My girlfriend and I are planning to move in together in ~3 months.
I own a small apartment in Amsterdam, my mortgage, heating, water and electricity is about 2000 Euro a month, and I earn 30% more than she does.
Some context: Amsterdam is damn expensive and in an housing crisis, since living here she’s been paying about 1000/m to rent a room. Both of us earn quite well and money isn’t tight
What is a fair way to split costs? I’ve heard everything from she should live here for free because I was paying for everything anyway to we should split everything 50/50, and I’m not sure what is fair.
I don’t think 50/50 is fair, because the way I see it, I’m going to get back a fair amount of the money I pay to my mortgage when I sell the apartment.
So what is fair? My gut feeling is something like we split the heating, electricity, groceries etc. 50/50. And she pays say 500 Euro a month for living here (less than half what she’s used to paying in rent)
Find a local comp for renting a room. Half that.
Let her decide if she wants to contribute more.
Utilities 50/50. Look at what renting a similar place costs, and halve of that.
Idk about Amsterdam, but in a lot of places half of a comparable rent might be his whole mortgage, depending on how long he’s owned the property.
A relationship is built on trust. You are not room mates. Invite her to move in with no expectations, and let her decide how she wants to contribute.
So in a relationship the party that moves into the others home can decide how much they will contribute? What’s the rationale here?
It gives you an early signal that the relationship won’t work out if the other party decides to contribute nothing for no reason other than to have their cake and eat it too.
I’m of the belief that when it comes to relationships, if you’re thinking about it transactionally, then you’re doing things wrong. As long as being together is a net positive for both parties, then it doesn’t matter if one contributes more than the other.
On a more pragmatic note, you can contribute a lot through non-financial means and these are difficult to quantify, so it’s simply not worth the effort to do that kind of bean counting. If you don’t feel that they’re pulling their weight, then you talk about it and make some adjustments.
I wouldn’t call them moving in and after a while realizing they are not contributing an early signal. You know what would be? Talking about it up front and coming to an agreement. Whether it be financial or otherwise.
And this has nothing to do with a relationship being transactional. In fact it’s the opposite because then the relationship will not be one person providing for two people and the other person providing a relationship in return.
I’d agree the sentiment that you’re partners, not room mates, though even partners split (or share) things like costs, housework, etc. I’d suggest something like you pay your mortgage and both of you split utilities… or maybe you pay mortgage and she pays utilities, whatever seems fair to both of you. But I wouldn’t have her pay me money directly, IDK why but it feels a bit off.
Just get her to cover a few hundred every month. It’s true, you so own the equity in the apartment. Or she can cover food or something. If you guys stay together and get a place together someday, then maybe it’s 50 50.
I’ve had shared finances with my partner since we moved in together. It’s worked well for us because she’s really good with money. Probably not for everyone though. Basically we make sure everything is paid and put whatever is left in a joint account.
If you gotta ask these kinds of things this relationship isn’t really serious enough to warrant moving in.
Finances are one of the most common reasons for divorce, being open about these things is key in a relationship.
Yeah exactly people getting married when they have no business or maturity to do so. Imagine needing complete strangers on the internet to tell you how to charge someone you love rent.
Then imagine being stupid enough to quote divorce statistics to people who point out how dumb that is.
Signed happily married guy who doesn’t charge his wife rent
If she has to pay for it then she can bring anyone she wishes into her apartment … with payment come rights.
This sounds like a conversation to have with her, not strangers on the Internet
I’m not sure this is fair. I don’t think this is in lieu of such a conversation, but about some ideas on how to pitch the conversation. If you don’t have any friends in similar circumstances, it’s worth finding out what other people do.
That said, the range of suggestions here is so broad that I’m not sure it’s going to help!
It’s up to both of you. Don’t rely on social norms because it almost always leads to disagreement or when something changes someone feels it’s unfair.
Sit down together and decide what’s fair for your current situation and revisit it every time you adjust the budget. That can be as often as every week or month. Don’t lock yourselves into 1 agreement for ever. Expect it to be fluid and change as your financial situation changes.
As long as you’re both happy with it, it’s fair.
