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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Household Finances

80 replies

NuckyS · 12/10/2015 11:35

Prompted by a comment one of my family made about household finances, I'm just wondering what people consider an equitable arrangement within their household.

I work FT and DW works PT - the proportion of our contribution to the finances is about 75-25. I pay:

mortgage
loan repayments
Council Tax
groceries/clothing for DCs
fuel
entertainment (TV licence, streaming films, etc.)
insurance

We split utilities proportionately on our income.

I've never had a problem with this arrangement (although it leaves me with no spare cash left over in any given month) until that comment the other day.

What do others think?

OP posts:

MrsTerryPratchett · 12/10/2015 16:21

That's not fair unless you have some expense you haven't told us about. DH gets less spending money than I do right now but he wanted a personal trainer so that was the compromise.

Same child-free time off and same spending money.

Is she PT because of your child or because of something else?

KinkyDorito · 12/10/2015 16:27

Pool everything here too.

DrDreReturns · 12/10/2015 16:30

We pool everything - we only have joint accounts. I don't understand married couples not pooling their finances.

EllyHigginbottom · 12/10/2015 16:31

You should both share the pain.

This is really the cornerstone of marriage
Sharing pain.

TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams · 12/10/2015 16:35

Our youngest DC is preschool so I wouldn't say she has that much free time, either ;)

Love you to bits for that statement. Just saying !

Why does everyone thing that being a SAHP is a doss. I have bad dreams about losing my job and it being the financially sensible choice for me to have to look after my kids FT. I love them to bits but not ALL the time

Original poster

NuckyS · 12/10/2015 16:35

In fairness, DW doesn't get a huge amount of nights out so does deserve a bit of a blast.

(wouldn't mind one myself though! ;))

OP posts:

Purplepoodle · 12/10/2015 16:36

Add message | Report | Message poster DrDreReturns Mon 12-Oct-15 16:30:26
We pool everything - we only have joint accounts. I don't understand married couples not pooling their finances.

guess your lucky to have a spouse who's not a spender, I've seen joint finances sink marriages

BackforGood · 12/10/2015 16:38

Thehousewife - we started having our own little "pots" of money because we are very different with money - I am a natural saver, and dh likes to spend. When we had very little, I would then get resentful if I'd made a decision to economise on something / not buy something so I could have a little 'buffer' of savings, and he would then see there was money in the a/c and use it for something I felt we/he didn't need. By having our own little pots, we could each do what we preferred. The 'own money' only comes after all bills paid, and savings for things like household or ca maintenance, and holidays, etc are all accounted for.

Original poster

NuckyS · 12/10/2015 16:40

I worked condensed hours for a while to get days home with DCs when both were preschool (a necessity due to the lack of childcare near us) and have never dossed less in my life!! :)

OP posts:

DrDreReturns · 12/10/2015 16:40

Purplepoodle I guess you're right, we both have similar attitudes to money. Different spending habits can cause a lot of problems.

Arfarfanarf · 12/10/2015 16:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

sal47 · 12/10/2015 16:46

We pool all our money. At the moment we both work Ft but this has not always been the case with both of us taking time off for childcare/redundancy etc.

We are equal and therefore both must clean, cook, shop, look after kids etc. If he is home earlier than me I would expect him to cook dinner and vice versa.

If I am on maternity leave/ working part time and earning much less but looking after kids, doing more housework then I am still contributing value. If it weren't for me doing that he wouldn't be able to work full time, eat, have kids, live in a clean house.

Don't think either partner should be seen as entitled to more money than the other.

parabella · 12/10/2015 16:47

For me it's about retaining my independence. I work hard for my money as does dh for his. We pay half each and if I wamted more money left after paying my half, I'd have to get a better paying job. It's not his responsibilty to support me as it's not mine to support him.

PacificMouse · 12/10/2015 16:54

We pool all our money too, everything goes onto one account and we take the money out of that.

I also think that looking at how much spending money you have isn't always the right way to look at things.
DH has two hobbies that are time consuming but very cheap. he hardly spend smoney (and hates doing that anyway).
I, on the other side, will go out with some friends a few times in the year and maybe will buy more clothes than him. So you can say I havbe more spending money than him.
We prefer to see it as a different way to use our free time. The trade off of more disposable money to more time away from family is one that works for us.

