Am I being fair on how we split the bills?

[Confusedcookie]

I've asked my husband if he's happy with this arrangement and he says he is but then I've read on here about how couples should have one pot of money and everything taken from that rather than calculating what each person pays. Particularly when the woman is a lower earner (usually if it's due to looking after children) although in our case it's the other way round in that I earn more.
For context
I pay council tax, TV licence and home insurance. I own the house outright and paid the mortgage off before my husband (at the time boyfriend) moved in.
He pays gas, electric, water and internet.
Then we independently pay our own car costs and personal shopping.
We go through our other bills each month and split them 50/50, so that's our food shopping and animal care costs etc.
I earn over double what he does but will be going on maternity leave in a few months so it will drop but it will still be a little bit more than he earns per month.
I think I feel maybe I'm being unfair as I earn more so should pay more each month, but then at the same time I worked very hard to pay my mortgage off early and if I hadn't done that we would both be paying out more each month.

So am I being unreasonable to split our finances the way we do?

I think it would be simpler to decide how much each of you pay into a joint account and pay all bills from there, rather than deciding who pays what.

Especially with a child on the way and the extra costs that brings.

For us, all joint costs are pooled, we then both pay proportionately the joint costs based on our income.

In the eyes of the law your money and assets are joint, including your marital home, regardless of who paid for it and how much your each contribute.

I don't really understand separate money for married couples.

We already have joint savings so I'm not really sure why we never made a joint account for bills - probably partly laziness as all the direct debits were already linked to my account not that that's a good excuse, and it's quite good to sit each month and see what we are spending where. We're planning to move house in around 2 years so keeping check of what we are spending and saving is quite good, but I think you're right a joint account might be best.

He's living rent free so is at a huge advantage. Obviously I hope you stay together but in his position I would want to get my own property.

DH and I have a joint account from which all bills are paid, including all kids costs. We each put half in and whats left is in our own personal accounts.

We are both high earners but he earns quite a bit more than me (and probably spends less day to day....) so tends to save more but he saves in both our names and the DC. He tends to pay for holidays too.

If you don’t want to do a joint account where both salaries go in and bills paid out, shared savings etc then You pay bills proportionate to your salary. I would put all bills through a joint account, you both paying to cover those bills, including food, proportionately, so you earn more you pay a bit more, then what’s left is your own funds to pay for your own cars, spends, savings etc

Holidays etc would work on the same way, as would stuff for the child

All that we have is put into one account; all that we spend comes from there. We trust each other & share whatever we have. Over twenty years in, it’s worked through tough & less-tough times. It’s marriage!

I think a joint account is easier so everyone is contributing to each bill rather than saying he's doing electric and you're doing council. If one goes up then it's all still fair. Also maybe consider if you'll have a large childcare bill soon- you will want to share that cost. And any children related costs as its often the mother who ends up paying for all the bits and bobs.

You are both happy with it, that's all that matters.

I will never have a joint account, always separate and it works well for us. Not all marriages are the same, there's no right way to be married.

I'm the higher earner too and bills, including nursery fees are split 50/50.

Do either of you have kids already? The assets are legally both of yours if you are married, including your house, so you should share your income equally. Who is going to be the main person doing childcare once the baby arrives? How are you going to divide up child associated costs? Have you included extra pension payments for the staying off work person into this and spending money for the person who will earn less and then have worse career progression as a result?

Yes he is living rent free and that's why he says he doesn't mind splitting the bills even though he earns less.
Our plan is to buy our next house together. I'm 31 and he's 30 so it's more just a case of he was renting, I already owned so it made sense for him to move into mine initially. We're comfortable here but would like to buy together in the next few years.

No this will be our first child for both of us.
I'm full time at the moment but will be going back on 25hrs/week condensed into two days after maternity leave, so will only have 2 days childcare to cover - will take a bit of juggling with pick up times as my husband works split shifts and we don't have "the village" to help us so to speak, and obviously can't be leaving a little one in nursery for 13 hours at a time. Hopefully by then though my husband might have a job with more regular hours so this won't be a problem. At the moment we plan to split the nursery fees 50/50.
I'll be honest I've not looked at how it will impact my pension yet so thanks I'll have a look into that.

We do not have a joint account, we have had over 30 years of quite complex finances but we actively enjoy doing things with money to completely maximise income. Ultimately over all those years there have been adjustments made. But we have both always had a decent amount of money left over.

@cornflourblue both of us have always dabbled with investments even before we met. You have to react quickly there is no time to consult on moving money about.

