To want separate finances with kids

[LittleGwyneth]

DH and I have separate finances, which I like. We each take responsibility for different bills, which works out as him paying about 65% of our expenses and me paying 45%, which mirrors our respective incomes. Obviously if we did split up this would be irrelevant, but I'm hoping we'll be on a beach in Bournemouth with a flask of tea in fifty years.

My reason for wanting separate finances are manifold, but mostly that I like the freedom and control over my own ££ that it allows me. But as we're going to start TTC I was wondering whether other people have made this work with kids? I would be super grateful if anyone who has children and separate finances could clue me in on how you do it. Our friends are all very private about money so I've got no idea what's normal.

Did your DH give you money during the SMP period of your maternity leave? Do you pay for childcare based on your respective earnings? Do you have a joint account where you both pay in a chunk each month (I would be open to doing that - I presume that still counts as separate).

Any guidance (other than telling me that separate finances somehow undermines our whole marriage) much appreciated.

We have separate finances because of DH’s financial state when we first met and then we never changed. Tbh I’ve found it harder with kids because I tend to do everything and although I know he will give me money if I asked but it’s a hassle with uniform, dinners etc.

We have a joint account for bills but then separate for our own disposable income. When I was pregnant we both put money into the joint account to save for me being on SMP and unpaid maternity (he put 4 times the amount I did). I'm now on SMP and I take from the account however much I need to match my full time wage. DH is continuing to put money into the account because I have another 6 months til I go back to work so he's essentially paying me atm 😄

It is harder with kids, you will be one making most of the child related expenses (choosing their clothes, equipment and taking them to activities, birthday parties etc). It might not be necessary to merge finances but the division you currently have might not operate once you have kids.

We have separate finances and it works really well. I too like my financial independence. We have a joint account which we both contribute to for bills in a percentage related to our respective incomes. For childcare, we both got max childcare vouchers from work, then usually DH would pay the top up. I can't remember about maternity pay. DH earns a lot more than me so he tends to pay for most of the holidays and meals out. I manage the joint account and just tell him what to pay!

I posted a similar thread on here a few weeks ago, asking something similar. We have just had our first child together and now are in the process of opening up a joint account where we'll both transfer x account each month (proportionate to each of our incomes) which will cover: mortgage, bills, groceries and eventually childcare when I go back to work. I guess when the baby gets older, we'll also transfer extra to cover clothes, toys and activities for her so it's fair.

Before, I was just transfering money to my husband each month as all bills come out of his account.

During my Mat leave I will be contributing significantly less to the household - maybe just around £200 per month so I'll then have around £400 SMP for myself.

I agree with you it's nice to have control over your own money, and by having a shared pot (joint account), you can make things for, and then by keeping your own account you have your own disposal income for spending just on yourself and treats :)

Have a joint account for child expenses that you both pay comparable amounts into, either 50/50 or based on your income like you do bills. Only use this account for child stuff like their shoes, clothes, presents, childcare. I'd also move all bills and shopping into that too and pay your share of the bills into that. Bear in mine shopping, gas, electric will all go up but mortgage wont so it'll unbalanced otherwise.

As far as maternity pay, I'd expect him to give you as much money as it takes for you both to have an equal drop in cash after expenses. So say you usually have 500 left and he usually has 1000 left, but you'll have 0 left after bills on maternity then he gives you 250, so you're down 250 and he's down 250.

All of the kids activities are on the spreadsheet for the joint account, plus an extra amount that can be used for other needs - kids shoes, clothes etc. It didn't make things any harder when we had kids, I just added more things to the spreadsheet.

Have a joint account for household stuff including children and holidays.

But also think about what if your child's needs were such that you couldn't return to work full time, where would 'your' money come from? (Similarly for maternity leave).

We have senior school age child, are married and have never had a joint account. If communication, including about finances, is good it works.

We have separate finances with kids; we each have our things we pay for and we take it in turns to buy each weeks shopping which works out well. I’m currently on maternity leave with our second so he transfers money to me each month to top up my income. When we were paying for childcare we paid half each as we earned the same. When I go back to work this time he’ll transfer money each month still to top up my income although we phrase it as contributing to the pot rather than contributing to me. I use child benefit to largely pay for the kids clothes and other things we tend to find even out so I might buy tickets for somewhere and he’ll buy lunch but if it doesn’t even out we’ll transfer money to each other. We didn’t pool our finances for various reasons at first and now we’re used to this we haven’t been bothered about changing it.

How would your system work when you're on maternity leave with less income? It's the reason we went from your system to joint finances. Now we each keep a few hundred as 'pocket money' for ourselves (the same each). All the rest goes in the joint account which pays all the bills, food, kids expenses.

We each take responsibility for different bills, which works out as him paying about 65% of our expenses and me paying 45%
Mmm, numbers not your forte? So what is the split really?

We have one joint account that all the bills come out of. All child related expenses come out of that as well.

We then have our own accounts for our own money (which stops me spending all of my money on the kids, which I used to do)

We now have all money go into the joint account and our own spends transfer out, but for years we just put our share of the joint bills into it

@monoaaad

We have senior school age child, are married and have never had a joint account. If communication, including about finances, is good it works.

This.

We have seperate finances basically.

