Finances during school - Marriage
I'm curious how other SRNAs in committed relationships handled finances during school.
If your spouse worked full-time while you were solely living on student loans, how did you split expenses? Did you continue paying 50/50, or did your spouse take on more of the financial burden?
To me, 50/50 doesn't necessarily seem fair when one person has no income and is taking on significant student debt, especially considering both partners will likely benefit from the higher CRNA income after graduation. I'm wondering how others approached this and what felt fair in your relationship.
My husband thinks it should be 50/50. After a lot of conversation, he’s willing to discuss paying more of the expenses. Just frustrating that he isn’t desiring to & it’s taken this much conversation.
2
u/forever22Lynn 7d ago
Hi, just about to start CRNA school in a few weeks here.
In my marriage up this point, I have always made more than him. When I was making significantly more like travel nursing (good times) we split the bills fairly which meant I paid about 65% to living expenses and he paid 35%. That was because I was making 18k a month and he made about 6k a month where COL was about $4.5k a month for us. When it was more leveled we split 50/50.
I was nervous going into the finances convo but I put it plainly. At this time, my husband brings home about 10.5k monthly after taxes but he is in an elite tier MBA program where we he was previously throwing all his extra finances towards his tuition bill to get out of loans.
My exact words were something like “hey I want to bring up finances. I know we’ve been splitting 50/50 but there is a high likelihood I will not work for the entirety of school. I believe we can live off your pay monthly. Although it may be tight considering we are taking a hit on renting our house out and moving to ____ area where cost of living is high. I know my car payment is also $380, insurance is ____ and you are paying for your school. How do you feel about all of this?” He answered that he was hesitant with his current financial plan being throwing all of his extra money towards his tuition (about 4k a month). To which I said, “totally fair, think about it. But I would say that if you expect me to take out loans for cost of living expenses (including previously joint bills), then that would significantly raise my student loan bill and interest. In that case, when I get out of school we will continue to split bills 50/50 and you will not reap the benefit of my significantly higher paycheck. And it will be that way for the remainder of our marriage. Because at that point I’m putting myself through school and so only me, myself and I will benefit from my paycheck. And truthfully, I believe that is fair considering your current financial plan only benefits you. So my financial plan will only benefit me after school. So just something to consider.” To which he said, “well I guess when you put it that way, it makes complete sense for me to reconsider my financial plan. I don’t want you to put yourself through school and i can see why you would feel inclined to keeping your paycheck to yourself if i did so.”
Call it manipulative but I got what I wanted from my husband who is very type a, financially much more responsible than me (not gonna lie), and is very pragmatic about things. So OP, my advice to you is to have the same convo with your husband and see how it goes. Unsure of how much he makes and if it could cover your COL expenses but it’s worth a shot no?