Sharing grocery cost
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DaylightDuchess wrote: »Veronyk_13 wrote: »Thank you so much everyone for your helpful insight. To answer some of your questions:
1. We did decide together where we were going to move and we had a budget beforehand based on what HE could afford.
2. He doesn't drive my car so I pay insurance and parking entirely by myself
3. He doesn't have credit cards but I have 2 so I pay these myself as well.
4. We did talk about sharing household costs 50/50 and he said he agrees with it and can afford it. I'm just a little concerned that he might not realize how much money he ACTUALLY spends sometimes. (I have a very detailed budget that I follow but, he doesn't follow a budget at all.)
I guess I'm just concerned that even though he agrees on paying 50/50, I don't want him to eventually resent me. I also wanted some insight from people who've been there and could tell me how they felt about it.
Again thank you so much for your comments people!
If he's paying his bills regardless of not budgeting prior, then why'd you expect that to ever be an issue? I pay all of my bills 1st, so that I don't have to budget whatever remains!
Word. I budgeted for a few months once, but I have never really gotten into trouble without it (like tracking food, it helped me kick by coffee habit to see the numbers laid out). You said he doesn't have any credit cards, so I am not sure how he would get into trouble, unless he is taking pay day loans.0 -
If it were me I would try to think about how I would feel if the situation were reversed. If he made 90% more would you want to split the bills 50/50 or based on earnings? My huband and I have always split everything evenly and there have been times where I was making more and times when he was but it has always worked for us. Whatever you agree on now make sure you both feel comfortable re-evaluating if either of you has a change in income or starts to feel resentful of the current situation.0
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djeffreys10 wrote: »Everyone is biased by their own experiences. I was married to a woman who only wanted my paycheck. Regardless of anything we agreed on when dating, once married she refused to have a job or live on any budget. She blew my money and kept me broke and struggling to pay bills. As such, I will never support another adult again. If I am ever married again, it will be to a woman that is already financially independent. And we will split all shared expenses equally.
That being said, I define equally as by a percentage of the income. Because that whole love thing, I expect to pay more. The odds of meeting anyone that makes more than me are not very high. But it is important to me to know that she is equally contributing according to her ability, and not just with me to be financially supported.
Also if you ever marry again, get everything within writing prior {prenuptial agreement}! You plausibly would've been able, to've the marriage annulled!1 -
concordancia wrote: »DaylightDuchess wrote: »Veronyk_13 wrote: »Thank you so much everyone for your helpful insight. To answer some of your questions:
1. We did decide together where we were going to move and we had a budget beforehand based on what HE could afford.
2. He doesn't drive my car so I pay insurance and parking entirely by myself
3. He doesn't have credit cards but I have 2 so I pay these myself as well.
4. We did talk about sharing household costs 50/50 and he said he agrees with it and can afford it. I'm just a little concerned that he might not realize how much money he ACTUALLY spends sometimes. (I have a very detailed budget that I follow but, he doesn't follow a budget at all.)
I guess I'm just concerned that even though he agrees on paying 50/50, I don't want him to eventually resent me. I also wanted some insight from people who've been there and could tell me how they felt about it.
Again thank you so much for your comments people!
If he's paying his bills regardless of not budgeting prior, then why'd you expect that to ever be an issue? I pay all of my bills 1st, so that I don't have to budget whatever remains!
Word. I budgeted for a few months once, but I have never really gotten into trouble without it (like tracking food, it helped me kick by coffee habit to see the numbers laid out). You said he doesn't have any credit cards, so I am not sure how he would get into trouble, unless he is taking pay day loans.
Over the course of a few months, my grocery/necessity expenses became uncomfortably high! I came to the realization that Stevia, was increasing my hunger & headaches astronomically because when I began using that artificial sweetener, my food & Advil purchases skyrocketed!0 -
Hook that brother up with a discount!0
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Veronyk_13 wrote: »Thank you so much everyone for your helpful insight. To answer some of your questions:
1. We did decide together where we were going to move and we had a budget beforehand based on what HE could afford.
2. He doesn't drive my car so I pay insurance and parking entirely by myself
3. He doesn't have credit cards but I have 2 so I pay these myself as well.
4. We did talk about sharing household costs 50/50 and he said he agrees with it and can afford it. I'm just a little concerned that he might not realize how much money he ACTUALLY spends sometimes. (I have a very detailed budget that I follow but, he doesn't follow a budget at all.)
I guess I'm just concerned that even though he agrees on paying 50/50, I don't want him to eventually resent me. I also wanted some insight from people who've been there and could tell me how they felt about it.
Again thank you so much for your comments people!
I would make sure he understands that whatever he's left with at the end of a paycheck after bills is it. Have him calculate the expenses he has and come up with an end amount of how much he has left over. Ask him if that's reasonable. If he makes plenty enough to cover that and have a little play money, 50/50 should work just fine!
