Disposable income - helping my partner with finances.

[Bellfox95]

I’m wondering how much disposable income most people have?

I’m trying to work out finances with my partner and the ways that work best for both of us (my partner had adhd and is quite bad with money).

I’m trying to work out the best way to support my partner.

so my partners earns about £1600 ( soon to drop to about £1400) a month, their outgoings are £829.00.
I earn £1800 a month, my outgoings are £639.00
(this isn’t including food or petrol).

so between us we should have about £1931 to cover food, petrol and any other expenses.

We talked about maybe my partner paying his income into my account and me giving them set amounts weekly to try help them budget, but we’ve also mentioned we aren’t sure how they will contribute to certain things like food shopping ect if I do it this way, obviously shipping costs fluctuate which makes it awkward to just “take a set amount” and I don’t want my partner to feel like I’m mugging them off financially, say if I took £200 directly from them to contribute towards food, that would only leave them with £571 (£142.75 a week) ( or £371 when their income drops leaving them with £92.75 a week) and if I also put in £200 ( so we have £400 set aside just for food) I’d still have £961 (£240.00 a week) which feels unfair? I know I do earn a little more, but I don’t want my partner to feel like they have substantially less than I do.

The car is mine and I don’t expect my partner to pay towards petrol or anything like that, I’m fine eating that cost.

my partner and me also currently go half on everything apart from the car insurance and our individual phone contracts (I pay car as it’s mine, and he pays for his phone, I pay for mine), he has have other expenses (CMS and a loan- why his outgoings are higher than mine)

should I be contributing more so my partner has more disposable income and it’s a bit more fair?

If you are two unmarried working adults and one if you is bad with money, don’t combine finances beyond a rent/bills account that you both contribute to. It’s up to you whether you contribute slightly more than half - but in reality he has less disposable income because of servicing debt. Why is his salary dropping? Fewer hours or less well paid work and is that a choice or he’s been pushed into it?
Have the conversations now about how finances would work if you ever marry or have children and think about whether he can be responsible enough that money is not a constant source of conflict.

Yeah unmarried.
salary’s dropping due to company restructure, didn’t really have much choice.

Many people have a joint account for bills and expenses and put in a set amount every month. You could operate the bank card on this account for food and he agrees not to touch it. Agree who puts in more snd who puts in less. Be realistic about what it’s for and how much you need to pay in. Work out any trade offs.

I think he should keep his own account but talk to you about spending decisions. Are you renting a property together? Or mortgage? Your expenses seem quite low.

Did he not get any salary protection in the restructuring? Could he go for promotion?

Can he get another job? £1400 pm isn't even full time NMW.

What else is he spending his money on if nearly £400 pm spending money (the £371 after food and other bills) isn't enough.

This sounds like one of those situations where he's never going to have enough money no matter what he earns because he always just spends whatever he wants and doesn't/can't make sensible choices to stay out of debt, spend wisely or get the best price for what he buys and you'll end up always stressing over this while he just enjoys spending his money.

Yeah, it might be worth opening an account just for food, then any leftover after the £400 we split, or he can have as he has less income. I’m certain we don’t actually spend £400 on food, but that was just a figure that would cover it if you get me.

I have a mortgage on my property, it’s actually me just on the deed but he insisted when he moved in we go half’s on it (as he’s not somewhere else having to pay rent) my mortgage is only £410 a month. (I’m aware he could claim a financial interest in my property if things did go wrong)

He works in care, unfortunately it’s hideously overworked and the company have restructured their current staff to take on more staff (bank ect with more flexi hours) and be able to offer hours, meaning he’s basically losing a shift a week.

I think you should open a joint account for food, and bills, and both put an equal amount into it.

Yes, essentially he’s losing one 12 hr shift a week, so instead of doing 48 hpw he will do 36 hours.

I don’t really know what he spends his money on, he smokes, buys food from the shop for work ect.
I am worried about the spending and how he’s going to live on an actual “budgeted” amount of money when we kind of proceed with what we discussed in the new year but I want to give him the benefit of the doubt that with some structure from me, hopefully he can manage on weekly payments.

£1400 net pay for a 36 hour week?

We have a joint account for the mortgage and all related bills, and we split that proportionality to our earnings. All food, takeaways etc we put onto a credit card and split 50/50 each week. What ever is left is ours to spend, in our own accounts.

