Finances in Relationships

Out of curiosity, care to throw down some salary numbers? You both have high-paying jobs, but she makes "a lot more" than you do? The real friction here could be in the difference in your pay. A lot of this, at least in terms of your immediate concerns, come down to her personally, not so much finance in general. Nobody can tell you how much to spend on a wedding. If she wants extravagance, that's a personal thing... You take a 100% loss on these events anyway, minus the value of any gifts you receive that a court wedding wouldn't have garnered.

Just going to forewarn you: There are a lot of different opinions on this, and none of them are wrong. It all depends on the two people involved, and how they feel most comfortable managing things. In the long term, I believe that you should stand your ground, negotiate big expenses, and keep things separate. In the short term, if you're interested in getting this thing off to a good start, I'd let her have the big wedding. Since you're not taking on debt, it'll be water under the bridge when it's over...

pic?

StudentOfGab said:   ajh5408 said:   Out of curiosity, care to throw down some salary numbers? You both have high-paying jobs, but she makes "a lot more" than you do?In terms of salary, I make low six digits, she makes about 175% what I make.Unless you are in an exceedingly high-cost area, I think she can afford an income-split situation comfortably.
StudentOfGab said:   marcvh said:   When you say "sharing costs" how do you mean? Splitting 50-50 isn't really fair in cases like this where incomes are unequal; the classic technique is that joint costs (rent, wedding, that sort of thing) are divided proportionate to your respective incomes.We have been splitting 50-50 so far. She offered to pay a higher % for things she wants more, but I refused because it seemed unfair. I didn't know that dividing proportionate to income was the norm, especially before we're actually married?I think you are being unfair to yourself. People assume the norm is to combine finances. If you made 100K and she made 300K, your combined income is $400K. If you spend 100K/yr from a combined account with no regard to whose purchase it technically was, that is essentially a 25/75 split. So yes, if you assume combined finances to be the norm, and I think most people do, then splitting expenses based on income is also the norm.

marcvh said:   When you say "sharing costs" how do you mean? Splitting 50-50 isn't really fair in cases like this where incomes are unequal; the classic technique is that joint costs (rent, wedding, that sort of thing) are divided proportionate to your respective incomes.

Good point. Since my wife spends 75% of the time raising the kids I only get 25% of time with the kids. If I am doing something with them and I go over my alotted time they get taken away. She also cooks 90% of the time. It is a real bitch eating only 10% of the food. Since I make more of the income she only gets to cook 25% of the food available (cause I pay for 75% of it).

ETA: Hope people realize I am being sarcastic. Good luck in the business relationship with benefits.

Agree on a system or don't get married. You guys aren't agreeing on a system right now which is your problem. The system does not matter as long as both people truly want that system

BTW the classic technique is merge all income. It is both of your money. That is the classic technique. Not to say that a different technique won't work, but what you call the classic technique surely ain't.

Negotiate big expenses? I really hope my wife and I never get to the point where we have to negotiate anything. I hope that I continue to do things she wants and loves (and vice versa) because I love her.

mikef07 said:   marcvh said:   When you say "sharing costs" how do you mean? Splitting 50-50 isn't really fair in cases like this where incomes are unequal; the classic technique is that joint costs (rent, wedding, that sort of thing) are divided proportionate to your respective incomes.

Good point. Since my wife spends 75% of the time raising the kids I only get 25% of time with the kids. If I am doing something with them and I go over my alotted time they get taken away. She also cooks 90% of the time. It is a real bitch eating only 10% of the food. Since I make more of the income she only gets to cook 25% of the food available (cause I pay for 75% of it).

ETA: Hope people realize I am being sarcastic. Good luck in the business relationship with benefits.

Agree on a system or don't get married. You guys aren't agreeing on a system right now which is your problem. The system does not matter as long as both people truly want that system

BTW the classic technique is merge all income. It is both of your money. That is the classic technique. Not to say that a different technique won't work, but what you call the classic technique surely ain't.

Negotiate big expenses? I really hope my wife and I never get to the point where we have to negotiate anything. I hope that I continue to do things she wants and loves (and vice versa) because I love her.

