How to make unpaid mat leave fair with DP?

[Fairpay]

Hi all, I have a 5 month old DS (first child) with my DH. We have similar jobs with similar pay - he earns about 10% more than me but followint my next pay review shortly that gap may narrow.

I’m on mat leave at the moment and get 6 months paid, 3 months SMP and 3
months unpaid.

We jointly own the house and pay the mortgage 50/50 though I own a greater share for now as I contributed more of the deposit. All bills are split 50/50 from our joint account.

My question is - for those with DPs and children, what arrangements did you make during mat leave to make the unpaid bit fair? Should we say he’s saving £X per month on childcare and so shoud give me the equivalent amount, or half of that? Or he should pay my share of the mortgage and bills for three months? And so increase his share of the house more quickly during that period?

I appreciate this depends in part on the sums involved, but I’m interested to get a sense of what other people did.

FWIW, this isn’t a situation where he is unwilling to pay! I read so many posts about crap partners like that on here. He is very much a 50/50 parent and wants to do what’s right and fair, but we can’t quite work out what that looks like!

Thank you!

You're married. It shouldn't be about making things 'fair', all money should be family money and you shouldn't be owing each other money as you're a partnership. IMO.

this Is why you should have all monies in one pot
the money you both have / earn is family money and not about one person owing the other

We’re just treating household income as
reduced.

Everything is pooled and we go from there.

We just see it as our family income is reduced, and we just work with what we have to make sure all bills are paid.

You combine all the income, deduct the bills, put some aside for savings if you can afford to, then split the remainder equally for personal spending.

By the point we were married and had a child all money just went in and out of one pot, we both just had access to all the money. That’s what’s fair when you’re actually a team.

We have a joint account, there is no my money/his money. When I was off work with babies our household income was reduced.

We have separate savings, which have an equal amount added every month.

All money is pooled. It’s all family money and you budget accordingly .

Same sort of income split with my DH, he paid the bills for those three months and then in theory what was left got split 50/50. In reality though, money was pretty tight so there wasn’t a lot of extra individual spending anyway.

We don't have joint finances. I took the total I'd get over maternity leave and worked out the gap between that and my annual salary (minus what I'd normally try to save over the year). I then covered half the gap from my savings and DH covered half the gap from his savings.

I like having my own money, I don't want to have to justify to anyone how I spend it.

So we put everything into a pot together, pay all the essentials out of it, and then have an equal split of the rest to have as fritter money.

This means that when I was on mat leave, my maternity pay and his earnings went in the pot and we had equal spends. When I went back to work my pay went into the pot, childcare came out, we split the extra for spends. And now our DC are older, and DH has benefited from the the fact that I've had two maternity leaves and been part time for years to accommodate their (and his) needs... we still have equal spending money.

Works for us!

All money into one pot then everything paid out of that, equal spends allocated.
Not just for unpaid mat leave, I was the main wage earner later on and we still did the same.

At the beginning of our marriage we pooled all our income into one pot and all our outgoings came out of it. Then whatever was left was divided into personal spend.

Echoing most people - everything into joint account, all bills paid out of that, then we work out independent spending money and put that into our own individual accounts. Rest is saved jointly.

DH earns fractionally more than me (maybe 5%) but we have equal spending money. We used to do the separate accounts/50:50 method but having a child changed that; we became a unit at that point.

incidentally whilst I understand the deposit issue in relation to your house, I find it a bit odd that you would be thinking that your DH technically paying the mortgage ‘by himself’ for a few months would change his equity share, particularly when it is due to your having his child.

OP you're married with a baby, not flat mates!

Poo your money.

What the others have already said, the only fair way is all money in one joint account, for bills, rent or mortgage, food, car expenses, and all child related expenses, then money to savings and then finally equal spending money to each of you.
make sure you get the child benefit paid to you for the NI credits,

anything else is just not fair . You are a Team.

I worked out the total I'd get in maternity pay and divided it by the number of months I'd be off. I then paid that amount into the pot monthly.

We paid rent, bills, expenses, etc from that pot which meant that we had less than usual and so weren't able to put any into savings for the duration of my mat leave.

Pool the money. I never understand why a woman has to manage her maternity pay when she is living with the father of her child.

or

Split / Share the maternity / paternity leave

This!

This probably isn't going to help you now as abit late. But when I found out we were having a baby me and DH jointly saved up enough to cover the my unpaid maternity leave. Agree with others I would say it needs to be a joint income even if it's just for them few months.

Our income all went into the joint account which we both have free access to. It was and is always shared.

Or he should pay my share of the mortgage and bills for three months? And so increase his share of the house more quickly during that period?

Why should he gain from your being on mat leave looking after HIS child?
Surely you share?

Joint pot is the way forward

One joint bank account-everything goes into and out of the one pot.

Pool your money ... I don't understand how you can share bodily fluids with someone but not money ?

We both keep a set amount each month for personal spending, and pay the rest into the joint account. Mortgage and bills are paid from that.