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Ask HN: How do you and your spouse handle big income differences?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you and your spouse handle big income differences?

#121

Post by dataflow »

wonnor wrote: post #4

There are three main possible future outcomes: 1. You get divorced and she keeps her money 2. As a couple, you never spend "her" money because it's "her" money. You die having spent none of the money 3. At some point in the future, you start spending "her" money (3) doesn't make sense given she's uncomfortable with it now. (2) also doesn't make much sense. So to me it seems like either she's acting irrationally or ex…

> expects that (1) is a strong possibility

That might be the case, but why couldn't it instead be that she thinks it's unlikely, but still possible (and therefore she needs to be prepared for it)? Like even if she thought there's a 5-10% chance, it doesn't seem irrational to prepare for it? (Note I'm not saying it's a good idea to do this, just saying it seems rational.)

Re: Ask HN: How do you and your spouse handle big income differences?

#122

Post by thrwaway414 »

achenatx wrote: post #117

I dont get this at all. All salary goes into shared accounts, savings gets done first, bills come out etc. We each get an allowance from what is left. This is money that can be spent without judgement/agreement etc. The my money and your money is very weird to me. My wife hasnt worked at a paying job since we got married over 20 years ago.

I'm wondering if it could be a cultural issue. Traditionally, the man has been the main provider. Even though it doesn't make much sense in a modern society, attitudes takes time to adjust.

Maybe she (subconsciously) considers this differently than if the situation was reversed.

Re: Ask HN: How do you and your spouse handle big income differences?

#123

Post by pkrotich »

It might be tempting to go with all shared accounts (our money approach) but it can be a major source of conflicts due personal preferences etc.

I don’t remember where I saw this advice - but it was to the effect of; instead of splitting bills equally, each spouse contribute say 20% of their take home for common bills and X% for emergency funds. With percentages adjusting as bills change of course.

I think that’s a much better approach & distribution of bills based on income.

Re: Ask HN: How do you and your spouse handle big income differences?

#124

Post by KronisLV »

telman17 wrote: post #3

I am currently the main provider and my wife works part time while in school. All money is our money no matter who earned it. It’s never been a point of debate or emotions other than “oh we got more money this month, cool!” in the event of a bonus or extra income. We have a budget and try to stick to it and have occasional vacations or upgrade something in the house. When it comes to finances we are a single unit and…

> I am currently the main provider and my wife works part time while in school. All money is our money no matter who earned it. It’s never been a point of debate or emotions other than “oh we got more money this month, cool!” in the event of a bonus or extra income.

This probably works nicely if you find the right person - someone who has both spending habits that are reasonably similar to yours and when the relationship itself is stable.

But what about situations where:

  - one of the people is more frugal than the other, quite possibly with the other person spending money lavishly on wants, not needs?
  - the relationship may fall apart (breaking up or divorce), either due to different personalities, life circumstances or other factors?
Personally I think that joint finances are rather risky in all but the more stable and long term relationships.

Re: Ask HN: How do you and your spouse handle big income differences?

#125

Post by withinboredom »

xs83 wrote: post #119

I earn a fair bit more than my partner. We have a joint account we pay into for groceries, mortgage, bills etc that I pay a higher % into for day to day / household stuff. This covers off the "required" payments. We do this so she has enough left from her salary to do what she wants to do (save, shop, splurge), keeping independence is important so we otherwise keep finances separate for the most part and neither of u…

With my wife, all our accounts are joint accounts, so we don’t need to ask to “borrow” each other’s money (there’s nothing more annoying than getting a phone call in the middle of a meeting with your spouse asking for 20 bucks). My wife and I have flip-flopped on who has the most money over the years. We still treat each other. However 95% of each other’s income basically goes in the central account for each of us. We have our own money to spend on whatever we want, and each a “secret” savings account for surprising each other for birthdays and Christmas.

Oh, and another thing about having our personal accounts being shared. One time, my wife was flying somewhere and I saw her card being used illegally. I was able to have her card cancelled for her, a new one shipped to where she was staying, with cash waiting for her at reception, before she even landed. If I couldn’t see her account, she would have landed with an empty bank account, and a huge stress bag to deal with. Instead she got texts as soon as she turned her phone on with a whole debriefing of the situation and details on what assets she had access to.

Re: Ask HN: How do you and your spouse handle big income differences?

#127

Post by dqpb »

paxys wrote: post #113

Here's an easy way to go about it – All the money earned by both of you goes into a large pot. You both mutually decide how to spend that pot. There could be disagreements, but "You made $X while I made $2X therefore my vote matters more" should NOT be a consideration. It should be irrelevant whether one side contributed 50% or 5%. Stuff like having separate bank accounts, fighting over who pays what bill and trying…

I have to riff on this:

> All the money earned by both of you goes into a large pot.

Divide that pot into an equal number of bills for each denomination (1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100). Mix thoroughly.

Every day you each get to randomly draw two bills. That’s how much money you get to spend that day.

Enjoy.

Re: Ask HN: How do you and your spouse handle big income differences?

#128

Post by Youden »

willio58 wrote: post #13
telman17 wrote: post #3

I am currently the main provider and my wife works part time while in school. All money is our money no matter who earned it. It’s never been a point of debate or emotions other than “oh we got more money this month, cool!” in the event of a bonus or extra income. We have a budget and try to stick to it and have occasional vacations or upgrade something in the house. When it comes to finances we are a single unit and…

Love this in concept, but life turns out to be complicated over the long term. It's easy to say it's "our" money when you both agree on the same goals and life trajectory, but people have a propensity for change. In 10 years, what if your life goals start diverging? Will it still be "our" money? This isn't a personal question for you, but more something to consider even for myself. I love simplicity and I love trust.…

> But through the years I've experienced relationships that transform from pure love and admiration to pure confusion and being on completely different pages. This may be because I'm young, and maybe relationships become more straightforward later in life. But something tells me people never become less complicated, maybe they just become more complacent.

I know everybody is different but the key for my relationship with my wife has been open communication. There's a clear pattern for us: when we don't talk about a problem, we end up getting upset with each other, but when we do talk about the problem, we come to an understanding and everything is fine.

Another key is that we love each other and if we disagree on something, we're both willing to find compromise.

There are a few big issues where a compromise might not be viable, like having kids or where to live (we're from two very distant countries), but we made sure we agreed on those pretty early on.

My point here is that I don't think age is the solution. Relationships are work. It can't all just be fun and games, you need to talk each other about stuff, build up trust that doing so is safe and be willing to compromise for each other. This is work and without it, the relationship might very well fall apart.

Re: Ask HN: How do you and your spouse handle big income differences?

#129

Post by herbst »

We are not married but together for nearly 6 years. In the beginning she did provide for me more than I wanted to, now I make a lot more than her and encourage her to start a new education to change her job.

Thing is we don't make a huge deal out of it. It's just money and reality is I would earn less wouldn't she support me so it's really also hers.

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