Quote:
Originally Posted by tvp2003
I have an issue with this reasoning -- and this isn't specifically directed at MarchHare but it's captured in his quote. The fact is that once you're married, you aren't single anymore. It's no longer two people living single lives but with rings on their fingers (I'm oversimplifying of course) but one family unit, and her finances are tied to yours and yours to hers. In a perfect world, you make the same income and split all the bills and life is easy. But what if she loses her job? Or what if you start earning more? Does not mean you get to live a better life with your extra discretionary income whereas she doesn't get to buy as much "cool stuff" once all the bills are paid? Not saying it can't work (and if it does, more power to you), but the whole "50-50 split mentality" would only seem to make sense if there are two incomes and both are very similar.
|
Funny thing: in 2009, I lost my job and my wife got a raise, exactly the situation you described in the bolded section but in reverse. Thankfully I was only out of work for a few months and found a new job (higher-paying, no less) while still receiving severance pay (I also had several thousand dollars saved in a "rainy day" account), but
if I had been unemployed for an extended period, we had discussed that my wife would temporarily take on an additional financial burden and pay for some or all of my share of the household expenses until I found a new job. Naturally, I'd do the same for her if the situation was reversed.
To your second point, our salaries are pretty similar (she makes a few thousand per year more than me), so we agreed to split all shared costs 50-50; if there was a larger discrepancy (say one of us was making $75k and the other $50k), we'd likely divide up shared household expenses as a percentage of income (i.e. the person making $75k would pay for 60% of joint expenses and the person making $50k would pay for 40%).
Quote:
|
Again, not trying to attack those who do the whole "50-50 plus an allowance" system -- just looking to expand the discussion past the dual income no kids phase...
|
Well, my wife and I have decided that we're never going to leave the dual income no kids phase, so that will never be an issue for us.
I can see how the system could break down once children enter the picture, though, especially if one spouse leaves the workforce for a significant length of time.
Also, we've never really thought of our personal money as an "allowance". I think there's three primary ways you can handle finances in a marriage:
1) Payroll is deposited into a joint account, all purchases (both individual and shared) are made from this account
2) Payroll is deposited into a joint account, each spouse receives an "allowance" transfer into a private account for personal expenses
3) Payroll is deposited into personal accounts, each spouse transfers a budgeted amount into a joint account for shared expenses
We've chosen to use method 3), and it's worked extremely well for us. For other families, though, particularly if there are children or a large difference between each spouse's income, one of the other methods might work better.