We tried doing 50/50 for 2-3 months and I realized I slowly started to resent the fact that my then-boyfriend had plenty of money to spend on himself, and I was struggling to come up with gas money. We then switched to more of a percentage based system, which worked out a lot better for both of us. This is only my experience, so I can't say whether or not it will happen to you guys. You both seem to really want to work together on this and that makes me feel like no matter which way you do it, you'll figure it out
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Veronyk_13 wrote: »Thank you so much everyone for your helpful insight. To answer some of your questions:
1. We did decide together where we were going to move and we had a budget beforehand based on what HE could afford.
2. He doesn't drive my car so I pay insurance and parking entirely by myself
3. He doesn't have credit cards but I have 2 so I pay these myself as well.
4. We did talk about sharing household costs 50/50 and he said he agrees with it and can afford it. I'm just a little concerned that he might not realize how much money he ACTUALLY spends sometimes. (I have a very detailed budget that I follow but, he doesn't follow a budget at all.)
I guess I'm just concerned that even though he agrees on paying 50/50, I don't want him to eventually resent me. I also wanted some insight from people who've been there and could tell me how they felt about it.
Again thank you so much for your comments people!
Based off of this, my suggestions are as such:
1) Housing budget is good, and if he can afford it 50/50 of rent, utilities, etc.
2) Your car, you pay for insurance, payments if any and parking. However, since you drive him around, I'd say he should offer to pay for gas, and a little extra for maintenance such as oil changes, repairs, etc. If you didn't drive him around, you wouldn't be putting on as many miles. Does he take the bus to work?
3) If he doesn't have credit cards, how is be building credit? If the purchases are solely yours, then you pay CC bills. if you have to pay for something of his, then he reimburses you.
4. If you are concerned about his financial stability now, this may be a long-standing issue in the future. Discuss all aspects of it now, in order to prevent complications further down the road.
I'm basing this off of a similar situation such as yours. Only, we were married, and she worked PT and made 10% of what I did. Without getting into details, there's a lot of things that went wrong on both sides which led to resentment. Work out any issues now, before you have a deeper commitment to one another.
I'd recommend three accounts:
Yours: Only you, he has no idea of balance
His: Only him, you have no idea of balance
Joint account: Both of you put money in to cover bills, and a little extra for things like trips, fun stuff, future. All bills are paid by check, and requires both signatures to be valid.
This way, you both know what expenses are being paid. More importantly, both of you have to be there to withdraw money in case things go south. At this point, you aren't legally married so there's no need to know each other's net worth. But, as mentioned above, if there's a financial disparity, there may well be some level of resentment. Or, him thinking he has a free ride if there's no desire for him to succeed financially.
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Veronyk_13 wrote: »Hey, so, this might not be the best place to ask this but I need strangers' opinions. My bf and I are moving in together and I was wondering what are people's opinions on sharing the cost of living. Here's the situation: I make almost twice the annual salary my bf makes. I obviously have more expenses as well (example: I have a car and he doesn't, but I drive him everywhere). My question is this: When it comes to sharing the cost of rent, utilities etc do most people split 50/50 OR do some people split according to a ratio/percentage? Like for example, since I make 90% more than him, would it be more fair that I paid 90% more than him on rent? Am I being mean by asking to split 50/50? Also, for groceries do most people also split 50/50 regardless of what groceries they buy? I'm asking because him and I eat differently (i.e. I eat healthier stuff and he likes fried snacks) Is it fair to ask him to split 50/50 even though my healthy food probably costs us a little more?
I don't know. My dh and I got married before having those expenses and had a joint bank account that we used to pay all bills and buy food with. All money earned by our household is shared. I would not do that with someone I wasn't married to.
I think it is reasonable and fair to split the cost of rent and utilities 50/50 with your boyfriend or set up a household account that you both contribute a certain percentage of your income to that will cover household costs.
Are you going to share all the food or continue to eat differently? It doesn't make sense for you to split the cost for food that you will never eat. I would say buy your own food that isn't going to be shared.
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If someone could tell me how to reply to one specific comment, that'd be great lol! In the meantime, to answer someone's question:
The reason why I'm concerned about the budgeting thing is because I'm the type of person that will start saving VERY early for a foreseen bigger expense (example: I start putting a small amount of $ in my savings in March for a trip I'm going to take in February the next year) but HE doesn't use a savings account. Also, I have an emergency fund so I'm prepared if something happens. He lives more paycheck to paycheck with no "cushion" if something would happen. Not that it's a terrible thing, most people live that way. Maybe I'm just overthinking the whole thing and having anxiety for nothing LOL but I just wanna make sure that things go smoothly and I don't end up having to cover for him all the time (I don't mind doing it once in a while) because although I do make more money, I have more bills therefore, the "fun money" I have left is about the same as him.
I guess were just 2 different people financially, and I could talk him into getting an emergency fund going but I don't want him to feel like I'm "babying" him if that makes sense? Like, he's a grown adult and should take this responsibility without me having to do it for him. (Can you guys tell I used to be a financial advisor? Lol.)
