Hi all,

I could do with some perspective on a situation that I’m in (and just to get it out of my system).

Little background, I’ve been with my GF for 7 years. We only started living together last year due to being at different universitys. We lived together when I did my Msc and she finished her final year.

When she finished, she looked for jobs and found one in an area we had never been to before so fresh start. We looked for houses and found a flat that is about 35mins from her work without traffic. I was finishing off my MSc so I said fine, I’ll move in with her and find a job locally when I’ve finished my dissertation. Distance from her work was agreed to beless than ideal but I was never asked to pay towards petrol/car.

Fast forward 6 months, I’ve got my first full time job in the town that we live in and she still commutes. It takes her about 1 hr each way with traffic. It takes me 25 mins by bike. Now, she wants me to pay half of her petrol bill (about £100/month) until we can move halfway between our two jobs or just continue paying if we stay in the flat. There was a sixth month break claws in which we could move flat but we decided not to, shortly after she asked me to start paying. We now have to wait another 6 months until we can move.

I have no issue with contributing towards the petrol and have been paying for petrol on weekends when we use it together, but she wants me to pay the £100/month. That’s £1200/yr for her to go work. This is also assuming my commuting costs are £0.

She insists that if I lived further away and my commuting costs were higher, then she would pay the difference so its 50/50.

Does this sound fair? Am I being a tight/stingy…

Many thanks.

Do you love her?

Then suck it up.

depends if you are a couple or a flat share with benefits?

Do you split other household/running costs?

Is there any difference in earnings?

Personally, if it was me I would pay it, but I earn more than mrs file so wouldn’t see the point in her being poorer because (a) i wouldn’t like that and (b) i’d end up paying for it one way or another anyway

Perhaps suggest she buys a more economical car? 😉

get a joint account.

Both pay in your combined ‘living costs’ (including cars, bills, food, insurance etc).

What’s left in your account is yours.

Joint account for “fuel” and other expenses. (see, wwaswas is right )
Family member used to keep all his wages & expenses separate from his wife’s. Doesn’t work. (Although they are still together and we’re not 🙂 )

If £1200/yr bothers you, get shot of her and spend the money on hookers.

Joint account for us – fuel for my mental commute just comes out of it.

Thanks for the replies.

1- we share all other bills 50/50
2- She earns about £1.5k more than me (really dosent bother me).
We both have similar costs- shes paying the same on her car as I am for my MSc fees.

Probably should just pay.

After 7 years and now living together I assumed money would have stopped being ‘yours’ and ‘hers’ anyway?

we just take all petrol out of our joint account, most of the travel is me but its a living expense for both of you.

I suggest you get a joint account and both put in a balanced amount so that you are both left with the same amount at the end of the month.

I pay £1300 in wife pays £900 – that covers all our expenses and we are left with the same ‘spending/saving’ money each

I would say your attitude is a touch childish but depends on the balance of pay/jobs

Buy her a bike.

It’s not completely unreasonable, I know a few couple who do it this way and if you had a joint bank account it’s how it would work anyway. It’s pooling your finances which despite me bring married me and Mrs lunge still don’t do, whether you’re comfortable with that is your call and not mine!

Sounds cheap not to have to commute by car yourself. I’d rather pay that than move further away and have to commute by car…..

Eh? I’m married and we both commute by car, I have a fuel card my wife pays for her own fuel, she’s decided to do that job so she covers the costs. If you’re going all out split down the middle then fine, that’s one thing but to cherry pick costs to be ‘shared’ is a p!ss take. If you said ‘well get another job then’ you’d get pretty short shrift I imagine.

Okay, cheers everyone.
Spoke to my brother who seemed horrified that I should pay it which got me thinking.

I’ll just pay.

Negotiation is the way forward. She wants you to pay her fuel. Is there ANYTHING you’d like her to do?

After 7 years and now living together I assumed money would have stopped being ‘yours’ and ‘hers’ anyway?

A very valid point

When mrs xiphon and I moved in together, a joint account (for household/fuel/etc) seemed a sensible and easy choice.

I was working, she was still a student…. so I contributed 90% of the ‘shared’ account.

I’ll just pay.

That’s the spirit!

Let it become a mantra as your lives together progress.

1- we share all other bills 50/50
2- She earns about £1.5k more than me (really dosent bother me).

That’s £1200/yr for her to go work.

If you want to avoid paying for the fuel, there’s a basis for your argument in there…. 😉

1. I’m worried they give Masters to people who don’t know the difference between ‘claws’ and ‘clause’. I hope you never meet a bear.

2. It’s only money. Get a joint account and forget about it.

RM.

Hmmm, I think it’s a bit odd tbh.

Either have a joint account and buy the fuel with that, or don’t.

If you’d got a new job somewhere and told her she had to move then I could kind of understand her saying “okay, but you can pay the extra”. But she agreed to live there, she was happy (enough) with the commute and then decided 6 months later, (once you were lucky enough to get a job nearer than hers) that because you choose to ride to work you owe her money… 😕

Or you can start arguing that she uses more gas and electricity than you when she’s got the central heating/hairdryer/straightners etc on so she owes you £50/week. 😉

I have exactly the same with my wife. petrol costs are circa 120 quid a month for her to go to work, I cycle into my office.

it comes out of the joint account,. so I pay half. suck it up…

I’ll just pay.

