The lending money thread got me thinking about this a bit and thought I’d see what everyone else’s opinions are on this.
In a relationship, how are you (and your partner/former partners) about splitting expenses? Things change, depending on how serious/long term the relationship is of course, but in general how do you like to do things? In relationships, I’ve done 50/50 down to the last cent via spreadsheets (but I hated this but it made sense since we lived together and there was a lot to split), letting a guy get the first few dates and then I picked up the tab on the next few or we split them (not a serious relationship), and living with my current husband we’ve done both 50/50 and proportional rent to our incomes (when they got disproportionate) and not sweating the small stuff (but we’re married and now very much think of all the money as ours).
I think because I’m kinda a loosey-goosey person, I don’t like keeping tabs on things (unless it really wont even out) and my feeling is that as long as no one is feeling like they’re getting ripped off, it’s all good (but split major expenses). But I suspect I am not of the popular opinion, so what say you?
Generally
50/50 always
Proportional to income
Split the big things, don’t worry about small things
Shannii and I are in a bit of a weird situation where I don’t think either of us really minds paying for stuff (I hope not anyway!) I have a far lower income, so of course I’m not the perfect one for this kinda thing.
I just know I’m happy to split/pay/be paid for, personally >.<
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is that you have similar styles. I have friends that did spreadsheets up until marriage because they wanted to be sure no one was paying “too much” and they both were into it but like, idk, that’s not me. I’d hope if my husband felt like he was paying too much, he’d tell me and vice versa. Money is weird to talk about but I think problems arise when you can’t/won’t/don’t talk about it until you’re really upset!
Yeah, I agree that people put a little too much stock in money and funds, tbh. It’s very American imo. That money is inherently tied to your worth and happiness so sharing it is the most important thing in the world.
Like, my parents have things split and obviously they pay for certain things but it can change a lot. Like rent is split, but my mum pays the car insurance even though the car is under my dad’s name. But for little things here and there or for shopping and the like they just base it on the moment. Who has more money that day? Who wants more from the shopping? It’s pretty off-the-cuff, but also planned in a few ways. I like that way of doing things. It seems the least stressful imo.
Though, yeah, some people may be into spreadsheets and splitting everything perfectly 50/50. The word I would use is ‘efficient’. And it definitely is, I just don’t get into relationships for ‘efficiency’ personally xD
Yeah, my parents split stuff weirdly too and that probably should have made me split things more efficiently (because one of the reasons my mom feels like she can’t divorce my dad is because splitting up the finances would be too tricky (she worked the entire time and my dad worked only a bit while I was growing up but got some money from his parents passing)) but I think my marriage will be different so I don’t worry about it too much.
Yeah, money is very tied to worth of an individual, culturally and it’s hard to break out of that paradigm. Now that I’m not working for a bit, I feel a bit useless but then I remind myself that what value was I bringing to the world while working besides financing our CEO’s 2nd Tesla?
Also, since we don’t have much of a social safety net (like free healthcare and such), we either horde our money like misers or spend like there’s no tomorrow on credit cards that we pay off with credit cards and there’s no in between? Idk money is weird.
It seems super American to me mostly because I’ve never actually thought about how I would split my money with a SO. It’s always just been ‘Eh, we’ll get to that when we get to it’.
It feels particularly American to me because the idea of having to have the money to cure a disease is madness to me. Like, of course your worth is tied to your wealth when you have to literally afford to stay alive
I feel like I’m too inexperienced to contribute to this but I do enjoy reading through it because I have always wondered about financial etiquette in relationships
Now that you’re here I hope I’m not an annoying drain on your finances and that it’ll cause inevtable strain on an otherwise functional relationship c:
Also not to pull the age card, but I was only your age when I started thinking about this kinda stuff since that’s when I moved in with a guy for the first time and money became an actual conversation in the relationship. Before that, it was at most a couple dinners here and there that we’d split or one of us would pick up the tab. Money wasn’t a huge concern then since it wasn’t like rent/utilities/food/furniture which all adds up.
So maybe a better discussion for the younger audience is, who pays for a date?
I tend to be a money where your mouth is feminist, but I wasn’t always (esp when I was a poor college student haha), so now I enjoy paying for stuff but some women/men are more traditional and prefer in hetero couples that the dude always pays, or at least pays for the first date. I think it should be whoever asked or suggested the restaurant (esp if it’s a first date and you don’t know the other person’s budget). But I don’t have a ton of traditional dating experience because I was a hoe
I have an out of this because I paid for my and @ShanniiWrites’ first date xD But I think it should be based on a couple to couple basis. The least stressful way is usually the best way. If money and finances stress you out, having it all planned and accounted for is a very, very good idea. If having a relationship set out in spreadsheets stresses you out (like me, I hadn’t even moved in with this girl and she was already splitting everything in spreadsheets and logging every payment both of us made and it was stressing me out) then maybe a better approach would be to take it as it comes.
Stress reduction is the most important part of living imo, if you can notice xD
Also play the age card! You have more experience than me for sure, even if you don’t look it
Off-topic story which we’ll pretend me is sharing wisdom: Somehow my husband and I spent six hours at Ikea today and did not have one fight, not even a passive aggressive remark and everything that could go wrong, did. First he lost our nice tape measure (inches and cm will be hard to replace here) at the store and I exploded a paint can at the cash register and just normal Ilea stuff on an empty stomach because we didn’t eat until 4 pm.
This story stresses me out. I mean at least she was trying to be super egalitarian about it but at what cost??? I mean i guess she knew the cost down to the cent.
Also, there are better apps than spreadsheets for this nowadays. If I go on a group trip or something, I end up using Splitwise so that one person can pick up groceries, another one gets dinner on a night out, and another pays for accommodations and the app with even it all out, which is nice and not stressful really. But it’s unnecessary for two people imo.
So I agree with you, stress reduction is the best way!
