Is this fair?

[Tallzara]

Dh and I have two children, I work part time, he works full time. I earn 1k a month, dh earns 2500-3000k a month, this is all after tax.

Dh gives me £800 a month which he transfers into my account, out of the £1800 I pay all of the bills, rent, council tax, utilities etc. Dc1s school dinner money, all childcare costs, all clubs for dc1 so swimming lessons and so on. I buy the main weekly shop, most of the dcs clothes, put fuel in my car.

Dh pays for takeaways and any adhoc meals out.

Lately he has been forgetting to transfer the money and is saying that I obviously don't need it as I've only mentioned it a week after payday, also asking me what I'm doing with all the money and if I'm saving up.

Is he giving me too much money?

You should still ask for the £800 or whatever you fairly need to pay the bills. First of all you have to remember that you have to protect yourself and you should have your own savings because your husband clearly has a lot of his own money.

Protect yourself.

He's not pulling his financial weight as it is....you need to give him a reality check, by not paying bills that affect him directly!

At minimum he should set up a standing order so he doesn't forget to transfer across.

Preferably you set up a joint account for all household expenses, DC expenses, etc.
You then agree how much each of you are going to transfer in each month. You have 3 options (at least)

• each transfer the same amount, £800, which is what you have been doing up to now
• transfer in based on relative salaries, so you pay ~£400 and him ~£1200
• transfer so you both have the same saving/spending left over, so you pay £0 and he pays £1600

You also need to do some kind of budget/itemised list so he understands where the household money goes.

Consider a joint savings account for holidays etc.

This is totally unfair. You're effectively being paid nothing for all the work you do around the house and with childcare, FROM WHICH HE BLOODY WELL BENEFITS!

This is a feminist issue. You deserve half.

Get a joint account. So much easier.

Worked perfectly well for me and my husband for over 24 years since we bought our first house and moved in together...However we shared the child care responsibilities and my income was not impacted by it. Which makes your situation different to the vast majority of people.

I really can't get my head around couples who don't share their money equally. Although we have a joint account that we both pay and equal amount into each month, that's really just for the ease of having an account for the mortgage etc to come out of. The money that's in our individual accounts is very much considered shares money, and we'll use any account to pay for anything. Every so often we'll review our balances and redistribute the money to ensure we're maximising the interest we can earn. If either of us wants to make a big purchase (e.g. DH's new mountain bike) then we'll run it by each other, but generally we'll use the money for spends for ourselves as well.

If you're going to stick with your current arrangement, he at least needs to set up a standing order so that he can't 'forget' to transfer you the money. It probably is worth showing him a breakdown of bills, I tend to deal with all these and my DH has demonstrated several times that he has absolutely no idea what we spend on various utilities.

No, the savings aren't into a joint account they are in his account

Get the joint savings account sorted asap!

When all the bills (including savings) are accounted for, you should both have equal spending money - have an amount set aside for meals out etc if you like.

Otherwise I would write him an invoice for housekeeping, laundry, childcare and any other jobs you do and ask if he would rather employ someone.

He's being tight and unfair. Plus you shouldn't have to 'ask' for money which goes towards his food, his heating/electricity/water/rent etc!!!

So you earn £1000 a month and spend £800 on family stuff. He earns £2500-3000 and spends £800 on family stuff? No he bloody isn't paying you too much.

Different families do it different ways but what you're doing is categorically unfair. Fair options might be:

a) You should both have the same spends and either joint savings or the same amount in your sole names.

b) Even if you decided it was fair to pay in proportional to your income that would mean something like you pay in £400 and he pays in £1200.

Sort out both a joint current account and a joint savings account. Transfer everything your husband has saved so far into the savings account and get him to change his pay arrangements so that everything into the current account, do the same with your pay, and arrange for a regular transfer to the savings account. Or agree with him an arrangement whereby there's a regular standing order feeding into the joint account - I would suggest you suggest that you both do it but organise it so that each of you has around £500 a month left in your individual account for personal purchases, presents etc.

If he is genuinely paying his disposable income (minus £200ish) into savings then I don't see an issue with the distribution of salary. However, I would be checking that savings account every bloody month to make sure it was happening.

Regards the £800, it doesn't matter what day you ask for it, whether you need it on the Monday or only realise on the Friday, you still need it. If you didnt need it, this money would still be considered family money and go into the savings, so his point is moot.

In practice, the way we have recently changed from me managing the bills to DH managing the bills is by adding his name to my current account (so it became our joint account). My salary still goes in there, and all our bills come out of it - we haven't needed to faff with telling people change of bank details and stuff like that.

