Your new partner is about to move into your home. Now what?
Is your new love partner financially efficient? Or, are you losing money from a new live-in arrangement?
There is a lot written on the web about moving in together: tips and recommendations on how set up a new home together. But, what if someone is moving into an existing household? What if your home is built, decorated, equipped with top-notch technology, and you paid for it during the fun-deprived years of hard work and forced savings?
And now, your new love messes up your house, breaks your Bosch dishwasher and Miele vacuum cleaner? What if your eating habits mismatch so strongly that you don’t own your kitchen anymore? What if your summer hydro bill went sky-high because he/she forgot to close windows on a steam-hot sunny week, but did not forget to turn the a/c on?
Don’t forget your personal tax exemption and child tax benefits! Losing some or all of the tax perks can completely override monthly payment your new partner is offering you.
Where to get guidance?
In the past month, I had several consultations on this topic with men and women recoupling after a divorce. Inspired by their questions and concerns, I have produced a process to calculate your new partner’s utility: Co-Efficient of Utility template that simply tallies up financial pros and cons of the cohabitation.