# My Husband makes more money than me but I contribute more...



## zhouginny (Mar 4, 2015)

Hi everyone,
This is my first time posting in this forum but I think I just need some help to get my thoughts cleared and to validate my feelings towards this situation. My husband have been married for half a year. We're Newlyweds!

Just to give some background: My husband has a higher salary than I do. He makes $800 more than I do a month. However financially, I contribute way more than he does in our marriage. 

Our wedding: I paid for 3/4 of the wedding costs. Culturally, this was shocking for my family because in Asian culture, the man is suppose to pay for every single part of the wedding. However, I didn't really mind. 

Our home: I was the one that put the 20% down on our home. He put $0 because he wasn't in a good financial place to put money down so essentially mortgage is in my name but the house has both of our names on it.

Mortgage: I pay a little more on the mortgage than he does but for the most part, it's split pretty evenly.

Utilities: He pays for all the utilities which is roughly $400 a month

Groceries: I pay for all the groceries

Going out to eat: Sometimes he pays, sometimes I pay. A lot of times, I pay. 

Our Savings Account Contribution: We've agreed to put a minimum amount into our savings every month. However, I've been the only one so far who has made the contributions and even put in extra to cover his contribution because he isn't able to put that amount in for whatever reason. 

Travel: We're going to Europe twice this year. The total cost of it is around $8000 and I paid for all of it. 

Granted, my husband and I both make a decent salary. However, sometimes I can't help but resent him for not stepping up to contribute more since he's the man and he makes more. I know it sounds really bad but is it wrong for me to feel this way? Sometime I just want to have a sense of feeling that I am being taken cared of in a financial way. I don't mind paying more, it's just I want that sense of feeling I guess. Does that sound wrong?


----------



## lenzi (Apr 10, 2012)

It's unfair and unreasonable that you pay more than he does especially given that he makes more.

These are the sorts of things that need to be discussed and worked out before you enter into what is intended to be a lifelong commitment.

Well, better late than never.

Edited to add

What does he do will all of his extra money?

If he's putting it into a retirement account for the benefit of both of you then maybe that's ok. If he's stashing it away somewhere or placing it into a sole account that you can't touch.. well this is bad on so many levels.

Marriage is a financial business arrangement. Don't think of it as anything less, even though he may be doing just that.


----------



## CincyBluesFan (Feb 27, 2015)

My own philosophy is that in marriage there is no her money and his money. It's all our money. The family's money. I've always made a higher salary than my wife but that's irrelevant because all our money goes into our family bank account. How that is spent is agreed on by both of us.


----------



## Doorman (Mar 4, 2015)

I was also going to say what Cincy mentioned. In our marriage, we luckily have very matching ideas about money, saving, and spending.

We actually don't budget, but agree that in general, spending is for necessities, and anything beyond that is up to mutual agreement.

I suspect that there is a big cultural divide that many westerners may not understand. The "my money, his money" is not the norm.


----------



## zhouginny (Mar 4, 2015)

We throw the term "Your money is my money, my money is your money" around the house a lot. To an extent, it's true. We are in it together and what's mine is his now. that's what marriage is. I think I've been struggling to let it go though. It's a constant mental battle with myself because I work hard for my salary and I have a sense of pride that I am able to take care of him but I don't have the same feeling that he can take care of me financially even though he makes more than me and there are times that I just want to feel that he can take care of me in that way. He takes care of me in other ways like helping with chores, cleaning, running errands, etc which I appreciate very much. But just the financial aspect, I want that feeling sometimes.


----------



## Aspydad (Oct 17, 2013)

My suggestion would be to combine so that there is just one income (both of yours combined.) Not sure why you guys would feel that it would be necessary to keep them separated? To me, the way you guys are doing it makes it complicated. At the end of the day, no matter how you guys do it, you both own 50% of everything anyway (unless you're planning on getting divorced anytime soon.)

I will just tell you how my wife and I do it and you can decide if that makes sense:

We have both pay checks deposited into one checking account. I use a journal to manage this one checking account. I divide the account into two parts - 1) is for all of the fixed expenses (mortgage, car payment, all insurance, taxes, utilities, cell phone, cable, food - and we spit an allowance that we get in cash) then 2) I call this the back of the checkbook - this is for two things - first is automatic transfer out of the account to my investment account at another financial institution (this happens to be 20% of what we make) and the other is for all of our variable expenses (car repair, fuel, clothes, vacations, birthdays, Christmas, college for kids, etc) - this is about 35% of our combined take home pay. Now - most of these variable expenses we charge on one credit card so as to get cash back - I check this card every day (as my wife, both my daughters, and me charge on this card) and I log on a spread sheet and categorize each expense - this roles month to month so I know exactly where we are with regards to a budget WE have set for all of the different categories - which we have BOTH agreed upon.

This has worked very well over the years. I actually read an article the other day that lined up with what we did almost exactly - the article suggested 50-30-20 (50 = fixed; 30 = variable; 20 savings / investments) We are 45 / 35 / 20.


----------



## Yeswecan (Jul 25, 2014)

Your incomes need to combined. Each and every month you both sit and pay the bills together from this combined account. You need to also agree on an allowance(spending money for you and him). If there is an item one wants each can then make the purchase without any issues. This is the fairest way to handle it.


----------



## zhouginny (Mar 4, 2015)

Thanks for the suggestion Aspydad. Both of our pay goes into our own accounts or "Personal Accounts". The reason why we have our own personal accounts is so that if we want to buy gifts for each other or have surprises for each other, we can do so without the other person knowing what we bought. However, we have a joint reserve, and savings account together where we both contribute to those accounts. We probably have a 35/30/35 financial model right now for fixed, variable, and savings. Maybe combining our accounts would just make it easier and we can instead just put a certain amount into our personal accounts for surprises.


----------



## anonmd (Oct 23, 2014)

You made the down payment and a big chunk of the wedding which on the one hand is different than day to day expenses. It does perhaps point to some debt he is paying on? If that is the case he should be using that higher salary to pay that down as fast as possible and not keep adding to debt. Make sense?


----------



## mjalex (Mar 5, 2015)

CincyBluesFan said:


> My own philosophy is that in marriage there is no her money and his money. It's all our money. The family's money. I've always made a higher salary than my wife but that's irrelevant because all our money goes into our family bank account. How that is spent is agreed on by both of us.


I agree with Cincy on this one. Have you considered having a joint account? 

Do you communicate with each other? Maybe it's time to have a conversation and work out the funds so it's at least equal. 

Once you make a commitment to someone such as marriage, I'm a huge fan of pooling that money into a family fund, but that's just my opinion.


----------



## Hicks (Jan 14, 2011)

I think the problem is your agendas are different.

Your agenda: Save and pay for things such as a wedding, house, trip.

His agenda: Save nothing and get in bad financial shape.

Unless your agendas and goals become mutual, this will not be fixed.


----------



## Mr.D.E.B.T. (Jul 19, 2012)

This sounds like a communication problem. If your feeling neglected in any way, it is best to tell your husband despite the possible response. You want to feel more taken care of, and there are creative ways to make this happen without changing how you bank or pay bills. It's not like your asking him to pay for everything, and he knows your not trying to take advantage of him; at least I hope he knows. Share your feelings with him, but don't offer suggestions. Give him a chance to respond to what your asking for.


----------



## NosborCrop (Feb 25, 2015)

talk to him


----------

