What am I to pay again?
:? I came here to make sense of the absolute unabsoluteness of a blended family. Blended? Some days I feel like a dash of pepper in the mixture. My wife and I constantly snipe each other about finances(I know this to be a common topic amongst even college roommates who met two weeks into a semester). Tryin' to figure this out...She has three kids thru two marriages. She receives support for their choices. Financially, what should I reasonably expect to contribute to the household and maintain the pride of manhood that I cultivated during the thirty five years of existence prior to hitching my wagon to another who already has horses? My wife rocks the Benjamin's better but informs me that by signing up for the bliss of raising children with the guarantee that I am pepper, uh.....Is there a formula?
No formula, because what
No formula, because what works in one household may not work in yours. Not sure if your concern is you are paying too much, or not enough?
Instead of sniping about finances, set aside time to go over the household expenses in detail and come to an agreement about how to budget for them. And who pays what and how much.
Obviously, the money that comes in for the kids is for their maintenance but a certain percentage of that support should reasonably be used for household basics like a portion of the utilities and of course their food, clothing, school expenses, etc. That's what child "support" is for.
Didn't you discuss finances before marriage? I sure would have, given the situation of kids having two different fathers and two streams of child support.
As far as you feeling like pepper in the shaker of salt, well, that's a whole 'nother issue.
It's complicated when you
It's complicated when you co-habitate before marriage. I think if you're married everything goes into one pot and you make financial goals and decisions together. so that means CS also goes into the pot, but all of skids expenses also come out of it. I think that if you're financially able to, both people should have equal spending money to do with as they choose.
however, when you're just living together and maybe not in the place of making financial long term plans together, then you can develop a ratio based on her dependents, and both of your income (including her CS payments as income).
if you want to feel manly and pay for things, then pay for dates, etc. DO NOT start to financially support children that are not yours with a woman who you are not married to.
oh yeah, and pay for her birth control. seems that she's experienced with having babies with different men and collecting child support. you don't want to be one of those shmucks.
I would split it the
I would split it the same...however many people live in the house, divide total bills by that number and that is what each should pay. Now, that is given that you don't own a huge, high maintenance house that is out of her/their control. I might adjust for kids who share a room. Look at it this way...if she was single, she would be paying 100% of the bills. She gets a break by being married to you and sharing the same roof.
I do not believe in a
I do not believe in a community pot. We have separate finances. Happily married for 5 years now. We split household bills equally. We have a family credit card that we split in half. We split everything and it works great. I pay for my kids stuff on my credit cards. We have no Cs for his son and my sons father is deceased. There are no conversations about money. We both max out our retirement and the idea is that we will keep our houses (I kept mine and rent it out) and rent them out at retirement and live on that income and split everything then.
we live together and are
we live together and are engaged but finances are separate.
i pay the rent, fiance pays for all the food, entertainment, vacations, etc. trust me, this is fair and 50-50 as rent in our area is very expensive.
at the end of the day our monthly take home pay is equal. fiance makes slightly more to help offset things i make sure i put the same amount into my 401K that he pays in CS.
everything is separate- been
everything is separate- been together for 5yrs and NOT one fight about money.
He pays certain bills and I pay others. We both put a certain amount in retirement etc.. we know our long term financial goals and have that all planned out.
His CS and anything for snowflake princess is his and his alone.