How do you divide your outgoings with your dp?

[whatshallwedo]

I have returned to work part-time so have halved my wage.

Dp and I have always paid the same amount into our joint account to cover the mortgage, council tax, water, tv licence and life insurance. He then pays for food, gas and electricity while I pay for dd's clothes, toys and activities. We don't have childcare costs thankfully.

Now that I am unable to earn any extra money I'm not sure that this way is entirely fair now but dp begrudges giving me any money and wants to know why I need it etc which makes me feel as though I am being unreasonable for asking him.

I have worked out that my wage is equivalent to 23% of his if that makes a difference to my question.

So could you please give me an idea of what other people do and feel free to tell me I am lucky (or not) with the way things are already.

If you have children together 50:50 then everything else is 50:50, IMHO.

That would be pushing my luck way too far if I suggested 50/50. Dp would never agree to that.

Are children the reason for returning part time? If so then why would you not do 50/50? Why should you suffer because of joint children

Pushing your luck???.

I don't understand this 'splitting finances'.

Everything goes in and out of one account. No percentage split. It's money earned by both.

In that situation I'd pay a similar percentage. If your DP pays 50% of his salary into the joint account now, and the same amount works out to be 80% of your salary, then I would rejig it so it is, say, 60% of each of your salaries.

It sounds like the money you have left over in your account is 'your' money, and DP has more of 'his' money left at the end of the month? This is how DP's and my finances work, though fortunately neither of us have run out of 'our' money by the end of the month, so no question of the split of income has yet raised its head.

Where does the money for big ticket items come from - what if you wanted a holiday, or needed a new fridge? Would your DP insist you chipped in for those too, even though by the sounds of it you have very little money left at the end of the month?

As I say, we keep our finances quite separate out of habit but it doesn't mean that the money in our individual accounts is only ours. The moment money is needed to be pooled then it is.

All money earned goes into joint account. We both get an equal amount of the disposable income left after the bills are paid and savings invested. It's all family money regardless of who earned it.

Why would you divide it any other way?

To me it should not be 50:50 but shared resources.

We have different salaries at present mine is around 25% of the income, for us it all goes into 1 pot and we then spend what we can afford between the family, there is no his money or her money.

"Pushing my luck"? You are a family with a joint responsibility for your DC and presumably your "D"P was part of the decision making about you going back part time. Anything other than 50:50 is selfishness on his part

Everything goes into a joint account here, we pay ourselves a personal allowance into our private accounts (same amount each) and household costs and savings all come directly out of the joint account.

All in one pot here too, 'cept I'm a SAHM now so I have nothing to share. We get the same weekly spends for booze, haircuts or whatever and everything else comes straight out of the joint account. Hope you come to an arrangement you're both happy with.

Yes I have returned part-time due to dd so I now only work for half of the week.

We both have our own accounts and any money left in the after bills is our own. Dp has a couple of debts he has to pay but they aren't anything to do with me as the money wasn't borrowed for the benefit of us iyswim.

He isn't very open about his money so until recently I didn't actually know how much he earned.

If we need to buy a big item then there is a small amount of savings in the joint account but this is mostly used to pay for boiler services and home insurance as it is only made up of what is left over at the end of each month.

We need to buy dd a big item and he wanted to know how we were paying for it so I have said 50/50 otherwise money used from the joint account won't get replaced.

I don't have any money left over at the end of the month now so the amount I used to be able to save for car insurance and services etc has been cut which is why I had asked for money from him but I'm not sure if that was the correct thing to do.

We have 1 joint account that both our wages are paid into. Everything comes out of that. If either of us wants an expensive or unusual item we discuss whether we can afford it before buying it.

My dh earns 3 times as much as me since I went back after maternity leave part time into a different job. We both see the money we earn as family money rather than my money and his money.

I'm sorry, but that sounds pretty awful.

To expand on what I said above, DP and I keep all of our monthly salary that isn't moved over to the joint account in our own bank accounts. I prefer this, as I spend more money during a month and on things that he doesn't - clothes, make up, coffee shop coffees etc. I feel more comfortable taking it out of my account than a shared account. He's a good boy and saves more, but at the end of the day that money is 'our' money, so its only pedantry that says our money is separate.

You are a family. You are paying for childcare - by you working p/t. If you worked f/t and had to pay for childcare, would he make you take that out of your salary? And you don't have your car, your family runs two cars and they both need to be paid for out of your total joint income. The correct thing to do is just to tell him that you keep finding you need more money than is technically in your account, so either everything goes into one account and you run your life from that account, or you pay considerably less into the joint account.

He's either a complete child, or he's being financially abusive, especially considering it sounds like he earns a lot more than you.

I never understand threads like these!
Surely you are a family unit not two separate people earning your own money? All monies should be pooled together as family money.
I teach part time. DH earns about 10x what I earn. It all goes into one joint account which we both have equal access to. He has never made me feel as though I should have less than him due to earning less. Why on earth would he??? The reason I earn half what I did is because I'm at home half the week with his children.
The whole split finances thing is bizarre to both me and DH.

You had a baby with a man and you didn't know how much he earns

Your income has reduced dramatically and his stays the same, yet you are still expected to contribute the same as him?

