To think I should be allowed to have savings?

[Haribosuperstar]

Im married but we’ve never had a joint account. We have three primary aged dc and I stopped working for a few years whilst they were all tiny. I’m back now - 30 hours - and my take home is around £1600. It’s not a highly paid job, unfortunately. I also do all the pick ups and drop offs and facilitate clubs. I do all the cooking and housework etc too.

DH earns around £190k and has a car allowance / fuel / phone also paid for. We don’t have a mortgage. I appreciate he pays a lot of tax on this. He has about £70k in savings and a large pension. I have about £1k in savings a nothing much to speak of pension wise.

DH gives me another £400 a month so I have £2k total. From this I pay for the dc hobbies which is nearly £400, I pay for their clothes, Christmas gifts, birthday gifts. I pay for half the food shopping - approx £350 a month. I pay for my own car, phone etc. My car is on finance because my other car broke down and I couldn’t afford to flat out replace it so I pay that as well as the fuel, insurance etc. I pay the council tax. After those things I’m left with about £800 a month maybe? I also pay for quite a few days out with the kids. Oh and for wrap around three nights a week which is another £80 a month.

The last few months I’ve been trying to save between £150 and £200 a month to try and build up a bit of cash in case of emergencies / if my car needed repair / if I needed a dentist etc.
I mentioned this to DH and he said ‘I didn’t realise you could afford to save, I’ll have to stop giving you so much money,’ and then laughed.

It has upset me because I feel quite vulnerable with nothing and also I’ve always felt very much the poor partner in the relationship.

AIBU to think it’s ok for me to save a bit? I am looking for a better job before anyone says but it’s hard to fit around the kids and then I’m paying a lot of childcare.

Me neither.

I’m very surprised you don’t!

he absolutely should be pulling his weight and paying more!

I earn about £1800 a month and Dh earns £3500 a month and he pays for all the bills (tv, internet, gas, elec, water council tax etc) and all child related stuff. He even pays my gym membership and phone. I pay our mortgag (£700) and the rest of the money is mine. I do choose to buy bits for the food shop and house and I also spend that money on the kids if I choose to take them out without Dh. If we go out as a family he will pay.

I do more with the children as he mostly works from 8am-8pm but when he’s home he does contribute also. Some days he can be flexible. he recognises that I have taken time out of my career to raise our family and wants me to be at home as long as I am happy to to raise them. (Youngest is 9 months).

it doesn’t sound like you have a fair split at all.

It's ok because when you leave him you'll get half of everything

His take home is £9500 a month on that salary OP.

This is awful. Just awful.

As a married couple why don't share money.

Further to my previous reply- here are my thoughts.
You should have a joint account. Finances belong to the family in a marriage. If he will not, and for some reason you choose not to leave him, this is what should happen;
ALL family expenses should be added up, including food, car payments, your fuel, kids clothes, presents etc, your day to day bits like lunches etc, (his too) ALL of it. Then you EACH pay a proportionate amount into an account to cover it.
Your income is £1600
His income is £9500
Total income is £11500
Your income is

I mentioned this to DH and he said ‘I didn’t realise you could afford to save, I’ll have to stop giving you so much money,’ and then laughed

Divorce him.
Take half the house, half the £70K+ savings and half his huge pension.
And then laugh.

Pressed send eek!

Your income is 14% of the total therefore you should pay 14% of the house hold and he should pay 86% of it.

So if the total household outgoings with no mortgage are, say £3000 (high but just an example) you should pay £420 and he should pay £2580.
Just to confirm this, £420 is 26.25% of your income.
£2580 is 27% of his.

Therefore, fair. Then you would have over £1k per month left and he would have £6920.

Still shit but better than it is atm!

I’m on 6 figures. DH broadly the same but a bit less. He pays for the household and childcare expenses (including school fees) because I do the legwork (home based job). Fools who don’t do any childcare / housework need to pay for it. It might be a good idea to begin to charge him for everything you do.

This.

And FFS. He's a financially abusive arsehole.

LTB. You will be better off.

Child benefit and pension.
You need to investigate how many years you have completed towards your state pension. ( Assuming UK)
Gov.uk and Martin Lewis Money Saving Expert are the best sources.
There's a good podcast on BBC that I listened to only this morning.
You have until the end of March to buy or top up recent years before this avenue closes.
Please check
If you have had child benefit with under 12s paid to you this would help but you can still claim these years even if you didn't.

Don't panic! You are married, half of everything is yours, just start to fix it piece by piece.

right. even if it's agreed you pay for your own car expenses
A. you're using your car to ferry BOTH OF YOUR children around. they're not just yours, they're his too.
and
B. he's in a position that if it really is something you've both agreed is on you to pay for, he could pay up front and you could be paying him back, rather than the car finance, and therefore paying less in the long run.

