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My husband and I have fully combined finances but each of us have private, single-owner accounts that are governed by a prenup. Everything else is in a trust owned by us both.
Income wise, 90% of our income goes into to shared account and the 10% goes to private accounts. This allows us to buy gifts for each other or otherwise manage / grow / spent a share of income privately.
As I write this, it sounds sneaky but it was initially set up to fairly manage how different our financial situations were coming into the marriage and counterbalance my baggage from of a DV situation where an ex controlled the money to control me. While we are both in tech, I am more career oriented than he is so I make about 200% what he does. This makes my 10% very outside to his but we both have full transparency into each others private accounts. It seems to work for us as we are 20 years in without an argument about money.
Are you definitely planning to get married?
A 20-40% gap in income is relatively small difference in the scheme of things. Regarding the savings, I’d keep that to yourself. He doesn’t need to know - for multiple reasons.
If you want to buy a home go for it, and have him cover household expenses. I think asking a romantic partner for rent, when you don’t need the financial support, is a bit awkward and unromantic.
Yes I agree. I feel they may be ok with it in the moment but really they don’t “appreciate” it when you pay and do more financially. It’s not a great deal for women given they are not even appreciative. On the contrary, when men pay for women / fund their lifestyles, most women are very appreciative and generally take care of the house!
I wouldn’t buy a house with a SO. If you want to buy a house, buy the house in your name only. If your SO wants to live with you, charge him rent. He should not be contributing to the mortgage nor think he has a claim on the property in any way if you break up. Interest rates are high and buying might not make sense right now anyway. Why not continue to invest your wealth in the market and buy a house with a spouse? My husband and I both owned properties individually before marriage. We did not do a prenup and everything goes in one pot. When we got married he had more wealth and I had more income. We have collectively more than doubled our wealth over the past 5 years.
I was in a similar situation when I started dating my now husband. I bought my first house under my name only, and he contributed to the mortgage. Now, we are married and much more open about our finances. We tally up all of our shared expenses (including daycare for our kid, his student loans, mortgage, any recurring monthly costs like utilities, car insurance, etc.) and split the total amount by our relative compensation. So I end up paying 2-3x what he pays but I also have more comp that doesn’t go into that, which I mostly put into savings.
How would you prefer he manage it if your situations were reversed?
There’s a whole lot of judgment on this thread, the question has clearly triggered a number of women for various reasons. For women to support women, we have to do better. Shaming a young woman in her 20’s for asking for advice to protect her savings is absurd. We should be celebrating her for being smart and ensuring she starts her marriage off with a solid plan. We can all disagree on what a solid plan is and still avoid the judgment of “why did you marry him?”. Trying to convince a young woman that recognizing a wealth gap has the same implication if the roles were reversed is ignorant. Women have only started out-earning men in the last 30 years…it would take centuries for that phenomenon to be a trend or to reverse order men out-earning women. Let’s do better for our female peers and stop judging women for protecting their wealth.
I would be cautious of buying a home when not married….if you do split up there is no legal arbiter to help navigate. So -he could in theory claim it’s half his when he didn’t pay anything. Or he could sign you up for a two salary mortgage then walk away and make you manage it all. I’ve had friends with unfortunate outcomes because the law doesn’t really apply in these cases. If he’s SO …but you haven’t had these discussions….maybe you buy a place. Make him feel involved in choosing furnishing etc but keep all in your name? I’ve seen that work. But get a prenup before you marry it you effectively gift him half of everything that day.
Yes, do not buy property with boyfriends
And EY provided another great reason for 50-50
Run the numbers (expenses) and both parties deposit half of the $ required
Everything else is in separate accounts
I stay single
Big question. Does the SO know the status of your savings? If not, I would probably keep it that way and set some financial goals together to start to evaluate how SO is with their money.
50-50
Keeps things on an even keel
And I hate to say this - do not reveal how much you have saved. But know that, depending on whether you are married and where you live, he may be entitled to half
Bigger question - how do you have nearly a million saved in your 20s?
Just had fast promotions and sound investing :)
i do feel it’s interesting that high income women seem more likely to have spouses / SOs that earn less and are more willing to be helpful around the house. It makes sense cuz it’s complementary. But it’s definitely interesting. I guess the typical “alpha”s are intimidated by us and tend to prefer grouping with the more domestically-minded ladies. How does that make you feel btw in choosing a spouse knowing there is this potentially underlying dynamic?
Same EY1. Same…
There are no perfect answers, you have to trust your intuition and learn to talk openly with your SO about your concerns. Financial intimacy is often harder than physical or emotional intimacy these days.
When I got married, I was 30, owned a home, had large savings, and had income 2x my husband's who rented & had bad credit. I put him on the deed to our home and did joint finances for everything. We paid his debts and repaired his credit. After the birth of my child, I had complications and we decided I would not return to my job. My husband was very understanding about how vulnerable I felt having him be the primary earner. It was hard on MY ego to be financially dependent on a man. LOL We do have a $ limit on personal purchases without running it buy the other one first, but that is the only control either of us have on the budget.
My husband picked up a 2nd job and went to school to improve his job opportunities so we could regain our lifestyle and our budget was lean for many years. He was able to enter my career field and make 2x what I made - gender pay gap is real y'all - I was able to heal and then stay at home and homeschool our children for 10 years and run my own consulting business. My point is, everything can change in a moment's time, so make the best decision you can with what you know and believe at that time and it is OK to change your mind.
A good trust attorney would be worth your time & money. They can educate you about trusts, partnerships vs. marriage, prenups, and legal options to hold assets like real estate separately or together. Marriage is not a 50-50 partnership, legally it is 100-100 - two people are legally seen as 1 person. In a divorce, real estate and cars can be forced to be sold and savings can be divided 50/50 and the higher earning spouse can be required to pay alimony, or child support regardless of gender.
Either way if you have assets, you need to have wills, beneficiaries, and Pay on Death agreements, or it is a huge mess and depending on your state, all your assets could go to the state or be stuck in probate for years and cost your SO or family tons in legal expenses - especially if you are not married and have no children.
This is really hard. Are you planning to combine finances or do you want to keep them separate. I think when you combine finances it becomes really tricky whereas keeping your own bank accounts makes things less difficult.