Grr! Taken for a ride...? Need a fair financial arrangement with DP to cover maternity leave.

[Ienableyoutoearn]

I've namechanged for this as I realised I feel really embarrassed about the lack of clarity surrounding our financial arrangements for covering my maternity leave. I need help to craft a succinct and compelling financial proposal for how to manage our finances for the next 7 months, which is what remains of my maternity leave. I am taking a year off, the last 3 months of which will be completely unpaid, having been preceded by 21 weeks of only SMP (approx £383/month), which I believe is pretty standard.

When I'm not on maternity leave:
DP and I usually each pay X amount into a joint account every month, and this covers all fixed shared expenses; mortgage, insurance and bills. We split food shopping more or less 50-50, doing a couple of "big" shops a month together and supplementing individually in between. Whatever is left in our individual accounts we spend or save as we see fit, with no pressure to account for our decisions. I am thrilled with this arrangement.

During maternity leave
Now, here is where I run into difficulties. My last ML set a very unfortunate precedence in as much as that although I did 99% of all childcare for a year (every day, every evening, every night, with the odd hour here and there, once or twice a week, when DP would look after DD at home so I could nip out to vote or the doctors or whatever), I totally undervalued my contribution to our family life in the form of childcare, and hence ended up in a financially weak position where I spent quite a bit of my savings in order to keep up my joint contributions to our family expenses, as well as living day to day. The most embarassing part is that I agreed to let DP "support me / pay my share" for the last 3 months, and then to pay him back what I "owed" once I started earning again. That is not going to happen this time. I would have saved more in preparation for this period of maternity leave had I not been too busy paying DP back (aaargh!!) and paying off my VISA card which I ended up using rather more than I would have liked to. Grr! I think I fell into this because a) I earn more than him when not on ML and b) DP thinks I'm not as good with money as he is (to his credit, he is pretty canny and is always looking to make us more secure), so any difficulties I found myself in must have been as a result of frittering money away or not planning properly and c) I HATE the idea of him turning around and saying I haven't contributed my fair share.

This time I have presented him with a timeline of my maternity income and said that we need to do things differently this time, and I think he "gets it" a bit more now, but I still need help with phrasing a water-tight and coherent argument along the lines of "You are able to earn money, doing your salaried job as well as running your own business in your spare time, because I do ALL the childcare. I enable you to earn. The childcare I do is also work, albeit unwaged. My work requires financial recognition. I will not be financially compromised as a result of being on maternity leave. Humph!" which will compel him to see that my work should be nemunerated / recognised somehow. But what does this look like? Does it mean we pool our money, including child benefit, and everything comes out of that? Should I factor in a personal spending allowance (for things like petrol and mobile phone)? Seeing as I do the childcare, should I hang on to CB so I can pay for nappies, nursery lunches, activities etc, or should I suggest we pool that too? What do people who have really fair and equal arrangements do?

This is a really sad way to live. I know people have separate accounts but if one person is hardly earning anything how can they possibly contribute half the bills. I wish people wouldn't get themselves into these situations. It makes me feel very sad.

Oh no.

You got pregnant again. And he has not changed.

Jelly - That is probably the net figure. You're still paying tax if you are normally a taxpayer.

I am going to get absolutely flayed for this but,you could always take less maternity leave or return for a few days a week to make it work.

Maybe you can just turn it around and say you wont take so much maternity leave, then he can chose whether HE wants to stay at home, or whether he wants to start chipping in with the full time nursery fees.

I won't flay you Suzietwo. But these things have to be decided together. Length of maternity leave and how much leave you can afford to take or if you can afford to give up work and be a SAHM. Or you might as well give up and go your separate ways. IMHO.

I did 50/50 and motherhood nearly bankrupted me. I think 5/50 works when both earn. It's pretty miserable when one of you isn't working.

Agree it should be decided togetheR. But if it's unaffordable to take a year off then you can't do it.

Perhaps the fact that you generally have more spending money (as you earn more but put the same amount into the pot) he didn't see a problem with you paying him back.
I can understand this being tricky because it doesn't seem fair to him the majority of the time- disposable income should be equally split IMO.
Perhaps in arguing your case you address having equal spending money post mat leave.

You know the bit that strikes me as the most odd? 'For us to spend or save as we see fit'. You have listed monthly outgoings. But you are a family - surely you think beyond the month and have plans for years stretching out into a lifetime. Why, if there is money left over after monthly outgoings, do you not have a joint family savings pot? How do you manage the saving for holidays, unexpected household bills etc?

I think you need to do more than sort out your finances, you also need to resolve the issue of "childcare" when you are both available.

How do you pay for childcare when you aren't on maternity leave?

If you did earn substantially more than him but didn't share your extra money I can begin to see things from his point of view. I think you need to sit down and discuss this as a couple not as business parnters. Hope you sort it out.

In my case, we had 50/50 because we had such radically different views of how to spend and save money. Of course, that's why I shouldn't have married him but I was daft and didn't know any better.

But sometimes people start 50/50 for reasons that make sense at the time. When you're young and high earning and short sighted, you don't think about the precedent you're setting up. And some people carry on and it still works because the wife goes back to work early and is a high earner. I'm not proposing it to the OP and sorry if it feels like a hijack but MN is always full of these "I can't understand how anyone does anything different to me...." comments Especially when the husband is a banker and the wife works part time making jam. Then the joint pot looks great.

Me and DP have separate finances and attitudes to money (spender/saver) but even to me this is unfair!! You had to pay him back???? That's terrible.

Agree with vivienne.

If you earn more than him discuss him taking 6 months paternity leave & you go back to work so your family will be better off.

Ok you might not want to do this.

