Paying partner to be childcare

[RandomNumberName]

Bit of background...

My husband and I split our money 50/50 on all our joint bills.
The only things we spend ourselves is things like gym memberships, personal purchases etc. Even things like clothes and food get a monthly budget and split between us.
Even then we're pretty happy to give each other extra whenever so it's not fixed and stubborn.
We are a couple after all.

We do it this way as at one time one of us was handling all the bills and allowing a certain amount of spending money for the month between us and it was making the other one feel a lack of control over their working life and finances. I'm not going to say if that was me or him as it's irrelevent, just explaining why we split bills, this way I don't feel guilty if I want to spend £50 on 1 item and vice versa.
You see what I mean? This way is just easier and happier for us both.

Ok so with that explained - my aibu is about childcare.
If we both worked 5 days we would earn very nearly the same.

Atm - He works 5 days, I work 2. We have a young child who we don't want to go to nursery until she's 3 when she'll get her 30 free hours.
We've said it would cost £50 a day to put her in nursery for me to return to work full time that's £75 each a week extra EACH we'd have to fork out for her to be with strangers 3 full days!
Instead we agreed he would give what he would pay to me, £75 a week so I can stay home and care for her on those 3 days myself.
We see this as - why should I lose out on my wages but at the same time we don't want dd in full time daycare.
(A relative has her the other 2 days and is happy to do so, so that's not an issue)

However someone mentioned that it's not fair on DH and why should he pay me to look after my own children.

Curiosity killed the cat, now it's got me wondering...!

Is it a reasonable good and fair arrangement we've come up with or aibu?

Sounds odd to me because we simply had a joint account but if it works for you then why not. Call it housekeeping if you prefer

It doesn't seem unreasonable if you're both happy with it, but I agree with others that it seems an odd way round.

Are you paying the relative to look after your daughter 2 days a week? I have assumed not, in which case if I was the relative I might wonder why I was looking after her free, but you were being paid!

It's a bizarre system. Depends on your earnings.

You should do whatever works for you both.

(Though if you earn similarly and both enjoy your jobs, I’d wonder why you couldn’t both go down to 4 days, then you only have one day of childcare to find. Admittedly I have no children though so might not be a feasible idea!)

Create a budget together:
www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/budget-planning/#bplanner

Give yourself the same amount of disposable income (unless you are happy and understand why not e.g. your hobby is horseriding and his is gardening might need different amounts)

make sure baby activities, classes etc are a budget category and don't fall disproportionately to you.

You might like to check out YNAB or other budget planning tools that you can for example have on your phone to keep track of your budget.

I agree it's great if you (he?) can have the odd splurge wothout explaining yourself but you are a family and it makes no sense for some members to be poorer than others.

For most people by tge time you budget out everything Car ins, household maintenance, a new carpet you want to save for, replacing your car in 3 tears, Christmas, a summer hol, clothes, glasses, dental, swimming lessons, uni fund....(whatever is important to you) disposable income for fun probably isn't a huge amount.

It would be a lot easier and probably fairer to turn your approach around.

All income goes in one pot and all joint expenses, including anything related to DC and savings for pensions, emergency fund, annual and irregular expenses come out of this pot and you both get a set amount of personal spending money which you would then use to buy your mystery £50 item.

Things like cars and mobile phones can come out of the main pot or personal spending, depending on whether you see them as basic essentials or if either of you likes a much more expensive car/phone than is necessary or affordable it could be paid for out of personal money.

If you're both happy to then sure, why not. Personally I would rather him pay a higher % of the bills and then be left with more of my wages, it feels like more of a secure arrangement to me. But who cares what others think, just don't discuss finances with them.

Seems a bit bizarre but if you're both happy with that arrangement then it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks!

I'm not surprised he was happy to pay you £75 a week. Surely if you want to work it out properly he should be paying you half of your lost income for those three days minus the £75 he would pay towards childcare. It doesn't take account of all the other losses and downsides of working part time but it's a start. It's a weird way of splitting family finances though.

How do you split the non-nursery hours? So if nursery would be 8am-6pm and that would cost £75, presumably you split responsibility from 6pm-8am 50/50? And weekends 50/50 too? Otherwise he should be paying you for more hours.

Surely it’s just another way of you having housekeeping? If your happy then do it.,

I know this wasn't the point of your post but just trying to be helpful - I'm pretty sure it's 15 free hours once they turn 3 for nursery. Apologies if this isn't the case for u but it's what my ds is going to get next year (also what my 2 nieces and friends' children all had) so just thought I'd mention it.

Sounds a bit too businesslike for me, but honestly, whatever works for you both is fine and nobody else's business.

Whatever suit you as a couple it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. X

OP I would say don't discuss this sort of thing with other people. They will always have another view. If you and your husband are happy it is no business of anyone else. Do what works for you.

As long as both of you are happy, why not. Every family and every couple is different. Don't worry about what others think.

I think the amount you earn come into play

How are you going to cope when your dc has to go school ? Y’know with teachers being strangers?

Are you going to home school?

a fairer way is for the 50/50 split being about what you take out of the pot rather than what you put in. So you both put in 100% of your earnings and then bills, food, transport, children's expenses gets paid out of that. You each take out same amount of 'personal' money that you can use on gym membership, pilates, clothes, coffees, make up, beer, sky-diving or whatever you want.

If it works for you, fine. It doesn't sound like either side is taking the piss. Since you split bills 50/50 but are not earning anything like an equal amount (unless you're in a very high paying career and he's very low paid), it makes sense that he would even it up. Personally, I would be more inclined to do this by splitting bills according to income, but it probably works out about the same.

You’re only working 2 days a week and you still have to pay half the living expenses?

I think any system that results in you both having roughly equal amounts of discretionary spending money and downtime is fair.

It's interesting that your DH's friend thinks he has the bad deal. To my mind he gets childcare and presumably the bulk of the housework done just for the price of childcare. Completely worry free as your child is with a parent, so it's not like he's going to get a call from nursery about a temperature when he has an important meeting. And presumably for nowhere near the price of one on one childcare. Surely a financial bargain.

Meanwhile you lose three days pay, progression, pension, financial independence in the event of separation. All for an informal arrangement presumably for far less than you'd earn by working full-time.

But I admit that my own biases are probably coming into it there, as I prefer to work and am not cut out to be a SAHP. A happy SAHP may interpret it differently.

Surely it would be simpler all round to just pay according to your proportionate wages? It would probably work out the same but be a lot simpler to administer?

I definitely won't spend £75 on outings a week (we all actually have annual passes for a variety of activities which mostly have been extended due to COVID closures and they're paid for by us both)

As far as paying me half my lost wages rather than half the nursery fees, it would double what he would pay me and I'm happy enough with the way it is now as it brings us both out at a similar point with money after bills.

@AnyFucker We tried that for years, this way makes us happier. Everyone is different.

Honestly it sounds simple to us but I've probably gone a longwinded way around explaining it, lol!

@Codexdivinchi
Our eldest was in nursery from 1 and we all loved it and is now in school but with COVID and everything going on right now, we'd much rather a younger child with a lesser immune system to be cared for at home by me than in an environment with dozens of extra people that she doesn't need to be in right now. 🙄

@Takemetothebar

Sounds a bit bizarre to me, but if you’re both happy with it and that’s what you’ve chosen then fine :)

That money will probably disappear in baby outings/coffee/activities anyway.

I think this. I do think it's an odd arrangement but if you're both genuinely happy with it and it works for you as a couple then I don't see the issue.