My girlfriend and I are planning to move in together in ~3 months.

I own a small apartment in Amsterdam, my mortgage, heating, water and electricity is about 2000 Euro a month, and I earn 30% more than she does.

Some context: Amsterdam is damn expensive and in an housing crisis, since living here she’s been paying about 1000/m to rent a room. Both of us earn quite well and money isn’t tight

What is a fair way to split costs? I’ve heard everything from she should live here for free because I was paying for everything anyway to we should split everything 50/50, and I’m not sure what is fair.

I don’t think 50/50 is fair, because the way I see it, I’m going to get back a fair amount of the money I pay to my mortgage when I sell the apartment.

So what is fair? My gut feeling is something like we split the heating, electricity, groceries etc. 50/50. And she pays say 500 Euro a month for living here (less than half what she’s used to paying in rent)

  • bstix
    2·
    2 days ago

    Why does it have to be static in the first place? Why not just let them contribute what they can, when they can, since the money’s not tight?

    Who is to decide when and what they can pay then?

    It’s also as much about determining the disposable income. If she has a different opinion on what is reasonable to spend on other things that could easily become a can of worms.

    “This is what you need to contribute to the household, whatever you do with the rest of your money is not my issue” is much better than: “Hey, I know you’re low on cash but maybe if you cut back on lattes, avocado toast, gambling, booze and cigarettes, we would be able to pay the bills.”

    In reality, the fixed amount isn’t very fixed anyway. If one part can’t pay, it’s still unlikely that the partner would kick them out. But as long as money isn’t that tight, it’s simply better to allocate a fixed amount to the household, so the money isn’t disposable for random spending, so they don’t risk overspending or increasing expensive habits.

    This isn’t just to curb the costs, but also to avoid the situation in which one part becomes financially dependent on the other, which is also a recipe for disaster for both parts.