My girlfriend (23F) has been living in my (now our) (27M) flat for about 6 months. Due to family issues, she had to leave her main place immediately and moved about 80% of her stuff to my place. Her parents live separately, and she was living about 60/40 between his and my place. After our vacation in October, she basically moved in fully and only occasionally slept at her dad’s.
We talked about her supporting me financially once she got her fulltime job, as she was in training and not getting any real money, only part-time work, and she could barely pay for gas and subscriptions.
She should have been able to finish her degree in September, but a car accident made it impossible to finish the final exams, and now she has to wait and is unable to find a fulltime job.
In November, she got more hours and a real contract at her part-time job. Together with the subsidies, her income was around 1300 after taxes. Mine is about 2400. Fixed costs for the flat are about 1050. I used an online calculator that shows how much each person pays according to their income. I also subtracted about 120 from her part as she helps around the house more than I do.
During this process (which is never nice because money talk), it became clear that her idea was different from what I suggested and thought was fair. According to her, she talked to different people and almost all said she should at most help out with groceries and maybe the internet or electricity bill.
Basically, her idea was paying about 150, and the reality was about double. We also split costs for groceries and freetime expenses etc. by the same principle: 1 part her, 2 parts me.
I thought this was the fairest and most objective way to handle the situation. She was sad/mad that her first actual paycheck/ the money she had freely availaben was effectively lower than expected and that she now wasn’t able to buy the shoes and clothes she wanted and that her expectation, set by people around her, was not met.
AITA for splitting our fixed cost by income?
NTA. Based on title, I thought it was going to be her making more than you and you mooching. Half and half on expenses is fair, and in this case you went beyond that with income factoring in, and it’s still not good enough? That’s audacious of her.
So the flat alone is 1050 and she wants to pay 150 “help” with food electricity and internet?
NTA.
But you need to push through with this conversation as uncomfortable as it can be when speaking about money and cohabiting.
Splitting based off of a proportion of income is generally pretty fair when there are major discrepancies in income. You can even extend that when splitting up for certain holidays/events etc to make it fair for all.
You aren’t by any means making an unreasonable request here.
She sounds like a greedy mooch. NTA.
NTA. Proportion of incone is the fairest way to split expenses.
Who are these people she is listening to? I would take a good hard look at them to see what your future with this woman will look like
NTA, for me it is the only way to go. You would be the asshole if you wanted her to pay 50/50 with you, but you are not. It’s what we’ve been doing in our household since we moved in together. Opened a shared account, made a budget of all our shared bills (housing, grocery, tv/internet/phone, electricity, insurance) and divided it with the % of our income. We added up both our salary and calculated the % of our combined income each represented. If one is making 40% of the househould income, they pays 40% of all the shared bills. We still kept our personnal account tho and our personal bill (student loan, car). At each paychecks we send the etablished amount into the shared account and the rest of our paycheck we use it in any ways we want to.
The only way you might be the AH is if what you are calling a flat is your house/condo and not a location. You are not mentionning that so I assume you are renting. But if it is your house and you want her to pay a % of your mortgage, it is problematic because she help you pay for a house that isnt hers. If it’s the case, you need to add her on the mortgage so she is also paying toward her future not only yours. So if it is your house, she can help pay for food and some commodities but not the mortgage/taxe/insurance etc. That would be ridiculous to make her pay a part of your house.
*If* it’s his house, he still has a mortgage to pay.
That is still a housing expense.
Why is it acceptable to pay part of the rent but not part of the housing expenses if the person that actually owns it is the boyfriend?
It’s acceptable to sponge off the person who owns the house.If you’re dating them, even though they still have a monthly housing payment?
When you pay rent, you’re helping your landlord pay the mortgage…
YTA. How can you both make such assumptions with no conversation or agreement? You can’t just expect her to pay, she lives two places. Be a grown up and have a conversation where you both can express your views and listen.
NTA. If she doesn’t like the split, she can feel free to move out. Offer to help her pack.