My husband and I have individual bank accounts and want to create a joint account to pay our shared expenses (mortgage, insurance, utilities, groceries, etc.) but pay our auto loan payments and gas expenses individually. Due to the nature of my job, I have a higher car payment and spend much more on gas than he does. We want to calculate a percentage of each of our biweekly income to determine the contribution to the joint account by each person. The question is what to base the percentage on. The discrepancy is the due to the way I am paid by my employer. I am paid a base salary plus a fluctuating commission and I am reimbursed for mileage and office expenses on every paycheck. He thinks my reimbursements should be included in the total amount calculated as take home pay and contributed to the joint account percentage. This would leave me with little to nothing to pay the auto loan and gas expenses out of pocket because my reimbursement would be going into the joint bill paying account. He says this is the fair way to do this considering his company does not reimburse him for mileage so his checks do not include this extra income. He also drives 10 miles to work and back every day compared to my 500+ miles per week so he has a much smaller auto debt than I.
I want to do what is fair but we disagree on what that is. Please be brutally honest with me. What is your opinion on the fair way to calculate this?