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!

@anon2022anon Agree with it being important that children see you as equal - I can’t imagine that they would ever be privy to our finances though tbh. I never knew what my parents earned and I don’t plan on my children knowing either!

@Fairpay you seem to have things pretty sorted. I think like all things the most important thing is openness and honesty . It seems really odd to me to think of my dh having ‘more money’ we simply don’t think like that at all. We just think of it as money. But all couples are different.

we both have professional jobs, I could have had as high a salary but took a lower paid senior role in the charity sector which also meant my hours were more flexible. Dh could not have been more encouraging, I would hate to think he thought I wasn’t pulling my weight financially or that he was ‘giving me money’ because he earns more .

maybe it is generational, I think it’s also age related. We are now beginning to look ahead to retirement , helping dc with house deposits and higher education etc It makes sense to see our income as one

My DP (now DH, wasn't then though) took over all significant payments (mortgage, council tax, car, utilities) as the direct debits would have bounced from my account when I was earning £136 a week SMP!
We never bothered changing the direct debits again once I was back earning, so he still pays these, I pay childcare costs, buy the majority of DCs clothes etc.
Nothing is split 50/50 really but we are a family so it doesn't matter? It's family money

Will also add, we had only been together three years when I got pregnant, but if he was going to have a child with me he needed to pick up the costs I guess!

Just checked with my very good friend and she and her DH just paid more into the JA pre mat leave and during the paid bit, so there was a surplus in there at 6 months. Then during the final 6 months of SMP and unpaid, he kept paying the same amount and she stopped paying. She wouldn’t want to pool all money because she feels she would still want to have control over where her money goes, though accepts that may change as they get older and have more children.

Another friend has said similar - I do wonder if it’s a generational thing!

This

We jointly saved before my mat leave so there was a pot that contributed my usual amount, all bills, outgoings and savings deducted from joint income including a pot for DC spending and we got the same amount of disposable spending money each

I'm 36 with a 2 year old, and an 18 year old who's not my partners daughter. We are open with the older one about wage, etc to an extent- she knows our combined wage for 20/21 from her uni finance application. But also weve shared it in the past so she can help decide on job area to go for, to give her the standard of life she wants. She was thinking about a lower paid apprenticeship at one point, and we were able to show her the area/ housing standard she could get on that wage. Then say, we earn roughly x per year, this is the lifestyle we have (not lavish at all! But confortable enough). It helped her decide on a different, better paid path. That's nothing to do with your original question, i know! But I'm fully in the belief that more open-ness on finances would help lots of people.

We do exactly what you guys are doing, OP! But we also benefit from earning very similar salaries. We are also in jobs which pay bonuses and we always talk about how much we are getting etc so the other person knows, but the bonus money we save ourselves (not joint), we are both saving for a house deposit. When we get paid each month we pay the same amount into our joint card (JC), and everything for the house, groceries, our toddler, eating out together, purchases for the house, holidays etc we put on the JC. Everything else we are spending (like own lunches with work, separate nights out, my makeup/clothes or his golf for instance) will be on our own cards. Why would we expect the other person to pay for that?! I might want to save more one month and he might want to pay for a golf membership for the summer, so I don't see how other people with complete joint finances would be happy with that.

We have another baby on the way (due in 2 weeks!) and this time (just like last time) I'm taking 6 months leave (I live abroad so a quarter of this will be full paid, quarter half paid, one month will be saved annual leave so I get paid, last two months unpaid). Needless to say I'll be much worse off financially during mat leave so my husband will obviously step up and pay the rent and put more money on the JC so I'm not losing out just because I'm on mat leave. He did this last time and it wasn't even a discussion, just an equal thing to do! He also paid for a holiday we took by the end of my mat leave as I didn't have an income.

I love having my independence when it comes to money but at the same time share fairly with DH. We are both fairly career driven and I can't see how pooling all money where both salaries goes into the same account is good as you always see what the other person is buying/spending - what if he wants to treat me to a date (he usually does, for instance birthdays, date nights, anniversaries etc) or if we want to buy each other presents, how is that special if it comes out of the joint account? And when we can see what present the other person is buying (from where).

I do have to mention that I have an extremely
Negative experience from salaries going into same account (ex fiancé), I was super naive with money (I was also the high earner) but thought everything should be equal, all our savings were together and we both had access - It turned out that he was a narcissist and a cheater, and when I found out he transferred all our savings (90% money I had put in) to his own account and there was no way I could get that back when we broke up. There was also a lot of built up resentment as he used to treat "all the boys" to rounds at the pub and dinners out with our (mostly my) money and he could live a fantastic lifestyle he barely contributed to. I had no savings after that relationship and I've learned the hard way how important it is with joint money as well as own money, I'll never put myself in that position again.

I trust my DH completely but I don't see the benefit in the salaries going into the same account and to share absolutely everything financially. It is good to keep some independence.

Again, I know we benefit from earning similar salaries so neither of us are worse off doing it this way, but he is about to change jobs now where he will earn 30% more than me, so he will naturally pay more rent and put more into the JC each month so I won't be worse off than him financially.

Another friend has said similar - I do wonder if it’s a generational thing!

I definitely think that plays a part. I guess more women now have professional careers of their own and don't tend to give them up after marriage/babies, or if they drop hours it's short-term and still doing at least a few days a week.

As soon as my mum had me she gave up her previous job and got a smaller one to fit around looking after myself & my sister, so she and my dad have always had one joint account. But everyone I know who's had a baby nowadays has kept their original jobs and just changed their hours slightly/used childcare to stay full time, so they tend to just pay things proportionally but not combine everything.

