How To Split Bills - Unusual situation

[bringbackneighbours]

I know I know, this has been done to death but I'm lost.

DP and I are getting married in Match next year.

I have 2 children, aged 12 and 9 who I share 50/50 with their dad. DP's children have flown the nest, happy, working and are settled.

I live with DP and so do the children when they're with us. DP owns the house we currently live in.

We're hoping to buy a place together next year which we will both pay equal deposits for and take out a hefty mortgage (about 350k).

I had to take time out of work to bring up ADHD DD so have ended up taking a steep pay cut because of this break. I hope to work my way up again and increase my salary in the next few years.

DP earns 10 times more than me (more ATM, but I should be getting a pay rise next year).

How would you split your bills?

Happy to supply more detail with figures if this helps.

*married in March next year!

I wouldn't split the bills. I would have all money from both of you going into a joint pot and bills coming out of it, now but certainly when married.

So effectively you'd be splitting them 10:1 based on what you said on salary. But the point is they are 100% joint because you are a family unit.

Thanks for answering.

My difficulty is that the children are not his. So, in my world pooling money together like this feels wrong because my and the children's father should be paying for them. They're getting expensive little bugger too 😂

It's not a difficult one. You either live as a family or you don't.

What does your partner suggest?

How does your partner feel about it? Does the ex pay maintenance? Could you pool your wages as house money then anything extra the kids want/need come out the maintenance?

It is difficult in my mind. Although he loves my children and vice-versa, it is their dad and me who should pay to bring them up right? Im confused as to why people would think otherwise.

@bringbackneighbours it's not about paying to bring them up. It's about whether he wants a girlfriend or whether he wants a partner IMO.

If he wants a partner that includes becoming a family.

Of course their dad should pay to bring them up, as should you, but I highly doubt you'd be buying a big expensive house without him so if your outgoings are going to be higher due to your relationship his will need to be too.

Bring when your children hit university age their maintenance loan is based on "household income" ie yours and your partner's not their Dad's if they use your address as their main residence. Bear that in mind if that is an issue.

Do you get any maintenance at all from your ex even with 50/50? You could always split the food shop so that your DP pays 1/4 and you pay the rest however it feels really fucking picky when you are getting married. It isn't like your DP is struggling for money or that is how it comes across.

Could you both pay into a joint account for joint expenses at a ratio comparable with your incomes and pay mortgage, bills, food, etc each then keep the rest of your salaries as personal money for hobbies, personal grooming, buying gifts and your respective children.

It will probably leave you with less fun money but your kids are still dependent.

Might not work if your salary is low but it could be a starting point.

Unfortunately due to 50/50 shared care, ex doesnt pay a penny to 'me'. Sure that's why he took me to court for equal care. I earned almost as much as ex when were first met, then after giving up work to care for DD, I've ended up on just above minimum wage and he is on 6 figures. But ex is still a tight controlling old fart arse who wont pay his fair share for the children. He even tried to take the child benefit off me recently but the authorities told him to do one. . .

Anyway, back to my wonderful DP. Neither of know how to do this which is why I've turned to smart mumsnetters for some shrewd advice 🤔

I agree with you OP. However, when me and my dh bought our first house - before we married, my dd was with me 50%. We opened a joint bank account that both our salaries were paid into and everything came out of that. I did pay the deposit on our first house from my divorce though. Our salaries were similar.

Where the salaries are so far apart I might feel different. If you buy a house and he pays a bigger deposit and % of the mortgage, eg he pays 75% you pay 25%, you could buy it as tenants in common with a 25/75% split.
Regarding the household bills, have a joint account to cover them that you equally pay into from your own personal accounts. Then you pay anything extra for your children from your remaining income.

I agree with your OP, I don't think your new DH should be over paying for your children, they are yours and your ex DH's responsibility.

Whilst your DH's children are grown up and left home, I am sure they still need support and, as their father, he will be supporting them. I am sure he also wants to protect their inheritance.

Do you work full-time? how is the household workload split - do you do a lot more? If you are doing the majority of the household stuff you should take this into account as it is part of your contribution to the household. There are bills that are fixed overheads, doesn't matter how many are living in the house e.g. mortgage, gas, elec etc and then there's the variable stuff such as food. Additionally holidays are obvs much more expensive with children. There are also specific costs associated with your children that should be met by you and your DH (in my opinion).

Can you budget for yourself like that ie. you need xyz for children's clothes, clubs, holidays etc, then look at what you need for your personal expenditure and then look at what's left. If you eeek out the fixed costs then you can split this up perhaps you pay 2/10 and he pays 8/10 based on salary difference (assuming your payrise)?

Thanks for your insight.

I have a large deposit and so will he once he sells his house. So we have agreed to pay equally for the deposit which sits comfortably with us both (my idea). I want us to have equal share of the house.

Problem is that I'm officially on just about above minimum wage but work are paying me a sizeable bonus each month with a view to promotion with a considerable pay rise next year. This wont be anywhere close to my DP's salary...ever. So I may earn 15% of what he earn in the future.

