I (24m) make a significantly larger amount of money then my girlfriend (22f). I bring home about $6k a month after taxes whereas she brings home about $1.4k. I work about 50-60 hours a week depending on what’s needed to make my maximum commission percentage. She on the other hand works about 30-40 hours a week at an ,albeit, also very stressful job, but she will also commonly take days of because she doesn’t feel like working that day.
Ever since I have started making more money, I only allow myself to spend my bonus money , about $1k each month, as play money for the both of us, the rest of my money pays for bills and goes into a hysa. I try to make my decisions on what I spend it on very carefully, so I’m not disappointed on what I spent my hard work on. I try to influence the same on her so that when I buy her something, she feels like she made the right decision. She is very bad at saving money to put it bluntly.
Arguments have arisen lately because she feels angry that I have so much more money than her and don’t buy her more stuff than what I buy for myself. I then show her and explain to her that I tend to not really spend any of my monthly play money, so I can save it for larger purchases, like my car. I tend to spend around $500 on her each month so she can get the things she wants. For example, I bought her plane tickets last month to go see her family across the country recently for $500. She hasn’t seen them in about half a year since we moved away, and now she’s homesick and wanted to go see them. This also means she’ll be missing 2 weeks of work, so I will more than likely need to pay her bills for her that month, which I’m okay with, not exactly stoked, but if it makes her happy, I’m happy. But now she is angry that I won’t go buy her a new piercing or tattoo out of the blue when I had also bought her one last month, plus the plane tickets.
This has been happening more and more often, especially with the more money I make, that she wants to work less, and buy more. So AITAH for not spending more of my money on my girlfriend.
TLDR : I make a lot more money than my girlfriend and spend half my bonus money on her and save the rest, but she is upset I don’t spend more.