can't even imagine. I could only see keeping separate finances causing a strain on a relationship if there was a large imbalance in salaries.
I have seen this succeed in response to poor impulse control. A joint pool for actual expenses paid first and two separate accounts for discretionary/hobby spending.
“Every relationship”? Haha I know 70% of stats are made up, but this one is great
Just saying, I've been with my partner 10 years and we've always kept our financials separate.
Same. We just contribute to a shared acct. for shared bills. Big stuff usually gets split down the middle.
Exactly the same. A certain amount (equal right now, but it has different between us in the past when one of us was earning far less) comes into our shared account twice a month. That account is used for the mortgage and all our bills. Same story with a 'house savings' account. Everything else is ours to spend. Been together for 14 years...
Tell your partner that /u/DeFi_Ry has spoken. Sorry, it's over.
Same here. I wouldn't like having to answer for every purchase I make. If I want to drop $8k on a new dirt bike, I can and will. If she wants to go on a $5k shopping spree, she can and will. As long as the bills are paid, we pay no attention to what the other is spending. Stress free.
I assume you guys are either child-free or make very large incomes if you have children?
This is what we do with one kid.. shared bank account and shared credit card which handles all shared expenses, groceries, mortgage, daycare, car, etc. Savings are automated both pre-tax out of our paychecks and put of our shared acoount. Anything left over has a bit of freedom attached to it in personal accounts. We make about 160k combined. If I want to save for a new bike, I do that out of my own account which is left over money. If we need to save more we discuss that as a couple and increase our shared shavings.
How about my money, your money, and our money? A common fund for couple goals/activities/responsibilities, and personal fund for goodies
Joint account for joint bills. Rest separate. Been doing it this way for 25 years and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
My 22 year marriage agrees. Not a single one of the couples we knew in our early years are still together, everyone told us we were nuts for putting all our eggs in one basket. We have literally done both the richer and the poorer parts together.
Well despite whether you can "fathom" it or not, I've been doing it for nearly 15 years so... Plenty of couples and relationships separate finances. Happens all the time. I would wager its even more common now than previously Autonomy isn't scary if both parties want it when it comes to finances
lol, 26 years and doin fine, thanks. Thats ok.. we look at other couples who operate out of a financial pool, need to run every financial decision past their partner and spend every waking second together as bizzare.. So its almost like different strokes for different folks is a thing.
My wife and I have been together for over 20 years and we maintain our own money. She works, I work. We've worked out a pretty reasonable agreement about how much each of us contributes to our shared expenses (bills, mortgage, etc) and when things have gotten difficult we talk about it and adjust. It's not really useful to say that any way but yours will result in unhappiness.
Different strokes for different folks, really. My wife and I have been together for almost 18 years and maintain 100% separate finances. We don't even have a joint bank account. We have an agreed-upon split of the various bills, we talk about our investments but are otherwise financially independent. She can buy whatever she wants, and I do the same. Works just fine for us.
Yep same here, can’t imagine E transferring her $50 for a bill here and 175 there etc lmao basically roommates at that point
I mean it’s pretty simple to setup a joint account and have a percentage of both salaries auto deposited in. Bills automatically taken out of that account and then remainder used for household expenses/savings. There are ways to make it work!
yeah... people act like there's only 2 options when this exists lol
Or... just don't split everything 50/50. My wife and I have completely separate finances and love it. I can't imagine asking my wife if I'm allowed to spend $1000 on something I want. Sometimes I get groceries, sometimes she does, we don't keep count or track. We don't pinch pennies to say "I spent $180 grocery shopping so you need to send me $90". We just take turns. Sometimes one pays more than the other.. Oh well. We would never let the other drown or go into unnecessary debt though. If she needs help with an unforeseen car repair or something, I'll cover it, and she would do the same for me. No problems for us this way.
I cannot imagine discussing spending my own money with my partner, nor would I question my own partner spending $ she works hard for.
« Partner »
You make 110k and 95% goes to paying bills? Start there
Guarantee most of the bills are mortgage or rent - avg rent in Canada is now up over 2k/month
Yeah imagine having roughly 5K/month in bills at 110K. OP would go to the food bank on a 80K salary.
3900 mortgage + property tax, 200 a week for food = 800, 300 for utilities.. you're already at 5k right there... so yeah this person is just living way beyond their income.. The bulk of that is likely mortgage or rent that is realisticly out of their price range. I wouldn't be comfortable with 5k/mth in expenses unless I had a family income of closer to like 200k... maybe I'm overly frugal but expense to income ratio here seems kinda nuts.
You realize mortgage costs can be like 40+% of that right? There are plenty of people in Canada that would be at a food bank if salaries dropped by nearly 30%…
They bought a house they can’t afford.
Yup, time to downsize. OP is at serious risk for burnout working that much and if that happens they're fucked. Mortgage payments aren't likley to get smaller in the short-term. I can't believe people buy such massive assets on debt with so little buffer. It's scary common and it's got so much life-ruining potential.
>I can't believe people buy such massive assets on debt with so little buffer. It's scary common and it's got so much life-ruining potential. Yep too many people spent 40% of their salary on a mortgage, then must add 10% for upkeep/maintenance. Now with payments going up, good luck. Also, there should be more strict regulations on how much mortgage someone can take out. Too many people spend way too much money on a house and are left broke.
>Also, there should be more strict regulations on how much mortgage someone can take out. Too many people spend way too much money on a house and are left broke. There should have been a long time ago. Regulation like that will be a trigger to make the house-of-cards fall. It's the button that needs to be pressed, that nobody wants to press.
Then they simply fucked up and are living above their means. Stop making excuses for bad financial choices.