I would check how much you'll have left after bills when on maternity leave, OP. If the answer is £500, so you can have a decent time on mat leave, then cool-but if the answer is £50 and DH normally has £400 left after bills, then I'd say for maternity leave and ongoing you need to rejig so you both have similar personal money. If you still will and you're both happy, all good, but you being off looking after a newborn shouldn't mean you can't afford a coffee/baby group/to replace that pair of jeans etc

It's not just nursery fees though. Going part time will have a long term impact on your earnings and pension. And there will be clothes, food, presents, extra cleaning, child admin, extra sick days for you plus child. There is so much stuff that it is virtually impossible to fairly share all the jobs and money without just having a central pot. I think that's why most couples with kids have a shared account.

All of this.

Plus who takes time off (potentially unpaid) when your child is sick? Its very common for young DC to pick up a LOT of bugs when they start at childcare, and you need to agree who stays home with them, or leaves work to pick them up when they invariably throw up at nursery.

Will you have equal personal spending money when you're on mat leave? How about your pension?

They’re married. It’s now half his.

Looking at a maternity pay prediction calculator I think I will have £500-800 free each month. Husband is part time at the moment and I won't be on fixed shifts so will also be doing nights and weekends so we hope we can juggle sick days etc but realise that won't always be the case.
Sounds like a shared pot is the way to go

DH earns five times what I earn so puts five times into the joint pot for all bills including those relating to children. We keep the rest of our monies to spend or save as we wish. He is a spender, I am a saver so this works well for us. If he wants to spend £100 on a shirt he can crack on!
Dont fall into the trap of you buying all the children’s stuff or going equal on childcare if you earn less. And yes, remember your pension.

Being devils advocate...

I'm assuming he moved in a few years ago given you are pregnant

So you had paid your mortgage off before he moved in

So by the time you were 29

This is very young and you either had a small mortgage or a huge wage to do so? Or help.

There's no way I could have paid my mortgage off in 10 years even if I'd have put every penny towards it.

Well, I think you're unreasonable because I couldn't live like this myself - we just pool it all and the bills are paid from the joint account. We have equal fun money each and it's always been equal even when I earned nothing. We're a family, not housemates.

But I suppose it doesn't really matter what I think, it's your money!

I'm not sure what you mean by devil's advocate here.
But anyway yes kinda all three, I was 29 when I paid it off, and I paid it off over 5 years. I was lucky that my parents let me live at home while I was at uni and only paid them a token rent, and worked while I was in uni which let me save up a decent deposit, plus we live rurally so my house wasn't city prices, my mortgage was about £98k. Then since I finished uni I've always worked far more than full time, taking on extra night and weekend work for overtime payments, until I had an injury last year so I've only worked full time now for a year (which I can't lie has been nice). I'm a nurse so not super high paying but always more work available and promotions available to enhance your salary, I've almost finished my post grad so I'm hoping once I've been back from maternity leave for a while I'll be able to go for a higher paying job, I'm quite financially driven - I think that's a good thing personally. Then yes I got £30k as inheritance after an unexpected and sudden death in the family, my car was written off at the same time so I used that money to buy a new car and put the rest towards my mortgage which I'd already been trying to overpay by 10% each year as my goal was to try and pay it off asap.
I think I'm just money minded, I'm still generous to other people but I was happy to sacrifice some things for myself to meet my goal. Since paying it off I have been on a lot more holidays and to a lot more concerts though 😆
Anyway that was off on a tangent but yeah that's why I own outright and we aren't paying a mortgage or rent

That's great and you've obviously worked hard and extra to pay it off, I was being devils advocate assuming that at least some of your ability to pay it off was circumstance rather than you simply working harder than your partner (and I think I'm fair in making that assumption based on the info you've since given).

He may not have had the same series of opportunities and legs up hence not getting on the housing ladder himself.

I think the exact split isn’t so relevant in cases where there arent huge bills and enough money. You aren’t leaving him with pennies while you live it up and assuming he earns over £25k say, he must have plenty left with those bills. I think with a baby, maternity pay, childcare etc to contend with a joint account and transfer out a set amount each to your personal accounts for fun money/presents etc would be ideal from now on.

Ooh the results are in 😆 ... 53% of you said I was being unreasonable, 47% said reasonable, that's a pretty close result.
I just want it to be fair for both of us so I'll ask him again about a joint account. We already have a joint savings account so should be easy to sort a joint everyday account and it might make bills one less thing to spend time on when the baby is born and we're so sleep deprived we're unable to use a calculator 😂