To not consider this “family money”

[ImNotSharing]

I will shortly be receiving a large sum of money (large to me). It is a compensation payment.

Our finances are joint and DH considers it family money. I do not. AIBU?

Happy to answer questions but I’m mainly here for the vote.

I think if it was a large settlement then something significant must have happened to you, that left permanent consequences, whether physical or emotional. You may not need therapy for it now but maybe you will later. maybe you will suffer disability because of it later in life. So I would keep it in reserve to put towards your possible future needs as a result of this event.

You didn't say what happened but, from what you've intimated, the payout is large enough that it must have been something big. So it doesn't seem right to me if your husband sees it as a payday for the rest of the family. They shouldn't be profiting off your misfortune. The money is to make YOU whole, not to be a windfall for your husband or even for your kids.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, because I don't believe that having a SAHP at home makes any difference to career progression in the vast majority of cases. There will be some exceptions, but for most people, it really isn't essential to their success. Of course, it probably makes their lives a bit easier by releasing them from domestic duties when they're not at work, but with two good incomes, people can also pay for various services which make their lives easier as well.

This is only true if the working partner has ambition. They could work for 40 years at the same level, with a stay at home spouse. It takes personal drive and determination to build a career. It's easy not to progress and stay where you are comfortable. @ImNotSharing is benefiting from her husbands personal drive which is earning him a good income for his family. All funds are currently shared. The compensation should be too.

Exactly. And it’s so sad that so many women value their needs so little they would use their compensation for medical malpractice on meeting everybody else’s needs.

Ok, I'll try putting it differently: as someone who presumably cares about their children, does contributing to their wellbeing make you feel good?

You said it’s enough to pay off the mortgage. If you did, and if you put a big chunk into your pension (to make up for lost opportunities when you were on maternity leave), a couple of grand for clothes & hobbies…..would you consider the remaining money to be family/joint money? Yes, I realise that if you were to pay off the mortgage, that would effectively be family money.

Other than clothes and hobby, have you decided what else you would like to spend it on, or is it that you want to keep hold of it until you’ve decided what to spend iit on & how much?

In our house, joint finances mean everything is available to both of us, regardless of its origins.

Genuinely gobsmacked by OP. Is this a reverse? I would
absolutely pay off my mortgage and then use the saved money to treat us all and improve our quality of life.

Exactly, paid childcare. So surely the "shared income" for the SAHP is their version of remuneration. If both parents went to work, the family would incur childcare expenses anyway, so why would the savings and income not be joint if one stayed home and thus removed this expense?

I never said everybody that has a flourishing career would have had a SAHP, but they most likely would have had childcare of some form. I would be interested if you gave an example of somebody who didn't outsource their childcare and also achieved highly in their career.

Can you keep 50k for yourself and put remaining 150k in family pot? Or use 100k on mortgage from 150k and 50k in family pot?

I think its fair enough to keep some for yourself but I think its such a huge amount for the family I'd share it. Maybe have the amount you thought you'd originally get rewarded? Also doing something like clearing the mortgage benefits you just as much as your husband and then you'd also have so much more disposable money between you every month?

The reason that I'm erring at it really being family money is that you share money equally so when your husband has been earning more than you its all gone in the pot to be shared, I therefore think all money should really be treated the same?

My DH and I pool our finances and when my Dad passed away and I got some inheritance (5 figures but enough to pay off the mortgage) I put it in the pot. Sure it was my Dad, and he meant alot more to me than my husband and I was going through more pain, but I really wanted to put it in the pot for our family's financial security. And for my husbands part, after I came back from mat leave, tried to go back to work and then struggled with PND so quit my job to save my mental health to be SAHP for a year my DH continued putting his entire wage in the joint account, even when he got performance related bonuses, everything was shared.

But as I said, I also think its fair that you get to keep a portion to treat yourself, surely there can be a compromise between shoving it all in the pot or keeping it all for yourself?

I mean your husband disagrees with you keeping it all, and like your husband I would probably struggle if I was in his circumstances. Sharing all the money I earned, and then when my partner got a 6 figure windfall, they kept it all to themselves. It does feel a bit like whats yours is mine and whats mine is my own. Xx

In your circumstances I don’t understand why you can’t just allocate the £20k (that you initially wanted to allocate) into the family pot then just sit on the rest for the time being.

You don’t need to immediately spend it or immediately pay off the mortgage. Get some proper financial advice too. Ultimately if you put it in a savings account you should start to accrue interest until you decide how it will be spent.

I think you are unnecessarily pressuring yourself in “how it is being spent?”, “who gets a say so?”, “is it family money?” etc. when the likely reality is, you’ll most likely spend money different things instead of it all
going towards one thing. Does it all really need to be figured out tonight/this week or whatever? Just slow it down.

