Advice please! How do you sort out paying for stuff for your children with your partner?

[chloetheudder]

This is my first post and I am really annoyed with my husband! I am on maternity leave, so am always the one buying things for our baby. I seem to spend my life in Boots buying essentials like nappies and formula (I've stopped bf as I'm going back to work soon), which is really starting to add up. When you add to that all the random things I buy because I feel like it, like clothes and toys, the £ adds up even more!

At the end of each month before I get my measly SMP, I generally feel a bit skint so ask my husband to give me half of what I've spent and he starts arguing with me and making me go through my bank statement, listing each item and saying exactly what it's for so he can decide whether to give me half.

It is really PISSING ME OFF!

I'd love to hear from you guys about how you manage money matters with your partners when you're dealing with expenditure on your children.

Tbh, it does sound as if you are not keeping tabs on your expenditure, buying " random things because I feel like it". That's fine if your budget can bear it but not if you are broke every month. If you are on maternity leave, you probably have less money anyway and maybe your husband is worried about making ends meet. On the other hand, making you account for every item on your bank statement sounds a bit control -freaky. Have you actually sat down together and worked out your income vs expenditure so you can get a balance between your expenditure and current income? Does you husband contribute to baby things - are you e.g. Buying nappies and formula with the weekly shop or are you responsible for all baby spending?

We are strange. We are a family, it's our money regardless of who earned it. We're both careful with money and have had arguements about the spending of it tbh.

We have a joint account and expenditure on DC comes out of that. Sounds like you and DH have a disagreement on what is necessary expenditure...

Oh and when I say "you" in my post, I mean you plural and not singular.

Do you have any kind of joint account? How do you work out who pays for what at the moment?

I really don't understand the way you work out your money at all.

DH and I each have our own account but we also have a joint account. The majority of our salaries go into the joint account and all household expenses come out of that. The small amount we each have every month in our own account goes on things like drinks/lunches out if we go out without each other, clothes etc.

You need to sit down and agree how much you can afford to spend each month on your dc/household bills/mortgage etc. Then, agree how much of that amount you will each be contributing. Everything to do with your dc should be a shared cost.

We are very much like little fish I am a sahm and have no real income, but dh and I agree that to give us both some independence and freedom we needed to have an account where he can buy crap his stuff and I can buy clothes.

I would really really struggle if he was a obsessive and controling as your d?h.

How do you split your other expenses?

Dh and I have a joint account which both our salaries are paid into and all household expenditure comes from. We have to trust each other not to go mad etc. We each have separate savings, ISAs etc for longer term. There has been times when one of us has earned more than the other & mat leave, but we are married so at the end of the day it doesn't really matter.

One of the other reasons why we have a joint account is because a friend of mine's dh passed away and it took ages to sort out his finances. She was a sahm mum with no income and could not access the money that was in her dh account for a few months. She had to ask family & friends for loans to buy nappies etc until it was sorted. If it was a joint account she would have been able to access the money.

We do it by all money goes in one account and then I have final decision on how all money is spent. My husband then asks if he can afford to buy anything or I give him his money in the morning before work.

We don't have a joint account but we do have a joint 'ethis' in that we trust each other not to spend too much day to day and discuss any big purchases. We DO not 'keep score' on who pays for what which I feel is a key part of our marriage partnership.

It sounds like you have a practical financial issue but more importantly a trust issue around money. I would suggest that you need to resolve both!

We have separate accounts that our salaries go into, a joint account where the child benefit goes that's mainly spent on treats eg. Holidays, and then a joint credit card, which is what we use for the weekly shop, clothes for dd, things for the house etc. We pay that off in full every month, each paying half. Direct debits come out of my account (for council tax, water etc) and dh has a standing order set up into my account to pay his half. He pays the nursery fees straight out of his wages because he earns more than me, but then I pay for swimming and ballet lessons and anywhere that I take dd during the week eg. Soft play. We're tcc at the moment, I'm saving so that I can afford the maternity leave but I work for the NHS who have a good package so I will hopefully manage to afford 9 months off, dh has said that he will help out though if I need it, especially as dd starts school in sept so no more nursery fees.

I use the child benefit, Does yours go into your account?

We have separate accounts that our salaries (I'm self employed go into) and then we pay set amounts each month into joint account for household and DD. Whats left in our personnel accounts is pocket money we can spend how we like.

We are married and we share all the money DH earns.

We're the same as LittleFish. We both have our own accounts for salaries to go into and then we transfer money into the joint account to cover mortgage, food and bills and anything for DS (clothes, shoes, swimming lessons etc). The money left in our own accounts is ours to do with as we want, including buying random treats for DS but we have an understanding that we wouldn't spend a lot of our "own" money without discussing it with the other person first.

When I was on maternity leave, and now that I'm out of work, the amount that DP puts into the joint account increases to cover my decreased contribution. From time to time (now especially!) we both have a look at our finances to work out where we can make savings.

You need to work out a monthly budget. It's not fun, but it's worth doing to avoid getting into financial trouble, and for the sake of your relationship.

We have a joint account that we both use and all money is our money.

Things need to change for you. I would go crazy if my DH insisted on going through my bank statement.

Like many others , we run a joint account and solo accounts. Child tax credit and child benefit go into joint acc, DH pays a regular sum from sole into joint each month, All household bills, mortgage, regular savings, clothing, food etc come from joint acc. I am self employed and have low variable earnings- I pay for holidays and childcare from my sole account. Excess cash in sole accounts gets stashed in savings.