Sharing outgoings

[Newmumin2017]

Hi Ladies, I am a new mum which has obviously had a huge impact on my financial situation as I’m sure you can all relate to!

Before baby was born, I earned significantly more (43K gross) than my partner (23K gross) and had no children, whereas he already had 3 children for whom he pays weekly maintenance of £75. He does also have costs for food, a small amount of clothing etc when they come to our house. For those reasons, I only asked him for £50 a week when he moved in with me. It was already my house and I have all bills in my name including internet, Sky TV, HP for sofas, insurance etc. He has full use of my car, for which I pay £250 a month. He also pays £25 a week currently toward a loan of £2,000 which I made to him previously, but that will be coming to an end shortly .

This arrangement has worked fine but I am looking at my finances when I return to work shortly and I am also looking to move to a bigger house so that we have bedrooms for all of the kids (his 2 girls will share, his boy will have his own and our baby will have her own as she is currently in our room). I’m really concerned because my salary will be going down to 25K and I will have childcare costs of £540 a month. The new house will also increase my outgoings slightly as I will be paying £510 mortgage and £160 Council Tax.

I appreciate that I will need to shoulder more of the financial burden as he has other kids and I’m fine with that, as I knew he had other financial commitments when we got together but I’m worrying about affording everything whereas he will have around £800 left over for other costs after his maintenance and payment to me.

Is anyone in a similar situation or able to give me any advice please? I don’t want to be unreasonable in asking for more money but I can’t afford to carry on with the current arrangements. I did a benefits calculation and if I was single, I would get £136 a week in benefits. I’m not considering ending the relationship, I just did that for a reference point to see how much the government considers I need to live as I am struggling to know how to work out what would be a reasonable way to share the outgoings.

I would really appreciate any input an sorry for the long post!

Thanks

Will he be paying towards the childcare costs for when you return to work?

It sounds like he's onto a good thing.

He should be paying 50/50 of everything!

Thanks for your reply.

We haven’t discussed the childcare costs yet but I know that I can’t afford to pay the whole lot. I haven’t minded paying more in the past as my income was so much more and he has the other children to pay towards but it’s far less straightforward now that we have the baby.

The sensible thing would to be put all your money together......... deduct all the bills (inc maintenance) and household / baby expenses, then split what’s left.

Your partner may get a bit of a shock but unfortunately things need to change now your LO has arrived.

You've been more than generous, I think he must be expecting this conversation! I'd get a joint account and both put in the same amount each month along with any child tax credits, and use that for mortgage/bills/childcare. Or even include his child maintenance if you want to help him out with that.

Given that your income will be reduced when you return to work I would put the idea of moving to a larger property on hold as it does not make sense financially. Yes, you also need to have a discussion about finances going forward.

Presumably you're only moving to a bigger property because of his children so it's only fair that he's left with the same disposable income once all bills and family expenses are handled as you.

Then it's not so much a case of who pays for what but making sure there's financial equity in your relationship.

You have a baby to consider now and making sure you and baby have a safe roof above your heads should be the most important factor. Everything else needs to work with that.

He’s been getting a near free ride with barely any contributions to the household. I would say that they least he should pay for is half the baby childcare and car costs and most of the housing costs as you need a bigger house and spend more on utilities etc due to his children from the previous relationship.

If you are moving so that his kids can have two bedrooms of a 4 bed house then he should at least be paying half the mortgage. And half the childcare costs for the baby

Everything goes into one pot. All necessary expenditure comes out. The rest gets divided. That sum is your individual disposable income. Options to discuss: does his maintenance count as necessary expenditure and therefore come out of the pot before you each take your share? Do you make deductions for savings / big expenses? Do you pay into a pot for shared social expenses i.e. Meals out, coffees etc or do you pay for these out of your personal pots?

One thing is for sure, you cannot expect to continue as you were with separate sets of finances when your income has reduced so drastically with a simultaneous increase in costs. More to the point, he has a responsibility to provide for the child he's created and to pay his own way in his home. If he has / will have £800 leftover in the current system, what sum would be available to you? What does that have to cover?

It would make more sense to pool both incomes together and use that for all the outgoings. Anything left is a joint pool that you can both use freely.

Pool everything to pay joint costs (mortgage, bills, DC costs incl childcare, savings for Christmas, holidays, car and appliance replacement etc)
Split what is left equally and transfer to separate accounts for personal spends. Don't spend freely from the joint pot if either of you are a spender or has trouble budgeting, as that's asking for trouble.

WoW, £50 a week is a bargain. I think this is definitely one instance where the famous mn “family money “ should be applied.

I don't get the impression that the OP believes in shared finances/family money.

Thank you all for your replies, it’s really helpful to read your suggestions of how we can achieve fairness. I hadn’t really thought of the family money/everything into a pot and split what’s left approach, probably just because I already had everything in my name and with our circumstances being so different initially with the house and all bills in my name, him having kids and me not but as things have moved on that does make more sense now. I would prefer to split what’s left after bills rather than both have access to a shared pot though, just because I’m a lot more careful with money than he is and would rather save money for big things like holidays or days out. I know he will agree with that as he is always saying how bad he is for just spending whatever money he has and having little to show for it!

Thanks again ladies.

I should also have said in the original post that we do live in a part of the country where houses are very cheap, so £50 isn’t quite as outrageously low as it sounds. The mortgage on the 4 bed house will only be around £500-£550 a month and we do need to move so that we have adequate space for all of the children once our baby needs her own room.

When you move presumably mortgage will be in both your names so that should be 50 , 50 as should childcare. Bills should be split so that you have equal spending money at the end and personally I would inclure child maintenance as a bill.

If he's rubbish with money, then after bills have been paid, I'd suggest that you have a 'family pot' to manage (those days out, holidays etc) and you only have a small amount of 'pocket money' to blow on whatever. Otherwise, you'll be saving your share for stuff and paying for it while he'll be blowing his.
The way DH and I work it is: shared account for bills and food + attached savings account for holidays/car repairs/annual bills. Both accounts get a fixed amount per month based on a budget we'd drawn up. In addition, set money goes into savings every month (savings, investments, private pensions, mortgage overpayments etc). And finally, we have the same, set amount of pocket money to spend on clothes/going out/haircuts etc.

Thank you. Jojo I think your system would work really well for us and I know my partner would have no objection to me managing a joint pot for holidays etc. I will get to work on the figures! Thanks everyone.