That was my estimate although I may have done the math wrong 😂!
Nmw x 36 x 4 = £1647, after tax / insurance, £1479 (estimate?)

it was just a rough guess of what he will have tbf.

I think what you are suggesting is sensible.

However if the genders were flipped no would be saying that paying in to your husbands account which you have no access to is a good idea.

he’s actually fine with having less money and having me budget it. We’ve discussed it at length and obviously we are both mature enough that I’m not going to “restrict” him from his money or anything absolutely stupid like that. At the end of the day the money is his, if he wants to blow it all it’s up to him, the way I’m planning to do it just gives him a steady flow of money instead of having a lump of it (which he just spends) and hopefully he wouldn’t be out of money by payday (which he is at the moment), he would be out of money towards the end of the week and then knows he’d get a top up on the Monday (or whatever day we end up doing it)

36 x 11.44 x 52/12 = £1785 pm before tax

After April this will rise to £1900 pm

After tax will depend on pension contributions but not as bad as you'd feared.

However he still sounds like a financial disaster but he should be able to put some simple processes in place to mitigate issues caused by his ADHD.

Pay all his bills and other fixed expenses by DD/SO including into your account for food, bills, housing and other variable shared expenses. If one week it goes over just leave the money there for other weeks when the bill is higher.

Put some money away for an emergency fund

Put his 'spending money' into an account that cannot go overdrawn and only spend from this - pay the money in weekly if he cannot make an amount of money last a month.

If he has debt he'll be in a better position when this is paid off - when will this be.

Ahh I see, so he would take home £1550 ish, which is obviously better than I was expecting!
yeah we already have all bills set up to my accounts he DD me a amount when he gets paid currently.
he can’t make his money last the month; then often ends up borrowing from me, he always pays me back but obviously this means every month he has even less money than before and it’s just not really a pattern I want to continue.

We discussed him sending me his money and I’d send him the weekly allowance of what disposable income he does have. So he only has to worry on getting by week to week instead of it coming to mid month and he’s spent all his money and has 2 weeks with nothing.

When he runs out of money and needs to borrow from you, does he really need to borrow? What is he borrowing it for? If it is I have run our of money to buy lunch out then surely he should just take a packed lunch to work.

I’d probably open a joint account, or I guess it could just be a separate account in your name if you both are genuinely happy he has no access. Use this account to pay the bills, food shop etc and each pay in a set amount each month. You manage it obviously.

Ignore all the recommendations to open a joint account. You do not want to ruin your credit record by creating an association with someone with chaotic finances.

I wouldn’t want a partner that I had to completely manage like this, it’s hard enough keeping on top of your own finances without having to organise his & essentially give him pocket money every week.

If you’re living together, in a relationship, the fairest way I suppose would be not to contribute equally but contribute proportionally so that you both have the same amount left each month. So you’d be contributing more to the joint pot than he is, and you’d both have the same amount of spending money left over.

This proposed set up of him sending you all the money and then you having to divvy it up between food shops and weekly pocket money will become a hassle too quickly and what happens when he still spends all of his money on day 1 and is then asking you for more of his own money? It will only breed resentment, from him that he has to come begging for his own money from you and from you that you’re playing mum and knowing he’ll be asking for more when it runs out,

This! I have no intentions of opening a joint account at this point till I see he can manage his finances better (with my help ovbs).

He probably doesn’t really need to borrow it off me is the reality, I just feel bad I guess when he’s like I have no money I can’t get a drink from the shop ect so I end up loaning him some, which he does always pay me, but then it sets back the cycle of him having less money for the following month

Not wanting to be horrible but perhaps he needs to suffer not being able to get a drink etc. to maybe try a bit harder to budget.

Yeah, I think maybe it’s just easier said than done when I have hundreds of pound sitting in my account and he wants £30 if you get me 😭

But that money's not 'spending money' it's allocated to something else. Bills, emergency fund, your spending money, etc.

It's not available for him to buy booze with so it might as well not exist as far as he's concerned.

But you’re not teaching him to manage his finances, you’re just restricting his finances. So unless your plan is to do that forever there’s no benefit here.

What's more concerning is you are aware he could make a claim on your property if you broke up. Are you ok with that? Given his management of his finances, I would be.