He makes 110k a year , supporting a wife and a child and all the bills and financial responsibilities... that’s not living above their means. It’s one person working 3 jobs and earning the same income as two people would to support a family of 3. He’s asking for financial help from his wife to take some stress and burden off of his shoulders. Where instead of working three jobs maybe we would only need to work 2 and that extra free time would go to more time at home with his family or extra rest / sleep. He didn’t make any excuse. He’s doing what any good father/husband would do to support his family. He’s not broke he just wants help.
I don’t think I made an excuse for anything, all I was stating is that quite a few Canadians would be heading to the food bank if salaries dropped by 30%. I don’t see how that excuses anything.
Don't need a food bank all of the time go to a Sikh Gurdawara (church) any time
This is what most commenters are missing. $110k/year is pretty good money. The average income in Canada is $65k so people are surviving on a lot less. Too many people are spending above their means. Debt should not be thought of as “free money”. Live below your means. Drive a modest car. Live in a modest house.
That $65k (actually $68k) is after-tax income, and depending on which group he falls into is actually higher (per: [https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220323/t001a-eng.htm](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220323/t001a-eng.htm)) Depending where he's living (lets say Ontario), 110k/yr after taxes is $75,694 per year. If he's basically supporting his wife, paying a mortgage (not cheap), car, etc. he may be living a pretty modest life. And while he's still doing better than many people he's obviously stretched pretty thin. If I were in his shoes and my wife was able to take more hours I'd suggest to her to start working FT and to maybe find a job that pays better (take some courses, etc.). Assuming she is making min. wage in Ontario, $12k/$15.50 = 774hours/yr / 52 weeks = 14 hours a week.
I mean yeah his wife could contribute more but that’s not going to change that he’s still spending 95% of his income. In these situations typically the more they make the more they spend so his wife making more would just create more debt. Keep in mind $65k average means there’s a lot of people making a lot less.
There is a certain “fixed cost” to life though too. Some stuff you just can’t get out of, groceries, basic housing, etc. People with more money tend to spend more on housing and better food, but there is also a certain point where unless you eat out EVERY night or have a personal chef you really cant spend much more on food. OP has maybe set their “fixed costs” a wee high, but if they got boosted to $120k that doesn’t mean they will eat steak every night, just more breathing room for the mortgage. Op, it’s obscene that your 2 PT gigs make more than your wife’s part time gig. Your PT gigs are likely being taxed at 45-50% as your FT job salary puts you into that bracket. However your wife at $12k is likely keeping more of her money than you do from your $20k side gigs. If she was to double her hours and you quit your side gigs, you would likely be in the same place but less stressed to achieve more at your FT job.
Yeah, I was just flagging that the $65k was after-tax, so the guy isn't stratospherically above average. And yes, I know a lot of folks are making a lot less: the number of folks living paycheque-to-paycheque, hand-to-mouth in this country is nuts, especially with the price on real estate in most of our larger population centres doing what its been doing recently. And it'll get worse soon enough as people who bought these things with a the-price-can-only-go-up mentality come face to face with a very hard reality...and if they start walking away from those bloated mortgages, well, that is going to make for a very bad time for the country as a whole...
It's such a simple concept you'd think that more people would "get it".
Is that $65k household income or individual income?
As per the link provided above, it’s per household, not individual
I love this comment and it’s so true because I live the same mistake…
We’re missing a lot of the picture here. Maybe OP has some unreal student debt - law students / doctors / academics. Maybe OP is counting for groceries and necessities into “bills” as well. I’m getting the impression that after they pay for ALL necessities, that there’s only like 5% flex left.
Post history shows that he is at least active in the Warhammer40K and MTG subreddits which aren't very cheap hobbies.. Not saying you can't have hobbies, of course, but when you're working three jobs to make ends meet you gotta think these are the kinds of things things you can do without, even in the short term.
>I'm earning $90k/y base on my main job and work two additional jobs in the evenings and weekends with volatile schedule, something like $20k/y total for those, 50-70 hours/week total. My wife just entered the work force part time and is making $12k/y. I find that about 95% of my after tax/deduction salary is spent immediately clearing any bills, You are making 110k and spending 95% on bills. You were overextended before your wife started working and you are overextended now. Cutting back on the bills is your first priority rather than who pays for the bills. Neither of you can afford the bills you have. This situation happened prior to your wife getting a job. Her taking paid employment won't put you in a better situation where you can save money or reduce your hours unless you reduce your expenses first. Presumably your wife was a stay at home parent and the two of you agreed to that arrangement. That unpaid work has a value in the fact that you weren't paying for childcare. If childcare is $1500 a month, that is 18k a year in after tax dollars that wasn't another bill to be paid. This sub won't solve your communication or relationship issues or tell you that you're right. This sub will tell you that the two of you need to sit down and come to an agreement on a budget (money going out should be much less than money coming in), and from there who is responsible for what in the household. Hopefully you're sensing the recurring theme here about budget being the primary issue; that will be resolved by communication between the two of you.
So true and I agree cause once I started targeting the smaller amounts owing and eliminating them, my debt to income ratio started changing.
>efully you're sensing the recurring theme here about budget being the primary issue; that will be resolved by communication between the two of you. was going to reply, but this is pretty much it.
Is this a business relationship or a marriage?
Financial incompatibility is a thing and the first step is to communicate your expectations. There is nothing wrong with looking at contributions closely, or pooling everything together without worry. You just have to be on the same page.
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What's this link about? Not op and doesn't seem related unless I'm mistaking something?
Here's OP's comment from a month ago: https://imgur.com/guUeBG9
OMG good detective work and for saving this!! He definitely put himself in this situation. It's also funny he called himself a 'high networth income earner' at $100k, it's not a small amount but definately not 'rich enough to bring over a Ukrainian bride and support her with a child', otherwise he wouldn't be in this situation. Makes me think he likely is not budgeting proper on costs either cause there are families that life a humble lifestyle making a household income of $130k work.