ExConstance · 12/10/2015 16:54

We divide outgoings in proportion to our income. DH recently started to receive a small pension, he pays me £100 per month out of this, and calls it my "wifely bonus" which makes me smile. Probably easiest to have a joint account and divvy up the leftovers after the bills are paid 50/50. We did this when we were first married but business payments for me made it all too complicated.

rookiemere · 12/10/2015 16:55

We pool all our money and then each get an equal amount in our joint account. I feel that despite earning less I am pulling my weight as I do all pick ups and drop offs, majority of housework, all of school admin, all of food shopping and cooking .

From that all expenses that are deemed personal are paid out i.e. lunches at work rather than making at home, coffees, clothes ( for ourelves not for DS), gym membership and meeting friends.

There are sometimes interesting discussions around what constitutes a joint expense usually related around electronic equipment and car purchases but generally it works quite well.

TinklyLittleLaugh · 12/10/2015 16:56

We chuck all our money in the pot, buy what we want out of it. We are both pretty sensible; neither takes advantage. We have both been the higher earner at various times then I was a SAHM for five years.

We are not even married by the way. I thought when you got married you promised them "All my worldly goods".

Unreasonablebetty · 12/10/2015 17:04

Everyone seems to work them out quite differently, but because my do earns much much more than I do, what's mine is generally mine for taxis, picking up odd bits and bobs, dinners here and there, the odd bill he's forgotten about ie- this month council tax wasn't paid, the reminder came, I called and made the payment for It.
I buy most of the household stuff and our toiletries, our days out are paid for by me, and if OH generally needs money it's there in my account.
So he has the responsibility whereas what's mine is I guess our safety net cash.... Thinking about this makes me think we might need to figure out how to budget better!

GobShites · 12/10/2015 17:13

I work PT and my DH works full time and is currently earning nearly 3x as much as me.

We put both sets of wages into the joint account, pay out all the bills/savings etc and then we both have an equal amount of free spending money which is transferred by standing order to each of our own accounts.

I much prefer it this way as I like to save some of my 'spends' or buy clothes etc with mine, whilst DH wastes spends most of his on sandwiches or coffee rather than taking a packed lunch to work.
It would do my bloody head in seeing all the money he spends on butties and redbull but he has the right to spend his cash on whatever he wants without me resenting it so this works best for us.

We also had the same set up before I had DS and I was the higher earner.

SolidGoldBrass · 12/10/2015 17:15

Why are you now working longer hours for less money? Is your wife aware of the changes to your work arrangements?

I think there is a risk that your resentment at your employer for cutting your wages and increasing your workload may be getting unfairly projected onto your wife and the fact that she appears to have more spending money. It's unlikely to be her fault that the family income has gone down suddenly and she may be perfectly willing to redo the household budget. Do consider, though, that you both might need to cut out 'treats' - you may not spend money on nights out but you might (eg) buy in-game bonuses, or more-expensive-than-necessary lunches at work or something.

As to the family member - is this person someone who thinks that the man earns the family money and therefore has all control over how it is spent and the 'little woman' needs to know her place?

Troubletutmill · 12/10/2015 17:20

We do not have a joint account and it suits us both but we have an income level that is above average and no money worries.

Sit down and work out what you have left between you regardless of if you have joint or separate accounts.

Currently my DH does have more disposable income than me but I have enough for any purchases I need plus savings.

I think that as things are tight resentment over disposable income is more likely so sit down and do it.

LikeASoulWithoutAMind · 12/10/2015 17:34

It's not his responsibilty to support me as it's not mine to support him.

Wow. Interesting take on marriage. Curious to know what happens in this scenario if one partner becomes ill?

PacificMouse · 12/10/2015 19:15

Yes I was wondering that too...

Original poster

NuckyS · 12/10/2015 19:25

As to the family member - is this person someone who thinks that the man earns the family money and therefore has all control over how it is spent and the 'little woman' needs to know her place?

Haha! Not exactly....

Happens to be a regular poster here, actually.

OP posts:

AbeSaidYes · 12/10/2015 22:12

I asked the question about childcare costs because I wondered who did the childcare. Given that it seems to have been your DW perhaps it might be worth pointing out to your family that what your wife saves you in childcare more than makes up for the perceived unfairness of the financial split.

However, if all DC are now in some kind of school or nursery and things are tight, perhaps DW could increase her paid work and then increase her contribution.

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