Finances post baby - how would you split?

[Jeje100]

I would welcome views on this - pre baby/mat leave, DP and I both worked full time and split mortgage/bills equally - he earns double my salary.

I’m going back on roughly 50% of my hours on the same salary (pro-rata’d of course), with DP’s salary still double.

Would you expect DP to now pay say c.75% of all bills, or more given that now I’m earning less each month, I won’t have much left over post settling my share?

I do agree you can’t have it all but I was the higher earner which was why we had to downsize. We don’t know enough about how much they each earn to really know the impact. First on overall finances but also in the balance of childcare. I know lots of men that don’t really think about the logistics and just look at overall costs. Plus as I said would they be equally sharing pick up/ drop offs. Because if not I thinks actually she does get more say.

I think OP said that she would do drop offs and he'd be doing pick ups.

I have received full salary for the majority of it so could go halved, now not receiving anything so DP covering the Mortgage/bills.

Yeah he took his entitlement after the birth.

Before marriage my wife and I were 50/50 on everything, just so that in the event of a relationship breakdown everything gets sold and split the same way.

Once we got married she did not contribute to the household bills other than food shopping. This roughly worked out as I earned double and we had no childcare costs.

We then wanted to do some house renovations but the condition I put on that was we pro rata all the bills then. She contributes £800 a month and I pay in just over £2,000. This pays all of our bills, food, cars, childcare etc.

She stays home with the kids one day a week through choice, if she wanted the kids in childcare that day for some "me" time I'd support that and not expect any adjustments to contributions.

In your situation you need to work out if your DP would subsidise you dropping hours or would still want 50/50. I couldn't watch my wife or girlfriend struggle financially because they wanted to spend time with our kids, especially if I earned double, but not all men think like me.

Oh ok, fair enough I missed that. Still need more info on hours worked/ finances etc really though . It’s not as simple as saying both working full time is fair ( and fair on who?), every situation will be a little different.

I think you need to have a discussion with DP about reducing your hours and income. Both parties need to be in agreement.

the biggest red flag I see here is you pay 50/50 for bills etc when he earns double what you do. I would have been expecting him to pay double what you towards expenses etc then the rest is each parties to do what they like with.

maybe it’s worth the discussion about pooling money or at the very least how the bills are split.

who is going to be responsible for childcare costs/bring up the child financially?

How far are we supposed to have come.

Yet women are still stupid enough to have babies with men who won't marry them.

No. Buying a house and having a baby. Which really is just having sex once isn't a commitment.

If your man won't marry you and you want to get married then he's just not that into you. Ss the saying goes. He's just waiting for the woman who he really will love and marry. And make no mistake she will come along

You are naive. If you want to get married tell him.that. don't accept no. You have a child fgs.

When I met my now dh I was a single parent on a low wage. He was a single older very wealthy man with no children. He would have been very happy for me to live with him . He had no reason to marry me why would he

I said I will not live with you. Unless you marry me. For me it was important. For commitment and also financial protection.

Course I could have just moved in with him and lived with him. And he would have loved that. My son and I would have had a great life.

But men really do prefer women who demand commitment. I demanded marriage. He married me. We are coming up to our 10 year anniversary and it's all wonderful. No way would we still be together if he'd not married me

He won't marry you?you need to be stronger

Marriage isn't all that important to some people and that's okay. There are other ways to protect yourself without being married.

Dp and I have 2 DC, 14 and 10, mortgage, cars etc and we're not married.

Finances are split pretty much 50/50 as we earn similarly, but I wouldn't want him to subsidise me even he was the higher earner.

Op, you can't decide to stay at home and ask him to pay for that if he wasn't part of that decision. What if he turns round and says he wants to go part time to be more 'present' as a parent, would you cover his portion or the bills. Because given you expect him to do it for you that would only be fair. You're putting a lot of pressure on him to provide when it seems like he thought this was going to be more of an equal set up.

but the op here wants to get married and her bf won't marry her.

Half the child care is likely a cheaper option than losing half a wage.

Another one.
OP you're unmarried and the lower warmer and you've now had a baby with the guy, who clearly isn't massively up for sharing.
Why do women keep falling into this trap? I bet the baby got his surname too.

Your DP does realise if you go back full time and you have to pay 5 days of childcare that he will still be losing some of his wages to that?

You think he'll be prepared to contribute?

But I do think OP should keep maximising her earnings and pension, i have a feeling she'll need them down the line.

How much would he be paying out for a nanny/childcare for his child/baby if you weren’t around?

you really need to fact this into your equation when it comes to splitting the bills etc

dies he want to drop a day to 4 days and be with baby?

Do not reduce your hours without marriage.

I'm not married to my kids dad, but it's fine because I'm a higher earner and would be fine if we split. I've never stepped back in my career, stayed full time throughout.

The negatives of going part time compound hugely in pension and saving terms, it's massive. Have you actually done the maths? Not just the monthly bills, what the real long term impact to your retirement will be.

You need to have a serious conversation with him, if you're hellbent on shooting yourself in the foot career wise, then ensure you're making extra pension contributions, paying bills proportional to income and ideally get married.

You have a child together, joint bank account

We are not married & one thing I think is really important in that case is to keep everything equal.

We put all our money into a joint account & allow ourselves equal spending money. When ds1 was small, we both worked full-time but on different days. When ds2 was little, we both worked part-time, again different days with a shared day off. If anything had happened, we would both have been OK.

You do need to think very carefully & make sure you are both on the same page & that you will not be disadvantaged. I wouldn't work part-time if not married unless I earned a lot of money doing so or we both did.

As said not everyone thinks marriage is important..

Maybe he has his own reasons.

Maybe he feels he has no say in joint decision making, as proved in this case here, and wants some control over his own life and financial affairs.

None of us will know until he himself tells.

I fully understand not everyone thinks marruage is important.

But it is important to the op. Plus it does give legal and financial rights to a lower earner or parent choosing to go pt.

Agree that op needs to discuss with partner tho and not just make decision alone

Ever since me and dh lived together all our money went into one account.
I took on the role of paying all the bills, sort out the savings and pensions and our fun money ( there were a few years when there was no fun money!)
I had more time to do it and I am better at managing money.

If you are one family I don't like the idea that just because one person is such a high earner they can have much more disposable money to play around with than someone on a lower income.
The person on the lower income is usually the one keeping everything going from child care to housework and their own job.

Throughout our 35 years together there have been times when Dh has earned more than me, times when I've been the sole earner due to redundancy and times when we've been about the same. We treat each other equally.

I'm pro joint accounts, with matching savings from the pot.

This doesn’t really work though when one unilaterally makes the decision to cut back on working

Why is the ball in his court?
Why can't you decide this as a couple?

This.
We just had one pot. We put in what we earned, took out what we needed. Discussed our financial plans regularly.

Legalities aside, which I'm sure the OP knew well before she had a baby with him...any sensible person would.....

Maybe your second paragraph is the reason he won't marry...

As a PP said his loyalties at the moment lie with his baby and his bank.