For those who say there's no personal money, it's all pooled....
What do you do when you want to buy your partner a birthday present and take him for a meal? What do you do when you want to help your elderly parents financially? Surely everyone needs their own money?

When I want to buy my husband a present, I just use our joint account. We each know what we can afford to spend without talking to the other person first. If it’s a really expensive present, well that is the kind of thing we would talk about first anyway. We always discuss really big purchases. I wouldn’t just go out and buy him a car or something crazy even if our accounts were separate because it would still impact our joint finances.

Helping our parents would be a joint financial decision and thus a discussion since presumably it would be a large sum of money.

For most of our marriage, I have been the higher earner, despite being mommy-tracked. DH has finally lapped me. I may out earn him again at some point, but I may not. It’s never made any difference in how we spend or negotiate our finances.

Buying presents , we do have our own credit cards but honestly we are adults so if so see something on the bank statement so wouldn’t ask questions .

rlderly parents, this has come up for both of us and we discussed it and make a joint decision. Even if we had separate accounts etc I wouldn’t do anything that would reduce the funds of the family without discussing it with him first.

We take money out the joint account for presents. If I want it to be a secret I’ll transfer the money to my current account or use the credit card.

Helping elderly parents would be a family expense- just like inheritance would go in the family pot. My FIL is much more likely to need assistance than my parents are and I knew that when we got married. It’s all part of the package imo

We share a joint account we get paid in to, that pays all the household bills, including food, kids, holidays and cars. We then have a standing order for the same amount each into our own account for personal money. From this we can buy our presents to each other, our golf memberships and our manicures. This has varied from as little as £20.00 when redundancy and part time work was what kept us afloat, and is now a few hundred £££ each

we are about to retire, and over the years first one of us and then the other has been the higher earner. We just feel it very fair to have the same amount of personal money, and we will continue this into retirement.
this system means we don’t have to do complicated sums and renegotiate every time earning changes.
I am a professional and DH a manager, so we have earned well over our marriage, and we feel like a real partnership

We have been together 20+ years and tried various ways of splitting things. During that time we've been through periods where we've both earned the same, Ive been the high earner and now where I work PT and DH brings in x3 as much as me.
At the start of our relationship when we earned roughly the same, we paid half each towards the bills and kept the rest in our own accounts.
That's all fine until one of you starts to to significantly out-earn the other.
When DH started to earn a lot more than me his wages alone covered all of our outgoings and I could keep my own wages in my account to spend as I wished - fine until Covid hit and I had no job and no access to family money without asking.I felt quite vulnerable and unequal.

We now have a joint account that everything goes in and out of plus a set amount each (which is the same) which we transfer to our own personal accounts to spend as we wish. It's working much better and though he earns more than me I still see it as 'fair' as I've facilitated his career at the expense of my own through extended periods of maternity leave and part time work.
I Think the posts where married couples are quibbling over who should have more spending money because they earn more are frankly bizarre and unhealthy - you're a unit, particularly if you've got kids.

When trying to decide what's best for you I would take a long term view though. Do you earn equally? Is this likely to continue? Is one of you going to drop to part time? As in my experience it's probably easier to start as you mean to go on. Wish we had!

I feel like having personal "spending pots" would just encourage spending.

Seems unnecessary unless either party has form for over spending.

Pool all money, otherwise it gets over complicated once kids come along.

Oh and I say this while being the higher earner. That shouldn't matter.

Fair Play OP for taking on board all the advice and having sensible conversations with your dh.

I do think everyone who is a high earner can afford to be more relaxed about how finances are arranged, and how things are divided up, when of course it doesn't matter if one of you buys a new top or goes out for lunch one week - there will still be money in the bank. For those who are balancing to the last penny every month then the consequence of not having "rules" or not being on the same page are debt and bounced standing orders / direct debits, and charges, then bad credit etc etc.

I think the advantage of the starting point you are now moving to, OP, where both of you consider all money to be family money, and then an equal sum each is for your own personal spends, is, when one of you isn't earning - for all the reasons I listed previously, and then some - it isn't an added "guilt" of the person whose income has stopped, or become much smaller, that they then have to 'ask' their partner for money. Like you were feeling at the start of the thread, not wanting to "spend his money". It will not feel the same once you both get your heads into remembering it is 'both of your' money.

Encourage spending?! Why shouldn't I spend my money? This is part of the reason I like keeping my money separate, I don't have to justify what I use it for to anyone else. As it turns out, because we are a team, we share expenses, make sure we have made provision for the future and agree where we want to make big joint purchases. But I still feel I can spend the rest on whatever I damn well please!

How old are you OP? My friends mid 30s all have joint family money and many have separate (equal) personal money too.

Just all comes from joint account. We buy presents, we help out our family. If it’s over the agreed amount (as I said this has varied over the years depending on how poor/rich we were feeling) then we would talk about it. It helps that both of us see supporting each other’s family as non negotiable. Genuinely never had an argument about money in twenty year and we’ve had tough times within that.

I am also of the opinion that once you have children and in long term relationship living together then everything should be pooled. I cannot understand why couples keep things separate.

Our blended approach works for us. I see myself as a separate person and we have separate finances. (Not saying the opposite means you are joined at the hip). Maybe some people have been impacted by divorce, are step families, have equal pay, money isn't an issue, or it just works out fine the way it is.

I've tried to read all the thread but there was a lot.

I'm 10 years married. 2 kids and a mortgage.

We have our own accounts and a joint account that we each pay 60% of our wages in to. I set this up when we first moved in together pre kids.

He earns more, always has. So he has more disposable income than me.

But if I'm skint at the end of the money I just use his main account.

Really we could just put all money in one account as its very fluid but I cant be arsed to sort it out.