WRT money?

[HarryDan]

Just got a 'payrise' as started working F/T. DH & I share childcare, cooking, housework etc equally. We're looking at finances & just had a big barney about money :(

He currently earns abit more then me - about £230 to be exact. He is saying I should pay half of my payrise in the communal pot to even out what we are both left with.

Thing is 'communal pot' would include a loan he took out before we were married, to help pay the deposit on the house. We wern't together at this time, so I don't feel I should have to pay for that. He argues that I live in the house, & get the benefit from it, so should take on equal responsibly for that loan. But to me, I live in the house & pay the mortgage - how he got the house is not really my concern. If we were to divorce (not that I am planning to,btw!) surely the courts would factor in our contributions and not just rule a 50/50 split, so he would be entitled to more of a share?

AIBU to think that the loan is not my problem? (I have my own debts, btw, e.g car loan that I am not expecting him to take responsibility for, even though he enjoys use of my car, on occasion).

I think that we should make a list of all shared costs (utilies, mortgage, childcare etc) and then pay into it proportionally from our salary. Personal costs (cars, debts, petrol, subscriptions) we should pay individually. Trouble is, I am rubbish at math, and can't work out the proportion. We have started a spreadsheet but I am practically number blind so get really confused trying to figure out what is fair.

Neither of us are particularly good with money and the argument arose from each of us feeling angry and resentful as we hit our overdrafts each month and have little to show for working so hard

I feel abit pissed off that I will be working an extra day a week and will have very little to show for it, if I am to give him half of that days pay.

Who do you think is being unreasonable?

(thanks for reading, & sorry it's long)

Add your total yearly take home pay to his yearly take home pay. Write down the total.

Put your total take home pay into a calculator, then divide it by the total you've written down, and multiply that by 100. That will tell you what percentage of the total income is from you.

Your approach of writing things down is sensible - well done. Can you get a friend or family or colleague to help you both crunch through the numbers? If you are using excel then you can make pie charts, so if you're number blind that can help visualise the proportions. Top tip - 10% of your income should always be for you.

I agree with your dh, everything should be a shared cost. Your debt from before you were married and his debt from before you were married, should all be included in the one big pot. And you should insist that your name oes on the deeds to the house.

You both get left with an equal amount of personal money to spend as you wish, if there is any.

I think YAB a little U about the loan but if you want to have seperate finances that is your right. Not everyone has combined money.

do you think I should be added?

If you are contributing towards the morgage, and running costs then hell yes your name should be on the deeds.

If the house is in his name then the running costs, morgage etc. are his responsibility.

www.housingadviceni.org/families-and-sharing/living-together/your-rights-if-you-or-your-partner-own-your-home.html

Yes, we have one big pot and both work outside the house. At the moment he earns more, there have been times in the past when it has been the other way round. It's all our money. IMO if it's a partnership there's no real need to have separate accounts- you should both be looking after each other surely? Any debt I have is something he wants paid off and vice versa. I know I'm going to get told off for this but it was in our marriage vows.

Although pre-marriage I borrowed £100 from him (when he was a student and I was working FT . Think I still owe him that and 12 years of interest!

You're not being unreasonable, it's just the way you view money.

my thinking on it is that you're a family. to me that means everything you have - you have together. assets and liabilities (and a house is more the latter than the former anyway!)

I know that some couples operate what I would view as a 'flatmate' arrangement wrt their finances. The way I've always thought of it is that being a committed couple (house, kids, etc - as opposed to casual couple iyswim) means you are sharing your life with someone. To me, a shared life includes shared finances. I just don't understand how you can live with someone, raise children with them, sleep with them, holiday with them, dream of growing old with them... and guard your money from them. The two seem - incompatible - to me. But fair enough, that's what they prefer and that's their right. I don't understand why they make that choice, but since it doesn't affect me, I don't give a crap that they do

DH and I manage our finances that all shared bills come from one "pot" and then we both have an equal amount of "discretionary money" that is for personal expenditure. We both feel strongly that it being an equal amount is important as both our roles were equally important.

The only point under discussion (for me) is whether the loan counts as a shared bill or just your DH's bill. I agree with your DH that it is a shared bill as the house is for the benefit of both of you. Also agree with PPs that your name should be on the deeds. If you sold the house or remortgaged would you "pay back" DH for the extra money he'd put in?

yeah what TMB said

Yabu to not contribute especially as you live in the house. It's simple, tell him you'll happily pay the loan just as soon as he puts your name on the deeds.

Ps I'm one of the pool all money into one pot relationships. Dh earns considerably more than I do, but neither us agree with his and hers money.

