"My Boyfriend Wants To Pay My Rent... Should I Let Him?" (Listener Intervention)

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3:23I will take a check. Like an old school check. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. Nicole Lappin. If you're in a relationship, you may be avoiding the talk. Yes, the talk with a capital T. And no, I'm not talking about sexy time talk. I'm talking about the money talk. I know these talks can be hard, but that's why I'm here, to help you tackle it head on. So in today's episode, we have a listener intervention with money rehabber Sam. Sam has a question about how to handle a money talk with her boyfriend.

4:02Before I give anything away, let's just get right into it. Sam, welcome to Money Rehab. Hi, thank you. Tell me your question. So my question is, I am about to move into my boyfriend's house and we are trying to figure out how to split expenses. My idea is to kind of split everything equally or as equally as possible. You know, I pay half his mortgage, half the utilities, that, you know, simple split, whereas he would prefer if I took that money that I would pay toward rent and paid it toward my student loan debt. We've talked about, you know, getting married in the near future, and he would prefer if he didn't have to inherit my debt.

4:47So this is such a good question because generally speaking, money is the biggest cause of fights and the biggest cause of divorce. And I'm not saying this to scare you. I'm just saying that it's really great and I'm super proud of you that you are doing this early and proactively so that you can stave off any fight or any weirdness that might come up. So how long have you guys been together? We've been together for about a year and a half. Lovely. How did you meet? We actually met through his sister. She's a friend of mine and she wanted us to date for about three years. And then finally, something happened and we started dating.

5:29So here we are. I love that. And then how did your courtship go down? Yeah, it kind of was like everyone says, you just kind of realize one day when you're with someone that, you know, you picture that future together, there's definitely a shift that you feel. And being older, you start to think about those things more and realize, you know, the qualities you're looking for in a long-term partner, you know, compared to what you are looking for in your early twenties, um, you know, they're very different. So, uh, there was definitely that shift. Um, when I started dating him, like, Oh, okay. He's got his life together.

6:08He's obviously very nice and all the other qualities you look for. Um, and then you start to, you know, just let your mind drift off. How old are you guys? You said older, but you look like baby. Yes. I I am very young. I'm only 28 and he's about to be 30. So have you guys had any financial conversations so far? Nothing too detailed. We have talked about, you know, salaries and, you know, what my rent is, what his mortgage is. He actually just refinanced. So I, you know, was kind of helping him with that, with all paperwork and whatnot. So we're very open about the money each other has, so to speak, but we haven't talked long-term financial plans.

6:54So we've touched on knowing we need to explore that front, but again, nothing in detail and we haven't given ourselves a timeline. With the debt discussion, because I want to confront that too, it sounds like he has no debt. He does not. He just has his house. And you have student debt and credit card debt? I do not have credit card debt. I just have student debt and car payment, car debt. So my suggestion is to pay off your car debt first before your student debt, because a car is a depreciating asset and you don't want to have any money borrowed against that. Is that something you thought about?

7:37Yeah, I mean, that loan amount is smaller, a lot smaller. So that's been one that I've been paying more toward each month than my student loan. So that one will be paid off first, but I haven't thought about, you know, putting maybe even more toward that to strictly try to pay that off as soon as possible. Yeah, typically you want to pay off the debt with the highest interest rate first, not the amount. And then also there's discussion about forgiveness there. So that's another reason I would say just take a beat and let's see what happens in Washington. Yeah, makes sense. Obviously happy to have that kind of extra money to pay down my student loan debt.

8:21But I just feel as though I won't be contributing equally to the household and kind of the relationship in general. um i it's his house and i don't want it to feel that way so in my mind if i'm splitting you know his mortgage with him um as well as everything else that would help me to feel like we're more equals in the home than i'm living in his house that makes sense i mean that's something that i hear a lot and a reason if couples can't afford it they move into a whole separate house with brand new juju when it's one person's house before, then psychologically and financially, it can feel like it's not your home.

9:06And there are a few ways to work around that. So typically, I say to couples to do a weighted amount and not a 50-50 split, because likely, unless I'm wrong and you guys make exactly the same amount of money, it's going to feel different to each person in the couple. If let's say one makes a hundred grand and one makes a million dollars a year, then splitting the utilities 50-50, let's say there's, you know, a hundred dollar bill and$50 to the person making a hundred grand feels like more than to the person making a million dollars. And so I like to take a weighted amount of your overall salary and then put that toward the bills versus just a complete split down the middle.

9:55So the other way to go around it is putting your name on the mortgage or adding something to the mortgage where you have a stake in it so that you wouldn't be homeless if shit hits the fan, so to speak. Is that something you talked about or would be interested in? We have not talked about that. We have talked about in two to five years, depending on what the housing market's doing, looking for a home together. But we have not talked about this current home and what me putting my name on that might look like, whether that's now or when we get married. If then, you know, I put my name on it, we haven't had that discussion.