Was the decision to go part time a mutual one? If so the everything should be in one pot and whatever is left over after bills, food, utilities, insurances. His debts etc, is joint money. If not then why did you put yourself in such a vulnerable financial position?

However you do say he pays debts, food and gas/elec out of his own money o top of what he pays into the joint account pen, and these things would add up to a lot each month.

One of the reasons I work part time is to spend less money on childcare. I'm making an assumption that this is one of the reasons you work part time as well? This should be taken into account as you are doing what other people would be PAID to do if you worked full time surely.

Car insurance is not exactly a frivolous item, it's not as if you want £300 for a new dress. I don't understand how your DP can be unhappy about giving you some money for this. Again, I'm making an assumption that you ferry your dc about in the car - take her to the park, playgroup etc in it. In other words, you use it to help to look after and entertain your child.

I don't understand either, are you a family, or are you not?

Same as many of the respondents. Our money is paid directly into our joint account. From there bills and savings are paid, mostly by direct debit and standing order on a schedule. All bills are met from the joint account. House consumables (groceries, sheets, lightbulbs...) are bought on a shared credit card with a low limit that is paid off in full every month by direct debit. (The savings account is in my name only for complicated and boring legal reasons that won't apply to you.)

An equal amount is paid out to each of our personal accounts by standing order on the first of the month. We don't discuss or negotiate what we do with this money -it's our own spends. I spend more on coffee and new tops, he spends more on itunes and software. We don't have to justify ourselves. We had some struggles with different ideas about money early in our relationship and this approach really works for us. I do not think I've had a fight about money for ten years!

...One thing is, we don't have any debt and neither of us brought debt into the relationship. I don't know if/how we would have handled that differently.

We are a family or at least I thought we are .

He has a company car so pays for his through tax and only has to pay for the fuel he uses. I do take dd out in my car but hadn't given this much thought other than I now spend more on fuel each month than I did before she came along.

There is no way on this earth that he would agree to 50/50 as I am sure in his eyes I wouldn't deserve to have the extra money this would give me as I hadn't earnt it. Now I could be wrong and I will ask him about this next time we have a money chat just in case he thinks it's a good idea.

One of his debts is coming to an end so it is this money I have asked him for as imo it won't leave him any worse off than he has been for the last few years but will make my life a bit easier although it will only be a 1/3 of what I have lost by working p/t. This is what prompted him to ask me why he was going to have to pay me so I had to explain what I would be spending the money on.

I knew roughly what he earnt but I have only just got an exact figure from him so I can check out tax credits.

Reading this all back does make me sound like an idiot and there are other problems with our relationship that aren't to do with money. On their own they seem 'normal' to me but when I have posted in the past (nc though) people come on and say things such as dp doesn't question what I spend or I'm a sahm and I can buy what I like etc and it makes me realise that there are fair people out there and what I am living is not

I wouldn't deserve to have the extra money this would give me as I hadn't earnt it.

This statement makes me very sad for you, OP.

This isn't good. I'm the higher earner in the house and it doesn't work like this.

DH buys the shopping, pays his petrol to work and money for some childcare. I pay for everything else, but we end up with about the same amount of disposable income. That's how it should be.

I could never have finances like you. It would drive me insane. In fact my first marriage ended because of similar reasons, he was just so selfish with money etc etc.

I am now married to a man who shares everything with me financially.

I am a sahm (used to earn more than him and we did things the same way then too) so he earns, I don't. Everything goes into a joint account and all bills and outgoings come out of it. We have worked out a set budget for food, and we know roughly how much we have left over to spend. We "mentally" split this between us and spend about that amount each. Ie we have EQUAL spending money because we are both contributing equally to our family, just in different ways.

To me a lack of willing to share finances equally denotes a lack of respect for the non working or less working partners role.

If you weren't looking after dd he'd have to afford childcare. You are providing that childcare. You are entitled to the same standard of living and spending money as him.

Before we had dc, we paid an equal amount into a joint account for mortgage, bills and food and kept our own separate money back (I was the higher earner). Post dc, everything goes into one account and we discuss big / arguably frivolous purchases (I'm no longer the higher earner). It felt weird at first not having "my own" money, but really don't think it's fair to do it any other way.

I earn more than DH but wouldn't dream of thinking that meant that I deserve more than him, we're a team.
When I was a SAHM he shared everything with me, when he was made redundant I did the same.

We both put everything into one joint account and have a set amount (the same) going into personal a/cs for our spending money.

I also put my meager wages in a separate account to spend in the school holidays so in practice every thing he earns is mine and everything I earn is my own (i do earn a pittance though!).

I would not settle for him having more than me. That said I have some friends with separate finances where the husband has to go everywhere, on every shopping trip, to pay for all the purchases, pays all the mortgage & bills, car loan etc, has all the money stress (and a big debt too I suspect), so maybe that's a better set up than mine.

We have separate accounts. Dp sees to the mortgage (it's his house) and bills, and I see to dd and everything else, including holidays. We both have our own cars, phones etc.It's about 50/50, although I bring in less. The only thing that's shared is food.

I'd rather have control over my own money as he's a bit tight.