Individual spending money in a relationship (amounts included)

[bearbit]

Person A:
income £887.20
bills £416.01
leftover £471.19

Person B:
income £2818.78
bills £1793.26
leftover £1025.52

The above is the situation in my household, married with 2 children. No official joint finances, e.g. 1 on the mortgage, separate bank accounts etc.

Person A does top up food shops throughout the week from their leftover amount, Person B does the weekly big shop which is included as part of their bills (approx. £550pm total).

How should the leftover spend be split when Person A pays towards food from their leftover amount? And how much would be reasonable to save from what's leftover each month?

Is there a reason everything is separate? IMO unless one person is egregiously slacking in terms of income (like refusing to get a job or something) then the fairest thing to do is pool resources and for both people to have the same amount to themselves. You’re a family so why does one person have more than twice the other?

I personally think finances should be shared unless a real reason not to. Also who is not on the mortgage and why, are you married? Person a is in a vulnerable place if they are not married and not on the mortgage.

Married with two children? Then like this:

Income: £3705
Bills: £2209
Leftover :£1496 split between savings and spends between you

You're a family.

This. No faffing about. Why is only one o. The mortgage? You are married!

Edit - Why is there only person on the mortgage?

It looks like person B pays proportionately more of their earnings for joint expenses (I assume by bills you mean household ones, not personal ones). On the face of it, proportionately it's fair, as while A has less personal spending money leftover, they pay a smaller proportionate of their earnings to cover joint bills. I am not necessarily a believer in the must have equal spends approach. Because if someone is bringing in more income, it seems fair that they get to enjoy what they are bringing in, assuming they are equitably covering childcare costs and as long as they can support their partner as and when needed. For example, they may not give their partner money every month for shoe shopping, but they absolutely would pay for a needed car repair.

All that being said, if one person is doing more of the childcare/spending more time with children, is the default parent, sorter out of things, they very likely spend more of their own money on joint endeavours, even if they think they don't. Fuel going into the car is more likely spend on ferrying children around by the primary parent, same with birthday presents for friends, meals on a day trip out, etc. I think this is why having a joint account makes sense. You don't have to work out all this maths every month. You pay proportionately into an account and you spend sensibly on joint expenses from that account, and on personal ones from personal accounts.

Sorry i missed you were married!

In addition to the above, why is person Bs food shop counted in their bills, but person A effectively isn't? All those little bits add up, and will mean that person a is contributing more than the pro rata from their salary.

You can get a joint account as well as separate bank accounts. Then you put into that proportionately/reasonably and all
bills, including food shop, come from it. Then Person A doesn’t pay random bits alone.

And what others said about the mortgage etc.

This is so complicated OP. Sorry I'm not smart enough to even begin to do the maths.

We share our finances totally now (we've been together 20 years and I earn significantly more than DH).
But when we didn't, we contributed the same percentage of our wages to our joint account (say, 50%) to cover all bills, mortgage, food shops, holidays, furniture etc.

Would something like this work for you?

If you’re married then it won’t matter who pays the mortgage, you have equal right to the property but should really have their name also on the paperwork.
based on the math, person A is underpaying and person B is overpaying. But it really depends on how much the weekly shops add up to across the whole month x

Person A is not on the mortgage as was not possible at the time according to mortgage advisor, forgot to add that Person B transfers Person A £150pm towards their spend.

Person B pays for the weekly food shop on their credit card that is paid monthly so comes off as a monthly bill and pays for large spends, e.g. holidays, clothes, car/house repairs etc.

OP, is there a reason why you don't share your finances to a greater extent? Especially as you have a mortgage and a child together.

This. It's so basic. Anything else isn't teamwork.

What @Berga said. You have kids and are married so are a family.

maybe add a small amount to each person as personal spends, say no more than £200 each

are all chores, childcare, mental load equal ? or does the person who earns least contribute more to these tasks?

All food, bills, household and child expenses should come out of a joint pot into which you pool everything. Both of you get an “allowance” that you agree on for personal spending money.

Is there a reason you’re not doing this yet?

So the differential is about £250 a month (that was quite an omission that B gives A £150 a month!). If B is also using their money for family holiday and car - I'll bet that's pretty much all of their 'extra' £250 a month, so yes - it seems fair.

What berga said

you add all the income together

you take off all the bills and all the food etc

the een you split what is left/ of pool together and keep a vague eye on amounts (we just pool everything)

you are a partnership. Maybe he is bringing in more money but you are doing more child care/school runs / housework etc

The money was more fairly split but Person A's income has gone down recently and Person B's has gone up so it's time to revisit the finances to try and get a balance.

Person A is a spender and Person B is a saver so they don't agree on what's fair.

I'm wondering why you are asking this OP, whether you are person A and feeling hard done by/controlled or whether you are person B and feeling taken advantage of/conned in some way? Either one is not great for your relationship to be honest, which is why pooling it in a more straightforward way as a family helps clear this up. Unless there is some kind of financial abuse being alluded to, which would put a different slant on it.

Are child responsibilities split exactly 50:50?
which person gestated the children?
which person took substantial
parental leave?
does one person work less to facilitate child responsibilities and household management?

Is your annual pay £10,646 ? Are your children young and in nursery? Will your salary increase soon?

My husband and I paid 50/50 cost of bills etc prior to children and marriage, regardless of income. We then pooled all finances and chose to pay £200 each to our personal accounts to spend as we wished on non household things. This avoids any arguments over purchases one or the other wouldn’t feel was worth it from a joint pot and allows for gifts to one another. Any unspent money can be saved by that person. We don’t actually even bother with that any more as we are quite well matched with our spending but found it worked very well for us.

We do this (amounts not correct obviously but for example.)

DH (full time)

Earns £1000/month - paid into his personal account.

Me (Part time)

Earns £500 per month - paid into my personal account

Our bills (mortgage/utilities/childcare) and what we put into savings come to £800

We spend £400 on food/petrol/days out.

So that's £1200 we need in the joint account every month.

He earns double what I do so he pays in £800 and I pay in £400

He's left with more spending money of his own than me too. But he's never stingy with it and it'll always be him who pays for food/coffees etc.

Big purchases we put on air miles Amex and generally gets paid off out of one of the savings accounts but if it's just the odd payment needed here and there he'll clear that off too.

Looking at my figures again, Person A gets £620pm to spend and Person B gets £500 with about £380 put into savings. Although, Person A invariably spends more than that and gets money from the savings/Person B when needed.