We each pay a set amount into our joint account where all bills are paid from, including childcare. The rest is ours to spend. This is 70/30% split atm as i earn 70% of family income and him 30%. We have different amounts of fun money. We both also put £40 a konth into an account to buy nappies/wipes/snacks/food/clothes etc for baby so that is seperate

I only had 3 of my 9 months maternity on SMP, so dp put extra into the joint account to cover the bills i couldn't pay, and i saved during the first 6 months maternity so i had enough money for the final 3.

We have separate finances, eldest is now 18.

He gives me a lump sum for shopping and kids things as a daily basis.

Extras like school shoes and uniforms we now pay about half each and I just tell him what his share is and he transfers the money.

Same for any major purchases we discuss the cost and depending on other things contribut accordingly.

It works.

He’s paid more and puts lots in the savings account, for higher education holidays and such.

I guess it depends how much you earn. We each put the vast majority of everything we earn into a joint account and there's just about enough to cover our mortgage, bills and childcare, general living (food, activities, things for the house) and a couple of hundred each month into joint savings (for things like car insurance, holidays etc).

When we don't have to pay childcare any more and our mortgage goes down we'll probably go back to putting a proportion of our earnings into the joint pot and keeping more back for ourselves - which is what we used to do pre-children.

I'd suggest a joint account for all household bills and child related costs. Then agree an amount of disposable income you both need per month in your own accounts to spend as you will and on any individual costs-perhaps gym membership etc. And the rest goes in the joint. Because you work as a team you both get the same amount 'to play with' regardless of who earns most. Joint Savings can be made from any excess in the joint account for home improvements and family holidays etc. If one of you likes to have your own savings they can save from their own allowance and if one is a spendthrift on their own allowance thats fine. Its theirs. When incomes vary such as mat leave you put less in-and if thats not enough to cover expenses both partners cut their allowance to cover it etc.
Thats how i did it with my ex and for us it worked and we never argued about money.

My new partner never had an account with his ex wife of 20 years. It worked for them. However as the bigger earner he did pay for most things and had no idea where 'her' money went. He's not greedy so Didn't care. But when they split he ended up badly off and she had thousands squirreled away she was determined was hers only. It could have still worked but they just werent transparent enough. And of course its all fine until it goes wrong. So just be cautious.

We have completely separate finances and it’s always worked well for us :)

However despite it being separate, we still view it as joint money, so no counting who’s paid what etc.

I’ve set up and split long term stuff- we both make set payments to pensions, and life insurance.

The rest is pretty much flexible. All the bills and mortgage I pay, as I’m the one who likes dealing with that stuff and it’s far easier if it’s all in my name, especially if I need to phone and sort anything out.

Dh will generally pay for meals out, shopping, everything else. I have his credit card details so can use that online if I need to for general household and kids stuff. He also is a second cardholder on one of my cards, so if he runs out of money he can use that.

That’s pretty much it. Mat leave mat pay was enough to keep me in coffee and baby groups, everything else went on dh’s card. Nursery fees whoever had the most money at the end of the month paid.

Occasionally if one of us has made a big purchase or is short for some reason, the other will transfer money over to cover it.

I’m more of a saver and dh is a bit more of a spender, so it tends to be me who puts money away, then that gets used for holidays, new boilers etc.

It all pretty much balances out.

DH and I have been married 10 years, and our twins are 4. We only set up a joint account a year or so ago. All bills / direct debits come out of that account, and we each put in a set amount based on our income.

We have our own business and bring in very different amounts and I have a separate part time job. We each get paid our salaries to our own current accounts, we pay in a proportion to the joint account, and we have our own savings - we both consider them joint savings, but there’s never been any point combining them, when we bought our house we both just put all our savings into it.

We set up the joint account because it’s just easier than sharing the bills between us. And if something happened to one of us there’d be no stress of having to move bills from one person to the other.

This works well for us - aside from the bills he generally buys the food shops and I buy what the boys need, but if one of us needs money we will just give it to the other (that hasn’t really happened for years though, now we both have a consistent income and we don’t spend much aside from those things).

Oh we have just been working this out

So we established That we want 3 pots

We both will put in 1200 pound to the middle pot for household so bills , food , small mortgage, home entertainment , kids stiff that’s needed and house savings ( incase anything breaks down etc ) we will have savings left in this account each month

We then have the same amount left over in each of our own pots as each other.

I think normal is a red herring. You like what you have and it sounds fair. So you want fair.
Expenses for kids can be very up and down and hard to predict, so I'd be tempted to open an account from which all kids expenses could be paid. You could decide what to put in it each month as a total then split the% to reflect your respective incomes like you do for bills already.
Sometimes your account would be full, sometimes not at all like after Xmas presents are done, uniforms etc.
The big ticket stuff to prepare like prams you could split as they are bought.
So that's your day to day running costs.
During your maternity period I would work out what the house income is and what your mutual % of that is and adjust all expenses to reflect while that situation is happening.

We have separate accounts, and a joint account that we both pay into for mortgages and bills, and soon baby costs.

I think completely separate finances when you have children is a bad idea.

We have personal accounts where we get paid. And transfer an amount into the joint which leaves us both an equal amount of personal cash. It’s something like £1200 from me and £2300 from DH so we both have £700 each per month

This way we can buy all things for kids, house etc and neither is penalised.

We started this during MAT leave btw and have kept it since as I work part time. But also would if I was full time as it works really well for us.