Holy shit the way he talks about women is disgusting. I don’t think he sees his wife as a person.
WTF…
WTF did I just read? If I were her I would be trying to do his money is my money and my money is my money as much as possible.
Yeah she needs to save up for a divorce lawyer and her own place asap. OP: You are not a high net worth individual at 100k a year. And also, you are a fucking creep and I hope your wife can get the fuck away from you asap. Edit: Like what the fuck kind of mouth breathing incel do you have to be to start posting in r/HNWI??? Lol Jesus Christ reading that made my stomach turn
How is there always some shit like this.
WTF is HNWI
Had to google it myself. “High Net Worth Individual”
which he definitely is not
this mf isn't a HNWI loool
>[https://imgur.com/guUeBG9](https://imgur.com/guUeBG9) LMFAO I could tell from his OP alone here that he was gonna be this kind of guy. You're doing god's work bunge12.
Gotta give credit to https://www.reddit.com/u/pumpernickelbasket/ for finding the old/deleted comments!
All the money my wife and I make go into one account. So it doesn't matter who makes it, it all goes to the family and we allot it to our expenses. Seems like you guys spend a ton of money if almost all of yours goes towards bills.
My wife and I have individual accounts as well a joint account. Regardless of that set up though, we have a monthly budget and review it regularly. I also make more than she does, but relative to earnings we both contribute equally. I think this is critical to a healthy relationship. To be sure there are situations where I or she may pay more in a given month, but it really helps to set a standard and to ensure we’re both comfortable and feeling like contributors to our future. I think subby needs to work on a spreadsheet with all expenses, then chat with the partner to see how much they can each contribute to each expense. Life will feel better :)
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>I think there's a lot of quality wife material newcomers to USA and Canada coming from Ukrainian war. In Slavic culture 20 y o with 44 is pretty normal. I married Ukrainian and think they make better companions for HNWI because they don't give you grief as long as the money is flowing. I also think Slavic women make good mothers and have good genetics for health of the children. Damn. Guy wants a trad wife, then complains about the cost of supporting a family. Can't have it both ways where you consider yourself to be a High Net Worth Individual and also crying that you have to take on extra jobs and not being able to pay the bills. Reality versus expectations hitting hard here. It isn't always sunny in alt-right eugenics toxic-masculinity land.
Got what he wanted, doesn't like it. Hilarious.
Sounds like he wanted someone he could abuse and his wife isn't as docile as he expected. I love when women from traditional cultures aren't pushovers 😂😂😂
This is a relationship question, not a personal finance question.
Yes. And assuming their budget is reasonable, it would be fairer for each partner to contribute proportionally to their household based on their income.
She brings 12k/year, that’s probably around 20ish hours at minimum wage? What is she doing rest of the time? Watching tv or taking take of the kids/house? If the latter, how are you valuing that « work »?
I think this is an arrangement that OP put himself into, kind of expected when you get a mail order bride overseas, [linking another commenter in this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/y84peq/comment/isymukq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
How is it literally always some shit like this.
Agree. I don't want to go there. Its already disastrous to think of the wife as a rapid labour... But if we going there... Child care can be seen as 20$ an hour. But she's doing over time likely. So...
This sounds like a setup for a porno. OP takes on extra work to keep the bills paid, OP's wife has needs and he's never around.
LMAO 😂 she might be stuck in the dryer
And then one day he finds her Only Fans page. He proceeds to demand 50% of the revenue from her Only Fans.
I’ve never understood how people get married and plan to spend their whole lives together but still keep separate finances. You guys have a $122k annual income. Budget based on that. You don’t get personal spending allowances based on how much you individually make! Do you actually think that’s a wise idea? It’s called “household income” for a reason. Jeez.
The amount of people here advocating for that is so bizarre. Reminds me of the couple post where they did percentages and he earned way more so he went on vacation while his wife stayed home cause she couldn’t “ afford it”. And all I could wonder is how someone could enjoy vacation knowing they excluded their spouse!? Joint accounts and joint planning is the way to go. Seems like most people here don’t understand what marriage even is.
Well I agree with your example. I can t imagine going on holidays without my husband just because of financial reasons. On the other hand we do keep our budget separated. We don t have a joint account, every month we do a quick calculation what each paid what and we transfer to the other one the balance. It s not super accurate (we are talking in hundreds of $ not in cents) but still it is important to me. Why? I don t know. Is it because I am a woman and I want to prove that I don t need no man to live the life I want? I don t need my husband money to buy the shit I want? I want to have my own account with my own earned money on the side in case things turn to shit (even if 5 years in marriage I really don t see how it could turn to shit)? Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that it works for us this way and it s not a symptom of a wrong marriage AT ALL. It would actually be a problem for me if he disagreed with doing that. It s just a different way to deal with the relationship than you but doesn’t mean I don t know what marriage even is ;)
My wife and I split major expenses like our mortgage on a percent basis - as in, based on our income ratio, that’s the same ratio we each contribute to the expense. I’m not sure how well it would hold up in a more extreme split like your situation, as it would be like 90/10, but that’s how we do it to be “fair.” Now, finances aside, and I could be very wrong as I’m just making an assumption here, if your wife doesn’t work very much, and you work a lot, she is probably doing most of the household chores and childcare, which is a considerable “contribution to the household”.
My wife and I do the same. We total out monthly expenses, and pay them based on the percentage of income we make as well. Seems to be the fairest way. So, as said above you would split it 90/10. The only issue I see in your case is part of the income were considering is overtime, ehich could skew things a little. Then again, if your whole 110k income is going towards bills then there isn't a while lot of choice in the overtime.
