How would you want to split finances?

[Skintandunhappy]

Ok this may be a rather long post but need to give you all the information.

Me - I have DS 16 & DD 14 months. DS dad lives on the other side of the world & pays maintenance of £300 per month. I worked full time & had my own house with approx 50% mortgage until DD was born last year. I was entitled to about £400 tax credits etc.
Took full maternity leave plus 2 months parental leave before my contract changed to part time & then I have 10 weeks hols to take resulting in me returning to work in Sept 2012.
My salary will obviously decrease and will be £1175 gross per month. From Dec Until Dec my gross will be £915 because they overpaid me in June when i was on parental leave.
Out of this i have the maximum Childcare vouchers of £243 per month. I also then pay for my mobile phone, lottery, DS contact lenses, DS gym membership, lottery, HMRC arrears (tax credit overpayment), petrol, car parking when I return to work, a manicure & DS dinner money which comes to £300 per month.
I also get child benefit of £134 every 4 weeks.
After I have paid tax & ni I think this leaves about £300 plus my maintenance so £600 altogether.

Partner - 14 month old DD. Had his own house with a large interest only mortgage. His salary is £48500 p/a, 10k bonus and car allowance. He will also get £243 Childcare vouchers deducted from Sept.

We sold both our houses last sept & bought one together close to my old house & 90 miles from where he used to live. The house was 300k plus 20k in 'extras'. I had 95k equity in my house & he had about £30k.

Since Feb he has had to pay all the bills etc as I was on zero pay.

We didn't actually start living together until DD was born because we each had our own house & lived 90 miles apart hence why I was entitled to tax credits.

So I have 2 questions - how much should I be paying towards bills when my disposable income is significantly less than my partners and what can I get to ensure DS is 'looked after' with regards to the equity I had in my old house. I know it sounds mean but if anything happened to me he would be on his own but my partner could financially afford to look after DD easily so I want all my previous funds to go just to him-he also has aspergers.

Sorry I meant to add that I used to get about £3k annual bonus but won't get anything this year and future payments will be reduced as its pro rata & I will only be working part time.

Is there only one daughter? (the 14 month old)

One solution may be to get married and put in/share everything equally.

It seems to me as though you might have thought about this before signing on the dotted line, old thing :)

First things first - you absolutely must make a will. If you do make a will, make sure you make provision for your DS as well as your DD.

If we are looking at the capital commitment - let's say the house cost £320k. Of this, your share is £160k. So you have contributed your £95k equity and therefore 'your' mortgage is £65k. That's how I would think of it, in any event.

You need to think about how you would want this to be left in the event of your death. I'm not sure how blended families work in general in this situation - would it be reasonable to leave your share to your children? With a lifetime interest for your new DP? I'm not sure it is reasonable to leave it all to your DS - he has another parent who will hopefully also be thinking of him when making financial provisions.

So I'd be looking to pay half the bills and the mortgage of £65k on your income, which sounds do-able.