How much should we each pay into joint account?

[Userrrr1234]

If you are very fixed in your views that all money should go into one bank account this may not be the thread for you!

I’m back to work soon after ten months on maternity leave. I will be earning £42000 and I think the take home pay is around £2400.

Nursery is £800 a month and the mortgage is £1000. They are the main shared costs.

I was thinking £1400 leaving me with £1000 for me. Does that sound fair?

No, he works in an entirely different field. Has always earned more.

Teen DP gives me money every month and that’s on top of the maternity pay I was eligible for plus an additional source of income. And he does all the grocery shopping etc.

I don’t understand what you don’t understand tired

You have said that he'd land up with less spending money than you. That's what I don't understand as I just don't see how that would be the case in a proportional spending scenario. Hence my example.

@BertieBotts

I think you should have the same amount left over, whatever that means for splitting the bills.

This, no matter how much you earn. Otherwise a life together will be full of resentment.

Although our salaries go into our single accounts, everything is put over to the joint account and we spend whatever needed on ourselves from there. Why do you need to keep it for yourselves?

@Userrrr1234

That probably wouldn’t work as DP earns double!

Why wouldn’t it work? I earn double my husband. He used to earn double me.

We both put a percentage of our salaries into the joint account. That covers all joint expenses from food to bills to socialising, minor house stuff etc.

We then habe equal spending money/disposable income left. From this we pay into our own savings, our individual cars we pay for, his golf, whatever we wish to buy or save, our calls.

The fact he earns double should be irrelevant.

We do it so that we both end up with the same amount of 'play' money. DH earns almost double me, but I have taken two maternity leaves and been working PT for the past three years. I don't see why I should be penalised for making career decisions for the good of our family, and, more importantly, to enable him to make decisions for the good of his career without having to think about family arrangements. It works both ways.

It also means that if you do go on maternity leave again (or have to pay nursery costs, for example) you still have some frittering money, and you both benefit from pay rises.

If he earns double he could always contribute more into savings etc so that you both end up with an equal amount left over.

Other posters have made good points about taking into account who tends to pay for things like DC clothes, activities you take them to, school things, birthday/christmas presents for them (from both of you) etc. Often just by force of habit this ends up coming out of mum's bank account if you have two - if it does then you should have more available to spend to reflect that.

If each of your spending covers stuff like clothes, hobbies, socialising with individual friends then fine.

I don’t think you have included all the shared costs at all, and you both need to contribute to all the things your home, cars, insurances, transport, baby, holidays, Christmas, birthdays , and all the meals out, takeaways , new saucepans and so on.
You need to work on a much more detailed budget and then add a contingency to allow for the things you have forgotten, say ten percent.

You then need savings for the long term as well as pensions, work backwards from when you want to retire. And are you planning on moving house, so will need a bigger deposit.

Then work out if you pay in, proportional to your take home pay, or to have the same amount of spends.

£1000.00 a month fun money sounds like a huge amount to me, and I earn similar to you.

Don’t forget this will change over your relationship and you can move to a different way of contributing.

I didn’t list everything user but some of those are individual such as our own cars, Christmas doesn’t require much money (yet!)

I don’t think I said ‘fun money’ I said ‘our own money.’ That’s different. But anyway I’m not really interested in whether it’s a lot or not, it’s just about what would work best for us as a couple. I don’t see the point of paying more into a joint account just so I can’t have ‘fun.’

There’s loads of extra shared costs you haven’t included. Who pays for days out, holidays, children’s toys, new stuff for children, new stuff for house. What happens if you need a new sofa or highchair or boiler?

As above I would say equal left, so if you earn £40k and partner £80k, then you pay £20k in per year, and partner pays £60k in per year, meaning you both keep £20k for private use.

Well no, I didn’t include an exact itinerary, but the point is that holidays and days out would be discussed and we’d probably just pay as and when.

The main costs are the mortgage and nursery. I don’t mean to sound like a snippy arse but I’m not listing every time we need a new toothbrush or who pays for a loaf of bread!

I work 3 days a week, my DP full time so he earns more. We put all pay in to a joint account and then both take the same allowance out each month into our personal accounts. It doesn’t matter that he earns more, we’re a partnership so overall all our money is family money anyway.

What did you do before you went on maternity leave? Surely it will be the same as then except with nursery provision added in?

We don't have a joint account. We have a spreadsheet. It has all outgoing including phones, savings, debt, fuel etc. What's left is divided in two and that's your own money in your own account to do with what you wish. I really couldn't see any fairer way. Circumstances change so much over the years.

@SeasonFinale

What did you do before you went on maternity leave? Surely it will be the same as then except with nursery provision added in?