I would suggest not charging her to live there, as you own the place; that might feel excessively transactional. Perhaps what would be most reasonable is to split bills proportionally after you’ve paid your mortgage. If, for example, your mortgage alone was 2000 Euro, you earned 6000 Euro a month, and she earned 4700 Euro a month, you would say that your income was 4000 Euro to her 4700 Euro, and that the split should be about 46% (your share) to 54% (her share).
Like others have said, one option is to have a chat with her.
Another option could be coming up with a percentage that fits your 30% increase in earnings:
Assuming you start with a 50/50 split, we can add a 30% increase to your share:
0.5 * (1 + 0.3) = 0.65This 30% increase leads to a 65/35 ratio, where you would be paying 65%, and she 35%.
Math is off.
He makes 30% more than her. If she makes 100, he makes 130. The total income is 230.
Her income is 43% of that (100/230) and his is 57% (130/230).
My partner and I split all costs based on what we are able to commit to (roughly proportional to income)
I agree it wouldn’t be right for her to pay off your mortgage. But I think either 50/50 or proportionate to income (i.e. 1.3/1) splitting of bills, groceries, and other costs incurred by the both of you, is reasonable. But you’re in relationship, not a contract, so do discuss this with her and see what the both of you would prefer.
I always wonder about that. It seems like a non-issue to me. You’re just paying it, same as always, and the other can contribute when or if they can, what they can. Running costs that do increase with two people, like electricity or water, should be easy to just split some way, since the other’s no longer paying for their rent and utilities.
But why does it have to be some set sum or percentage or whatever? Why does it have to be static in the first place? Why not just let them contribute what they can, when they can, since the money’s not tight?
But of course the real correct answer will always be different for each relationship. And only revealed by talking and assuming each feel comfortable being honest and vocal about their thoughts and neither gets steamrolled or gets left with reservations or doubts about the outcome.
Why does it have to be static in the first place? Why not just let them contribute what they can, when they can, since the money’s not tight?
Who is to decide when and what they can pay then?
It’s also as much about determining the disposable income. If she has a different opinion on what is reasonable to spend on other things that could easily become a can of worms.
“This is what you need to contribute to the household, whatever you do with the rest of your money is not my issue” is much better than: “Hey, I know you’re low on cash but maybe if you cut back on lattes, avocado toast, gambling, booze and cigarettes, we would be able to pay the bills.”
In reality, the fixed amount isn’t very fixed anyway. If one part can’t pay, it’s still unlikely that the partner would kick them out. But as long as money isn’t that tight, it’s simply better to allocate a fixed amount to the household, so the money isn’t disposable for random spending, so they don’t risk overspending or increasing expensive habits.
This isn’t just to curb the costs, but also to avoid the situation in which one part becomes financially dependent on the other, which is also a recipe for disaster for both parts.
As others have said, there is no right answer but here are my thoughts based on my experience.
Mortgage
The apartment is under your name so I would expect you to pay the mortgage.
One thing you could do is that your girlfriend puts a share of the mortgage cost into a savings account under her name. It could be the equivalent of what she’s paying now for her rent of the equivalent of your mortgage minus 30%.
This way if you stay together and decide to buy a new home you can both contribute to it with a nice down payment and if you split up you both get your marbles back.
It also levels your salaries and you are contributing equally to the housing cost so there is no resentment being built on your side.
Utilities and groceries
What I did with my girlfriend (now wife) is that we were doing a pro rata monthly contribution to a bank account that was used for everyday life. In your case you are earning 30% more then you can contribute 30% more to this account. Then everything like electricity, groceries, restaurants together … Was deducted from this account.
It’s quite easy to get a free bank account with two cards so we used that (we used N26 at the time but there are plenty of options, the bank account was technically a single person account with two cards but it did not really matter since we were not keeping a lot of money in it). We started by keeping track of all our expenses on an app like Tricount and regularly balancing our contribution, it’s easy to set up but it requires to keep track of all our expenses and was quite annoying to do on the long term.
To add to these ideas, I’ve heard of a 4 bank account system for couples.
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Joint Checking where living expenses can come from.
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Joint Savings for shared investments. Requires two signatures to move money out.
And then each gets a personal account with their spending money that each gets to do whatever they want with.
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If you want her to pay half of the mortgage it has to be half in her name as well. That should be obvious unless youve already paid the majority off.
Regardless money complicates relationships and at a point in your relationship half your income will become hers and half hers yours, dependent only on where you live.
