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

She has chosen to be at home with child 😊 so is at liberty doing as she wished. Agree he gets 2 days in theory but if you compare 50 hours plus overtime so let's say 60 hours a week to 25.5 hours a week, I know what I'd rather be doing.

Yes but youve already slept. At night. When humans are meant to sleep.

Honestly this reads like having a child is much more than you expected it to be and you're struggling. Are there more children on the cards for you 2?

No, just this one new thing, which is why I'm unsure how I feel about it

Have you ever looked after a child? Do you really think it’s “free time” to spend as you wish?

Also she may have chosen it or they may have both wanted it. It’s also beneficial for him - his children are better cared for and it’s saving them both ££££ in child care.

For clarity, I haven't asked him to do this (or any) overtime, nor do we especially need the extra money as a family. I would be happy for him to work shorter hours (we can afford it) but he prefers not to

Yep got 4, also work full time.

Why don’t you consider putting all the overtime money to one side and making it the holiday fund? That is what we would probably do.

All money is family money. I don’t understand set ups where each person takes a different amount. Earnings are irrelevant, you’re a family unit.

So why you think looking after children is free time to spend as you wish, I don’t know. Maybe you just stick them in front of screens and ignore all their needs.

Agreed. I’m married and all out money goes into one pot. Pensions and savings are taken out but the core of it stays there.

You are doing as you chose, to have children, it's not easy but looking after them should be cherished. No screens till much older, after 13

A lot of us encourage our children to be able to entertain themselves and/or respect that we have duties to attend to that arent directly about interacting with them. We encourage our children to be okay with this from a young age because it is a good skill to have.

That doesnt mean putting them in front of a TV, in fact it means teaching them that sometimes you just need to sit and wonder about the world for a minute while I do the laundry.

I agree with this and just don't get it. A family should act as a unit. We've had a shared pot from day one. Over 40 years there has been various ups and downs work wise, and demands on the purse, like everyone.
I don't understand married couples, with children, who act like this.

I always find these kind of salami slicing the household finances converaations between adults in a supposedly committed relationship very odd. Surely everything just goes into the 'pot'. If your first instinct if you or your partner receives an extra amount of cash is how to divide it up I would say its a very unhealthy place to be.

That’s hardly 50/50 effort to him working overtime though.

I do think working overtime when he is already working a lot more hours than you do (even on your working days), means he should get at least some extra money for himself.

You really aren’t coming across as a team.

It sounds as if this is about more than money. There is an undercurrent here. Resentment? Lack of communication?
You're going to have to sit down together and discuss what you both want from this marriage.

I think it should be 50:50.

However I think this can be muddied a bit if you kept a higher share of your earnings before you had your child and now he earns more he sounds disgruntled. Even though you are facilitating him working.

For what it’s worth DH were 50/50 on money from day one of our marriage. He wanted to keep his overtime but I pointed out that he benefited from the stability of my wage and I didn’t get paid overtime even when I did do it. I definitely think men see their overtime as their money but aren’t considering that income is income. If the wife is expected to share all of her income regardless of how she eared it why do men then create special rules for their extra income.

Good points

Me neither.
I simply cannot fathom how it works if the finances are not all in together.
I know people have different set ups, I have friends like this too...but the idea of trying to work out percentages when we live in the same home and share the same children and hopefully the same future is just alien to me.

As for OP... If I was in your shoes I'd expect him to put his money in with mine. If he's working extra surely it's for the family?
Obviously he can treat himself for his extra efforts, but shouldn't he want you to benefit from his overtime too?

So if you’re doing the laundry it’s not free time to spend as you wish - that’s the point of a pp I was responding to.

I'm fascinated to know what sort of garden maintenance involves "late night call outs". Do they use floodlights and super quiet machinery?

Agree with all others that it needs to be joint money. What's with all this "splitting" / "he owes me x amount" / "percentages" etc? How odd.

You said when looking after children “you are at liberty to do as you have chosen with your time” though. Please do explain.

Wow. Defensive, much? Can your kids not play alone?

@Debatingthings as, historically, both salaries go into a joint account, am wondering why your husband has decided the call-out remuneration should be treated differently?

What's his thinking process?