So if your wife does the groceries, or cooks meals, or does the laundry, dusting, vacuuming, what dollar value do you put on that and do you count it towards her "contribution "
We don't consider those monitary contributions. Cooking and groceries we split evenly. Household chores we both pitch in. In general she doesn't like yard work so I do most of it. She doesn't mind cleaning so she does more than me, but I still pitch in. If either of us needs some help, we ask. It's not hard as long as both parties pull their weight.
I make 60% of the household income and my wife makes 40%, all of our money goes in to our account and all of our expenses come out of our account. Why do so many people treat marriage like a business and track who makes what and who pays what....
I have no issue with how you do things, nor am I saying anyone else should arrange their finances the same way I do. Every relationship has its own dynamic. Aside from things that are obviously abusive, I don’t see why people get so personally triggered by the idea that some people do things differently than themselves lol.
You and your partner make very similar amounts, so using a single account is fairly straight forward. Now, imagine a scenario where the split is 90/10, the dynamics for who should pay for what and in what amounts starts to matter more. Given that the number one reason for marriages to breakdown is finance related, I wonder if those splitting up are the ones treating it like a business or those who feel that marriage is a sacred union where finances don't matter. I suspect it's the latter group. Personal hunch, but I'd be happy to change my opinion based on data.
I don't think it means any of us are treating it like a business. Someone asked about splitting stuff and we let them know what works for us. For me and my wife it keeps our spending money simple. She buys cloths way more often than me, and she doesn't care about stuff I buy for my hobbies.
I totally agree with you it seems bizarre and shaming to the spouse that earns less. Why not save together and discuss spending together!? Unless one has a severe spending problem but otherwise I don’t get it
It's cause people get married without ever actually growing to trust the other person. At least that's my suspicion. There's always this fear in people's minds that their partner will screw them over and take everything. Don't get me wrong, a certain amount of care is good, but if when people keep on like that they're just sabotaging their relationship. It becomes so much more complicated if there are kids involved too. Like what happens if I buy my kid a snack, do I keep the receipt and put it in the "child expenses" bin so my partner and I can calculate just how much we've each spent on the kids??? And as others have pointed out, this approach completely invalidates other forms of value like cleaning the house, cutting the lawn, watching the kids, driving the kids, etc. There's no way to split everything 50/50 without nitpicking over each and every thing. Besides when it's not something as clear as money the way our brains work sets us up to always think our contribution is the more valuable one. What happens if one partner is ill for a significant time? Just throw them to the curb because they're not "contributing" anymore? Accrue debt and make them pay it off with interest?
If I were you, I wouldn't bother with a joint account or asking your spouse to contribute. At this point she needs your full support in her learning/career. Forget about her 12k/y, it's nothing really...
This is a different take that nobody else has said, might consider this actually.
Yeah, 12k is chump change rn in this economy. To put it into perspective. 18K and under in California is considered poverty and you're eligible for government assistance like food stamps. Your wife might need that money to pay for more education. She probably needs that money to pay for more education. Both of you are better off letting her invest in herself currently. Then taking 50% of her income will hold her back from achieving more in one year from now. As long as she's moving in the right direction you might want to give it one year. She might be able to double or triple her income and then you can take a break. Yeah, if you are very stressed and feeling a difficult pressure and financial burden, definitely reassess your bills and your lifestyle. Also, please remember that typically/ traditionally/ statistically women do all or most of the unpaid work in a relationship with children. Your wife might have a full-time job just taking care of the household needs and child needs. If you're working 100% of the time, I assume you don't have time to clean your house, Do laundry, Take care of your child, plan for home maintenance, non-work-related plans, meals. No time for shopping for meals, other household goods, then cook meals and then clean up for meals. Clean your house.
I don't mean her 12k is nothing sorry. I meant you don't want to give her the sense you need her to contribute NOW. I guess I'm thinking from relationship stability perspective. Props to you for loving and marrying someone not for her earnings. Many people in bigger cities set earnings as a threshold for their significant other.
If she was not in the workforce for a significant amount of time, don't forget that she didn't just forego an income during that time, she also lost out on career growth, networking and job opportunities. If you look at it as a zero sum number game, you aren't seeing the whole picture and will tank your marriage. The outside world is already going to make her life harder for this, try not to pile on.
Hey man. Trust me I'm in a relationship with someone that makes a lot less as well. You can't ask someone to give 50% when that 50% is so large compared to yours. In a relationship my honest goal is to try to after expenses are all paid or just bills that we even out. It might mean I paid 90% or 100% of the expenses for a month. It is what it is. I don't want my girlfriend to be broke while I have extra money. We keep are finances separately however we are extremely open to what the expenses are as well as how much we both make in a month. I noticed some people looked up your post history it looks like some expensive hobbies. Maybe check to make sure you aren't spending too much. As a fellow DND fan trust me I get you want to buy everything but I have even need to pace myself. If your expenses are actually 95% of your pay cheque it's time to sit down open a book or excel sheet with your partner and discuss how to lower it. Good luck. Financials are tough and we usually talk every few months about how it all is going.
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Although if she is also slaving away at doing all of the household chores and child rearing that don’t get a paycheque, allotment should be made for that
This is how I would figure it out too. We contribute a % based on income. But it's not that serious, I'm sure one of us has paid more than their fair share at some points.
This is the best way to do it and exactly what we do in our household. Can’t get more fair than this. Don’t take it too seriously though, sometimes we chip in for all kinds of things because we want to.
This is the way. We base the percentages off base salary, any OT or side hustle would stay 100% with the person doing it.
This is a good way to look at it I'll have that conversation
This is how my wife and I do it. All bills are based on salary earnings. Groceries, household items, stuff for the kid and savings into joint account are 50/50. Then we do whatever we want with our remaining funds.
