What’s fair (disposable money each)

[Lilyofthenight]

Name changed for this.

My partner and I have a joint account. He has always been a higher earner than me and would put more in the joint account so that we would have equal amounts of disposable money in our current account. For example if he took home £3k after tax and I took home £2k after tax he would put £2k and I would put £1k in the joint account to cover bills and food. That left us with £1k of disposable money each.

Now currently his earnings have over took mine greatly (I’m not complaining about that) but I wanted to know what you think was fair. He now earns £6k after tax and I earn £2.5k after tax. He puts £3k into the joint account and I put £1k still into the joint account. That leaves him £3k and me £1.5k of disposable income. The question isn’t about if that’s a good amount of disposable income, ( I know how incredibly fortunate I am with that amount of money and I don’t mean to offend/trigger anyone) it’s about is it fair? Should he be putting £4.5k into the joint account leaving himself £1.5k of disposable income so we have the same. We also have children. The reason being I know some families pool all their money together into one pot, obviously others don’t like ourselves.

Any thoughts welcome. Thanks

This would creep me out. I don’t have a joint account as my money, even if a fraction of DPs, is mine.

I think he’s being more than generous, and it’s a bit commie to make him live off 1k when he earns that kind of money.

He's a DP so not a DH so he's being more than generous. In law what's his is his.

In his heart when he had less he didn't see you go without and now he has more he's sharing more, and keeping more.

I can't see that he's a bad egg.

Me and DH do it the same was as you op.

What are your life goals and savings, have you both got good pensions ?
Are you saving for your kids Uni funds , or house deposits?
What about a holiday fund, new car fund, new boiler and roof fund ?

You both seem to have a lot of disposable income to me, is that just for fun or do you run your cars, pay for days out, kids clothes etc out of it

When do you want to retire?

Personally I’d be saving as much as I could for early retirement so would have much less personal spends, but you have to work out what is relight for your family.

oh, and as the lower earner, you are vulnerable financially, so I’d also be pushing for the legal commitment of marriage or civil partnership

Once you're a committed family unit I think all money goes in the pot and all extra is shared equally. Savings goals are jointly agreed etc.

But others think differently, which is fine, all that matters is that two halves of a couple are happy with the way they do things.

For me it depends a bit on what is paid for from your joint account and what from 'disposable' income. E.g. what arrangements do you have for savings, both short/medium term (for things like holidays, new car, house renovation) and long term (pensions, rainy day fund, children's future fund etc). For a lot of couples it makes sense to save for these things in individual named and the money doesn't therefore need to go via a joint account per se but IMO in a shared finances set up and where there are children to consider both parties should have knowledge and agreement of how much is being saved, for what purpose, where etc. Likewise the children's expenses, clothes, activities, school expenses, who pays for these and you both in agreement as to the budget. It might make more sense if you are the primary carer for these to come from your account but it shouldn't leave you short on money to spend on yourself. What about more occasional expenses, holidays, Christmas, house repairs/maintenance, do you have a fund for these coming from your joint account or do you pay proportionately from your own accounts, and how do you decide what the budget is?

Basically, I think it's fine to maintain financial independence and not pool all money, so long as whatever system you operate leaves each person with a comparable amount to spend on themselves as they choose (the actual amount obviously totally varies depending on income level and choices about priorities), especially as you've chosen to not get married (I assume, as you say partner not husband), but it does require good communication and a reasonably shared/compatible attitude to money. Do be careful though if you've chosen to compromise your career/financial situation for the sake of the children but without the protection of marriage, have you discussed safeguards for you in the event of relationship breakdown or something bad happening to your DP?

I think it's fair enough that he keeps control of a large percentage of his money.

Does he pay for extras like family holidays?
What pot do cars and home improvement come out off?

DH and I have a similar setup but he being the bigger earner pays holidays, and drives a bigger flashier car. Other than the size yes we do need a big car, I don't see the need for flashy.

I think that sounds fine as there's a lot of disposable income - as long as he's not tight with treating the family etc.

I think it depends somewhat if your lower earnings are due to you sacrificing your career for childcare reasons or to make family life easier, if that is the case then it doesn't seem fair

If the above isn't a factor and you are both financially comfortable and he is not living a vastly more luxurious existence than you are then I don't think you can complain if you are not married

Yeah to me that's fair. If you were married I'd say not because you would have both purposefully signed up for the other person being entitled to half of everything.

Personally I wouldn't want to have separate finances - agree with others that as a family I want to pool resources and work towards shared goals not squabble over who has what. How are the children's expenses covered?

we pool everything ... we save for our pension etc, invest for our DC, both of us have equal access to the joint account and (within reason) buy what we want/need. My DH earned (retired now) significantly more than me but I never had to 'ask' for money but we have very similar spending habits ... neither of us are frivolous but neither of us would begrudge the other anything (assuming we could afford it). My DH does have more 'expensive' hobbies than me but I am perfectly happy and don't feel the need to spend 'X amount' just because he spends 'X amount'.

