Household contribution and mat leave pay?

[RosieG82]

Hi folks - apologies if this is in the wrong part of the forum, I’m just after some thoughts/peoples experiences.
I’m due to go on mat leave shortly and will be taking 12 months off with £900 per month of mat pay (half of my normal pay).

My partner earns enough to cover all the household costs - mortgage, bills, food, car etc and still have about £800 of savings after (not including meals out, treats etc which would be deducted from this £800).

We haven’t spoken yet about if I will contribute anything to household costs with my mat pay. I know he would be okay with paying for all costs as I’d be at home with the baby, so I’m thinking perhaps I will pay for all the baby costs, perhaps the council tax (£230 a month) and family days out, petrol for my car etc. I would like to save £200 a month and am assuming I’ll do the housework and chores, which I’m okay with.
At the moment he earns more than I do (his take home is about (£2.8k) , so we both contribute a set amount into our joint account. I currently do a lot of housework but he’s been doing our house up so I’ve cut him some slack with this.

Does the above proposal look unreasonable to you or should I be contributing more of my mat pay? I’m not expecting to be saving hundreds on mat leave and am expecting to have to tighten my belt, but I don’t want to be penniless or reliant on him for money to do things.
At the same time I don’t want him to have to pay for everything, although I know he’d be okay with it.
This is our first baby so I’d be grateful for any thoughts. Thanks xx

Your 'contribution' is going to be mainly in the form of dedicated care of the child you both created. That is extremely valuable. Don't be sucked into the patriarchal idea that the only things worth money are the things done by the men.

If you are an equal partnership then both of you should have equal "for fun" money left over after bills are paid, and equal "genuine leisure" time when you have no work or childcare responsibilities and can relax. When one of you is on maternity leave both of those are in short supply, don't let either of you bear the brunt of either shortage.

To clarify I like to have my own personal savings and private spending money just in case the shit hits the fan, not sure how wise this is but we’re not married just yet.
Reading these comments I’ll re-think my original thoughts as they do seem disproportionate.
We did discuss money before I got pregnant and knew that we’d have enough to cover our costs of living, just hadn’t ironed out the details.

There was a thread the other week where someone had continued to pay 50% of bills on half pay at home with the baby, chided other women for expecting partners to pay more in this scenario and described her setup as enlightened.

I paid 50% of bills while on half pay at home because my salary was such that that was affordable, and i had savings as well to afford it. It was an expensive decision for us as a family for me to take extended maternity leave as the cost of childcare was far less than my post tax earnings at the time.

I do find it odd when people don't save anything at all if they can afford to, and women expect to contribute nothing at all from their maternity pay even when they are receiving quite a lot. especially if the decision to take a very long maternity leave makes the family much worse off than mum working and paying for childcare. It can leave dad scraping to pay all the family expenses and left with nothing, while mum keeps her maternity pay and child benefit and spends it on a year going to baby swimming and cinema, having lunches & coffeees out.

thats a particular scenario limited to the highest earners but its still relevant and i knew families where exactly this happened and the DH was very resentful.

Both parents should contribute proportionately to family expenses

Do whatever you want. Different strokes for different folks. But there's nothing remotely enlightened about feeling that the parent at home (which could be the father, given that some of mat leave is transferrable) should pay 50% on principle. That's very different from saying this worked for us in our situation.

All family costs (including physical stuff, childcare, loss in income and pensions) should be shared equitably so that both partners end up with equal savings and fun money. It's easiest to do this by splitting things according to income ratios. If DH earns double and he has a 'doubly' better standard of living whilst I am raising our children (and likely reducing my earnings in the process) how does that work? Kids change everything when it comes to finances. Hey out of the mindset that it's your baby or your maternity leave. The baby is both of yours sand it's shared parental leave that's available by law, if you as a unit choose to take it all as maternity then it should be a shared decision (he could take paternity)

@Yellowlegobrick i don’t know what world you’re living in where you think most women expect “to contribute nothing at all” while on maternity leave and are swanning around with loads of money while their poor partner is penniless. That’s far from the most common scenario.