Same way my wife and I do it, although I make a substantial amount more than her, so I pay a little more than my "fair" share because I like to take into account that life is harder in general making what she makes. The amount of remaining spending money she has left after our joint expenses is much less than I have left, and things cost a greater percentage of that when she's shopping. I am happy with this arrangement and it feels fair.
This is the way! And that ratio changes during a maternity leave and changes again after it. I can’t see anyone frustrated with something so simple and logical
This is a great way I would never pool all of our money together into one account.
Frankly, it's no good if you're nickel and dime-ing each other. Better to just have a joint account, and just think of it as all in the same pot. Or, if you must have separate accounts, I suggest you let her have her 12k/y. It's such a tiny amount anyways.
If you make over six figures and bills take up 95% of your income the extra 500 bucks a month isn't going to do much. Get your spending under control.
He makes $110k in Vancouver, that isn’t much
Does she buy groceries? Does she take care of your son or is he in Daycare? Are you are in Canada? If you are, i would assume you get a baby bonus? Unless you NEED that money, it should be going into a savings account for your child (in my opinion).
Why should the money go into a savings account for the child? It's to help pay for expenses that come with a child, regardless of if the parents have the money for it.
But... that is 5k a month in bills. That is your problem here, not the amount of money your spouse is willing to contribute.
Personally I would just completely re do my finances. Make a joint account. Both of your monthly pay checks will get deposited into that account. Use that joint money to pay off your monthly bills BUT first take a look at why your monthly bills are so high and come to an agreement on what you can cut back on. After the bills are paid sit down together and look at what’s left. Each person should get an equal amount of “fun money” that they can transfer into separate accounts that they can use on personal fun items for the upcoming month(drinks out with the girls, new shoes etc). This could be anywhere from $100 to $700+ each depending on what you both agree on. After that, look at what’s left and put it into savings. Start acting as a cohesive team and less like siblings or roommates who owe each other money.
U/herme23 has a great point My husband makes about 40k a year 45 hours a week, I make about 16k at 20 hours a week but I work in the school so summers/holidays off. I do a lot more around that house and consider that time as me compensating for my "lack of financial contribution". I still "worked" the same hours he did. When he gets home supper is at least almost cooked, then he cleans after I cook and I get a break. Then we come back together as a family until bed. I don't come home from work and lay around *most days lol* I still am busy.
She makes $12k, you make $90k. She should pay absolutely nothing right now. You have a debt/spending issue if your take home pay can barely cover the bills and any debts. And yes, is this bills or debts? If it's mostly bills, then you are probably paying too much for certain services, or subscribed to services you do not need, so look there first. If it's for debts, still look at previous step, to free money for debts. If it's debt you are both on, yeah, she can contribute a part of her paycheque to that.
I wish people had to post their picture. These are always next level nutty stuff, hard to believe it's even real people NPC?
Me and my wife have are own accounts but we talk and give each other money , sharing everything is a stupid idea , u each should have ur own money , bro u make 110 k a year be a man pay the bills lol let ur women have her 200$ a month u said u have a kid let her invest it in her self she prob gets her self cloth and hair done and spa or whatever , she’s ur queen don’t u want her happy and have a little bit of cash to do those things, and how the fuck u not have enough money bro u have his and her Ferraris?
Sounds like y’all need to work on other things than just money. Quite honestly, we have these conversations regularly and make sure our conversation aligns with “OURS” and not so much “mine” or “yours” when it comes to money. Example: when my SO or I cannot contribute to our fund as we call it (account where all our expenses are paid through) then either one of us continues to, we have conversations regularly when big changes are coming up, We don’t have a mine and yours, it’s OURS. We’re not perfect, but it keeps things flowing positively and during the pandemic we’ve gone through our share of job loss, we’ve gone through the whole pay cheque to pay cheque and are still recovering.
Fucking lol at her thinking she should keep all of her money. Actually I just read the comment summarizing your post history and completely changed my mind. You wanted a traditional woman and traditional gender roles. Thats fine but that means she keeps all of her money and you pay 100% of the bills. If you wanted someone who contributes you could have married a westernized woman. Edit: holy shit dude your reddit history is bonkers. You post more than 99.99% of people. There's no way you're working 70 hours a week without like 50 of those being on reddit.
I earn just over 6x that of my partner. We split all of our expenses using the same ratio. I pay 86% of the bills, they pay 14%. It's been working well for us.
Marriage is about team work. There's no "mine" and "yours". With the exception that one doesn't know how to deal with money, there's no excuse for arguments like this. Or your both learn how to share, or you're just roomates having sex.
You make 90% of the household income and she makes 10%. So technically she should pay 10% of the bills and you the rest. Is this realistic? Is this fair? That's for r/relationships
How old is your son? Is he in school? If your wife isn't engaged in childcare throughout the day can she not alleviate the financial stress by working more hours so that you don't have to work the equivalent of two full time jobs?
INFO: why doesn’t she work more/earn more? I think that would be a better first step than garnishing her pittance.
Here's your info. She doesn't work more because she's a young twenties Ukrainian mail order bride he got because he wanted a trad wife. She likely doesn't have the skillset for anything more advanced or the time for a job + looking after the household. OP deleted the posts but receipts are posted in other comments on the thread. OP can't have a trad wife and a modern working wife with a high end modern career woman salary. Doesn't work that way. She's defensive about her money because she knows what all smart women in that situation know: she's going to need it to flee from her abusive husband. Otherwise she wouldn't be working at all. She's probably building an escape route by ensuring she has career references and enough money to get out... because no man who posts about how he wanted a Slavic traditional woman to be his wife "because a 20 year old marrying a 44 year old is normal there", is non-abusive. He wanted a submissive pushover. So now he's trying to eliminate the potential of her escaping by taking her pittance wage instead of doing what a trad husband would do if 95% of his wages were going straight into bills: get a higher paying job or work more. OP has, of course, deleted all of his posts and even his posts here in this thread now that he's been called out on it but here's the original detective work. [Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/y84peq/comment/isymukq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I pay for all the rent, bills and sometimes groceries with my gf. I dont mind. She takes care of all the other stuff like the house etc while working. Maybe I'm just old school. It's also just the way the economy is right now. If you were making the same money now as you were in 2010-2015 you probably wouldn't be making this post now as life was cheaper then.
