Men and Money!!!

[happyhippy]

Thats true Yvette,my OH might help a little bit round the place,but I do the majority of the housework.As I say to people,I work two jobs!One paid,the other unpaid!So for those of you doing the 50/50 deal,do you factor in housework too?

[boboff]

Thats true Yvette,my OH might help a little bit round the place,but I do the majority of the housework.As I say to people,I work two jobs!One paid,the other unpaid!So for those of you doing the 50/50 deal,do you factor in housework too?

Yes, mostly. We prefer to clean together as a hit once a week. I tend to do the shopping and cooking, and OH the washing and Ironing, but thats not 100%, certainly it would be hugely unfair to expect one person to do the bulk of the chores in and outside the house, but if I am mowing and OH washing, it's still shared. We then share our social time too, we like being together as a family and resent time where we are apart!

[that_sarah_girl]

So for those of you doing the 50/50 deal,do you factor in housework too?

yes definately! when we are both working full-time we take turns cooking, washing up, washing the clothes etc.

Recently when OH was unemployed he would do all the cleaning and cooking and I would pay all the bills.

[Broad Bean]

I work with a woman who earns about a fifth of the amount brought home by her husband. They have a 50/50 rule in their household. This means that she can't afford to go on holiday as all her money is used up trying to pay half the bills. He goes on holiday several times each year with friends while she stays at home. That could never be fair and is clearly nothing to do with good (or bad) money management but is actually very selfish. They've been married for years and seem to have totally forgotten some of their marriage vows. I fully agree that relationships (married or not) should be a 50 / 50 split but that is on effort into the relationship and not necessarily financial. If both partners do what they can within the relationship, be it paid work, child care, household jobs etc and manage to split that in a manner that both agree to be fair (on average, they'll always be times when it's biased one way or the other) then both should be equally entitled to have any benefits of that relationship, be that money, free time or whatever. Clearly this balance will move throughout time and sometimes go off track but fairness is always important and if on party feels that they are entitled to more than the other then it is difficult to see that as an equal partnership. As I mentioned earlier, none of this has anything to do with if men or women are good or bad at financial management and likewise financial management is totally different to financial control. One totally necessary and the other liable to become controlling.

[happyhippy]

Yes I know what you mean!My daughters bf's father recently re married.He earns £61,000 whilst she earns £21,000.He insists she pays 50/50 which I don't think is fair.Unfortunately my daughters bf also thinks the same way.They both work full time,but he has debt up to his eye balls,whereas my daughter does'nt.My daughter pays half of everything but they don't eanr the same amound.She wants to get ahead in life but he's holding them back by his debts.

[boboff]

Wow, you guys share allot of financial information in the family!

I believe 50/50 is fair, BUT only the start.

To go on Holiday on your own, or with friends, and leave your life partner behind, says more frankly about the relationship than the finacial management. The same with your daughter I suppose, they will need to reconcile these major difference's of opinion in financial management at some point. I do say again though as a base, 50/50 is fair, absolutely disregarding income.

When you get married and you earn more or less than your partner, why should that relationshop dictate your own ambition? i.e. If she earns so much less, why not try for promition, retrain, or work longer hours, these are all matter under her control, and to just say it's unfair, and expect a Subsidy, doesn't say much to me regarding that person, indeed in smacks of wanting a replacement Daddy.

Having said that I would give my wife everything I have, in a heartbeat if she needed it.

[Susie]

When you get married and you earn more or less than your partner, why should that relationshop dictate your own ambition? i.e. If she earns so much less, why not try for promition, retrain, or work longer hours, these are all matter under her control, and to just say it's unfair, and expect a Subsidy, doesn't say much to me regarding that person, indeed in smacks of wanting a replacement Daddy.

Having said that I would give my wife everything I have, in a heartbeat if she needed it.

I'm going to be nice. I could not share money, or a life, with someone who thinks sharing money jointly through the realities of one or other of you having career breaks, promotions, children etc is just opportunistic women looking for a replacement daddy: however, I am very glad it works for you and Mrs Boboff.

[boboff]

Oh I didn't mean that at all Susie.

Indeed we have just spent 5 years where I gave up a really good job to be at home, so my wife could train to be a Nurse.

No thats the point I was making, you start at 50/50, but then as you say, your children need looking after, you may want to retrain, go travelling, learn to fly, what ever it is, I think as a couple you want to support the other person, thats the important point, it's two way, and it's give and take over many many many years, hopefully.