We also freestyle. I go food shopping in the week while I'm on mat leave so I pay for 90% of the food, baby milk, nappies etc. I also pay for all the baby groups, most of the new clothes baby needs, toys.

DP pays the mortgage, all bills and car finance, apart from car tax and insurances as they were already set up by me from my account. And I pay pet insurance for the same reason.
We pay for our own phone contracts.

It works out OK and we don't worry about it much because we saved a lot before having our baby. DP paid the mortgage/bills for a year so I could save a years worth of my wages, more or less, so I dip into that if needed. I don't like doing it but that's what savings are for.

If things were different we would have opened a joint account and paid for everything from that, just seems like a big hassle changing all the payment details on everything.

Especially since apparently these women also have child benefit too, so by definition there's a ceiling on their income.

Don’t do all the housework and chores! Don’t be the expert in the baby, either – even if you combine finances don’t always be the one to source bigger clothes, clear out the old clothes and organise them in the loft for the next baby, pack the changing bag at the weekend for a family outing, etc.

Are you planning to go back to work after maternity? It’s hard to shake off the new normal form maternity and you can suddenly find yourself back working full time, paying the childcare bill and doing the HMRC tax-free hoop-jumping admin as you’re the one who organises baby things, labelling all the clothes for nursery because you’ve always dealt with the baby’s clothes, doing all the housework and chores because you did it on maternity, all the invisible work, still packing that changing bag/snacks/the pram on weekends, you keep doing more and he keeps doing less, you can’t cope with the load so you go part time, the income disparity increases, baby number two arrives and it just makes sense that he doesn’t share parental leave as now his income by far outstrips yours, you go back on even more reduced hours because two is more than double the work of one, his income keeps growing because he’s full time and since you’re part time you do all the sick days and school runs, and you’ve taken on 100% of the household stuff and mental load and left yourself no time to go back full time and even the disparity. At which point it doesn’t matter that the money is joint, because the labour isn’t joint.

This may sound like a catastrophisation from what you’ve told us, but it’s so so easy to go from “I don’t mind doing all the housework on maternity leave” to looking up a few years later and thinking “how the fuck has this happened?”

I’d also add if he’s your partner not husband, how is the house owned? Is there a declaration of trust protecting shares in the house? If he pays the mortgage and you pay the childcare, for instance, you can see it as both bills being the same amount of money. But your bill the childcare enables you both to work but doesn’t have a long-term monetary value. His bill the mortgage buys him more equity in the house month by month. There’s so much more to splitting costs than just 50/50 or 60/40 by income or whatever.

I'm pregnant with my second. With my first I saved enough during my pregnancy to top up my mat pay to almost the same as a wage. That meant I could continue paying half towards all the bills and still have enough to live comfortably.

Now, we put a set amount in to a joint account each to cover bills (mine is quite alot less now though as I only work part time). My plan this time is to try and save the same to cover bills every month.

We have separate accounts but my husband has no problem buying things for our child or me if it's needed. We take it in turns to buy meals out etc. I like having my own money.

I hear everything you’ve said about setting a negative precedent and can see how people fall into this trap, thanks for the advice. The house is jointly owned in both our names. The plan is for me to go PT until baby is in school then back up to FT - I wouldn’t be going PT if we weren’t getting married next year as I realise that would leave me in a very vulnerable position.

@mrsed1987 I'm pregnant with my second. With my first I saved enough during my pregnancy to top up my mat pay to almost the same as a wage. That meant I could continue paying half towards all the bills and still have enough to live comfortably.

This is exactly what I mean, you saved, as in you alone? Did neither of you feel it was both your responsibility since the child came from both of you?
It seems utterly crazy to me for a woman to save from her disposable income in order to pay the bills while on maternity leave caring for the baby, not only once but twice. Your husband has a nice little set up.

He should pay for everything and you should contribute a little bit. You will need some savings just in case

I get it if the other partner earns less and there isn't any way the desired mat leave could be funded without the mother paying 50%, or more even. Sometimes needs must. Otherwise, no chance that'd be happening in this house.

