To think joint finances make more sense once children arrive?

I disagree with the first few comments.

that isn’t fair at all.

the only fair way is one pot for everything, and the left over disposable income split exactly in half.

equal fun money.

the ‘% contribution based on salary’ leaves one person with more spending money than the other.

yanbu op.

It’s totally dependent on the family set-up I think. It often gets thrown around (correctly!) that statistically speaking women will end up worse off due to childcare/impact on careers, but it’s not always the case.

I’m currently a high earning single mum and it makes me laugh to read this because realistically if I were to get in another relationship and have another baby, I’d likely be far worse off with marriage/joint finances.

We have separate finances, and children.

We have a shared account we put £x each per month to cover mortgage, bills, childcare, food etc.

We are then free with our remaining money to spend /invest as we like. I have the higher income, I pay the lions share of eg holidays and put a higher amount in the shared pot each month.

We have a good income and surplus cash each month though - which is probably key in the workability of this.

Very few people have completely separate finances in a family/marriage set up anyway.
There's a pretty simple solution to this, you work out what your total family core outgoings are, including all basic living costs, nursery, motrgate, bills, schooling, kids clothes. Both parents contribute to a shared pot that covers those costs as a minimum. Contributions should be roughly in line with earnings. So let's say monthly core outgoings are £1500 and wife earns double the husband. She puts in £1k and he £500. This avoids any one parent being responsible for certain fixed costs (e.g. typically and ridiculously often childcare costs are attributed to the mum when she works!). Its very fair. If only one of you is working then one of you contributes the full £1500 per month. Oy can also contribite proportionally to jount savings if you wish. Each adult has their own personal account too, to enable flexibility and some financial independence.