Should she earn more??

[blueeeapples]

Appreciate your thoughts on this situation. Both mid 40s, together nearly 20 years, 2 DCs (late teens). Mid 40s, mortgage paid off (3-bed semi), with joint savings of £18k.

Me: Salary: £65k, savings / investments: £137k & pension: £125k

DW: Salary: £12k, savings: £16k & pension: £10k

DW wasn't working while DCs were in primary school. Now they are in in secondary & college, re -entered workforce 2 years ago, working part time earning approx £200 p/w. I think it's DW should work more than the average 8-10 hours she does each week, especially as our pensions aren't great.

DW thinks we're in a good financial situation, and doesn't want to increase hours, especially as we have a large amount of savings.

Am I being unreasonable?

I had a look at my pension at about her age, thought "Shit!" and upped my freelance hours to the brink of madness. I've slackened off a bit now but we had a few years of living off DH's income and saving all of mine post-tax.

The £125k would worry me, let alone the £10k (assuming you mean total pot, and I haven't misread her annual pension from some former career).

Yanbu. Your situation is ok but not brilliant. Does pension pot is very low so even though yours isn’t too bad with the investments as well combined its low. Could she compromise and work 24 hours a week which is still part time and means she’s got some flexibility for the kids but will make a difference to your income and pensions?

Well just from a financial perspective, your wife is catastrophically wrong. You do not have anywhere near enough in pensions. Yours is very low. Hers in non existent

However….. you have a joint income of £77K, no mortgage and children past the age for childcare.
Wtf are you spending all that money on? Because from the outside it seems plenty to to both live on AND save. Yet you haven’t

If she's doing 70% of housework then are you willing to take on more if she starts working more hours? Because right now that is unpaid work she's doing whether you want to call it that or not.
How are the other responsibilities split? Do you do any of the mental labour? Kids may be teens but they still need plenty of looking after - how much of that do you do?

Does DW have NI contributions paid up as far as possible? Will both of you qualify for full state pension if you continue to work till then?

You currently spend an income of £77k, and your retirement income is looking like it will be a small fraction of that (get a projection worked out). So, if you think you can live off the modest retirement income, why not do that for a year and put the difference into your pensions?

We'll probably be ok. At 5% growth my pot should be worth £1m+ by 67, but that carries assumptions and risk.

17 and 15, no special needs.

Agree, I do probably take things for granted that just magically happen. I guess I'm thinking maybe 3 days, not the 1.5 days.

That's exactly why I'm thinking, maybe 3 days or 20 hours condensed.

What is DW please?

Oops! Sozz, guess it's darling wife.. Still not used to all the abbreviations here

Mmm, but in 20 years' time, that £1m is going to look a lot smaller because of inflation.

Are you assuming in that calculation that you continue paying in at your current % of salary?

Have you thought about talking to someone about wealth management, things like how your pensions are invested? Hers aren't that big but if they were merged in to the same pot and topped up she over the next 20yrs they could be.
And you could get proper feedback about what retirement would look like.

So at the typically recommended drawdown rate of 3%, your £1m pot (even if you are correct about its growth) would gain you a safe drawdown amount of £30,000 per year. Although that sounds reasonable, in twenty odd years time, that isn’t going to go far when you factor in inflation given it needs to be shared between you both

Why do you have more in savings and pension? It should be equal. She sacrificed to raise your children.

Tell her she either gets a FT job or a divorce.

Assuming you don’t leave all the cooking and housework to her.

What’s her excuse for only working 10 hours a week

We bring in about £5k fo past couple of years, so do manage to save £1.5k, but hardly anything for 12 year before that. But we did manage to overpay mortgage.

Agree, need to redistribute chores. Already pretty hands on with DCs, with clubs, picks up drop off, etc.

Part time perhaps if she does all the housework - 4 days a week would help substantially

Well it hasn't occurred to her that she should get off her arse and contribute now thr children are grown, has it?! If she was bothered about her pension, she'd be working more hours!

God this place is bloody depressing at times. A man doing this would be immediately deemed a cocklodger and everyone would be screaming LTB.
but a woman apparently gets a free pass yet again!
I can only assume none of you have sons. If a woman were using my son like a cash cow and refusing to fairly share the financial load, I’d be bloody furious

Yes. We're both projected to get full stare pensions. If you get CHB, you get full NI contributions before the age of 12, and if your earn over £7k you also get full contributions.

That's a helpful suggestion

They are her children too!

She is being completely ridiculous. She needs to do more hours, even if not full time.

If she works extra hours, you understand you’ll have to do more work at home, right? It would need to be more like 50/50 than 70/30.

Yes, didn't take inflation decreasing value of money into consideration. Assuming increasing my contributions marginally (to 8%), and assuming 6% growth rate of pension pot and ISA.