Why are you paying for any of that when his wages are so high and you have no mortgage. I’d not work myself, flip that.

When I read these sorts of set ups, I genuinely feel sad. If one partner out earns another by a considerable amount I would definitely expect them to contribute. I’d hope that they would actually want to contribute more to the household income and support their family. It shocks me when children are concerned that they are not even going halves. He sounds awful and doesn’t see you and the kids as a whole family unit. You don’t even have a mortgage!

I would have a serious chat with him that he needs to help provide more for the kids and open a joint account where each of you put a % portion of your salary into it. The one who earns more adds in a higher portion. All kids/food/bills come out from that account. Personal items such as your own clothes and individual hobbies get paid from your personal account.

Seems like there is no team in marriage these days!

He thinks his children are something you need to sort out with some sort of arms-length ‘child keeping allowance’ from him. He thinks his money is something to keep to himself and not share with his wife. I’m shocked by his behaviour, OP. Essentially, he lives the sham of being a family man but does nothing other than work to line his own pockets and have you facilitate this by doing his share of housework and childcare. He’s rich because you help him have a life where he needs to think of nothing much other than himself. He needs to wake up and realise that legally, half of it is yours and if you leave him, you’ll be better off. He’ll be screwed.

He'll be paying you a lot more than £400 a month when you divorce him OP

Not only is he a prick who is using money as a leverage point, but he's also a financial fuckwit. 20k per person per year can be saved with tax free interest. He isn't paying enough to you in child support, because his salary has pushed the household income up to much. Unless of course you are mortgaged to the hilt. And in which case he's still a fuckwit.
Just so you are aware I am a man. I came from a single income family (dad earned mum was sah.) At no point would dad ever felt it was his money. Their rule was just what you need to buy, you buy. If it's not a need then discuss it.

Do you think he knows you legally own half of everything?

Don't tell him and file for divorce, getting yourself a shit hot lawyer.

He sounds disgusting, and no love of your life.

Show yourself and your kids you DO NOT put up with that shit if life.

You should put all the spare money into your pension to make up what you have lost taking time off work, to have your DC and care for them. His pension did not suffer like yours has.

Wow, just wow.

This is not ok OP and you do not need our validation on that because you already know it’s not ok.

Joint account or not is not the issue. DH and I had a similar set up to you in terms of income and we never had a joint account because I didn't want one (for reasons not relevant here). The massive difference was DH paid for everything day to day, including putting money in my account. When I went back to work my salary paid for holidays and savings and DH also put his annual bonus straight into my bank account. If i ever needed any more money i just had to ask. The other important thing was we claimed CB and DH paid it back via his tax return to ensure the years I was a SAHP were covered for national insurance contributions. I now earn significantly more but DH has continued paying the lions share and I do all the savings, big purchases and holidays. It works for us because we both know exactly what the other earns. Your DH is being financially abusive and potentially financially stupid if he isn't making best use of your ISA allowance given he's such a high earner.

Such an imbalance of earnings can cause problems. I don't think you should be cutting back in order to save. If you feel insecure financially this should be addressed in a different way.

It's utterly shocking that you appear to think it's ok that you got a car on finance when he earns so much and has savings.

Is that how a husband should behave, who's supposed to love you and want you to be happy?

He's got it made. He's paying £400 a month for a nanny and housekeeper isn't he?

Flaming fuck , my husband earns £2k + per month and gives me £200 to top up my own wage. We bought a second car together outright as “his” car was passed down from his father. Why? Because if I didn’t have the car, he’d be doing all the travel with the kids, he would be relied on to go out with the family. We don’t have a joint account, but it works as we’re transparent. (I just don’t tell him regular how much the savings are at in case he gets a bit wild and loose at the thought, and he’d appreciate this sentiment 😂)

Your man sounds like a fucking monster, making to live in the bare bones. wtf is he doing with the rest of his monthly income?

this is largely how we did it. no joint accounts (we talked about it, and both felt we'd feel like we couldn't buy things we wanted if it was from joint money.
so we looked at what we each have coming in, and divided the bills accordingly. he gets more money than I do, so he pays for most of them, and the food shopping. I pay for our phone and internet (which includes some of our streaming services, my phone, TV license, pet insurance and some others.
he pays for pretty much everything else.
when I had to stop working, he set up a standing order so I wasn't any worse off, and was still able to manage my side of the costs, and still have money for myself.
and if one of us needs a bit of help when things get tight, the other takes up some of the slack. because ultimately, it's all for our household. it just means by keeping it separate, if I see something I want and can afford it, I don't feel like I have to justify getting it, and vice versa.