But to start with when it's just two people you surely should share things, cleaning, bills etc, and what is left of your wages you choose what, and who to spend it on.

There are women, and men, who see a partners large salary as something they are entitled too, I don't agree with that, and it's that attitude that smacks of wanting to be supported, ala Daddy. Thats all, all those things you mention are 100% totally real and totally good reasons for wanting to move that around abit, without fear of judgement that you are being "supported"

Thank you for being nice, sorry.

[oldjerry]

At risk of being labelled as a class warrior yet again,but there's one advantage of being skint,i.e. the problem doesn't really arise.
In truth,I hate being in debt(inc luding mortgage HP etc) something that all the various Mrs OJ's have gone along with,so,insane as it may seem,any readies left over after food\ shelter\clothing are sortedhas largely gone on becoming debt-free.The debt thing isn't a phobia as such,just a hatred of going out to work and the desire to keep that to a mnimum.

[Susie]

boboff even though you probably still don't like smilies. I see more what you mean now. I was imagining you giving Mrs Boboff annual appraisals and telling her she'd got to up her earning capacity so she could contribute properly to the gas bill.

I think money's just difficult because we all bring our own conditioning/ neuroses to it. My other half says my fear of being given money is so great I'm like a bad Victorian novel, so sometimes when it's his turn to go to the bar he'll give me my lager and cheese and onion crisps and say 'and now you're beholden forever!' with an evil laugh. It all comes from my childhood {heavy sigh}.

[berry]

all of my exes have been terrible with money and im still paying for it!!

first ex insisted we split everything 50/50, at the time i was a student living off a student loan and working my arse off trying to pass that. his earnings were 3x the amount of my loan yet everything was 50/50. it left me with no money for basics like my art materials i needed for the course and ended up with an overdraft. it was funny because as soon as he was sacked from his job... i was expected to pay for everything!

i personally dont agree with a 50/50 split with finance as... in my experience those that earn more tend to have a much more expensive taste in goods (ex wouldnt eat basics/value food whereas i, being a poor student was more than happy too so shopping bill came up much more expensive than it should have)

most recent ex - we never lived together thankfully - was also terrible with money but incredibly tight too! the last straw for that relationship - he asked me out for dinner (i assumed it would at the least be a 50/50 split for the meal) i ended up paying for the lot and the taxi home as he 'lost' his wallet. he was in fact too cheap to pay for dinner

i have on the other hand got a sister who is a little dictator when it comes to bills. hubby earns the wage. she getst he pay packet he gets a tiny bit of "pocket money" out of that while she spends a fortune on rubbish for their kids .

everyones different and i have learned to keep my money as my own. to have all bills in a joint name from tenancy agreements to water rates so should you split you have a claim to only pay half of any arrears. never have a joint account and keep a savings account secreted away for a rainy day because theres nothing wrong with saving your own money should the worst happen.

[Skippy]

Maybe my wife and I are just idle but we've never even worked out if our finances are 50/50 , 60/40 , or 73/27 for that matter. When we married we were both working and opened a joint account , ok so I was earning more but that didn't matter the gross was our combined income and used by both of us as and when.
When my wife stopped working nothing changed although she now sells on e-bay as she wants to make a contribution and that is the key we feel. Actual amounts are unimportant whereas making a contribution is.
At the moment things have changed again as I've been made redundant and so neither of us work but the financial arrangements are still the same albeit with less cash. Neither of us go out and spend without talking about it other than for day to day stuff and we don't have arguments about money (or anything else really).


Pete

[Pumpkin&Piglet]

I feel the post skippy made says a lot. He doesn't argue about much at all

I think if you argue about money it's more to do with your relationship and your attitudes than it is to do with finances. As people in here have shown there are loads of different ways to make it work for you but as long as it does work and someone in the relationship is't left feeling bitter or resentful or missing out on life.

I think if you have difficulty in agreeing how money should be distributed it's because you're general life attitudes or you relationship isn't working somewhere else.

I'm not saying for those us who are not good at dealing with finances or have partners who are not good with finances have bad relationships. It's about how you deal with those difficulties and shortcomings and making sure you take account of them one way or another.

[boboff]

I agree with P&P, very well put.

[southeast-isher]

I went bankrupt amd after that i became very good at looking after my finances.