That’s the spirit!

Let it become a mantra as your lives together progress.

*sigh* “Yes dear”

😆

Either go 50/50 on bills.

Or pay a certain percentage out of your wages into the joint account to cover bills and expense.

So if you can cover expenses with %20 of each of your wages, then thats what you pay. You then each have %80 for yourself. Adjust to suite your circumtances/ lifestyle.

johndoh – Member
After 7 years and now living together I assumed money would have stopped being ‘yours’ and ‘hers’ anyway?

Mrs Clubber and I had separate accounts as well as a joint account for 10+ years before we properly went to shared money and even now we both have a fixed amount transferred to our own accounts to budget for ourselves. Worked/works fine for us, it was only when she went on maternity leave that we changed. Up until then we paid into the join account to cover the main bills and shared things but in rough proportion to what we earned.

To the OP, it really depends. If you’re really a couple and sharing things (and maybe if you see a long term future) then splitting her fuel costs doesn’t seem unreasonable though equally, you could claim for any communting costs (tyres, brake pads, food!) just as reasonably.

Okay, cheers everyone.
…
I’ll just pay.

The thread will continue though!

just wait til you have kids…

It works like this, everything you earn is hers. Everything she earns is hers.

You might as well get used to it. It won’t be long until she gives up work so she can spend more time at the country club.

buy her a bike?

I’d order a new £2400 bike and get her to stump up half 😀

As said, joint account

of course it then becomes an inevetable debate whether car insurance and maintenance costs should also come out of the joint account…

However, the counter point to that would legitimately mean that bike expenses come out of the joint account too 😀

*Caution, this line of argument will inevitably lead to you becoming single after buying a new frame/forks from joint money!

I have exactly the same with my wife.

Yeah, I pay all of my wife’s fuel costs – I can’t remember the last time she filled the car up – she just puts £10 in if she gets caught mid-week with an empty tank and I go and fill it up at the weekend.

Still, when I set my business up nearly 10 years ago (and before we were married) she supported me through the first 6 months or so of earning next to nothing.

The thing is I commute by bike to save money. I could easily drive a motorbike to work everyday for the £1200 cost, (Edit:)or even a car.

I think a joint account is a fantastic idea actually. I’ll mention that over dinner.

When I was with my ex I paid everything because it’s a man’s job. I did not take a penny from her.

Men pay. Women pleasure …

🙄

Okay, ask yourself this. If the situation was reversed would you ask her to pay you £100/month?

Suggest that you start driving to work also, and you expect her to pay half of the costs towards a second car.

It seems odd to me that after seven years you’ve not established some sort of financial ground rules. I’ve been with my partner for a similar length of time and I can’t even begin to imagine having that sort of conversation (though granted we have lived together for most of that time). Money is ostensibly “ours” and we’ll gauge who pays for things by whoever has the most left at the end of the month. There’s been times where I’ve been the sole breadwinner and times where she was earning nearly double my salary, give and take is part of being in a relationship.

I’ve got friends who are polar opposites from us; a mate told me the other day that his wife had just spent £40 on a pair of shoes, which was great because it meant he could go buy himself a Playstation game. To me that’s madness, if either my partner or I had been shopping, the other would try and spend less to compensate.

Point is, neither way is inherently wrong, it’s just the way we’ve agreed to do things. It looks like you’re going to have to decide between you how things are going to work. A good compromise might be for you both to contribute a percentage of your earnings into a pot and then use that pot for joint household expenses. If you decide that commuting costs are to be included then you’re golden whenever you need parts for your bike.

Incidentally, who was paying for your upkeep whilst she was working and you were still a povvy schtewdent? Is she seeing this as payback for having carried you for six months?

We only started living together last year due to being at different universitys. We lived together when I did my Msc and she finished her final year.

Universities.

Give her the cash, it’s £3.50 a day for peace and quiet. Money well spent IMHO.

1- we share all other bills 50/50
2- She earns about £1.5k more than me (really dosent bother me).

Given this info, then all she is asking is that you both contribute another £100 into the joint account. But for complete fairness suggest titusrider’s approach, where you put enough in the joint account to cover all of the bills so that you both have the same ‘spending’ money left in your own accounts.

I know couples who still split all costs evenly, split payments for holidays and everything, even though one earns a lot less than the other. I prefer to not worry about it and we have complete access to one another’s accounts and savings, all decisions are made jointly, etc, but it’s not for everyone. But we have a mortgage together, a joint car and we have gone through periods where one of us isn’t earning for a few months, so this approach is easiest for us.

It really is up to you!

Regarding commuting, we had 5 years where we worked in cities 35 miles apart. I preferred to live in one city and commute to the other (I was the commuter) because it enabled us to have a social life in one city at least! If we have lived half way between, we wouldn’t have socialised with colleagues from either mine or my partner’s work and life wouldn’t have been as good (i.e. Friday night drinks aren’t as enticing when both of you are driving, and you are less likely to want to meet up with her colleagues and visa versa because you are in different cities). IME.

If this is the main problem you have going on in your life mate, then you are doing well. 🙂