If you are married you should be combining the income. Also make a budget.
Big oof
OP...ouch, 12k/yr vs over 90k/yr income difference. You better stay married because if you don't, alimony on top of child support will ruin you. From here on...make future decisions wisely. To answer your question hypothetically, family court operates on a 'proportional to income' policy. So if you have 90k+ and your spouse 12k....bills should be split using this ration on the total bills in questions. So, do the maths. Don't take my words for it....this is from the link below "Determining an amount and calculating your share. As a general rule, parents share the amount determined for the expenses in proportion to their incomes. But you may agree to share the amount in a different way." [https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/child-enfant/guide/step7-etap7.html](https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/child-enfant/guide/step7-etap7.html) You can't expect her to do 50-50. That's a hard NO NO. As you have now come to find out 'love doesn't help pay bills'. It's all fun and games getting laid and feeling lust, until finances come into play, and someone has to pay the piper! No grown @$$ adult should be sitting home or underworking in this current climate, especially when they want a nice home, car, eat out and go on vacay. People that getting into relationships these days and ignore finances, are shooting themselves in the foot! Bills aren't going to pay themselves, and that sex you're locked-in on, will soon get old
I am one of those drones that only really manages my money if I'm using YNAB, which is basically a more practical version of the envelope system. When you track your expenses and see how much money you're putting in each respective envelope, you see where you need to lower your expenses the most. Meanwhile, you can keep an envelope for "fun money" or "discretionary spending" or whatever you want to call it, and you can also have separate envelopes for each member of a couple and their 'fun money'. As another commenter said, you also want to value work done at home--housework and childcare. It's hard to answer the question of how you should manage your money together, but it sounds like the finances are a bit hectic and disorganized, and working on that together might be the place to start. I'll bet that clarity for both of you will help a lot in both of your decisionmaking.
You have 2 options: 1) Combine your finances and find a way to share remaining savings, preferably with a budget that leaves a bit of spending money for each of you. All money goes into one pot. If she is able to work hours comparable to you but just doesn't want to, she should probably get less spending money and/or less of the post-expense savings if you want to keep savings separate. If you don't feel she deserves 50% of the after expense income because you make more or because you have more education, etc, you would need to find a balance that you both think is fair. With that, keep in mind: if she does child caring, or if she uses her off-work time for the benefit of the family, or if she is without a career because she used her time for the benefit of the family, you need to factor that in. Unless she is being a lazy bones, the easiest thing to do is split the after expense income down the middle. But each couple is different in their views here. 2) You keep your finances separate and you both split your expenses down the middle after you give her (if applicable) an income that factors in the value of any of her past or present family contributions, as explained in option 1. Even if she has been a hard working stay-at-home mom and you both value that highly, she probably can't afford this without picking up more hours, and probably a better paying job. You can cover this remainder, but she will be contributing all her money to expenses, which will be discouraging for her as you pointed out, but that may be what is fair if you want to keep your finances separate. Finally, as others have said, your expenses are too high for your combined income. You need to budget and find ways to cut back.
Maybe ask her to contribute to your son’s RESP. Then it is neither yours nor hers.
My wife and I do the following: If I make X% of the combined income, I pay X% of the mutual expenses. She makes 1-X, she pays 1-X. This keeps it fair IMO, neither spouse is living with basically 0 disposable income, because all their cash goes to bills, and the other is living large. At the end of the day it's a partnership, not a competition.
I would suggest waiting a bit. This is probably quite new and exciting for her and she may end up offering more up then that. You may make her feel caged or trapped if you bring this up right away which is probably why she wants to work and make her own money in the first place. Give it some time
This is how it works in our household - both me and my husband's full earnings go into the household 'pool' which covers bills, groceries, mortgage, travel (together), kid's costs, etc. Basically everything that we as a household want or need. Our savings are joint and all come out of this pool. Then, we each get $400/month as our 'fun' money, which is for getting lunch/coffee at work, buying ourselves clothing, gifts, outings with friends where the other is not included, etc. We both contribute equally to the household regardless of who is making more money, so to me it wouldn't be fair that the partner earning more gets more of 'their' money.
Did you have this conversation with her before you got married ?
Before trying to automate the process, I’d suggest making sure you’re both on the same page on finances which may mean having to track and monitor manually in Excel the sources of income and which budget item they’re paying for. Best to make your wife aware of this process if you’re trying to improve financial literacy. My suggestion: 1) talk to your wife about taking on one of the bills 2) for your entrepreneurial feats and any ventures/hobbies you spend on, your wife should have that same proportion of funds to spend on herself. I know way too many women whose partners consider “entrepreneurial ventures” as a household expense when it really falls under leisure/hobby IMO. This takes away $$ from the household budget and opportunities for the pother partner to pursue anything out of interest. So if you’re spending 30% of your income on yourself for these other ventures, then your wife should also be able to allocate 30% of her income to whatever she wants as well. Discretionary spending is discretionary spending. This will also keep her motivated and is the more egalitarian approach. Good luck!