Thanks, your sarcasm really goes to show how stupid my current point of view and how broken our current "system" is. Great advice. (I mean that completely non-sarcastically) We do love each other a lot, and you're right that we need to figure out a real system that works for both of us. A related issue is that she doesn't enjoy talking with me about finances, but I think this thread so far goes to show that that's largely my fault because of my stupid views about finance. If I approach it more as a love relationship than a business relationship, that would probably go a long ways to making our finance talks a lot more amicable.

Based on my experience with women:
They are nice to u when everything is perfect, but once shit hits the fan, they will come after even your airline miles. (even if they have a lot more $ than u)

jkimcpa said:   Unfortunately for us men, happy wife, happy life.

Don't spend your life trying to make someone else happy. Its a losing game.

In my house, there is no splitting expenses, no negotiating, etc. Household income, household expenses, period.

Many couples give themselves "allowances" so that they don't have to explain their purchases to each other. Many couples also establish a threshold for purchases that they need to discuss first.

jkimcpa said:   patch96 said:   jkimcpa said:   Unfortunately for us men, happy wife, happy life.

Don't spend your life trying to make someone else happy. Its a losing game.

I chose to marry my wife because I knew I didn't have to spend my life trying to make her happy.

how long u been married for?

Have you had any friendly, non-confrontational, big picture discussions about what to do with your money? For example:
* I think we should save x%/$x per month
* I think we should be saving our money for _____.
* I want to retire at age __.
* I think our house/apr/condo should cost $x.
* I've analyzed our monthly spending, and here's the breakdown.
* I think our monthly budget should look like this.

Rather than sorting everything out on an ad hoc fighting basis, try to establish some points of agreement, then give some thought to where you need to compromise and where she needs to compromise.

A few clarifications:

1. We're not married yet, we're still engaged. I wasn't planning on sharing finances until after we're officially married, but it does appear we need a system now.
2. While she makes more and saves more, I do have a significantly higher current net worth. This is because she went to graduate school and I did not, so she had significant loans to pay off first and I had an earlier start on my career. If we maintained separate finances, she would however catch up in a few years.

I don't think I would feel comfortable in a system where I just let her call all the shots even if #2 above wasn't true. It's not like 30% of the net income is an insignificant amount. I guess that's especially true for now since we are splitting costs 50-50.

jkimcpa said:   jigsaw1975 said:   jkimcpa said:   jigsaw1975 said:   jkimcpa said:   patch96 said:   jkimcpa said:   Unfortunately for us men, happy wife, happy life.

Don't spend your life trying to make someone else happy. Its a losing game.

I chose to marry my wife because I knew I didn't have to spend my life trying to make her happy.

how long u been married for?

Yea yea...only been 3 years.

Lets connect back in 10 years and after a few kids.

Already have 2 kids.

with the married one?

jigsaw1975 said:   
with the married one?

Yup.

jkimcpa said:   jigsaw1975 said:   
with the married one?

Yup.

Good on ya,cobber!

StudentOfGab said:   BarryAndLevon said:   Have you had any friendly, non-confrontational, big picture discussions about what to do with your money? For example:
* I think we should save x%/$x per month
* I think we should be saving our money for _____.
* I want to retire at age __.
* I think our house/apr/condo should cost $x.
* I've analyzed our monthly spending, and here's the breakdown.
* I think our monthly budget should look like this.

Rather than sorting everything out on an ad hoc fighting basis, try to establish some points of agreement, then give some thought to where you need to compromise and where she needs to compromise.

We've had amiable discussions about some of these points and established some points of agreement, mainly about what we should be saving our money for (house/retirement) and how much our house should cost. We've had discussions about our current saving, spending and budget, but because we've kept separate finances, it's basically all individual and we haven't worked something out jointly.

I did find out two possibly major issues in these discussions that are so far unresolved.
1. I want to retire earlier than typical retirement age, she is very career driven and wants to work until she can't.
2. Buying a house earlier is a higher priority for me than her.

Based on everything so far, looks like we should really sit down and figure out how everything should work jointly.have you talked about kids yet? If you guys are complete opposite in regards to retirement and buying a house, what about kids?

sounds like nothing has ever really been discussed until you now got engaged.

