Interesting Links for 27-05-2019

[andrewducker]

Women are happier without children or a spouse, says happiness expert

(tags:happiness relationships women men )

Fact checking the anti-trans sports attacks

(tags:transgender sports )

Test performance, gender, and temperature

(tags:temperature gender intelligence testing )

Star Trek Wine Pedantry is the best pedantry

(tags:StarTrek wine )

Hammond suggests he would consider voting to bring down a Conservative government that pushed for a no-deal Brexit. Significant numbers of his colleagues feel the same

(tags:politics conservatives UK europe )

Scotland to House World's Largest Tidal Turbine

(tags:Scotland renewables )

Different approaches to combining finances in relationships

(tags:relationships money )

Laser drones protect Scottish forests

(tags:Scotland forests lasers drone )

Labour wiped out in Scotland as SNP secures comfortable victory (shame about the Greens)

(tags:politics Scotland europe )

Comments

[channelpenguin]

Gender and temperature: I have a feeling I do not conform. I hate it too warm more than anything.

Joint finances: to me, I could not bear any option bar "let's split it evenly" - BUT not with a joint account (any form of which I abhor). My money is mine, my partners is his, pay your way or get out, nobody gets to tell (or even ask) the other what the rest of it gets spent on. If my partner can't afford to do a thing I want, I simply do it alone. This has worked with an even split of partners who earned pretty much what I did, and who earned very much less (1/3 or even less). Spenders and savers. Proviso: I have no idea what that is like from the lesser-earner point of view. But it has never been a point of argument or contributary to a break up so I guess it must work. Proviso 2: I don't have children. Only one partner has had. This is irrelevant to my finances, and built into his.

But my parents did this - and my mother has always earned very much less than my father.

[naath]

I have an addition to that list "both end up with same "fun money" after bills paid" which might mean Richer Person paying a)all bills and b)money to Less Rich Person. I heard this on women's hour but we don't actually do it.

We track obsessively and split agreed-to-be-shared expenses 50/50 which includes the regular mortgage payment but not overpayments. Suits me well enough as the lesser earner (~1/2) but I'm not short of money and we deliberately only took a mortgage I could afford half of.

[movingfinger]

Honestly, everything I read about Scotland makes me want to move there, especially after visiting last year. (No place is perfect, I know...)

Different approaches to combining finances in relationships

[doug]

My partner and I use a slight variant on the suggestion in this article, and it has worked extremely well for 25 years. We still need plenty of discussions about what should and should not count as the "fun money", and indeed how much the monthly allocation of fun money should be. What will seem fair changes over time, and is quite personal.

This can be particularly challenging to do fairly for couples who present as different genders, since some expenses are very variable by gender. Haircuts are a great example. Someone presenting as a traditional man can just walk in to the barber every two months and spend a little over a tenner and look fine; someone presenting as a traditional woman will need to make an appointment and will be lucky to get a haircut for five times that, and will typically need to go at least monthly to look acceptable. Clothes work similarly. There are almost no professional jobs where men are expected to wear a different outfit every day, but there are many where women are.

I think the main requirement for a couple's finance system is that they're both happy with it. Any system will fail if there is a breakdown of trust and communication, but how to maintain that is often particular to the relationship in question.

Re: Different approaches to combining finances in relationships

[naath]

My hair cost nothing for a decade (I never did anything to it beyond wash and brush and put in ponytail), then I chose to make it purple and now it's 3 figures quarterly... but I think that's very much "fun" not "necessary". I think the tech sector is maybe odd, I'm wearing leggings and skirt and Thirt which I change when they need washing and my hair is purple...

Re: Different approaches to combining finances in relationships

[channelpenguin]

Oh my god, you see that is an example of exactly what I personally find utterly unacceptable. That anyone could have say what I spend my money on - or vice versa, that I could have any say in what my partner spends his money on. In my world it is not even a discussion to be had. Why on earth should haircuts or clothes even be up for joint discussion? We can individually afford what we can individually afford, and we manage our own budgets like adults - end of story.

