Husband's overtime pay - what's a fair split?

[Debatingthings]

My husband has been working overtime lately. Mostly late evening call outs.

He works 5 days a week and is usually out of the house from 8am-6pm ish. I work 3 days a week and am usually out of the house from 8:30am to 5pm.

I do nursery pick ups and drop offs on those days. I do most of the work getting our toddler ready in the mornings all weekdays. I also look after her on my two days off and do the majority of cleaning, cooking, laundry, food shopping, admin, and DIY in the house. He does garden maintenance.

When he does these call outs, he often misses the bedtime and/or sleeps in late the next day.

I have a professional job but dropped down to 3 days to care for our child, which I love and value, but ultimately have made career and financial sacrifices for this, which he has not had to make.

Our standard take home pay is roughly similar but he does usually bring home some extra money by way of end-of-day overtime each month, so his pay cheque is higher.

These late night call outs are new.

Out money is generally split equally i.e. everything paid into joint account then we have the same amount of personal spends each month.

What is a fair split of this late night call out overtime money? He has suggested 70/30. I don't want to be grabby but I feel he can only earn this extra money because I facilitate it. I sort of feel it should be 50/50, but... AIBU?

YABU = 70/30 or less
YANBU = 50/50

While 50/50 sounds fair, I know the responses would be different if the genders were reversed. In that case the woman would be advised to keep all her overtime money to use incase her relationship failed.
So I think yes 50/50 is fair because you are covering everything at home but your husband may be keeping savings just incase. Why doesn't everything just stay in the joint account and whoever wants/needs money can use it? That's what we tend to do, unless it's a big purchase.

Wouldn’t cross my mind to have any of it.

I do get your point that you’ve dropped your working days but unless there’s no childcare available that was your choice.

Dh earned a lot more than me and worked away which meant I couldn’t work as a midwife as had no childcare for nights or weekends. I had to drop my hours and take a 9-5 job on less money. I didn’t think that entitled me to his bonus. But he did pay most of the bills.

"If he insists, id be looking at increasing my hours, and telling him he is now responsible for 50% of all childcare and housework, while you benefit from your extra earnings."

Rftf op did not want to work the extra hours, and has literally said she felt "unable to".

If they both worked full time and paid the nursery fees etc long term the family would have been better off with probably higher salaries and better pensions.

That's not what she wanted, dropped 2 days, and is now presenting that choice as a sacrifice for the family / husbands worse paid career....

Honestly this is so bizarre. I can’t imagine checking if we both are spending exactly the same?! 😂 My DH works full time and earns £150K annually, I also work full time and earn 50K annually. He sometimes does weekend shifts, this means I do the lions share of all the chores and childcare as he just isn’t around. His salary goes into our joint account, once I get paid I move a fixed amount of money into our joint account for the bills. I keep something back for my ISA, birthday gifts for DH. He is fine with this. He also has his own personal account where he moves money from the joint account as necessary for investing, his ISA etc. We both spend what we want from the joint pot after bills. We have a joint savings account where I move money at the end of the month depending on how much is left. There is no my money/ your money. It is all our money because we are married and have two children. Can’t imagine being so petty to quibble over who spent what. I would rather be single than be with someone who didn’t want to share.

Always 50/50.

My husband is working monday to friday this week and the weekend as overtime. He ran it past me as I'll have our child most of the weekend on my own or he wouldn't be able to do it. We are both putting in the effort for him to be able to earn more money. It'll go in the shared pot and we'll both benefit equally from it.

He used to early 4x my salary. I'm forever grateful he doesn't just keep it for himself and has always made sure we only pay our fair share of things based on our take home pay. I know women who have very little money because they went part time after having kids and their husbands still expect them to pay half of everything!

I think it all needs to go in the joint point. He couldn’t do the overtime if you didn’t have the kids

When my DH or I get bonuses (which we don't always) they go into joint account and are split BUT if there's something we have wanted to buy for a while we often buy it out of our own bonus first.

Don’t forget your pension contributions will have taken a hit with dropping your hours. His won’t.

If everything goes into a shared pot so you have equal person all money, why is this different?

Personally, when you have DC to be cared for, I can't really see a way that works that isn't all shared money.

“looking after a child… you are at liberty to do as you have chosen with your time”

haha, good one!

Also “4 days at home” is disingenuous - he gets 2 days at home by that rationale.

You're asleep, he is at WORK! then of course he needs to get some sleep when he gets back in. How many hours is he working per week including overtime?

First response nails it, as often happens on here.

Why on WHY do people not have shared finances when they are married with children?

@Debatingthings You need to tell him that all your money AND his goes into a joint pot. This 'my money-your money' nonsense nearly ALWAYS screws women over and not men.

I mean not really, with the OT factored in - but op still has double the days off anyway

I never understood splitting the money in families, surely its just one thing extra to put strain in the relationship?
Here the money all goes into one account, bills get paid, kids get sorted with any new stuff they need/ birthdays etc and whatever is left is just left, OH tends to spend more money than me, i don’t really want for much so it doesn’t bother me, i wouldn’t need/want half.
I think on the whole 50/50 70/30 should be based on what each person wants/needs out of that money not on petty i did this -you did that so i deserve this n you deserve that.
An example- if he just wanted to used it to buy a few extra pints and a meal out but you wanted to use it to buy a new sofa then new sofa wins and the lions share would go to your want/need imo and same the other way.

He must be working a lot of hours currently. Why is he doing that, with no debt except mortgage and plenty of savings/ investments. He must hardly be at home.I'd be suggesting to him that he focuses on a better work- life balance and drops the on calls.

It doesn’t sound to me like you and your husband are communicating very well here. You have no idea if he wanted to drop his hours, you just decided for him. Who decided he was doing all this overtime and for what purpose? If you’re trying to save or go on holiday or pay the bills those are family decisions as surely there needs to be a reason to sacrifice family time for money - when he already works full time.

Honestly I think you need to sit down and agree on your financial priorities and goals and make a plan.

My husband and I don’t have splits - we have one account and everything goes into and out of the same place so we both know exactly where we are. In this scenario the extra money would just go into the same account and we’d decide what to do - a holiday or new windows or whatever. When his grandmother died he inherited a bit of money and we used it to pay off my school loans because our lives are shared.

I would have said 50-50 as you are looking after the kids.

But on the other hand you mentioned you are out more often for social life. I think if you are actually having equal evenings out of the house but he is using his to earn money, he should get to keep it.

We work on one team-one pot basis - %ages don’t come into it.

It could be, but I doubt it, as we aren't short of money. I wouldn't go back full time while DC young as the benefit would be low once you factor in childcare, higher rate tax, loss of child benefit, plus my DC would hate full time nursery

It should be 50:50. You are a partnership. Every time he takes on overtime it knocks on to you having a more difficult time and more to do at home. It is not "his" money, it is money earned for the partnership and for the family.

He's a workaholic, I would be happy for him to work fewer hours

Is everything in your relationship so transactional?

Yes, but then in the morning, he is asleep, and I am "working" looking after a toddler. Yes unpaid but still has value

An easier way to work it out out of the shift he’s working 100%
you are in bed sleeping for a massive chunk of if it
so 70/30 does seem fair

tbh night time call-outs can be hard work your turning in for a shift after you’ve been up all day then your night sleep is disrupted you have a lie in and the following night sleep is out of sync
tbh if I were him after tax and parting with 50% if it
it’s not worth the effort I wouldn’t bother then you can both have 1/2 if nothing

Yes I think I'm probably leaning towards this. If it is during time he would have for social/downtime i.e. not creating unfair burden for me, it's probably fair for him to keep it/the majority