How to split costs once maternity pay stops?

passport123 · 20/05/2022 06:26

All money goes into one pot and all household needs come out of it. You're married. No such thing as his or your savings, it's all communal

Discovereads · 20/05/2022 06:27

We have/had joint finances when we had our DC. Everything went into the pot and we paid for everything from it. There was no his or my savings, only our savings.

KatieKat88 · 20/05/2022 06:30

Yeah it comes out of your joint money e.g. his wages and/or both of your savings to meet any shortfall - it's your joint baby you're taking care of and a career break for, you've not just chosen to not stop working for no reason!

ZooMount · 20/05/2022 06:31

Yes I find this a bizarre attitude tbh. You're leaving your work to look after his child full time! Why should you be going into your savings. I was a sahp for 8 years and my husband just paid for everything as it just all came from one pot. Now I'm working again and it's the same thing. Everything is just joint.

lassof · 20/05/2022 06:33

Share all money jointly. One joint bank account, then if you find that hard, each of you gets an allowance
If you don't, in future how will you divide spending on your child?
Make sure you pay into your pension for this year off from joint money as well

LisaSimpson77 · 20/05/2022 06:33

I am happy to dig into my savings somewhat and he is happy to contribute to helping me. How did you do it?

Oh that's nice of him to "help you" did he not also "help you" to get pregnant? Or is there a massive drip feed that he's not the father?

Assuming you're at home because you're caring for the child you created together, his wage should be used to support the whole family obviously.
If it's not enough and you then need to dip into savings then do that but there should be absolutely NO suggestion that your dh gets to keep a portion of his money for "spends" whilst you struggle and use savings.

I hope I have read this wrong and apologise if I have but sadly I've seen this type of scenario too often.

Anonnnnnnm · 20/05/2022 06:33

Joint account. Anything else is a bit bizarre once you've got kids and are married etc. If he prefers you could go back to work and you could go halves on nursery instead, or he could take time off 😉

ChairCareOh · 20/05/2022 06:34

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Notgoodatpoetrybutgreatatlit · 20/05/2022 06:41

Hi op
There will be a lot of different opinions on this from people here and in real life. It might be worth looking for some dispassionate facts. Maybe look at how much of a hit your pension is going to take in the time you are being a sahp. And the impact on your career. Men typically do not take breaks and therefore gain promotions and seniority. One of the reasons women are poorer than men even in the UK with equality (!) Between the sexes is because of this very life stage you are approaching.
In order to safeguard yourself from future hardship you need to consider the cold hard financial facts from an outside perspective. That is obviously my opinion. Good luck!

xyzandabc · 20/05/2022 06:45

You're married and have a child. There is no your savings and his wage. It's all just family money. So doesn't really matter which 'pot' the money comes from. Overall as a family you will still be left with the same amount of money whichever account is used for bill paying.

catfunk · 20/05/2022 06:49

Wtf ? You have a joint acct surely and everything comes from that.
If not - invoice him for childcare, pension, loss of promotions etc...

SickAndTiredAgain · 20/05/2022 06:53

I am happy to dig into my savings somewhat and he is happy to contribute to helping me.

Like PPs, I find this an odd way to look at it. We have joint finances and when my mat pay goes down in a few months, DH's salary will cover expenses. I wouldn't use savings to ensure I was still contributing the same amount to the pot. We'd use savings if we, as a couple, needed to. We both wanted our children, there's a financial cost to having them (not just things you buy, but loss of earnings), and all of that is a joint cost.

October2020 · 20/05/2022 06:57

I'm always amazed when people who have chosen to have a child then think this way about money. Bizarre.
Joint account, all the money he earns is 'our' money. I don't charge him for childcare, loss of earnings, loss of pension, life admin......... so he 'pays' for everything and continues to save for us jointly and so on.
Why on earth would you be digging into your savings to pay the mortgage? He can pay you for childcare then! £60 a day would be a good start....

123sunshine · 20/05/2022 07:00

Do not allow yourself to be in a position whereby you have to ask for money as you have no earnings coming in, or are given an allowance. I’ve been married twice. In both marriages we share the income that comes in as we are a team and contributing to the household in different ways. In my time I’ve been a Stay at home mum, worked part time and worked full time at varying income levels. Full access to earned income in the household, anything else is verging on financial abuse. A strong opinion I know, but being at home raising a children is equally important to the family dynamic as a salary earner. How about you both agree an amount of personal spends and whatever income is coming in to the household regardless of who earned it is used for bills, monthly expenditure, holidays, savings etc equally.

BundtCake · 20/05/2022 07:06

What a strange set up. Get a joint account and have full access to money.

