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)
Not a financial advisor so take my answer with a massive chunk of salt.
My suggestion would be to get a joint account. If you are comfortable paying all the bills you can also have it overdraft to your account in case of emergencies. The move money into it monthly for bills. I would round up on your bills so you could build a little nest egg at the same time. You move everything that you have been paying into it. And ask her to move what she can into it. If she feels comfortable paying 50%, then do that. If things go sideways, split any extra money by the percentage she is paying. Then if things do go sideways then you can take your piece and have a nice vacation. If they don’t, you have nice rainy day fund.