You do know there is a difference between household income and personal income right?

I pre-screen my tenants by saying "Total household income has to be 3x rent, no pets, smokers or evictions."

We  have a procedure in place for changing the make-up of the household. 

. - the median household salary in US is around 60k, so if you plan to charge more than $1600 per month, the house is not affordable to most americans.- the rental yields for lower priced home are currently much higher, so there is a lot of potential if you buy things you know how to manage. 

(Made up numbers), if you make 60% of the household income, you pay 60% of the household bills (and your GF pays 40%).As a woman, I'm not touching the rest of this with a ten foot pole.

They've given me other reasons to believe they don't know how to handle basic house hold maintenance tasks. 

is it fixed or it varies based on our household income?

Your company's HR department may have info available about the tax consequences of your stock options, but perhaps you could reduce taxes by watching the timing of exercise if your household income varied from year to year. i.e. if your income was regularly under the Social Security wage limit of $127,200, then it might make sense to exercise multiple options in one year to get above the SS wage limit and avoid 6.2% tax on the amount over the limit.

If they're both the same as applicants, then I'd say pick the one who turned it in first (even if it was literally by just a few minutes).If these are applicants to a room in a home that you also live in, choose the one that seems to fit your household style the best.

However, there are some cases where it might help to accelerate the income. 1)If you expense to be lot higher tax bracket next year.2)If your Head-of-household or surviving spouse status ends after this year3)You plan to get married next year ( combination of income will push you on the higher bracket)4)If you expect to be eligible for one or more credits next year (e.g., the child tax credit), but not this year.