Dear Penny: I live with my girlfriend, who makes more money than me. She complains I don’t pay enough toward bills. What’s fair?
I live with my girlfriend and pay $700 in rent, half of groceries and all bills in my name, plus cook most of our meals. She owns our home, which is worth more than half a million dollars, as well as a condo in Mexico. She’s a retired professor receiving a pension plus Social Security benefits totaling $8,000 per month. I’ve worked in the arts as a contract employee with universities for 17 years and net $2,500 per month.
We’re not married, and I am not listed as joint tenancy with right of survivorship on her properties. She wanted me to live with her, but now she complains I don’t pay enough. What is fair?
— Significantly Poorer Other
Dear Significantly,
Managing money and splitting expenses as a couple is always a tricky subject, and it’s exacerbated when your finances are significantly different. Determining how to do this in your relationship isn’t necessarily about what’s “fair,” but about what makes you both feel like you’re secure and supported in a life you’re building together.
Dealing with money in a relationship is usually much less about the dollars and cents and much more about the feelings and history around money that you bring with you into a relationship.
It might help to start a conversation with why you set the payment agreements you have now. Why did $700 rent make sense when you agreed to it? Why did the grocery split make sense? Why did you take on the work of cooking? How does that fit with the domestic labor she contributes? How do the finances fit with the financial contributions she makes?
Then ask what’s changed. Has living together brought up feelings about money she didn’t anticipate? Is she experiencing anxiety around retirement income? Is she getting messages that have changed her mind about what you owe her? Have you realized you weren’t fully on the same page when you made the original agreements? It’s not your job to reverse these feelings to revert to your original agreement. Talk through how living together impacts your relationships with money, so you can adjust your plan with that in mind.
Once you agree to a plan, put it in writing. Sign a lease, even if it’s simple. This process is important to head off future legal disputes, yes; but it’ll also help you each see in black and white what you’ve agreed to so you can tweak it if it doesn’t align with your expectations. A lease also presents you with a periodic (e.g. annual) checkpoint to discuss any changes.
Dana Miranda is a Certified Educator in Personal Finance® and author of YOU DON’T NEED A BUDGET. She writes Healthy Rich, a newsletter about how capitalism impacts the ways we think, teach and talk about money.
