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Original poster

Individual spending money in a relationship (amounts included)

77 replies

bearbit · 07/05/2024 17:41

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?

OP posts:

DaisyChain505 · 08/05/2024 15:57

Berga · 07/05/2024 18:00

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 all the way.

you’re a family and a unit. You’re working together to build a happy fulfilled life for your team, it shouldn’t be one person living in luxury having lots of money to splash and the other counting pennies.

im sure the lower earner works just has hard as the higher earner and pulls their weight childcare and house wise. It’s not their fault they’re not paid as much.

Usernamen · 08/05/2024 16:35

Berga · 08/05/2024 15:12

I do understand your perspective, and I think that's fine in roughly equal financial circumstances before you're married or in a civil partnership. If you are married or in a cp, then it's all joint regardless. Sometimes circumstances don't reflect our idealism though. I started off where you are in my previous marriage, then when I had my child, ex-H wanted to keep it the same, he saw his money as his, even though I was working part time and doing the majority of childcare. He was an arsehole.

In my partnership now, it's all shared. All family money, between us and DC/step DC. We still have extravagant months, it's not like we have to ok a spend with each other and neither of us care as long as the bills are sorted, we just agreed a rough amount each month for regular daily expenditure for each of us. Just because it's shared doesn't mean it's restricted. And I would support my DP through anything because I trust he would do the same for me.

Show quote history

But I am guessing you chose to work part-time? You could have stayed full-time and split the childcare costs with your husband. This would also mean maintaining earning potential / promotion prospects which naturally decline when one drops to part-time.

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