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?

Does seem a strange set up but whatever works for you. It’s not really anyone else’s busINESS!. We’ve been Married 25 years and we don’t have a joint account, never have had. I don’t work but have a small amount that goes into my account child benefit and a couple of other things. We just live out of his account. If I worked I suppose it would be different.

So you work 2 days and he works 5. Full time you'd both earn similar.

Say he earns 2500 a month, and you earn 1000 a month but you're paying 50% of all the bills?? So potentially say he's got 2k spends and you get £500 spends??

Don't you think she should be in full time at 3, to prepare her for school?

@witchygrub she will be when she is 3, she is 1 now.

You shouldn’t be paying 50% of everything you should be paying 2/7 ths and him 5/7 ths

But yes if you're both genuinely happy, it's fine and if you're honestly paying half of all the bills desire earning so much less, yes he should pay you for childcare

Sounds a bit of an odd arrangement to me but maybe it’s just the way you’ve worded it, as in he’s paying you as childcare. When really he’s just giving you more money

@Nottherealslimshady

I think if I read it right. You both earn your own money then both pay 50% of the bills. Whatever you're left after paying bills from your own wages is yours. So whomever earns more has more disposable income. So I think it's fair that he give you a proportion of his disposable income when you're unable to work as much and therefore earn as much to provide childcare to a joint child whom you have jointly decided not to put in nursery.

This . Oh and tell whoever told you that to mind their own business. You made a joint decision to not send your dc to nursery so why should he have extra.

@witchygrub

Don't you think she should be in full time at 3, to prepare her for school?

Lots of kids go part time at 3 if one of their parents don't work as that's all lots of schools offer at 3.

I think it's fine! I mean, it sounds like a very over engineered way to just share finances but if it's working for the two of you then it's all good.

And it's not DH paying you to look after your own kids, it's the two of you sharing your joint responsibilities (childcare, paying the bills) in a way that works for you both...

It sounds perfectly fair considering how you split expenses. And good on you and your DP for both respecting your time and lost wages, and each others financial autonomy. So many posts on here of women being shafted after taking in childcare.

Just one thing though OP to be truly fair your lost pension contributions should be made up for as well. Or he should agree to share his pension with you if you intend to keep these separate

Also given you're earning so much less, are you actually paying half HIS clothing bill??

Full time at 3. Really??

Someone I know had an extremely well paid city job and their partner had an even better paid city job. Better paid partner was fed up with how stressed the other partner was keeping up with job and family life. They agreed it would be better if the lower earning partner stayed at home. “Lower” paid partner was a bit reluctant to lose high salary. So higher earner agreed to “pay” partner’s full salary in order for them to be happy to quit. This enabled higher earner to climb higher up their career (lots of travel) and earn even more. And they lived happily ever after. Do whatever suits your family and relationship!

Ha ha, no parent should 'pay' the other, expect to be paid. to provide childcare for their own child!
My STBEXH suggested this and I told him where to go. He was deadly serious. But then he is abusive and only wanted the cash to fund his addictions, so clearly not a good choice as a 'childcare provider', never mind a parent. I'd rather spend the money on getting someone reliable.
However on principle I would never have agreed to it because it changes the dynamic.

What happens if you decide you want to work more? What happens if he takes a day off? Do you still get 'paid', and does he have the option to do whatever he wants that day while you stay at home doing 'childcare'. What if you get a job where you work when he doesn't, will you 'pay' him?

How you organise your families finances is up to the two of you, and as long as you are both happy with the arrangement that's all that matters. But it is weird and I wouldn't tell anyone he pays you in real life.

Do all these people sayings it’s fine realise how much extra the dp must have to spend on himself if he works 5 days and pays 50% of the bills? While the op works 2 and pays 50% of the bills? She should be paying 2/7 of the bills, about 28%. Then I expect he still has more as his salary minus 5/7 of the bills is probably higher, and can transfer some over, call it childcare, call it sharing...
If you want to go this approach of being valued by your husband at minimum wage for the job of caring for your children, then I would point out childcare fees don’t compare. nanny’s are one on one care, cost a lot more, and costs covered to take the child on any paid outings etc.

It's not him 'paying you to look after your own children' - it's sharing the family money out.

You are covering the childcare that enables him to earn money so it is a family expense.

Though the way you have worked it out doesn't really give an idea of 'shared family money.

Once one person is earning and one taking more responsibility for childcare,aka being a team to cover breadwinning and parenting, it always seems fairer to pool all the money coming in, and then to give each 'team member' the same amount to spend as disposable income.

Set an amount each month that all bills , household expenses, including groceries, baby clothes, joint days out etc come out of. Keep this solely for household bills, have all the direct debits etc come out of it.
Then each have your own account that you have your personal amounts in.
Save the rest.

Do all these people sayings it’s fine realise how much extra the dp must have to spend on himself if he works 5 days and pays 50% of the bills? While the op works 2 and pays 50% of the bills?

I assumed this would be adjusted based on income changes.

Why can’t you just put money in an account and pay for everything together? I don’t understand why you waste so much time and energy on trying to make things equal but having separate finances. Being paid by your husband to look after your own child sounds ridiculous. Earn what you earn, put it in an account and just live life. You are married, with a child, unless one of you has some sort of out of control spending what’s the point?

Do all these people sayings it’s fine realise how much extra the dp must have to spend on himself if he works 5 days and pays 50% of the bills? While the op works 2 and pays 50% of the bills?

That surely depends. If the dp works Mon-Fri in Argos while the OP is a doctor working 2 x 12 hour shifts, then OP will have more. She didn't state their occupations.

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

Did that person also query why you're paying 50% of the bills when presumably you have a much lower income? That seems to be the more obvious issue here.

Sounds sensible to me, although as others have said you're probably getting less than your fair share, allowing for the reduced pension contributions etc you're also taking.

We look at what we would both have earned working full time, and ensure our take home income and bills for the month are split in that proportion. It can get a bit complicated, but as we've done different combinations of one of us working more or less part time , it seemed the only fair way to do it. I'd be happy to split 50:50, but I earn a lot more than DH, and he feels it's unfair to take my money beyond what he would earn working FT himself, even though in my view it's all a family pot!

Personally I think this is bonkers and sticking to a "this is mummy's money and this is daddy's money" is a very sad example to be setting a child and a pretty poor model for them. You are a family for goodness sake.

£75 doesn’t sound enough to me. The way we work is total joint income, less monthly expenses, less an equal individual allowance to spend on what you want and the rest goes into savings.

This way makes it fair that we both have an equal amount of our own money to spend on what we want without the other one caring.

It always makes me laugh on MN when people say "Remember, it's not just the money now but the hit which your career will take in the future"

Not everyone's got a bloody career! Loads and loads of people work in shops...or as carers and cleaners. Not saying you can't progress in those fields but taking a year off your cleaning or caring job won't affect your 'career'.