DP has said he would happily pay for all the mortgage and then we split the household bills 50/50. This would all be coming out of a joint account so no knavish trickery on his part. Just a fleeting discussion we had about it over Wine last night. The convo ended because I became horny.

I work 25 hours per week because of the daily 3 hour school-run to DD's special school every other week. I fully intend to go full-time as soon as DS goes to Secondary (in 2 years time). But any uplift in my salary wont change anything because DP's salary is only going to rise. There will always be the contrast in our salaries.

I want to get to a place where the financial split feels fair and neither party feels like the other is taking the p*ss. I do more of the house-work which DP puts in high regard - mainly because he hates it with a passion 😂

I like the idea of eeeking out fixed costs for the children and my fixed costs such as personal mobile, car expenses e.t.c Then see that remains and work out what to pay into the joint account from the tiny bit I'll have left.

DP is very generous but would want to keep a bit to save for other projects. And I will savings leftover that I will use to help the children with their studies (as their dad most likely wont contribute to this).

It's more me that is fretting and making a fuss.

I still think everything joint. Let's play through what you've said - assume you don't pool things and then your kids end up taking all of 'your' money. What happens then?

Either you and your now husband live the nice sort of life you can jointly afford, he pays all the restaurant bills, holiday costs etc - which is exactly the same financially as having a joint pot, just done in a less joined up way.

Or you and your husband don't pool your money, you end up being able to afford no leisure or luxuries and so he is off on his own living like a king with his friends because he can afford to while his wife eats beans on toast at home. Which feels like an odd sort of partnership to me.

If it helps OP I'm the higher earner in our house and DP has kids, I don't.

When we married we both ringfenced what we brought to the party to a degree, we rented his house out and I bought this one. I appreciate that once you're married the rules change but we wanted to do what feels fair.

DP has a huge pension whilst mine is relatively small in comparison, his house is lower value than this one so if we split, he'd in theory go back to his smaller home but keep his pension, my equity here is relatively safe.

So considering that puts us in a slightly similar position to you.....

DP has two kids and until last year paid considerable maintenance so he was lucky if he didn't go into overdraft every month. When we moved in together I took on the lions share of our spending. Looking at our joint bills I pay the mortgage, and a slightly higher input into the joint account. Overall on our combined pot I put in 75% and he puts in 25%. I also used to pay for holidays. Now that the maintenance has stopped he pays towards holidays, meals out etc.

I've never for one moment felt as though the balance was wrong because I earn 3x what he earns and I've been able to afford this whilst putting some money aside for investments. In the future I'll benefit from his pension and the house that we've rented out will help us to top up the pension. It's the long term view that balances things in the end.

I did pay for treats every now and then for the kids and holidaying had to be in term time (more expensive than I was used to) I didn't want to go camping so I rented air bnb's. All choices that I made happily so don't overthink it too much.

And all of this. I said to DH early on that sometimes I'll want to do something and he'll have to let me pay for it otherwise we won't be able to enjoy it together. He got on board with that concept pretty quickly to be fair

So your dp earns £200k and wants you to go 50:50 on the bills?

Honestly? I'd expect him to just pay most expenses on that kind of salary difference, and you pay kids stuff from your salary eg uniform, bus fare, pocket money.

Your ex is also a high earner? Stop paying for things and let him do it. The kids will soon learn to nag him for stuff

I think perhaps you could share all bills (except mortgage as that's in his name) and he could pay for the electricity/gas bills for the moment as that's so volatile. When you're on a lower wage then fixed costs are much easier to handle.

Similar situation to me. We pool our money. He said he knew that the kids were part of the package when he met me. If he needs to help out his grown up kids it comes out of our money. Child maintenance from my ex goes into the pot.

Personally I think all in one pot and everything gets paid for out of that. Then you make sure ex pays his fair share of extras for the kids, uniforms, school trips etc.
In any marriage neither should have more disposable income than the other. Once you build back up, you contribute more.
I do think he should protect his current equity in his house though for his children's inheritance.
You could do it so DP pays house costs/bills etc and you pay for everything for your kids separately but the end result would still be the same, he'd just be paying subsidising you so you could then pay for the kids, which makes no sense and over complicated things. Who will pay when you take kids out, how do you work out how much of shopping and utilities kids use etc.

Right all, thanks for the varied answers.

We talked, DP said what he or I earn is neither here nor there. He'd happily put everything in one pot but I said I'd prefer to take out money for my children and pay for them from another account.

Then I asked him to keep some his income in a personal account because, 1) we don't need that much money in our joint account and 2) I might change to a self-indulgent gold digging diva and spend it all 😁

We are both going to protect each other and our children's inheritances with the correct insurances once the house is bought.

So all is good. We just need to find a house now.

Why are you getting married?

Whichever one of you dies first the surviving spouse can disinherit the dead spouse's children. It's absurd!

People think otherwise because your partner is specifically choosing to live with a family of one mother and two children. It’s his choice. If he isn’t “all in”, don’t raise your children in a home with him