Out of interest ... have you consciously chosen not to get married? Do you have Wills, Life Insurance, Pension Cover etc - are you named as his NOK if he dies or becomes incapacitated?

I hope you are saving a lot of that and not just spending it. Pensions or paying down your mortgage come to mind. You'll also have to pay a good chunk towards uni costs.

Thanks for your replies so far, really appreciate the different perspectives.

To answer some quick questions.

All joint affairs come out from the joint account e.g childcare, all items for the kids/clubs, holidays, bills, food, tv subs etc.

Disposable income means, presents I buy for my DH, clothes/make up for me, coffees, restaurants with my friends. Basically items that solely benefit me. I also save around £1k a month roughly from this too.

It seems like as he’s just my DP this is currently fair. We will be getting married next year, and at this point others are saying it’s not fair if he was a DH, so we would need to be more equal.

At the moment, in terms of money, I’m incredibly lucky to be able to get what I want but I don’t spend that much on myself anyways, hence being able to save a fair bit. However just thinking more longer term and making sure I’m not financially vulnerable as some of you mentioned, I may need him to contribute more so we have equal disposable money. I’ll be then able to save more by doing so.

We're married.
I have equal access to all the money. My earnings have taken a massive hit due to his job relocations. I would be earning twice my current salary if I had never moved with his job. Why should I be penalized for that?

I actually have more savings put in my name each month, as my pension has also taken a hit, so we top that up.

I think the not married but with kids bit makes it even more important that you have equal spends, as you won't get half of everything if you split.

My DH has had more disposable income than me for a number of years but it’s more like I have 3k per month left over and he has 4k.

Make sure your pension is decent. also consider life insurance. My policy would have cost too much but that’s another story but he has extra life insurance.I personally do not resent him having an extra 1k but am aware the amounts we have left over are very decent and it’s not like either of us goes without.

We have never had a joint account which is against MN take on things overall but that’s because many women are the lower earners and end up with a huge disparity in money left over and live like poor relations within a relationship.

We have been married for close to 25 years and his savings pot is bigger but not by a huge amount. We both invest but take far few risks now as we approach both of us retiring. We were never wanting to go to each other and say may I have permission to risk 5k on this stock. DH lost 25k on an investment once, wasn’t my money. He was a big risk taker up till a decade ago, it has paid off though. We always took a very long term approach to money.

That makes sense that as I’m not married and have kids that makes me more financially vulnerable, however as others have posted as he’s just a ‘dp’ im not entitled to half his money yet and he’s being more than generous.

I guess what it comes down to is…. Is this working for us and am I happy. At the moment it’s fine, but there is a part of me that think it may not be fair hence the question.

Have you considered earning more yourself rather than expecting your partner to contribute more than the generous amount he is already contributing?

My job is incredibly more flexible than his, I’m able to do all pick ups and drop offs and look after the kids whilst my husband travels for work. I have not been able to find another job yet that offers the same amount of flexibility to support and enable my husband to do his job.

Thank you, sounds like you have a great amount of disposable income each which is fantastic.

I do have a pension at 5% of salary but maybe I need to top it up more. I also have life insurance with my bank.

Im going to leave the way we share our money for now but good to understand how others do it.

We do similar to what you would like to do OP. Everything gets paid into our joint account (DH takes home double what I do) and we both take equal spending money out. It's not nearly as much as it doesn't cover as much as yours spending, e.g. savings are all joint savings and come out of the joint account/ we set an amount for clothes and gifts and this comes out of the joint account. It works well for us. I don't think being married makes a huge difference tbh

We always put income into one account, took out the bills/savings etc and split the rest.

We are a partnership, an equal partnership so we have equal shares. My husband earned more than me for years, then started his own business and I was the major earner, then his business took off and he was the major earner. It makes not a scrap of difference to how much we got each out of the funds. I could not live with a partner who had twice as much money to spend than me, nor would I want to have twice as much as my partner.

You've downsized your career for the kids without being married - that's very unwise and I would rethink. He can do half the pickups, dropoffs etc and then see if he can earn that much.............

It seems like quite a complicated way of doing it but in a partnership you really should both get the same. DH takes home a lot more than me but that's in part because the car comes out of my salary, various insurances, sharesaves and I hammer loads into my pension so that reduces the net a lot. Both salaries get pooled into one account and then we each get around £700 a month to spend on what we like. I'd be pretty annoyed if DH suggested he got more because he earned more especially as I'm the one who had to take the mat leaves, do the flex working etc so have arguably had to sacrifice more career wise than him for the kids.

The one thing I do agree with many on MN is being careful with sacrificing your career, that’s the issue and many women do, some willingly and some unwillingly.

You are right we have been lucky for quite a while with the amount we have and that’s the issue most won’t have that sort of disposable income so that has to be borne in mind. When someone has 300 a month and someone else has 50 which is the sort of thing I have read about on MN it’s a massive issue.

Being married is always better for the lower earner.

I look at life as economic viability, always have. Some may see it as brutal and I have made some decisions that are really tough. In your position you need that wedding band on your finger asap.