How should I make my girlfriend repay the money she owes me without hurting her?

[Alexander Leonard]

Yeah, I'm still not understanding the balance of income here when there are two kids involved.

It's simple. Use different bank accounts/credit cards to pay for different types of expenses.

We have joint accounts and joint credit cards. Each month we contribute equal amount to the joint account and use the joint credit card to pay for joint expenses such as rent, electricity bills, and child care expenses. We use our personal credit cards to pay for personal expenses.

So the key is to distinguish joint expenses from personal expenses. In most cases it is straightforward. If we have a meal together (with or without our children), it is joint expense. If I go to a bar with my friends, it is my personal expense. If I take our daughter to a cafe, theoretically I can ask for two separate bills and pay my daughter's bill using joint card and pay my own bill using my personal card. (But actually I always use my personal card to pay in such cases). If I buy food in supermarkets and put them in our kitchen, it is joint expense. If I buy a bottle of water in a convenience store and drink it immediately, it is personal expense. When it is hard to tell whether an expense is joint or personal, we follow a conservative principle and assume it is personal expense.

We use the balance in the joint account to pay for each month's joint credit card bill. We keep the balance in the joint account at a level that is just enough to pay our joint monthly expenses. If the joint credit card statement balance exceeds joint account cash balance, we review the transactions billed in that month. If either of us use it to pay material expense which is personal in nature, that person contribute additional fund to the joint account. If we did overspend together, we both contribute an equal amount. If the credit card statement balance is below the joint account cash balance, we just pay it without looking at individual transactions. Even if either of us use the joint credit card to pay for personal expense, we don't care as long as that amount is immaterial.

[JuneL]

^^^ Are you sure you girlfriend didn’t shop for her own clothes and bill it as your kids clothes?

[Alexander Leonard]

^^^ Are you sure you girlfriend didn’t shop for her own clothes and bill it as your kids clothes?

As I explained, if that clothes is an expensive one, the credit card statement balance will exceed the amount we jointly contributed by default (we have set up monthly auto-transfer), and that will trigger a review of the transactions and then I will know it. If that clothes cost very little, I won't know it and I don't care.

[Alexander Leonard]

That’s my previous point about his implicit gains/savings. Compute the extra amount she could have saved and the extra amount he would have spent if they had contributed according to their income levels in the past. Then add up these two amounts and see if the sum is larger or smaller than 50k. Let’s forget about inflation and interest for simplicity.

We agreed to the rule of equal contribution and neither of us ever thought it is unfair. If now you say the rule should have been different in the first place and we need to recalculate the amount each of us should have contributed, the additional amount I need to pay may well exceed the amount of money she owes me, and I will have to contribute more than her in the future. Seriously?

[Inspire]

As the old saying goes, "never give what you aren't prepared to get back". This is a considerable amount of money and it doesn't seem as though she is interested in attempting to give any of it back. Does she think that she'll just happen to fall into a large sum of money to pay you back? What was the initial plan for repayment and did she give any of it back?

 

Splitting expenses equally by dollar is pretty common, but the real question is how much does she have left over after bills have been paid.

[Amethyst68]

We agreed to the rule of equal contribution and neither of us ever thought it is unfair. If now you say the rule should have been different in the first place and we need to recalculate the amount each of us should have contributed, the additional amount I need to pay may well exceed the amount of money she owes me, and I will have to contribute more than her in the future. Seriously?

 

 

Well it is certainly something you should be discussing! Seriously, you earn almost half her salary more than her but have never thought to sit her down and discuss a more equitable distribution of household finances? All I can say is that would not be happening in my home. It's possible she thought you will would hold this loan over her head and refuse to discuss this.

 

 

BTW you do not "date" the mother of your children, the woman you are living with.

[Veronica73]

I agree with Amethyst. When you made the agreement at first, you were making roughly equal amounts. Now you are making considerably more than her. Plus she is the mother of your children. But different financial arrangements work differently for different people. So if you’re both fine with it, that’s great.

 

And describing your relationship as “dating” also strikes me as odd.

 

Where I live, most men I know would be embarrassed if their life partner and mother of their children drove a $20,000 car while he drove a $40,000 car.

 

So I can’t advise how to get your money back. Your whole arrangement is foreign to me.

[Versacehottie]

While I sympathize with the OP, you are kinda proving my point with the rigid thing with the very specific breakdown of who is paying for what. Did you seriously using taking your daughter out to eat as an example???? And have it figured out which 'fund" that comes out of?

 

Have you ever considered that perhaps part of the reason she is earning less that you is because she took time out of her career to have a couple of babies? Or, that right or wrong, was penalized by the system for that or having mom obligations? It's a real thing that happens with some people, in some organizations. Just some thoughts.

 

Even though she agreed to it, i find it weird that you split things 50/50 when you earn a significant amount more than she does. You're a family now, you've got to stop keeping score to the penny. There is soooooo much more going on here than the $50K she owes you.

[JuneL]

It's simple. Use different bank accounts/credit cards to pay for different types of expenses.

We have joint accounts and joint credit cards. Each month we contribute equal amount to the joint account and use the joint credit card to pay for joint expenses such as rent, electricity bills, and child care expenses. We use our personal credit cards to pay for personal expenses.

