What would you do with the £1000?

[CosyDenimShark]

1st time posting & would appreciate some views on this as I might be being unreasonable in my head.

Parent 1 earns 3 times what Parent 2 does and works full time.
Parent 2 works part time.
1 adult child, 1 teenager in the household.

Holiday booked for all 4. Parents paying for their own cost of the holiday plus 50% each of the teenagers holiday.
Adult child paying for their own (full time worker).

Parent 1 was gifted £1000 recently.

Would you expect parent 1 to take the £1000 off the holiday total, making the share to pay less for everyone, or, take £1000 off their own share as it was primarily a gift to them.

The giver of the gift only stated it was to be used for something nice, not bills & to use it for a holiday.

Why aren’t finances more equally split? That seems more an issue tbh

But if you’re all going on the same holiday, it’s very mean to only take some off their own costs

Why not just use it to take everyone out for some lovely meals while you're away, or entry to an interesting place? That way you'll be getting the benefit of the money AND sharing it with your family.

Sounds like you need to get yourself into full-time employment and increase your earning potential

Definitely share.

Sounds like there are bigger issues going on here than the random £1000.

Is it just holidays that are set up this way or are all living expenses 5050 when there's such a disparity in income - and presumably running of the household?

For me that's a lot of money and I would put it on the mortgage or into Bonds if the holiday's already booked and paid for.

Parent 1 should take it off their own costs. The first option would be only if they wanted to.

Take it off total so all can benefit.

Though of I was parent 2 I wouldn’t be paying half for both children on top of paying for my own if parent one earns so much more.

I was gifted £1000 2 years ago, I still have it. I would not share the funds because it was left to me to do as I please.

When we go away we decide if we can afford it, We may be married but I don’t have an automatic right to DH bonuses - he can also choose how to spend a gift.

It’s up to your DP/DH surely? If it was a present to him then it’s for him to decide how to spend it. If it was a family present then obviously it should be used for everyone.

I would say with an adult child and a teenager the priority would be to get into full time work to even things up financially if this causes worry/strain. Family finances should ideally be shared but there needs to be fairness and agreement on how this is done.

I don't understand split finances.

Across our marriage we've had every combination of full-time, part-time, maternity leave etc. All of our money goes into a joint account. All of our spending comes out of it.

If one of us was given £1000 to do something nice with, it would go into our account and, in these circumstances, I expect we'd have some nice meals or extra experiences on the holiday. Maybe we'd buy something nice for the house as a souvenir. I expect both of us would push the other to treat themselves to something personal if they were the person who'd been given the money.

Why the hell is everything split 50/50 in the first place in a partnership? You're supposed to be a team.

Unless you're not living together, in which case my answer would be parent 1 uses the money for themselves.

If you're living together, in a serious relationship, then 50/50 is dumb and your relationship can't be that solid.

In my house we have family money, if we didn't there wouldn't be a 50/50 split like this. Very unfair (unless there is a legitimate reason B works part-time).

The £1000 should just be spent on a separate treat imo. The way the holiday cost is spilt seems very odd.
How to finances work generally?

Everything about this arrangement seems crackers to me. The £1000 is neither here nor there.

I would give it to me. Which is exactly what parent 1 should do. I don't mind if it's cash, cheque or bank transfer 😜

There’s two seperate issues here….. firstly the holiday - why is it split like this. It doesn’t seem right to the lower earning partner, nor really the adult child. Surely the holiday just comes from a joint pot that an excess is a put into.

secondly where did the £1000 come from and who was it intended for?

Since your finances are clearly separate, the £1000 is parent 1’s money and they can spend it as they like (assuming the gift was made to them alone). They don’t have to share it with parent 2 since finances are separate unless they want to.

But re the holiday, what do you mean you’re paying for yourselves and 50% of the teenager’s cost? Presumably at least you and DP if not DCs are sharing a room so there’s is no individual cost per person that you could book and pay for separately for accommodation? So you’re basically just paying equal shares in the cost of the holiday between parent 1, parent 2 and adult DC?

That split seems unfair given income disparity! It seems fairer (to me) to add up the total cost of the holidays including flights, accommodation etc and then parent 1 pay half and parent 2 and adult DC pay a quarter each.

There is no need to quote the opening post in order to reply @HelenaWaiting. Everyone assumes that you are replying to the OP unless you say otherwise. If we all quoted them, all the threads on Mumsnet would be impossibly long and unreadable.

I'd pop it into an envelope and sent it to Rachel Reeves.

That £1000 would buy her around five professional coaching sessions for her and Kier, an 'Economics for dummies' text book, plus unlimited lifetime access to Angela Raynor's wardrobe.

In answer to your question: well, it's up to the person who received the gift to decide how to spend it. It's their money.

Parent one needs to give their head a huge wobble, then apologise for being so shitty, work out how much parent 2 has saved them in years of childcare and housekeeping, pay that back and set everything up equitably going forward.

Parent 1 should be paying 75% of all family costs as they earn 75% of household income.

If the £1000 is needed towards the holiday, it shaves off £250pp, so.adult child gets that discount and parents pay less.

There are bigger fish to fry here than £1k.

1. why does parent 2 work part time with grown up children?
2. why is all money not family money?
3. how is 50:50 split at all fair when one partner earns so much more?

I’ve been a SAHP with no income. Even now my kids are late teens and I work full time with a decent income, my DH earns 4x what I do. He’s always vastly out-earned me. There’s never any question of “you pay this, I’ll pay that”. We each keep back some personal spends and savings but literally everything else goes into the joint pot. Bills, mortgage, kids expenses, holidays, etc - it all comes from there. We are a team. I took him out for a meal last night on a date and wanted to treat him. He said it was kind but all money is shared, so it didn’t matter either way because we treated each other. I recently got a nice chunk of inheritance. Half paid for our new kitchen, I put some in my own personal savings (always have to have a runaway fund no matter how much you trust/love them!) and then took the family on holiday. Because we are a unit.

YABU to expect the gift given to parent A to be spent on a holiday which, by the sounds of things, you already had planned to go on and agreed the cost of.

Seems a shame to be forced to spend their gift on something they were going to do anyway.

The very separate finances are odd given one earns so much more than the other, and one is part time however.

I'll quote when I see fit, thanks. I don't need your permission.