Don’t know why everyone on mumsnet is so keen on joint accounts for everything. We have a joint we both put a proportion into for household outgoings and keep the rest for our own savings and spends. That way I don’t get criticised for buying clothes or random Amazon stuff! Could you not do something like that? And yes we’re married and in fact I significantly put earn DH. We put in a proportion to cover childcare, food, jollies, bills and then split the mortgage 50-50. On top of that I pay for holidays and the car and car related stuff.

BTW be careful letting him off household chores or you’ll be on here in 3 years moaning he does no childcare or domestic stuff! You’ll become the default.

I saved too. I earn a lot more than my husband and he doesn’t have much left over at the end of each month whilst I do.

Yeah, I mean it’s not about not saving for mat leave, plenty of families need to but surely it’s ‘this is what we need to save to cover the household expenses while our income is reduced’ and then obviously more of it is technically coming from the highest earner whether mother or father.
It just seems so many women are expected to save only from their own money so they can cover the loss of maternity leave alone while looking after their joint child.

The money to top up my reduced maternity pay came from joint savings but we had been married several years before we had children and had a discussion about how finances would work during maternity and when I returned to work with the plan to work part time. We had already looked at childcare costs as we had friends with children who had already had experience of this.

As a very long term sahm (with health issues) be very wary of the whole housework thing. The only thing your partner cannot do is breastfeed. Everything else he is capable of doing. While he is out of the house working then it falls to you but don't expect to get a lot done with a newborn. You will be recovering from delivery but also growing a human inside your body. Once your partner is home he is on duty, you are a team, you work together to get things done. Dh had a lie in every Saturday to an agreed time and I had a lie in every Sunday to the same agreed time. Dh was hands on from day one. Ds2 was incredibly poorly until he was around 14 months. We slept in shifts so I covered 10pm-2am if Ds2 woke, Dh covered 2am-6am. It meant we had at least a 4 hour sleep every night plus a lie in we knew was guaranteed on a weekend.

Also whilst you are part time you might want to consider increasing your pension contribution to match what you would have been paying in whilst full time. Again, another discussion re finances.

@Yellowlegobricki don’t know what world you’re living in where you think most women expect “to contribute nothing at all” while on maternity leave and are swanning around with loads of money while their poor partner is penniless. That’s far from the most common scenario.

Honestly I was in a NCT group of 8 and 6 were doing exactly this and were very open about it. We live in an affluent area and these were all women earning quite a bit more than the average. 3 of them earned more than their partners but seemed to think through that if the higher earner stops working for a year the family finances take a big hit and it might mean less spending money!

My husband was quite friendly with the dads and there was a lot of grumbling.

It just seems so many women are expected to save only from their own money so they can cover the loss of maternity leave alone while looking after their joint child.

Honestly i found maternity really nice, it was like a lovely year off work. I loved being off both times and found it far easier being at home with children than being in my high pressured job.

Our family finances took a huge hit from me taking a year off, we'd have been much better off if I'd gone back after 6 months. I was also taking the full leave myself rather than giving up some of it to DH. Why wouldn't i save to contribute to what it was costing us as a family for me to have what felt to me like a 6 month holiday from work?

A whole post on ‘fairness’ and not once do you mention the division of housework and childcare. Fairness isn’t all about money.

I earn more than my DH, but everything is split 50/50. All bills come out first, then we each get a monthly allowance that is ours to do with, we also get a monthly savings amount each, this is to pay for family birthdays/Christmas/holidays or anything else each of us would like to save for throughout the year. Then anything left over goes into savings.

If you're planning to go back PT then I would get all of this ironed out properly now as I presume your earnings are going to take a big hit after the baby arrives.
Basically it shouldn't matter who puts what in as long as you both have the same spending money once everything is paid.

Presuming given you are having a baby together you are in a committed relationship that you both want to be in. If so, all the household is joint money, you don't "contribute" anything to any household costs, and neither does he. Your earnings are merged in a joint account and everything needs wise, household, food, travel costs, baby costs, come out of there. You then agree a "hobby" budget which includes money that you would spend together like a meal out (or a take-away and renting a film), and something individual similar things - him going for a pint after work, or you going out with old work colleagues or the baby group mums.