So the key is to distinguish joint expenses from personal expenses. In most cases it is straightforward. If we have a meal together (with or without our children), it is joint expense. If I go to a bar with my friends, it is my personal expense. If I take our daughter to a cafe, theoretically I can ask for two separate bills and pay my daughter's bill using joint card and pay my own bill using my personal card. (But actually I always use my personal card to pay in such cases). If I buy food in supermarkets and put them in our kitchen, it is joint expense. If I buy a bottle of water in a convenience store and drink it immediately, it is personal expense. When it is hard to tell whether an expense is joint or personal, we follow a conservative principle and assume it is personal expense.

We use the balance in the joint account to pay for each month's joint credit card bill. We keep the balance in the joint account at a level that is just enough to pay our joint monthly expenses. If the joint credit card statement balance exceeds joint account cash balance, we review the transactions billed in that month. If either of us use it to pay material expense which is personal in nature, that person contribute additional fund to the joint account. If we did overspend together, we both contribute an equal amount. If the credit card statement balance is below the joint account cash balance, we just pay it without looking at individual transactions. Even if either of us use the joint credit card to pay for personal expense, we don't care as long as that amount is immaterial.

 

There’s such a high potential margin of errors when you are keeping tabs this way. Get one of those balance sheet software, then keep all your receipts. Checking credit card statements is not enough, as it doesn’t tell you the exact breakdowns. Using the taking your daughter to eat in a cafe as an example, the receipt will tell you with exact precision how much should come from your personal pool vs. the joint pool. Also, when you buy groceries from the store, you can keep track of how much should come from her personal account (say, if she slipped a nail polish in the grocery bag). You can also keep an account of how many of those 6 cans of beer were consumed by you as opposed to visitors (and of course, there’s this issue of whether these visitors are mutual friends or relatives from her side, as if it’s the latter case, then the expenses for those couple cans of beer should come from her personal account). You probably need a very accurate scale. When she packs a sandwich to work, you want to know exactly how much ham she has used.

[smackie9]

Figure out the percentage difference between your incomes. Then calculate that difference into what you should be paying into the household expenses to make it even. So if it's another 2 thousand you make over her, figure out the percentage what money you would contribute more monthly, add up the amount to date, and that should be her contribution into what she owes you so far since the time you two started splitting expense down the middle. Then calculate, the rest and you will have an idea when this loan theoretically is paid off.You make more money so you should be paying more into the household income...it's only fair. That is why she isn't paying it back because she already has been.

[SevenCity]

Figure out the percentage difference between your incomes. Then calculate that difference into what you should be paying into the household expenses to make it even. So if it's another 2 thousand you make over her, figure out the percentage what money you would contribute more monthly, add up the amount to date, and that should be her contribution into what she owes you so far since the time you two started splitting expense down the middle. Then calculate, the rest and you will have an idea when this loan theoretically is paid off.You make more money so you should be paying more into the household income...it's only fair. That is why she isn't paying it back because she already has been.

 

I don't understand this logic of increasing his share because he makes more money. That does not factor in what his real take home pay is.

 

Say he had other obligations resulting in less disposable income, whereas she had none and spent all her extra money on fun stuff like going out and trendy clothes?

 

Is he using more electricity because he makes more money?

 

Granted, they are not exactly roommates but in that situation, everything is split evenly having no bearing on whether or not someone starts making more money.

 

When I was married or had a live in gf, I would pay all the house expenses (electric, repairs, cable, phone, heat, ac, etc as it was my house) and they would buy food. That seemed like a good deal because they were living free with the exception of feeding me

[Alexander Leonard]

BTW you do not "date" the mother of your children, the woman you are living with.

I prefer the word "dating" only because it sounds more romantic than "living together" or "cohabitation". We still refer to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. She agreed that "we will be dating forever".

[Alexander Leonard]

There’s such a high potential margin of errors when you are keeping tabs this way. Get one of those balance sheet software, then keep all your receipts. Checking credit card statements is not enough, as it doesn’t tell you the exact breakdowns. Using the taking your daughter to eat in a cafe as an example, the receipt will tell you with exact precision how much should come from your personal pool vs. the joint pool. Also, when you buy groceries from the store, you can keep track of how much should come from her personal account (say, if she slipped a nail polish in the grocery bag). You can also keep an account of how many of those 6 cans of beer were consumed by you as opposed to visitors (and of course, there’s this issue of whether these visitors are mutual friends or relatives from her side, as if it’s the latter case, then the expenses for those couple cans of beer should come from her personal account). You probably need a very accurate scale. When she packs a sandwich to work, you want to know exactly how much ham she has used.

I think you are too sarcastic. As I explained in previous posts, we established these rules and principles only to roughly split our expense. We never attempted it to do like how cost accountants allocate company expenses to different departments.

And I also said, minor "abuse" of money in the joint pool is not a problem for either of us and we will just turn a blind eye to it. Neither of us has ever used it for significant personal expenses such as purchasing a laptop or a cellphone.

If we go shopping together, whatever we buy will be joint expenses regardless of whoever will use it. This system been working well for us.