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

If we make an expenditure out of the team accounts, it gets authorized by both of us, either explicitly (for big stuff) or through an enduring understanding (like groceries).

Non-team money lives in individual accounts, for the individual to do whatever they'd like. If one partner wants to go big on something, it is their prerogative. If one partner wants to go big on something that ultimately becomes a team item or improvement to a team asset, they can do that, too.

Works for us. We check in about it informally a couple of times a year, and definitely with an annual review.

As the lower-earner, I've definitely felt as though I'm not necessarily pulling my weight, but my partner seems happy with the arrangement. There are always asymmetries in relationships; a key may be to keep them in some sort of dynamic balance, whereby in aggregate, something good happens for everyone concerned.

We've operationalized this as: 1. Determine how much we want/need to spend on joint things (groceries, mortgage, vacation fund, etc)., call this B for budget. 2. Look at how much we're each making, M for me and H for her. 3. Find the fraction of our money X (which is roughly speaking equivalent to fraction of hours worked in our case) Such that XM + XH = B 4. We each contribute our respective portion to a joint account, and pay for all joint things out of the joint account. 5. We each keep the rest of our money in our own accounts, to do with whatever we like.

You might need to add a couple of terms to account for different work schedules.

Knowing that we're both contributing equal _effort_ to everything makes the inequalities (I contribute more to shared stuff, but also have a bigger personal discretionary budget) not seem like such an issue.

We originally had a weekly allowance - booze money - when we weren’t making much for meals out/seeing friends but in the last couple years just use the joint credit card for that stuff since relative to our other expenditures it’s nothing.

Now we reinvest all my RSUs in trackers, and have a monthly spending goal that’s 20% less than our combined salaries that lets us save money for vacations and house stuff without hitting investments. Bonuses and stuff like we treat as “fuck it” money.

My hobbies are way more expensive than hers, so we do have discussions about stuff quite often, but it’s never been a problem - usually I just have to wait until a big enough bonus comes along if it’s something dumb like my project car.

Maybe it helps that when we started I was making 4x less than her and am now making 4x more.

I have lived this and my best advice is that you should be equal partners. From personal experience, each partner contributes different strengths and abilities. Money is easy to divide and represents life energy but there is more to a partnership.

Equal partners does not mean exactly the same effort. Do you split the household chores exactly 50%? Probably not. I look at this in the same light.

Also, circumstances change. Right now your wife is making more money. If she suddenly got laid off, would you support her with "your" money? (Yes.) If one of you got an inheritance, would that be carved off and only spendable by the inheritor? (No.) If you got a sizable gift from your parents, would it be yours singular or yours plural (plural). If she had a kiddo and wanted to stay home, would you support her with "your" money? (Yes.)

As far as nuts and bolts, talk about goals, talk about frustrations, talk about the challenges. There are financial counselors out there: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/13/business/financial-therap... they might be helpful. Or a straight up marriage counselor.

Compromise. Maybe there are things that your wife wants to buy that she feels like she should be able to. That should be a compromise and discussion because she wants to be in partnership with you.

Things to avoid:

   * hidden bank accounts
   * ignoring this issue