Money on maternity leave

[LA1311]

I’m currently half way through my years maternity leave. I’m really lucky that my workplace pay full pay for 9 months and then half pay for the last 3 months.

My partner earns double my wages and we have argued about money in the past.

We decided that we should put our child tax credits into a bank account and use it for when we needed to make bigger purchases.

We pay for nappies, milk etc 50/50, and then I pay for his baby classes and anything else we do in the week (swimming, soft play etc).

I mentioned to my partner the other day that my wages are reducing soon and I asked if he would pay for the baby classes. It will cost £95 for the time on I’m on reduced pay. He said that we should use the money out of the child tax credits for those payments whilst I can’t pay.

AIBU to be annoyed at this, that I’ve paid for everything and now I’ve asked him to pay he wants to use the savings.

It seems like you were financially seperate before the baby and with your unusual maternity package, nothing changed but now it's reducing your income by half, you've realised you're going to be in a worse position.

Have you had the conversation with him yet about money? Nursery fees for when you are back at work, time off if child is sick etc?

If he refuses to pay £95, he's in for a big shock when he sees the cost of nursery.

I don't see a problem using the child benefit, that's the point of it and not many families are in a position to be able to save it either.

Child benefit should go into the family pot to pay for the child, do actually swimming lessons is a really sensible use of that money.

But, but, but, but the basic point that you should both have the same disposable income after bills is such an important principle in a partnership.

If you have no money, then clearly you need to rebalance input and he needs to pay more

The best way to discuss this is that you are about to start paying a nursery bill which will be enormous, therefore need to decide how to pay for it

The bigger issue is the way that you split all of your finances. If you are receiving child benefit and he earns double the amount you do then presumably you are on a low income? You should be paying a lower % of bills if you really are a team.

Unless you have the luxury to be able to save it all I don’t see a problem spending child benefit money on swimming lessons though.

1. Joint funds, at least forming expenses such as the baby's needs and "wants".

Or

1. Charge him for childcare for looking after his baby's

NB: when you go back to work, do not let him steamroller you into thinking that nursery/childminder fees need to come out of your salary alone.

Really should have had this conversation before having a child, especially as you’d had money issues with him before, but I guess you knew what you were getting into here. It seems he thinks it’s your job to pay for your baby, so it looks like you won’t be able to take those last 3 months of maternity leave as you can’t make him pay up unfortunately. Although you also can’t force him to split the cost of childcare once you’re back at work either, so you need to plan for how you’re going to cover that should he refuse. Did you give the baby his name too despite not being married?

Agree with pp that you should be splitting EVERYTHING as a proportion of your wages. E.g. if you're both working and he's earning 70% of your combined wages, then he should be paying 70% of all bills, childcare, etc. If you (OP) are earning nothing for a period of time, then during that time he should be paying 100% of all costs.

Do not fall into the habit of paying for all child related expenses out of your own pocket - it's his baby too!!

You need to discuss more. The baby classes are the least of it.

Does he benefit from having a car and you driving him? Are you going to end up doing more of the childcare drop offs etc as well?

How is childcare being split when you go back to work?

Agree.

While I think it's reasonable to expect he pays his share of mat leave related expenses, this one is also quite a small amount in the grand scheme of things. There'll be lots more coming up and they need to be fairly split.

Not the point of the post but you should be paying bills in proportion to your wages surely. Eg he earns double what you do, then he pays double the bills that you do. Not sure what your net salaries are but 60:40 split sounds unfair