To want bills to be split 60/40

[Soggycrisps]

Mine and and my husband's finances are all over the place. I pay for child care and food he pays for mortgage and bills. My family expenses are a little more that his.

I don't want us to have a joint account that we both just use because we have different spending habits. But I do want us to have a fair way of contributing to the household bills.

We have a joint account which I'm going to suggest all bills come out of. Let's say the family bill comes to £2000 per month.

I work 20 hours and the rest of my weeks is taken up with childcare we have 2 children. He works 40 hours a week.

Roughly our pro rata is the same. He earns £34,000 I earn £28000 per year actually not prorata.

I think he should pay £1200 and I pay £800 according to the ratio of what we both work rather than what we earn. Does that seem fair?

I am on the mortgage

But a 45/55 split would be splitting it fairly.
If you want to work more then do it and the childcare bill is split.

For many couples joint finances are the best option but you clearly don’t feel like you are in a secure, committed relationship if you are planning the divorce so that’s not going to work for you.

You said earlier you need the split adjusted because at the minute you have to ask him for money but on 28k and £800 a month on childcare I really don’t see how food is too much on top if he pays the bills and the mortgage.

We put everything in the joint account, I have a spreadsheet that deducts all bills, savings, groceries and other household costs, nursery costs, savings for us and DS, spending for DS, then whatever is left gets divided in two and we have that each to spend however we like no judgement.
I used to earn a lot more than my husband, I now earn about 10k more on salary but he works overtime which makes our income very similar now. Before we were married and had DC we split everything fifty fifty regardless of earnings, is still worked out because I'm a saver not a spender, so the excess money either went on joint holidays and trips or towards the house we eventually bought together.
I think once you have children, property, marriage etc you should both be in the same financial position at payday, you're a team.

Why not pool both wages , cover essentials the split what’s left 3 ways , into savings and equal spends for both of you

"but this divvying up to the tune of a couple hundred quid per month when you are married with a kid is just mealy-mouthed, penny pinching.

Honestly."

This ^^

10000000%

It's a mess. We are splitting up once youngest is in school anyway.

How old is the youngest?
Why don’t you just split up now?

I earn approx £10k more than my DP and I put proportionately more into our joint billing account, so all joint bills come out of that (mortgage, insurances, internet, petrol, utilities, food etc) and we have a similar amount left that we have in our personal accounts to use for our own mobile phone bills etc and is ours to spend as we wish. I wouldnt ask him for money and neither of us justifies what we are spending to the other as all our joint bills are covered.

It means you dont find yourself in a situation whereby you end up spending more simply because you pay for the food for example.

You said earlier you need the split adjusted because at the minute you have to ask him for money but on 28k and £800 a month on childcare I really don’t see how food is too much on top if he pays the bills and the mortgage.

I never ask for money for food. I pay all childcare and food. Which is more than what he pays which is for mortgage and bills.

The money that I ask for is for extra expenses like when the kids need clothes. He says this will even out the extra money I pay monthly.

But I think if what we paid monthly was fair then the extra expenses should just be split between us too.

We are defo not working as a team.

We have a joint account for household and family expenditure.
So all bills, food shop, kids clothes, kids presents, family holidays, family days out, everything that is a shared family expense.

Then we have sole personal accounts for our own mobile bills, clothes, ‘our side’ family gifts, individual hobbies, subscriptions etc.

We put in a fixed amount each month, to cover all bills and build up a reserve for Christmas, maintenance bills etc.

I think your contribution should be on earnings, tbh. But as you are the higher earner per hour, I would suggest he does 4 days and you up your work a day.

@CallOnMe

Youngest is 2. We are waiting until there's less childcare costs once he goes to school.

We put in a fixed amount each month, to cover all bills and build up a reserve for Christmas, maintenance bills etc.

That's what I want us to do.

I think your contribution should be on earnings, tbh. But as you are the higher earner per hour, I would suggest he does 4 days and you up your work a day.

We are both happy with me working part time. I can't really earn more anyway due to the nature of my self employment.n

Given how close the amounts are that you bring in, putting equal amounts into a joint account would seem quite a sensible way to go here.

My husband and I have earned very different amounts to each other at various times, but are both most comfortable with putting the same amount each in to cover household expenses and keeping the excess that we each have to do what we each want with.

I couldn’t have put it better!

Everything in one pot, bills paid, a standing order into each of your individual accounts for personal
spending money that the other has no interest in/say over.

Each works equally hard towards the family, be it paid work, childcare, housework.

I struggle to fathom long term couples with kids that are sitting there with the calculator deciding who is fleecing the other. Just seems so depressing!

Oh blimey, just seen your casually planning on splitting up in a couple of years anyway….what life is this? Just formally separate now surely?

All these people saying it’s not fair that OP thinks DH should be paying more, have you read it properly?

Her costs are currently more than his and she works per time so she can do childcare (for free obviously, that’s what mums do) which is what she does when she’s not working.

He earns more, but she does more overall, why should she be worse off?

In fact why should either of them be worse odd than the other?

Or perhaps they just reasonably share money given that there is enough so it seems.

Maybe she wants to be with her young DC at home right now, hence the part time work.

Youngest is 2. We are waiting until there's less childcare costs once he goes to school.

Sorry but I think this is ridiculous.

You can’t wait in an unhappy relationship for another 2 years because you want to wait until your child is in school.

You’ll be able to claim childcare costs back and they’ll be eligible for free childcare when they’re 3.
Your work is also flexible so you could arrange that DH has the DCs after work which will give you chance to work so you won’t need much childcare anyway.

Your work is also flexible so you could arrange that DH has the DCs after work which will give you chance to work so you won’t need much childcare anyway.

So you think I should spend all my time either looking after kids or working? No thanks.

So you think I should spend all my time either looking after kids or working? No thanks.

Ermm… what do you think the rest of the world does 😕

The vast majority of parents are with their own children if they aren’t working, I don’t get it?

Um…yes?

Why wouldn’t you choose to focus your work in the time you don’t have your children so that you can maximise quality time with them and also enable yourself to leave an unhappy relationship and not have your children spend their formative years in a miserable and toxic household?

I've already explained that I do work some evenings I don't want to work anymore hours outside of nursery hours. Plus I'd loose his place in nursery...in a year he gets the 30 "free hours" which equates to a saving of about £200 per month.

The vast majority of parents are with their own children if they aren’t working, I don’t get it? Well my husband works 9-5 and once the kids are in bed has time off. I hardly do as I'm working most evenings.

Well my husband works 9-5 and once the kids are in bed has time off. I hardly do as I'm working most evenings.

But when you separate if you need to work in the evenings then he’d have the children after work - so both of you would have the same amount of ‘time off’.

I agree, and the fact you're afraid to talk to your husband about finances doesn't bode well at all. Yours sounds like a very unhealthy marriage.