Sharing living expenses, what's fair?

Dump him and hire a carpenter and mechanic. You will be better off.

He should be coming up with about half of the living expense. You pay no part of his credit charges. He built the house, you seem to own the land. He shouldn't have to pay more than half the value of the rent he would normally have to pay for a similar house in a similar neighborhood.

This house is in a rural area on 14 acres. I can guess what rent would be but if he is doing work on the house, he wouldn't have time to work somewhere else and come up with half the expenses.

Example: I got an estimate on installing the siding for $2600. That's just the labor because I already have the siding. Since my boyfriend is installing it, it is only costing me what he would be paying for half the living expenses which would not be $2600, even if it takes him a month to install it.

I'm not trying to justify him not contributing financially, but wanting to figure out what's fair for him to pay instead of me feeling like I'm stuck with all the bills. Since he has no rights to the house, his building it is kind of like him paying me what it would cost me to hire someone else to do the work.

But the house projects have to stop somewhere at which time, I would expect him to pay to live here, even if he does know how to fix things.

Who does the housework? Who does the cooking? Who does the shopping? Who does the laundry? Who handles the bills? See where I am going?

If you are doing this then him fixing things up is his share of the running of the household and he would still have an obligation to pay his share. Doing some siding etc. is not a full time job and can be done after work and on weekends.

You really have to factor in everything when you are trying to figure out how to handle things.

Calculate the number of hours he actually works (much like if you had hired a carpenter or plumber). you will then come up with a "value" against his room and board (which is what you are providing)

You must sit down with him and work this our. This can lead to resentment on your part. Both of you should feel you contribute and both of you need to feel like this is a team effort.

But to be honest, I don't think you have a realistic value of his work.
If he were an artist or a writer, then things would be different. But he is increasing the value of your home with everything he does.

Now . . . housework and cooking and laundry is a whole 'nuther thing and ought to be split out. No way you should be doing all that, too.

You live with the guy.
He's not your employee.

If he wants you to cut him a break because he does stuff, start charging him for your services, if you know what I mean.

What is fair is one of 2 things....

1. You both put a set, equal amount each month into a pot, that goes to pay ALL household expenses.

2. You figure a set % of your respective salaries, and put that in the pot that goes to pay for all your bills.

For example, if you bring home $1000 a month, and he brings home $800, and you choose to put in 50% for your household expenses, you would put in $500, and he would put in $400.

That is assuming your earnings are somewhat similar. If you made $100,000 a year, and he made $15,000 a year, you might consider a different method.

You asked what is fair, and those are the options that are fair.

chai2 said it best, it feels like he is my employee.

As long as he has lived with me (almost 5 years), the work he puts into the house and yard is what he contributes financially to our everyday expenses, with the exception of food which he has contributed almost 100% for the past year and 4 months. Before that, I paid all of our shared expenses and the payments on the credit cards he charged up.

There are certain things I won't pay for him, like his cell phone bill, child support (which he is extremely behind in paying), car insurance, registration, gas, things that are not a shared expense.

The value of the work he does is very high. And he has done a lot of fixing, building, etc. Just installing a new water heater would have cost me $300 for a couple of hours work. Anytime something is broken, he is almost always able to fix it or install whatever I need.

What causes the most resentment is the credit card debt that I'm still paying for. We "fixed up" my last house (although there was really nothing wrong with it, we finished the basement, added a bathroom and improved it so that it would sell quickly) in an attempt to make enough money to pay the credit card debt he charged.

It didn't work and when it sold, I only got enough money to pay for the materials. So he lived with me for free that whole time as well because he was doing that work full time (sort of-he's really SLOW at getting things done). And I made no extra money for owning the house I bought before I met him. It also took a year to sell it after the work was done, during which time he still didn't help with the bills.

I think the answer is to stop having him do things around the house and figure out what he should be paying.

I think the problem goes a whole lot deeper than shared expenses. i.e. you sold your house to pay his credit card debt. You still have the debt.

Why should he stop doing things around the house?

He lives there, and enjoys the benefits of his work the same way you do.

Is he taking time off of his job to do these things for the house?
Do you take time off from your job to do the things you do for the house?

That is what living with someone is all about. You both bring what you can to the relationship.

If he were strictly your roommate, that would be different.

There is being roommates
There is living with someone
There is being married

Personally, I consider sharing your bed with someone more on the side of marriage than just being roomies. You've been with him, what? 5 years?

If you were married, would this nickle and diming, figuring and factoring be going on?

Of course he pays his own child support, that has nothing to do with you.

But you both eat, stay warm or cool, live in a home that has a mortgage, property taxes, insurance etc.

His work doesn't just benefit you. It's not like he built you a nice house, and sleeps out in the backyard.

Do you have a child(ren) with him?

chai2 asked some good questions.

1. Is he taking time off of his job to do these things for the house? He doesn’t have a job. When I met him, he was self employed as a contractor but now only seeks work when he needs money for things like his cell phone, gas, etc. He acts like its his job to putz around the house. When he “tries” to find work, I feel his efforts are half hearted. I know if I wasn’t contributing financially I would do everything I could to find work and wouldn’t stop until I did.

2. Do you take time off from your job to do the things you do for the house? I work from home and have a lot of flexibility when it comes to how and when I’m able to do things around the house.

3. If you were married, would this nickel and diming, figuring and factoring be going on? I don't see marriage as a possibility at this point. I don't really care about being married though.

4. Do you have a child(ren) with him? I don't have or want children. He has one son who lives about an hour and a half away.

Are there any others reading this that have a similar situation?

Yes, he does benefit from living here and the work he does here but his name is not on the deed and I don’t plan to put his name on it. I have a significant amount of money invested in the land the house is sitting on and he certainly did not build that.

He also has a child support lien that will follow any property he owns and that has nothing to do with me. With the debt he charged and has made no effort to pay back and feels he doesn’t have to pay back, I would be very uncomfortable putting his name on it.

So, if things didn’t work out, I would have an asset and he could potentially end up with nothing for his efforts. I would have had no problem jointly obtaining the house we currently live in but he has terrible credit and no money and hasn’t shown me that he will pay for any living expenses in 5 years.

This is highly stressful and doesn’t seem fair to me. I feel like this guy is taking advantage of the situation by continuing project after project, there always seems to be something that needs to be done. He leaves things unfinished.

Example: there is no trim around our windows, doors and floors inside the house. He wants to make it himself. Yeah, its nice that he knows how to do that but when do the projects end? Projects cost money and right now, I want to focus on getting out of debt.

I would love to hear from anyone who has been in a similar situation that did actually work out.

If he didn't live in your house, he would be renting someplace, paying out money every month. When he moved from one rental place, he would end up with nothing to show for it either. Besides the fact he had a roof over his head for the term of the lease.

This guy is having his cake and eating it too.

He lives rent free, doesn't work, and gets to sleep with you.

He's behind on his child support. Is it any wonder the mother of his child no longer wants him around.

You can do better than this bum.
Doesn't matter if he knows how to install crown molding, he's a bum.

That's all I have to say about that.

Reminds me of my first post on this thread.