Lazerbeen · 20/05/2022 07:10

Notgoodatpoetrybutgreatatlit · 20/05/2022 06:41

Hi op
There will be a lot of different opinions on this from people here and in real life. It might be worth looking for some dispassionate facts. Maybe look at how much of a hit your pension is going to take in the time you are being a sahp. And the impact on your career. Men typically do not take breaks and therefore gain promotions and seniority. One of the reasons women are poorer than men even in the UK with equality (!) Between the sexes is because of this very life stage you are approaching.
In order to safeguard yourself from future hardship you need to consider the cold hard financial facts from an outside perspective. That is obviously my opinion. Good luck!

Its not that unusual to take a year off for maternity leave, you're talking like OP has said she's going to stay home with the child until it graduates university.

OP depends really, assuming you don't directly share finances (nothing wrong with that if it works for you) then really I'd expect him to pay as much as he could for these 3 months and you just dip into savings if absolutely necessary.

wolfstrawb · 20/05/2022 07:14

I pay for things on credit card and this is paid off using the joint account (which husbands salary goes into). All money is shared. Each free to spend as we wish however naturally we discussed big purchases with each other. All assets are in the 1 shared pot not 'his money, her money' ..which is how it will be if you get divorced.

sashagabadon · 20/05/2022 07:15

If you intend to go back to work make absolutely sure child care costs are paid equally between you as a proportion of income or 50:50 split whatever is fairer. Do not pay it all yourself. And pick up drops off are equal too. Both do 5 or whatever pro rata is.

dumdumduuuummmmm · 20/05/2022 07:16

Having a child is a new and special contribution you are making to the union. What new and special contribution is your dh/father of the baby making? Typically that would be ALL financial responsibility until you get back to work and sharing nights and house duties in the weekend as the weekend is both your weekend. Not just his. It would be unreasonable that you make all the new and special physical contributions and be expected to also make the financial contributions.

MassiveSalad22 · 20/05/2022 07:16

Joint account, you are a team, both on the same side surely.

insomnia101 · 20/05/2022 07:19

My DP and I are in a similar situation.
I'm having a baby soon and my DP is actually having a year off - I'm self employed and earn more so will continue to work.

DP won't get any pay from work at all so it is just the statutory pay for 9 months then nothing at all for the last 3 months.

However, I will cover the cost of bills, mortgage etc as I don't expect DP to go into savings to cover everything. We will both be going into savings but I certainly wouldn't expect DP to use all of theirs. At the end of the day we are married so even though we both have separate saving accounts, it's all ours really.

houseargh · 20/05/2022 07:23

Mumsnet is full of threads like this and I genuinely don't understand. Not only do you have a kid together, you're married?! Do you not operate as a team now?

In normal times what we do is: we have a shared account and all rent, bills, food costs, other shared costs come out of that. Unlike some we don't actually put all our money straight into that account - we've calculated how much is needed based on our budget and we both put in in proportion to our incomes (ie. I earn a bit more than him, so I put in a bit more than 50%). What's left after that is ours for spending money and savings though we also both contribute the same amount to a shared savings account (and can save more on top of that if we want....the latter is not in shared accounts). When each of us was on parental leave we worked out how much each of us could have for 'spending money' (same amount each) and used a combination of the working person's salary, any statutory pay we were getting and money from our shared savings to put the regular amount in our shared account and give ourselves our 'spending money' (and we obviously didn't save in those months). Seemed like the only reasonable way.

NetflixAndSauvignonBlanc · 20/05/2022 07:23

You need to figure out what works for you personally as a couple. My husband and I have a joint account that we both put the same amount of money into each month. We also have our own individual accounts. We have joint and individual savings too. As I'm currently the main earner by quite a margin, I pay the mortgage myself separately outside of our joint finances. When I was on maternity leave I still paid the mortgage all myself, using some of my savings (I have a lot more saved up than my husband does). I did stop contributing to the joint account once my maternity pay dropped, so he paid for everything else for that time.

People here will tell you that it's all joint money, and in the case of a divorce that's legally true, but you don't have to treat it that way if you don't want to. The arrangement my husband and I have works for us and that's all that matters.

orbitalcrisis · 20/05/2022 07:26

If that is the way you want to do the finances, you need to pay your half out of what he pays you for doing his half of the childcare.

If he is out of the house for say, 10 hours a day, after your half of the childcare, he needs to pay you for the other 5 hours which is his share. He also needs to compensate you for the money you will not be earning from your job as you are making this sacrifice. So I'd say he needs to pay your usual wage, plus five times your usual hourly wage per day. That should leave plenty to cover your share of the bills.

Iwonder08 · 20/05/2022 07:27

Oh come on, lots of people who are married with kids don't join their finances completely. There is simply no need for that. In regards to maternity- it depends entirely on your financial situation. Can he comfortably pay for everything just from his salary? If no, I would top it up from your savings