StudentOfGab said:   rmhop said:   have you talked about kids yet? If you guys are complete opposite in regards to retirement and buying a house, what about kids?

sounds like nothing has ever really been discussed until you now got engaged.

We talked about kids. We are in agreement about that fortunately - want 2, want 1st one in a few years. We discussed the other things before engagement, but ignored actually resolving our differences, which I guess is more or less as good as just not discussing them at all.it sounds like you both want to be in control of the finances and that's why you are butting heads about it. my wife and i always talked about finances before we were married. We actually ended up buying our house and she lived in it before we got married so she didn't have to pay rent somewhere etc. It's funny bc we bought the house just in my name and she paid for utilities and i paid for mortgage/taxes etc. Everything was out in the open long before we got engaged. Part of my few duties is taking care of the finances and bills. That doesn't mean i make all the decisions. Any big purchase we talk about before we buy it, but a few hundred dollars is not a big issue. There are some couples that have to approve every transaction basically but that's not how we work. Really sitting down and coming up with a game plan is what you guys need to do.

There are also other couples who don't want finances together and don't want their spouse knowing about what they do with their money. My MIL and her husband have been married about 15 years now and they don't have a single dollar together, they split every bill down the middle. Sad thing, they don't have a clue about each others finances. They are near retirement age so should be interesting to see if that is going to cause major issue when one of them comes out with a bunch of debt etc..

Kids are a big deal. In my experience kids bring out a lot of differences in parenting styles, some of which spill over into the financial realm. A lot depends on how you and her were raised. What are your expectations -- private schools for the kids? Do you live or can you buy in an area with a great school district? Growing up, did she or you have a family environment where every desire was met? Or did you or her do chores and help with the family income? What do you and her expect to do upon having kids -- mom stays at home? You stay at home? Given that her income is higher and she likes to work she might expect to continue working while you stay at home. Have you discussed this with her?

Kanosh said:   Kids are a big deal. In my experience kids bring out a lot of differences in parenting styles, some of which spill over into the financial realm. A lot depends on how you and her were raised. What are your expectations -- private schools for the kids? Do you live or can you buy in an area with a great school district? Growing up, did she or you have a family environment where every desire was met? Or did you or her do chores and help with the family income? What do you and her expect to do upon having kids -- mom stays at home? You stay at home? Given that her income is higher and she likes to work she might expect to continue working while you stay at home. Have you discussed this with her?

We both went to public school and were expected to do very well in school by our parents. We were expected to do chores at home. We have similar morals, politics and religion. We didn't help with family income and had our undergrad paid for by our parents. We agreed that we want similar things for our kids.

When we have kids, we discussed both of us working part-time, me being a full-time stay at home dad, and hiring a nanny. All three are options on the table that I think we would both be happy with, but we haven't decided on an actual action yet.

Edit: We were also encouraged to participate in extra-curricular activities but not required to. Our parents didn't buy us whatever we wanted - we drove beater cars until we could buy our own (we both bought used) and had very few toys as children.

mikef07 said:   StudentOfGab said:   Kanosh said:   Kids are a big deal. In my experience kids bring out a lot of differences in parenting styles, some of which spill over into the financial realm. A lot depends on how you and her were raised. What are your expectations -- private schools for the kids? Do you live or can you buy in an area with a great school district? Growing up, did she or you have a family environment where every desire was met? Or did you or her do chores and help with the family income? What do you and her expect to do upon having kids -- mom stays at home? You stay at home? Given that her income is higher and she likes to work she might expect to continue working while you stay at home. Have you discussed this with her?

We both went to public school and were expected to do very well in school by our parents. We were expected to do chores at home. We have similar morals, politics and religion. We didn't help with family income and had our undergrad paid for by our parents. We agreed that we want similar things for our kids.

When we have kids, we discussed both of us working part-time, me being a full-time stay at home dad, and hiring a nanny. All three are options on the table that I think we would both be happy with, but we haven't decided on an actual action yet.

Full time stay at home dad AND a nanny?

Wow.

Sorry, that wasn't very clear. There were 3 distinct options there:

1. Both part-time
2. Nanny
3. Stay at home dad

I didn't mean both options 2 and 3 at the same time. The list above is roughly ordered in what our joint preference seems to be right now.