Your situation is really bizarre tho. Speaking as someone who has separate accounts & earns the most. Dh just paid the bills & mortgage when I wasn't earning. I used some of 'my' savings but these are just accounts in my name used for joint purchases or saved for our future.

Do not have any more children with this man.

You need a business plan???

This is all very wrong. You're having children with this man and you don't have a financial partnership.

Look after yourself financially OP. You're DP won't look after you.

DP was out of work for almost a year before I went on mat leave. We have separate accounts, & a shared joint account for mortgage, bills, etc. While he was out of work, I set up a standing order into his account to cover his normal contribution to the joint account, plus half of what was left over for spending money so he knew how much he had left each month & didn't need to ask me. Similar approach for mat leave (except in reverse, & a bit more adhoc due to lack of organisation and a couple of cockups, but point is neither of us ended up out of pocket & we could still manage our own spending).

Your DH might find it enlightening to consider how he'd like finances to work at any point in the future when he's not earning. If he's on long-term sick, made redundant, etc.

This is so helpful! There is much food for thought, I am realising that many of you have clearly got it much “righter” than me, but also that perhaps I’ve wanted to have my cake and eat with regard to 50-50ing when I’m earning and wanting to be supported when not. I think I’m warming to a pooling model, even for after ML. And I do feel sort of morally vindicated too, which is nice.
Yup, Jelly, it's net, I should have made that clear perhaps.
Mikkii, , advice duly noted, thank you.
LittleBear, I think someone else called it a “business plan”, I didn’t use those words and don’t think of it as such.
Cleanandclothed, I should have said that we both contribute to joint savings and savings for children as well as mortgage overpayments every month from the amount X we both contribute to our joint account monthly.
Casmama, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, when we’re doing our 50-50 thing, I do have more disposable income than him, and I do spend a greater proportion of mine whereas he is very frugal and loves to save. He thinks I’m a spendthrift, although I know I am much more frugal than any of my friends.
And Quintessential, oi! "You got pregnant again" makes me sound like a bitch on heat or something. DD2 was planned and eagerly anticipated, thank you very much. No need.

I don't think I'll necessarily encounter much resistance when proposing a change of plan, it's just getting my head around what is actually fair and hopefully common practice for most women. In the light of your generous responses and insights, I feel I should also have said, if I am completely honest that the "paying back" was in the shape of me paying for DD1's nursery fees until such a time that they had come to roughly the amount he contributed extra during my ML, so not strictly money in his pocket, more of an expense he didn't have to pick up. But still...
Breatheslowly, in response to your childcare question: once I returned to work after being on ML with DD1, we both went part time (DP compressed full time hours) in order to share childcare (he is now doing normal full time hours while I'm on ML, but will drop back down to a compressed working week once I return to work in order to resume shared childcare for both DDs). I continued to pay for nursery fees (DD attended a couple of mornings a week only, not out of necessity, but because it felt right to provide a local peer group for her) and he matched the fee (once my "repayment" was settled) by paying in the equivalent amount as further overpayments for the mortgage and additional joint savings on top of the basic monthly overpayments and joint savings. I hope that's clear. He's a complete breadhead. Thank you again!

Why on earth would you need to pay him back? You're working for the same cause, providing for you family!
Me and DP have been together 2 years, live in rented house with our LO. He pays all the bills, every single one of them, and I buy food and other things. Then at the end of the month the rest goes into savings. Is that weird? I always thought it worked quite well. Even before LO we shared everything like this, we just accepted we shared everything and it's both our money. This is the reason why we don't really bother with birthday and Christmas for each other either really. We buy each other gifts throughout the year as and when we see them! I can't believe you paid him back!! If he lost his job and had to find a new one, would you make him pay the money back!!

Yes but I remember your previous threads and hour angst and unhappiness so I can't understand how you got pregnant again without discussing this properly.

Hey Ienableyoutoearn - doesn't sound easy!
I defer to Ragwort - we just pool everything as ended up paying overdraft expenses in our own accounts otherwise.
But don't expect it to end so soon. Childcare continues way beyond this, someone has to pick them up from school (mine do after school club twice a week but I can't inflict it on a 4 year old every day), school assemblies, trips, non-uniform days, homework, swimming lessons, school holidays - someone has to be there and sort it all.
So either he mans up and goes part-time (if you are the higher earner) or starts supporting you (if you go part-time).
But that 'paying back' stuff WTF - he must have some good attributes ;-)

Ah, Quintessential, that explains your condescending tone, I understand. But I've never posted about this before, under this username or any other, never actually posted about anything in either Money or Relationships (more of a lurker on AIBU and casual enjoyer of the occasional bunfight, tend to use MN for light relief) so it must be a case of mistaken identity. As Eaten suggests, DP does have some good attibutes. But it's a pity that the woman whose distress you recall would have had such a mean-spirited response from you.

I'm going to wade in from the perspective of the wage earner with a non-earning spouse (who stays home to look after our son, 13mo).

I am the sole income earner. I pay all the bills, so each month I look at what that was (rent, council tax, utilities, broadband). The remainder is ours, so I transfer exactly half into my stay-at-home partner's bank account, so we each have the same amount of disposable income (it's not much, I'm not a big earner).

The tricky point is groceries. He does the lion's share of food shopping, though I do the majority of buying things for our son. We have discussed that if he ever feels he is overpaying on groceries out of his share I will make a cash contribution each week to this cost. It's not fair he uses all of his share of my (our!) salary on food for us all.

We aren't married nor do we have a joint bank account but it's important to both of us that he doesn't feel like a 'kept pet' (been there, done that - financial abuse was one of the reason I left my ex-husband).

The sticky point comes soon. I'm expecting baby number two, so when I go on maternity leave, we're going to be VERY broke. So we are both making an effort to save now from what we have, to cover that period.