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

No. I don’t think he should be putting 4.5k of his income into the joint account. He has obviously done extremely well in his career and should be able to benefit as an individual for that. Obviously if he was keeping his money for himself whilst you struggled, I’d think that was wrong. But that just isn’t the case here. His 3k into the joint account against your 1k is perfectly reasonable.

It's difficult because you already have significant disposable income for fun spending, and all the shared and kids costs seem to be covered from the joint account. As his earnings are so great his contribution comfortably covers the majority of essential joint expenditure, freeing up more of your income for fun money. If he earned similar to you you'd each need to make a bigger contribution of your income to cover the essentials, leaving less of your income as disposable money.

Given your update about flexible working while he works away though, you are essentially covering a portion of his half of childcare commitments, otherwise your childcare bill would be higher and he'd have to put more in the joint pot to cover his share.

You're about to get married and have joint children and it sounds like you would like to free up extra money for longer term investments like your pension rather than frivolous spending. It sounds fair to ask for a bigger contribution from DP towards the joint essential costs to free up more of your income for this purpose. This is especially true if you took mat leave rather than shared parental leave as your pension contributions will likely have reduced during that period while his continued, unless he topped it up for you during that time?

I disagree with pp who say he's being fair/generous and it makes a difference that you're not married. He's the father of your kids and you're getting married. And he's leaving you to contribute disproportionately to the joint account (ie where all the house/kids expenses are paid from). This is absolutely NOT fair to you as the lower earner! I would be suggesting moving to joint finances in your position, especially as you are getting married.