IMO, it is not my partner's business HOW I meet necessary shared expenses, or vice versa. But absolutely should both of us always do so, on time without fail.

I guess I find it clear because I have a pretty fixed idea of what necessary shared expenses are*, and have never met disagreement over that point. I suppose that *could* happen between other people.

*(rent/power/water/gas/comms/insurance - it is not an entirely fixed list - Food used to be, but not with this partner as we rarely eat together at home due to different diets and working hours. This needed no discussion. Eating out we usually split or if cash is short alternate on a "what feels fair" basis)

[franklanguage]

Well, I'm definitely happier without kids, and my mother repeatedly warned me [jokingly, she claimed] to never have kids. I knew by the way she always seemed to be in over her head raising us, that I'd be better off, and I've never regretted not having kids.

[jack]

That finance advice is similar to what I'd have said. I've been fortunate not to have had much difficulty; I've only cohabited with R and we've both had income, and had similar habits anyway.

I think my flowchart would be something like, each party works out how much they have to contribute to the relationship, and that is then divied up according to shared expenses, joint savings, and individual spending allowances the way they did. But having everything in joint isn't a requirement in order for discretionary allowances to make sense: if you had a casual or time limited relationship, or are in multiple relationships, or had some overwhelming prior commitment like caring for a family member, you might have other constraints on what you could commit, but splitting both people DID commit the way they describe would still make sense.

And it doesn't solve disagreements about non-personal things, where A says that something is a joint expense, and B disagrees, they have to be able to talk it out.

[channelpenguin]

"And it doesn't solve disagreements about non-personal things, where A says that something is a joint expense, and B disagrees, they have to be able to talk it out."

Can you give an example? I think this is a crux point am struggling with to see why others do what they do and need discussions.

[jack]

I think the most relevant question might be, when people have a relationship they can't walk away from. As it happens, I've always expected to be financially independent, and more emotionally comfortable being secure with a status quo, not rushing to merge finances if that has upsides, but downsides which could be unlimitedly big. And I don't have any particular reason to fear being controlled, but many people do, and don't want someone else to be able to interfere in their finance. And I think many people hand over financial power to their partner when it might be better not to. So I might not have the best description of what most people do.

But I think the reasons people DO do that, well, the big one is shared commitments. Especially children. But other long term commitments like "neither of us have enough for rent and bills reliably but between us we usually have enough on average". Or "I'll keep working this job, you go get a degree, then get a better job, then we'll both be better off". Or owning a house or other assets together. Some of those, especially children, can mean that most outlays are essentially joint as long as you're living as a household.

If walking away when your partner can't support their contribution is expensive, or undesirable, or nearly impossible, you are massively affected by their decisions. And so you do have input into their decisions if you think they're spending joint money unwisely, or spending their money in a way which is likely to make them unable to keep up shared contributions, even if they're in overall charge of it.

For a small comparison, say, you're both sharing housework, you accept that when you do the chores, you do them your way, but if one partner says "don't do that, it damages the dishes/cupboard/floor/wall" and the other partner says "no it doesn't" then you need to pick one way or the other, because if it IS a problem both people will be affected, and if there ISN'T there's no point one person doing it the "careful" way.

And the other half of it is maybe, most people hope or expect to have joint finances (even if they have SOME separate accounts), because it makes more practical sense if MOST of their outgoings are joint. Or because they EXPECT to have that, and are more emotionally comfortable with it.

So my description might be something like: work out how much it makes sense to consider joint, then for that portion, both people pay in, and pay from that whenever it's appropriate, and both people have personal discretion money. And "how much is joint" might be "none" for lots of people and "all" for lots of people, even if my instinct is that it's better to actively decide than to assume. And "personal discretion money" might be "all of it" if you don't share finances at all, or might only be personal leisure spending if savings and household expenses are agreed to be joint, or might be somewhere between.