Then I opened a brand new current account in my sole name, which is where my spending/frittering money gets paid into (as a standing order from the joint account).

I am not a fan of joint finances until you have children. Then I don't know how on earth you can be a fair family unit without pooling your finances.

He earns 3 times what you do, yet pays £800 towards his children and the house?

Nooooo!!! That's not fair at all!!!!

My DH earns twice as much as me so we work it out via a %. I pay him a set amount a month (on the same day he gets paid) all the bills come out of his account and some of the money I transfer goes straight into a joint savings account and he matches it.
That means the money we have left over is ours and we can do what we like with it.

If he is saving money it NEEDS to be put in a joint account ASAP.

What do you at Christmas or if you need to buy something expensive but you've spend all your money on your joint bills???

X

At least some of his savings are "family" savings since what hes transferring to you is just covering household expenses - they should be accessible to you in an emergency.
What would you do if the boiler exploded and he was off on some work conference or something and uncontactable? He'd have thousands sitting in his account and you'd be unable to access any of it.

It really doesnt sound fair to me at all.

We have just one joint account. Both our salaries are paid in and all bills are paid from it. Any left over money is spent by both of us and we discuss any big purchases. Seems the most straightforward for us anyway

In your case I would say all money goes into a joint savings account.
From there DD/SO all your bills, including a good chunk into JOINT savings (and transfer what you already have into their). If they are individual ISAs then split them between you evenly (more tax efficient that way too). All child-related spending goes from that too.
Then if you really want personal accounts for presents/own clothing/fripperies you each DD the SAME amount each month.
Only exception would be if one of you has much bigger commuting costs than the other.
It's not quite what DH and I do as for years I was self-employed so needed to be able to fudge money around depending on whether a bastarding client had paid me or not, but I thnk it will be the best solution for us soon.

Make him a list with the outgoings if he is genuinely clueless.

And open a joint account for the bills and food shop, kids essentials etc to come out of. Transfer money to a joint saving account from this account if it makes it easier. Your situation does not sound fair.

Work out how much you need in the joint to cover essentials, how much you will save each month, then you both pay into the joint account as much as needed so that you both have an equal share of what's left over. So for argument's sake, household income is £3,500 - bills £1,500, saving £1,000 leaves £1,000 - you should both have £500 left in your account after the balance of your wage goes into the joint. For you, that's transferring £500, for your DH it's transferring £2,000. Otherwise you're not treating it as "family money", it's still "yours" and "his" and you are disproportionately funding the family expenses.

into a joint current account sorry

no!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No thats not fair on you, My husband earns 1300 and all the bills come out of his account which eat it all up, The i earn around 1500-3000 a month and we split that down the middle so we have the same to do the shopping and fill our cars etc, and if he was to run out b4 me i would put some more is as its normally because he has done more shopping and i have stayed in lol.

You don't have to have everything in a joint account if you don't want to - but you shouldn't be earning less than him and paying more of the family expenses than him. My husband and I both get paid into our own accounts, and have worked out an amount (regularly reviewed) that we each pay into the joint account to cover bills etc. I earn more than him, I pay in more than him.

Our savings aren't joint (I get preferential staff access through work to various options, plus I am more interested in him in reviewing savings options, he has shares that were left to him by relatives) but they are used for us jointly.

Just to answer, I have my money that I got in an isa and a bit in a savings account in my own name.

I'm not painting dh in a very good light.

Basically he's out the house 7.30am until 6pm, sometimes longer, so I fit in all school runs, pick ups and drops off around my job. I do all the after school activities unless dh finishes early, I sort homework, parents evenings, nativities, anything like that.

I do the housework on my days off but also have a toddler at home on those days. Dh does do plenty when he's home and will happily cook if he's back early one day, he does bedtime, he does most cooking on the weekend, tidies up and all that.

We do have a strange set up with the finances we've just never addressed it. I've listed all the outgoings to him loads of times so he does, or should know.

He doesn't really spend anything on himself. He rarely goes out, maybe once a month he meets a friend for a curry, he rarely buys himself any clothes. Put it this way, I bought him new shoes for his birthday, he liked them because he chose them, but he kept on wearing his old battered ones for nearly another year. So he's hardly splashing out on himself.

I'm going to speak to him tonight about it all but I suspect he will say that he was joking. I don't really feel as though he is joking because he keeps forgetting to transfer the money.

Sit down and sort it out. Make an appointment at the bank and go in.

financial control is still control.