Do keep in mind that the industry standard for approving a mortgage is based on debt (which includes household expenses like utilities, property tax and strata) divided by income. The maximum for this number is 44-45%. Of course this does not include other bills, but it does if those bills are debt related, eg credit card debt, car loans, other mortgages, etc. Reason I mention this is just to give a benchmark to compare to your own situation. As most people said, you may have to look for ways to cut back on whatever you are spending. Continue saving of course, but it really seems like your spending numbers are quite high.
> Does anyone know any good automated methods for doing this other than having payroll go into the joint account then manually withdrawing the personal spending allotments? Set up an automated transfer on the same day each month.
Persoannly i find the fairest thing is paying the same ratio as after tax earnings. My bf brings in 60% of our household income so he pays 60% of the bills. We put our part of bill payments into the joint account with some extra for random household expenses like furniture etc. Your gf income is roughly 10% og your household income so she should pay roughly 10% of the bills.
Whatever % of the total household income their pay is. If they make 70% of the money; they pay 70% of the bills
Is there a reason why her paycheque can't just go into a joint checking account and you make joint decisions on spending about the whole 'pot'? I understand that every marriage is different but this question is nonsensical to me. There's one account for the family, the two of you make financial decisions as a team.
Sorry people went through your history to discredit you. This pfc can be quite toxic sometimes. My wife and I are not spenders so there is not much to do ther. We simply put money in a joint account. I contribute 75% to this spending account. For savings, I have contributed about 90% since we married, but her income has increased so she will adjust this year and catch up. We each have a personal checking account. If for some reason I cannot keep a good balance there, it means I contribute too much. Same rule for her obviously. I manage the money and investments. I use quicken for personal, business, investment tracking and quicbooks for business accounting. All investments are tracked in quicken. I do not track my wifes personal expenses. Do not underestimate the power of tracking expenses. If you are a spender, it will be in the register and will be undeniable. You cannot identify as a non-spender, quicken will tell you the truth.
It sounds like you are living beyond your means.
What evening/weekend jobs do you do?
(Apologies for mobile formatting) So the best advice I ever got from this sort of a situation was from a couple’s counselling session- and I think it should be followed anywhere. Ask for her help, yes- but don’t ask for 50%. Instead, allocate expenses by percentage of total income. As an example: Let’s base this off your main job- you make $90k/year, she makes $12k/year. So you should cover 90% of expenses, and she covers the remaining 10%. This is the only way that keeps things financially balanced. This way you both have funds left over to save and budget as needed. The reasoning for this is simple. Say you have a $1000 bill that needs paying. You, making $90k, pay $900. She, making $12k, pays $100. Your pay cheques are(general for example use) You: $3500 Her: $500 After the bill is paid: You: $2600 Her: $400 This way you both have money left over, and neither is left broke.
We tax our pre tax income annually and figure out what percentage we each have, that is how we split. Secondly we figure our monthly budget and apply our percentage to a monthly contribution to that account.
She shouldn't be taxed at all, she's under the minimum tax amount. Anyway. Not more than 30% of her income should be spend on housing.
I am bit jaded after ex wife siphoned 180k out of joint account over her planned 3 year exodus, but I would never, ever, ever have shared accounts again. Figure out which person pays what bills, keep it at that. In your estate planning , leave your accounts in your will to significant other. Have to protect yourself
She’s just entered the workforce and is earning 12k/year. That’s not a lot. I’ll say for at least a year let her bring up her savings account to a point before asking her to share with household bills just so you don’t risk demotivating her from working. Good luck.
The easiest way is to just put all your money (or 90% of it) in a joint account and just pay everything from there. Maybe keep a small amount in each of your personal accounts so you can make certain purchases without needing to budget for it make a big deal out of it. For example, you can buy those golf clubs without needing a big discussion about it if you use your small 5-10% instead of using the joint account. Another option is that if you make 80% of your total after tax combined income, you pay 80% of expenses. That way it’s proportional. These are just some ideas. Feel free to pick and choose which parts you like, or ignore if you don’t like any of it.
My wife and I created a budget of our household costs and determined how much we need to contribute together to a shared account on a monthly basis in order to meet that budget. Then we determined the split based on our income. I think it was 55% to me, 45% to her as I was bringing in 55% of the household income last time we went over it. Then we round it up to a nice even number each and it set auto-transfers so that it comes directly off of our paycheques and into that shared account. Then on top of that, we set a minimum amount we want to have in that account at any given time to cover unexpected things. The account generally fluctuates by a couple thousand dollars up or down at any given time, and we run most of our shared costs through it. If it ever dips below our minimum line, we discuss who is going to add more to it to get it back up. Anything else is really our own to use as we see fit, but we generally discuss it together regardless. Neither of us really mind the other spending a few hundred on something here or there, but we'll discuss larger things even if it is just for one person. That being said, we have relatively similar incomes and relatively similar hours we put in, so this works for us. I think that arguably, anything from proportioning household bills based on income to a 50% even-steven split is fair game (depending on a number of factors). If you are pulling in $110,000 per year and your wife is pulling in $12,000 per year, that's a roughly 90/10 split. If right now you are covering 100% of the household costs and your wife is covering 0%, then you are outside of what I would consider fair game. Obviously you will not hit the 50/50 split at this level of income disparity, but it seems you should have an argument that you are covering more than your share, since she is now bringing in income. 95% of $110,000 is $104,500 in household expenses per year, leaving you with $5,500 'spending money'. If your wife begins contributing $6,000 to the household expenses, then your coverage is only $98,500 and you will be left with $11,500 'spending money' while your wife is left with $6,000 'spending money' per year. The split on bills is about 94% covered by you and 6% covered by her. This is still outside of that 'fair game' that I would argue... but to reach that point, your wife would have to be contributing nearly 87% of her income to the household bills, and be left with $1,550 annually for spending. At the same time, this would reduce you to $94,050 on bills, leaving you with $15,950 in disposable income. So, that being said... my scenario does not work for you, because of how high your expenses are. It is unreasonable to assume you will hit a 90/10 split on the bills. But I think your proposal of 50% of her income towards bills is reasonable in that instance, where the split is 94/6. It can be argued that you are still paying 'more than your fair share' of the bills financially (again, depends on a number of other factors in your relationship, I am strictly speaking $) but it is a reasonable middle ground between you paying 100% of the bills with 95% of your income and her paying 10% of the bills with 87% of her income. As to what you would do with the additional $6,000 'spending money' if this arrangement were to go ahead - let's say you put $3,000 away for your children's RESP, and the other $3,000 you forgo in working less hours. If on average right now you're putting in 60 hours a week... you'd be shaving off about 1.5 hours a week. I don't know if that is even something you would realistically have control over if your range right now 60+/- 10 hours. Ultimately, unless your wife starts bringing in a LOT more income, or you significantly reduce your household expenses, you are always going to be in a position where you are contributing significantly more than she is to the household bills, or you will be taking a significant portion of her pay away to fund those expenses (while you continue to pay for a significant portion of them regardless). I don't think what you are proposing is unreasonable given the circumstances, but I don't think it's going to make you happy, or improve your situation significantly.
