Practical tips to splitting costs with your partner - Money For Life (2024)

FAQs

Practical tips to splitting costs with your partner - Money For Life? ›

The income-based percentage: Each person pays for a percent of expenses based on their comparative income. For example, if you make 20% more than your partner, you cover 20% more of your shared expenses than they do. This approach can be helpful if one person makes a lot more money than the other.

50-50 Bill Split

Splitting shared bills down the middle is one of the easiest approaches to a joint financial life. Each person pays half. This straightforward approach makes budgeting as a couple consistent. Each person pays half the rent, subscriptions or insurance from individual accounts.

Split bills by income

Consequently, many opt to split bills proportionally according to each person's income. For example, if Person A makes $6,000 per month, and Person B makes $4,000 per month, their total income is $10,000. Person A earns 60% of that, while Person B brings in 40%.

The 50-30-20 rule recommends putting 50% of your money toward needs, 30% toward wants, and 20% toward savings. The savings category also includes money you will need to realize your future goals.

The most common way to use the 40-30-20-10 rule is to assign 40% of your income — after taxes — to necessities such as food and housing, 30% to discretionary spending, 20% to savings or paying off debt and 10% to charitable giving or meeting financial goals.

“I think it's almost not fair to split finances 50-50 without taking into account your partner's financial situation,” said Daigle, who is also a member of the CNBC Financial Advisor Council. “It's really important to get a better financial picture of what's going on with your significant other.”

Separate: You may want to keep your income and spending totally separate. Each of you would have your personal account for deposits and withdrawals, as well as your credit card accounts for charging and loans for borrowing. Combine: Both of you would manage all income and spending from a joint account.

39% of couples had combined all their finances, 39% kept things completely separate, and 22% did a partial combination. A final survey I can bring to your attention is conducted by creditcards.com with a sample size of 2,404 adults. In their survey, they found that 43% of couples had only joint accounts.

Add up your total household income. Then calculate the percentage of that total each individual partner / spouse makes. Now add up your total monthly shared expenses (rent / mortgage, utilities, groceries, joint investing or saving goals, etc).

What is zero cost budgeting? ›

Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) is a method of budgeting in which all expenses must be justified for each new period. The process of zero-based budgeting starts from a “zero base,” and every function within an organization is analyzed for its needs and costs.

In a series of tweets, Ramsey suggested budgeting for food, utilities, shelter and transportation — in that specific order. “I call these budget categories the 'Four Walls. ' Focus on taking care of these FIRST, and in this specific order… especially if you're going through a tough financial season,” the tweet read.

Consider an individual who takes home $5,000 a month. Applying the 50/30/20 rule would give them a monthly budget of: 50% for mandatory expenses = $2,500. 20% to savings and debt repayment = $1,000.

The Rule of 69 states that when a quantity grows at a constant annual rate, it will roughly double in size after approximately 69 divided by the growth rate. The Rule of 69 is derived from the mathematical constant e, which is the base of the natural logarithm.

The 70-20-10 budget formula divides your after-tax income into three buckets: 70% for living expenses, 20% for savings and debt, and 10% for additional savings and donations. By allocating your available income into these three distinct categories, you can better manage your money on a daily basis.

One of the most common types of percentage-based budgets is the 50/30/20 rule. The idea is to divide your income into three categories, spending 50% on needs, 30% on wants, and 20% on savings. Learn more about the 50/30/20 budget rule and if it's right for you.

Try the 50/30/20 rule as a simple budgeting framework. Allow up to 50% of your income for needs, including debt minimums. Leave 30% of your income for wants. Commit 20% of your income to savings and debt repayment beyond minimums.

Splitting expenses in proportion to income is normal

But if you feel you're still not paying your fair share, perhaps you can look at some of your shared expenses and offer to take on more. For example, you could offer to pay for a utility like the internet or the entire grocery bill every other week.

Merge everything together and share all income and expenses.

For example, if one person makes 60 percent of the total household income, they would contribute that percentage of the total monthly joint bills. If there's a large discrepancy in income, splitting expenses 50-50 could lead to problems later.

Some may take turns, share the bill, or follow the rule that whoever requests pays. Couples may decide to split expenditures equally, move in together, or even combine their savings as their relationship progresses. It is entirely up to the pair and how they wish to handle money in their relationship.