Thursday, October 28, 2010

I recently moved in with my boyfriend. How should we divide the bills?

Been with my bf for 6 months. He asked me to move in and when I did I offered to help with bills and he said ';don't worry about it.'; His divorce is almost final and he'll take away about 20k in debt. I have no debt, but I make 35k and he makes 150k. He doesn't know exactly how much I make and I'm an artist, so it's very up and down anyway. I have some family money in stocks and some other money saved and we agreed I will continue to save for a down payment on a house for us, which I believe was why he said not to worry about the bills. We talk about marriage and agree that once married his debt is mine and what I've saved will help pay the debt off. A few days ago he said we need to divide up the bills. He assures that nothing has changed and that it has nothing to do with his divorce. He claims he only suggested it because I offered to pay for his cell phone and a few other things...he said he thought me offering meant I wanted to divide things up. I feel like he's only saying this because I questioned why he changed his mind. Then he said to keep it easy I could just take a few utilities. I asked him to send me an email of his thoughts b/c this is my first time doing this and it's his 2nd. When I received his email it had the bills and rent broken down 50/50 at 1150 a person. A big jump from a few utilities. He's told me before that he paid every bill with his ex..before and after they were married and even though she made 75k (I don't know why he disclosed all of this information about his ex, but he did). They had separate accounts and she saved for retirement. It seems as though he gladly paid their living expenses, which is why I didn't think anything when he said I didn't have to pay. After reading his email we had a talk and I explained how it really bothered me that he said not to worry about it and then wanted to divide things up. After a long talk, he explained why he did this (as I explained above) and said we should keep things the way they've been.

I'm out of town, but when I get back I'm going to, by choice, take some utilities and set up some bill pays. I don't want to burden him or for him to resent me. I don't want things to be weird about money with us. Should I pay more, less, the $1150 he suggested?...Suggested AFTER I moved my stuff it..let me just say that again..ha ha..

Ok, that you so much for your help and responses.I recently moved in with my boyfriend. How should we divide the bills?
Just pay 50/50 like he said. You don't want to pay more then him and make him feel bad, but you don't want to pay less and make it seem like your not pulling your weight. So just split them down the middle like he said. And if you can't afford to do that, then just do the best you can.

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