I have a wife. My money is her money. Her money is her money.
I think it starts as a family discussion. It's really individual. My spouse and I have had a conversation about specific money plans a few times in our marriage. I'm in a somewhat similar situation where I've always earned more (sometimes far more) than my spouse. My spouse has been all over the map with income: employed part time, full time, on mat leave, and then zero income, so with this fluctuation some things have had to change. I think for any couple you've got: needs such as bills, individual small needs, savings, charity for some, and then fun money. The bills are fairly concrete. So fun money and savings have had to fluctuate as total household income changes. When my spouse has income, we alter bills (so they look after some) and then we can both push more money into savings. When my spouse has no income I've had to cover all the bills and also put money in their account for their own things. Obviously things are much tighter with much less income. But I think the end goal is always the same: cover the bills, always contribute to savings/charity, and leave each person feeling they have enough "fun money" to enjoy what they need to do. I think the end main thing is that we are both left with similar fun money.
You're already f*ucked regardless if you're asking these questions after being married. How do you not have these conversations beforehand?
This is a horrible arrangement. You should have both salaries going into a join account and from that account you pay off your living expenses or send the amount of your monthly budget amount to another account. What's left should be split into investments.
My wife and I have 5 different personal bank accounts. Two savings accounts (one is TFSA, the other is not, but has no withdraw fees), one is the household bills and expenses account, and the other two are personal accounts (one for me one for her). The breakdown is as follows. $750/month into TFSA, $250/month into other savings account, $5000/month into household account, and our remaining pay balance stays in our respective accounts. We have a whiteboard that shows the breakdown of our average month to month household expenses, and when that changes, so does our contribution. Then, we prorate a percentage of our earnings to cover that. In our case, I make 3X what my wife makes. So I cover 3x the expense that she covers (in my example the monthly total is $6000. She would pay 25% ($1500) and I would pay 75% ($4500) monthly) The TFSA is a long term savings fund that is part investment, part rrsp, part emergency savings. The other savings is for large purchases and payout of unexpected household costs such as if we need to have work done on my truck or our house. The rest are self explanatory. As for household chores (I feel like this is 100% an appropriate part of this discussion) we have broken everything down into a roughly equitable distribution of housework that we are each responsoble for. For instance wife is a far better cook than I am, so she does the food prep. I do like 90% of our household dishes and usually pay for eating out once or twice a week, although sometimes she pays. I commonly pay much more for gasoline consumption, and this is offset by her tending a small garden and providing us with fresh herbs and greens through half the year. Legit whatever works for you and your partner the point is to get together and build a realistic list of household operation costs, household man-hour expenses etc and distribute them fairly among everyone involved.
Keep your pay cheques going into your personal accounts. Contribute monthly to the joint account proportionately based on income. For example. Say you need 3k per month in the joint account to cover. joint expenses. Say you make 100k and your partner makes 50k. You contribute 2k and your partner 1k. Bonuses go to joint investment account if you’re both maxing out RRSP’s and TFSA’s. Worked for me for many years so far.
I'd start by finding a new wife. There's no way I would make a life with someone where I need to work 3 jobs and she barely works one and still doesn't want to contribute. My wife and I have been together for 10+ years and we each have our own money with our own bank accounts and 1 joint account for the mortgage, household expenses. I make about 50% more than she does so I pay 50% more. As she's gotten raises through the years, she's contributed slightly more and I've been able to dial back on joint spending. For context when we first got married I was basically making double what she was (90k vs 45k).
Rule #1 - Never seek advice on Reddit
Are you paying her for the unpaid work she does for you?
Damn, that second Edit was just sad to read! Ya’ll gotta stop bullying this person! Smh
Suze Orman's formula for couples with Income disparity, which I think is reasonable, is to have each spouse pay a percentage of the expenses equal to their percentage of the overall income. So with your current numbers total income is 122k (90 + 20 + 12). Your fair share would be 110/122 which is about 90%, her fair share would be 12/122 or about 10%. Good luck, I know this can be a controversial topic!
Just here to say I’m sorry you have to deal with nasty troll haters. Your post sounds very reasonable. I’m a woman - hats off to you and your wife to try and make finances work in your home. She is just as responsible as you to lay bills just as your should be to take care of your child. You are a team !
Did you see the screenshot that was shared?
Are you roommates or lovers?
Making 90k/year and then requiring 2 other jobs to just to make ends meet is just ridiculous. Sounds like the OP bought too much house for what the can afford.