One has absolutely nothing to do with the other. A woman does not stop being a person when she becomes a mother. She does not have to centre her children in every single thing she does, and certainly not in the case where she’s receiving compensation for her injuries.

For me it's more that going on something like a family holiday would bring me immense joy (therefore would be treating myself) and would also bring joy to my family. Call me sad but I actually like seeing my family members happy and enjoying themselves....

The thing is the amount of money the OP claims she has received could do so much... the family holiday, a treat of herself, the repayment of her wages lost, the whole shebang. To want to spend that much money purely on things like clothes and a hobby is utter selfishness.

This

You should pay off your mortgage, I know you say that you both have jobs but the thing is nothing is certain, your DH could die or be permanently injured/unable to work and then you’d lose your house, your children would lose their home because you couldn’t afford the mortgage, surely if you have the money to secure yours and your children’s financial future it’s better to use it for that? Using it on designer clothes just seems silly…

Sorry but this can’t be a genuine post. Because never in a million years could I think getting 200k and not spending it on my family was ok. It’s beyond selfish. You got to be a stay at home mum because of him. Frankly he could have said get a job and we’ll pay for childcare. If you keep it yourself then it’s your right but I wouldn’t put it past the husband filing for divorce.

yes you earned it, but on this matter and reading many mumsnet threads id say it should be family money @ImNotSharing

There’s people saying to pay off the mortgage but I would highly recommend getting paid financial advice on this. Because sometimes you might get more of a return of investment if the funds are left in a high interest savings account for example. Obviously it depends on your exact accounts, terms, interest etc but sometimes when you have a lot of capital, it doesn’t always automatically mean it’s best to immediately pay off the mortgage. It might be you keep it in savings for a certain amount of time, then pay off the mortgage or whatever sequence. Hence why you should get proper financial advice.

I do think it’s sad that you can’t centre yourself in your own happiness, yes. And if one can’t be selfish when they have been the victim of medical malpractice resulting in significant injuries then when can they? What is the threshold at which point a woman can prioritise her own needs?

I don't think it's necessarily not valuing their own needs - for me I think it's more that I consider my family's needs and mine inextricably intertwined. So, in the OPs situation, I would want to pay off the mortgage because it would mean my husband could work less so we could spend more time together. It would primarily benefit him in as much as he would like to give up work, but we would both be happier if we could spend more time together so it would be a nicer way of life for both of us.

Similarly, I'd love to take my kids on holiday because I think we would all enjoy it and have a great time together.

To be fair, I might feel differently if I had an expensive hobby - I know someone with horses and she directs every spare penny towards them happily.

It’s interesting to me to see how people define themselves within a marriage. My Mum has little identity outside of her 60+ year marriage to my dad. Unhealthy maybe but at this stage it doesn’t matter. My SIL wouldn’t know how to sneeze without my DB’s guidance even though she was an independent professional before she met him. Way too dependent and self-effacing. Other sibling has divorced and remarried which has shaped their views on marriage and given rise to huge feelings of instability. Seeing themselves as an individual who happens to be married doesn’t mean they have high self-esteem, it means they’re desperately trying to protect themselves from more hurt by deliberately cultivating an entire chunk of life outside of their marriage and independent of their spouse (and I wonder where that will leave them).

It took me years or marriage to figure out how much space I wanted just for myself between me and DH, and how much space between me and my DC.

For me this would all be for them, bar a token amount (I am very lucky in not wanting much “stuff” and being able to afford whatever I do want) of maybe two or three grand for fun for me. My joy lies in relieving DH of financial stress or worry, it comes from knowing we’ve got our DCs’ futures covered (not that they know it) so they will have choices as adults. I couldn’t do something just for me because I’d be thinking of them and that they could be feeling the same way. Wouldn’t matter that I’d put in the work and nobody else - that goes for half of what I do with my life! Wouldn’t matter that I suffered the injuries - I know they’d have felt terribly for me, and that’s all I’d need to know.

I think you have a very different understanding of yourself within your marriage and family. And I note you’ve made no reference to giving to third parties out of this windfall, even nominal. I’d absolutely be donating to a food or book bank. It’s free money. The pain has been endured and the work has been done. This is extra. I have enough and it sounds like you do too. But this is a personal choice.

OK, well that's a decision that you had the right to make for you. OP feels differently, and that's OK. It doesn't mean she's selfish. It means she's the one who got injured. I mean, technically, the money is for HER injuries.

Sorry - meant to add that it’s INSANE that you could cut years of interest capital and interest repayments off of presumably your biggest debt, but instead want to spend money on clothes and hobbies. Mental. You could both take earlier retirement by years by doing so, potentially.

Having your face smashed in clearly doesn't meet that threshold, does it??