Nope, we just had separate accounts.

I earn most years double DH. We take £x personal money each every month. £y goes into the account for bills and the balance £z goes to savinings on day 1. We use a reward credit card for food fuel/ shopping/family days out and the balance of that is added on to the next months bill figures

Who earns most is totally irrelevant

The main difference is that children are a shared cost.
If you take DC to the zoo, that is a 'child' expense, not a 'you' expense.
Christmas presents for the child(ren) is a shared expense. Clothes for child are a shared expense. Swimming lessons are a shared expense.

To be honest it is easier to start with more going in to a joint account rather than less. If you start building up a surplus you can put it into a holiday fund, or a house repair fund or share it back out again. If you put too little in, then you as the hands on mother organising clothes etc will start to pay for them yourself to be easier / not to be petty, and this will increase over time.

So I earn more than my DH. I totalled up our net income and then worked out a % of what our take home pay was of that total.

So simplistic numbers, I earned 60% of the total household income and he earned 40%.

I added up all our bills, included a savings buffer, and I pay 60% of that and he pays 40%.

I am left with more disposable income than him, but not a large amount as a higher proportion of my salary pays the bills. Any personal bills or fun purchases come out of what's left, then we don't need to check in with each other.

Not for everyone but my DH works full time and earns triple what I do. His take home salary very nicely fits in with the total money needed each month for bills, food, fuel, savings and all kid related expenses plus a little extra bunce for one offs eg dishwasher needed fixing this month. My take home salary is then split between us equally and is our own money. He uses his for golf/biking mainly and I like regular beauty and hair treatments. Any family days/meals out are just picked up by one of us and if either has overspent, the other covers it. We have a joint account where both salaries go and then individual for the apportioned own money. We’re both happy with the arrangement; I facilitate him earning the main wage and all of us having free weekends by doing the food shop and majority of the housework on my Mondays and Fridays off.

@Userrrr1234

Well no, I didn’t include an exact itinerary, but the point is that holidays and days out would be discussed and we’d probably just pay as and when.

The main costs are the mortgage and nursery. I don’t mean to sound like a snippy arse but I’m not listing every time we need a new toothbrush or who pays for a loaf of bread!

Honestly, I think you're being naive. Of course a loaf of bread or a toothbrush isn't a big deal. But if you don't address all the shared costs including, for example, the TOTAL grocery bill that includes nappies/formula/babyfood/cleaning materials etc, or the combined council tax/utilities/broaddband etc bills, you could very quickly find yourself in a situation where you're paying half of the "official" bills and way more of the other bills. And trust me, if you're the one who does the days out, baby shopping etc, it will add up very very quickly.

Best case, like you, your DP simply isn't thinking about this stuff. Worst case, he will happily let you slide into a worse financial state because all these things will just be "small" expenses that you then feel obliged to pick up.

You are trying to achieve fairness, and that can be done in several ways,

1. contribute a % equal to your earnings
2. to give equal personal money in each adults account

You may or may not use a joint account, but from experience it is so much easier to have one pot for joint expenses and then separate personal accounts for personal money.

But both ways above depend totally on having ALL the joint expenses clearly defined. Even the odd extra loaf of bread.

Many of us , with the lived experience of doing this, are trying to help by saying you haven’t got ALL the joint expenses nailed down yet, so are likely to be in for a surprise when you realise how much you will actually need.
And we don’t want you to be the one stumping up for the stuff you haven’t included.

Good luck sorting this out and moving forward as a proper team with you family

3. to pay half of the joint expenses whatever your incomes ( only fair if you earn nearly the same in my opinion)

I don't think anyone can really answer this because it's very individual! It depends on how much you as an individual want to spend/ save each month, no one on here can know that.

Whatever you do, you just need to agree it with your partner so you're both on the same page, both happy and both stick to it.

The main costs are the mortgage and nursery. I don’t mean to sound like a snippy arse but I’m not listing every time we need a new toothbrush or who pays for a loaf of bread

But they're by no means all of them.

Groceries?
Bills? Council tax, utilities, TV/Broadband, water, insurances add up to hundreds of pounds a month. Bills and groceries could well be bigger than your mortgage and/or childcare bill.
Holidays?

I think the fairest way is that both partners have the same amount of personal spending money and it doesn't matter that he earns more than you, you're a partnership.

Easiest way is for all income to go in one pot and all bills and joint costs to come out of that. Or you could have a credit card for groceries, clothes for DC, family days out etc that is paid off in full each month from the joint pot. Joint savings come out of this pot for holidays, home improvements, future maternity leave?, etc etc.

Then send an equal amount to your own personal accounts to be used for personal spending.