We think of all our assets and debts as joint. We also think of all our money is one pool which has 3 pots. Pot 1: goes to pay our household bills Pot 2: has savings for us (including for holidays) and kids (but if we had loans then this would be pot 2) then Pot 3: left over money for each of us. We tot up our income then tot up our pot 1 and 2 expenses, the left over is divided up into 2 and that's what we both get to spend on ourselves. If our joint income was 5,000 per month and pots 1 and 2 added up to 4,000 then pot 3 would have 1,000 so we would each have 500. If I earned 3000 and he got 2000 then, I would pay 2500 (to leave me with 500) into our joint account and he would pay 1500 into the same account (also leaving him with 500). This way there is no resentment. My advice is you should think about dividing your money up as we do or others but also, I would expect to have both names on the house deeds. To me, mine/his/hers isn't what marriage is about so I think you are both being unreasonable.

my husband works and i am sahm, we do get tax credits and child benefit which gets paid to me, my husband gives me his wage, i pay all bills buy food and whatever is needed and then we share whatevers left over or leave it in the bank, neither of us really go put (he goes to scooter rallys sometimes, which he does overtime to pay for ) so we dont spend much on ourselves anyway.

If you married him then you took on his debt as well IMO.

I paid off dp's debts from before we met from an inheritance. We pool our money, and I wouldn't feel in was right to have more personal money than him just because my job pays more, we both work the same number of hours (when I'm not on maternity leave). I like to think we're 'in it together' whatever the situation/problem.

I have some good friends who like to have seperate finances. They pay both salaries into a joint account from which all bills and essentials were paid, and a set amount (they same for them both) is paid into their private accounts from this each month. Would this work for you?

I think you should contribute towards the loan. Presumably if you're married you'd have a claim on the house should you seperate? Or change the deeds into joint names if that feels better. Of course if your dh doesn't want the house in joint names it's a different matter, and in that case I wouldn't contribute (to the loan or the mortgage).

Why bother?? We have a current account into which every penny we both earn is paid, and out of which we both spend. Keep it simple.

Hi,

not saying this is the correct way to do it but this is how we do it, and it works for us as neither of us feel we are being taken advantage of.

We were both lucky in that we only came into the relationship with minimal debt, (2 old style student loans and 1 credit card between us) that we manged to pay off prior to getting a mortgage.

We have 2 joint accounts, house and bills.

When we first bought the house we both agreed how much we could afford to spend towards the mortgage each month, that went in the house account and the mortgage came out of it (we also chose our house etc baaed on what we could afford to pay a month) We also set up as tenants in common in proportion to how much we were each putting in each month. Anything to improve the house also comes out of this account. When we switched to interest only offset mortgage we kept paying in the same amount, and when money got tight we both reduced our contributions by the same ratio. Even now we are married with DC2 on the way we have kept it this way as we both feel we are making a fair contribution.

For the Bills account we worked out what the annual joint bills were for car, insurance, food etc. and divided it by 12 and we each put half in each month. We increase this periodically if it looks like we need to put more in (DCs nappies etc upped the average food shop, energy price increases etc.). This account is always kept at 50:50 contributions from both of us.

When DC came along and one of us went part time, we split the money earned on the days only 1 person worked based on what the ratio was in terms of earnings. e.g. if one of us would have earned £100 per day and the other £50 then the one who earned £100 went to work and then gave the other (who was looking after DC) £33/day. (i.e. 50/(100+50)=33). This money goes direct to the other partner and is their money (from which they make the house and bills contributions etc.)

Any money left over in our individual accounts is our own to do with as we want, although we do tend to discuss any big purchases before making them. We both save money each month and put that towards holidays/treats etc.

Not saying this would suit everyone (I like playing with spreadsheets so was quite happy to work the ratios out etc) but it works for us and may give you some ideas.l

I would have contributed jointly whatever the debt but definitely feel you should as it's for the house. I also agree that you should get your name put on the deeds.

But youre married?

Surely the big pot thing works best??

In our house everything goes into the joint account and we share. To me, that's the point of marriage - to share a life as TMB said up thread.

However, that only works if both parties agree to share everything - and that includes the house. It isn't yours if your name isn't on the deeds. Why should you pay a mortgage and loan for a house that isn't legally yours? tell him you want the deeds to reflect joint ownership of the house and then you will share your money equally.

I think once you're married it's rarely fair to split finances according to your own incomes. The fact of being married affects your incomes, whether it's one of you going part-time or giving up work to look after the kids, or staying in a town where you can't get as good a job because your partner has a good job there. Then of course there's maternity leave, redundancy, etc.

From time to time we have thought of splitting the left-over money equally so that we feel free to spend money on things we each enjoy, but even that is tricky as we have different priorities. So, DH would never think of buying a new duvet cover, but I might. Is that therefore out of "my" spending money because I wanted it, or joint money because it's for the house?

I'm in the all in, everything shared camp - when I was earning more, when I was earning less and now I'm not earning. I don't understand the other way, must be really boring having to nitpick through all the bills. Might be easier for us tho cos we are always broke so not much left to fight over after bills!

Can't believe you're married and pay towards the mortgage of the family home but you're not on the deeds!

You go on the deeds = you share the loan which helped to buy the house = you have equal shares in your family home.