This week on The Vault, we heard from a listener who’s doing everything right.
She’s 26, self-employed on £32k in London, and she’s just finished building her emergency fund. She works around 60 hours a week in a career she loves and is genuinely making it work. Her fiancé earns around £100k, paid the full deposit on their home, and covers about three quarters of the mortgage. He’s never once made her feel judged about the gap but she still feels unbalanced internally.
She wants to combine finances to ease that pressure, but she’s worried about feeling even more dependent. They just don’t know where to start.
Here’s what we told her.
The guilt of earning less isn’t yours to carry
There is nothing wrong with being the lower earner in a relationship. Incomes naturally ebb and flow, and the goal isn’t for both people to bring in the same amount, it’s for both people to be working towards the same future.
Her fiancé sounds like a green flag through and through and while the anxiety she’s carrying is understandable, it isn’t a reflection of reality. He could need six months off work tomorrow. Incomes aren’t fixed and neither are relationships!
Why 50/50 isn’t the answer either
A strict 50/50 split sounds fair but it’s actually one of the most penalising arrangements for a lower earner. When one person earns significantly more, splitting everything down the middle means the lower earner hands over a much bigger proportion of their income every month. Less to save, less breathing room, more financial anxiety.
Two ways you can combine finances
The proportional split. Each person contributes to shared expenses in proportion to what they earn. The higher earner covers more because they have more to cover it with. Both people can still save, still work towards personal goals, without one person being stretched every month.
The fully combined method. Both incomes go into one shared budget at the top. Every joint and personal expense gets listed: sinking funds, pension contributions, the emergency fund, all of it. Whatever’s left goes towards shared money goals. You don’t need a joint bank account to do this. a simple shared bills account that you both transfer into each month keeps things clean and clear.
The real shift here isn’t practical, it’s psychological. When both incomes sit at the top of one budget, it stops being ‘your money’ and ‘my money’. It becomes ‘our money’, working towards a shared future. When he can see in black and white how long her emergency fund is taking to build on a £32k self-employed income, he’ll understand the picture a lot better too.
The income gap might never fully close and it doesn’t need to. What matters is that they’re building the same future and from everything she’s shared, they already are.
If you want to hear the full dilemma, listen to today’s episode of The Vault.
This content is for general information only and does not constitute financial advice. If you need advice tailored to your personal circumstances, please speak to an authorised financial adviser.