10:36I say to couples to come up with an agreement. It's sort of like a casual prenup. And it doesn't even need to be a full-on lawyer thing, scary thing, or a serious conversation. It can be sort of the rules of engagement, even pre-engagement, engagement, in a simple email and sort of lay everything out as to what you guys decide so that you don't get screwed or he doesn't get screwed, nobody gets screwed. I don't want anybody to get screwed if shit hits the fan. And I know you guys are young in love and that will never, ever, ever happen. But I have seen crazier things. And so I always, for myself, I mean, I've lived with two men to date and I always try to have my own back.

11:27And that's exactly what I would say to you. But I would have something like in casual writing, like, hey, babe, I know we talked about blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm super psyched to move in. love you. The reason to think about taking this into your own hands first is because down the road, if something happened, God forbid, the state decides what happens. And I don't like the state to decide what happens in my personal life. And so it's nice to just make it on your terms. I've had lots of friends write up agreements like this and then throw it in the fireplace or rip it up or do something fun with it.

12:08And you have it just there in the back of your mind and you likely will never use it. But it's there. Yeah. Yeah. Hold on to your wallets, boys and girls. Money Rehab will be right back. Now for some more money rehab. I'm assuming you go out to dinner. I mean, I don't know. We do. During the pandemic. So who pays when you go out? He usually pays when we go out. What we've kind of been doing unintentionally, but now it's intentional, is if we're, you know, with kind of my core group of friends, I'll pay for the experience. And then when we're with his friends, he'll kind of pay for whatever we're doing.

12:52and then usually groceries it's pretty here and there I work from home so I'll you know run to the store a lot during my lunch and so then I'll pay and then if we go on the weekends usually he'll pay so I haven't looked at the numbers to see if that you know evens out one way or the other but that's just what we've you know kind of fell into and you feel comfortable with that Yes, I think for me, being able to do things like pay for the groceries or, you know, pick him up some beer if, you know, he's out. And I noticed that it makes me feel like I'm contributing more than especially right now, because we are, you know, I have stayed at his house a lot.

13:39He has a dog. So we're usually at his house more than my apartment. and I just feel like doing little things like groceries, beer, whatever, helps me to feel like I am contributing more to the household. Picking up beer when you notice he's low on beer makes you the girlfriend of the year. You know, from the financial perspective, you bring up a great point that you want to grow your wealth. That makes my heart very happy. as you guys are building your life together, you want to have your credit score, not just his, improve by taking out debt and then paying it off, which is how your credit score does improve.

14:19I would say to you, the way the logistics are right now, make sure that your name is actually on some of the utilities. So instead of just splitting it, and by the way, If splitting it and you guys make roughly the same amount makes sense for you, then get after it. But I want you to accumulate credit as well. So if it's not under your name and you're paying half of it, that's not helping your credit score. Maybe you have a chat with him and say you want all or some of the utilities under your name. Because I've seen women who get divorced oftentimes either don't have great credit because nothing was in their name and things were getting paid, however they were getting paid, if they contributed or not, or they were under her name and they weren't getting paid, which fucks up your credit.

15:16So you want to avoid those two scenarios when it comes to the bills. Yeah, I think that's a great point that I hadn't thought about. So I'm glad you brought that up, because that's definitely something I think, you know, would be easy to talk to him about. And, you know, he wouldn't mind at all if, you know, I'm taking over, you know, all the utilities. It's a super boss bitch move. Yeah, we are already doing so well. I mean, having transparency around how much you make and how much rent is and looking at mortgage documents. I mean, you are actually farther than a lot of people. I'm proud of you.

15:51Thank you. Here's today's tip you can take straight to the bank. No matter where you're living, an apartment, a house, a castle, a yurt, a 25-floor walk-up, money is going to be the roommate you didn't know you had. If you're sharing a space with someone else, money is going to be the factor that's going to make you feel like you can call your home yours or not. If your partner or roommate is contributing more than you, you might feel like you're living in their house. And that's just not the best way to nest. So come up with a way to level the playing field. Either chip in with rent, cover the utilities, or buy some new furniture.

16:29If money is tight right now and you can't throw down cash, you can contribute in other ways. I would identify some outstanding items on the to-do list that will add value to the space, like hanging a picture or repainting a door. Seriously, get a can of WD-40. It is just not that serious. Once you've figured out how you're going to contribute, you're going to be ready to call your space a home. That's all for today's episode. I'll see you back here again tomorrow in our Money Rehab home, and you are always welcome.

17:06Money Rehab is a production of iHeartMedia. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Our producers are Morgan Lavoie and Catherine Law. Money Rehab is edited and engineered by Brandon Dickert with help from Josh Fisher. Executive producers are Mangesh Hatikader and Will Pearson. Huge thanks to the OG Money Rehab supervising producer, Michelle Lanz, for her pre-production and development work. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all.