Anyways thanks everyone for your great insight, I GREATLY appreciate it! I think we're gonna go with splitting the cost 50/50 since that's what we agreed on and he can afford it. If times get a lil tough I'll push him towards having a savings account for unforeseen expenses, cuz you know, life happens and you gotta be ready!0 -
Every relationship is different. 50/50 works for some. Proportionality works for others. Just playing it by ear works for even others. You've gotta find what works for you. I find that talking usually helps with that.1
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I fully agree with everyone who said 50-50. That is fair, right, and it prevents any discussions ever about OWING.
I'm coming from a long relationship, in which at the beginning we were both broke *kitten* students so sometimes, I would buy stuff, sometimes he would. I remember one time we split the humble cart and went to different supermarket checkouts because I had something along the lines of 2.5 USD on my card and he had the equivalent in cash and... well it made sense to do that lol.
But once things started looking up, 50-50 came absolutely naturally. Even when it was not immediately possible. The other one is on a three-month hiatus from the job? We'll make do, have half of mine no questions asked, and then the borrow gets paid back. It just took money out of the relationship equation. We're pretty independent, but in all honesty, it reinforced the idea of being together because we want to, not because we have any material advantage out of it.
Right now I pay all fixed monthly expenses (mortgage, utilities etc) and he still pays me back 50%, and we're married. Shopping evens out, we're on totally different diets, but sometimes he buys and sometimes I do. Both indulge in their own spending passions, and when we want to plan a bigger expense we just... do. I think treating the administrative part of a relationship like an enterprise with two equal partners does wonders for the heart
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I was in a similar situation with my last boyfriend. I was going to rent the house "we" were moving into regardless of him (he wasn't even on the lease and that's how I wanted it), so I let him choose an amount he could afford for rent (within reason of course). It was about 1/3 of the overall rent, and I included utilities in that, but he had to abide by my strict utility usage, too.
When it came to anything else, however, he had to pay his share. Food, we basically ended up buying our own. He ate 2-3X the amount of food I did, and I couldn't afford to feed him. I also preferred higher quality foods (some fish steaks, chicken breasts, fresh veggies, etc), and couldn't have him eating it all up on me. He couldn't afford those foods in his quantities, so we ended up separating them (or if we did split something, like a CSA veggie box, he only got to eat half of it and had to fill in his meals with his own groceries - usually rice was his choice).
To be fair, I wasn't sure how the whole living together thing was going to work out with him, and as it turned out, it was a good thing I listened to that intuition and kept things separate as 5 months later I had to tell him to GTFO since he wasn't even paying what he had agreed to (among other issues).
Be careful on the car front, too. It may not seem too bad at first, but I know my experience was not very good. Pretty soon he was treating my car like it was his own, and not contributing to the car at all - including taking it on longer drives and bringing it back with an empty tank I then had to fill....not saying your man will do that, but just be careful.
Now, maybe your guy is responsible within his means, and you'll just have to decide how to split things up. I don't have issues with things like rent being unequal if you're choosing a nicer place based on what you can afford. If you're choosing a place based on his means, then by all means, split it 50/50.2 -
Everyone's responses are so insightful! I greatly appreciate it!!!!!0
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Veronyk_13 wrote: »If someone could tell me how to reply to one specific comment, that'd be great lol! In the meantime, to answer someone's question:
The reason why I'm concerned about the budgeting thing is because I'm the type of person that will start saving VERY early for a foreseen bigger expense (example: I start putting a small amount of $ in my savings in March for a trip I'm going to take in February the next year) but HE doesn't use a savings account. Also, I have an emergency fund so I'm prepared if something happens. He lives more paycheck to paycheck with no "cushion" if something would happen. Not that it's a terrible thing, most people live that way. Maybe I'm just overthinking the whole thing and having anxiety for nothing LOL but I just wanna make sure that things go smoothly and I don't end up having to cover for him all the time (I don't mind doing it once in a while) because although I do make more money, I have more bills therefore, the "fun money" I have left is about the same as him.
I guess were just 2 different people financially, and I could talk him into getting an emergency fund going but I don't want him to feel like I'm "babying" him if that makes sense? Like, he's a grown adult and should take this responsibility without me having to do it for him. (Can you guys tell I used to be a financial advisor? Lol.)
Anyways thanks everyone for your great insight, I GREATLY appreciate it! I think we're gonna go with splitting the cost 50/50 since that's what we agreed on and he can afford it. If times get a lil tough I'll push him towards having a savings account for unforeseen expenses, cuz you know, life happens and you gotta be ready!
With such a high income difference, between the 2 of you & you mentioning that he lives paycheck to paycheck, there plausibly isn't enough money remaining for him to even consider starting an emergency fund and/or saving anything, toward a vacation!0 -
It's tricky. I'd share utilities and rent for sure... For food, honestly, if you eat different things, I'd almost want to say that you can buy your own stuff with your own money (it would be different obviously if you shared meals).
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