Blended families

[AnonAdviceSeeker]

I have 2 children from a previous relationship and share custody 50% of the time.
I am married and have no children with my wife and she has no children from any previous relationships.
Since being married, we put all of our money in one pot. The bills, food, school lunches, holidays and activities come out and we split what’s left equally as our allowance. (I put in about £1,500 a month more than her, however she has had inheritance in the past that has paid off debts, bought in to my previous house etc, so currently we see my extra as shared).
Any school uniform and school trips are currently split between me and my ex partner (their mum).
I am wondering whether the children’s non school clothing should be paid out of the “one pot” we both contribute to, or whether I should pay for this out of my allowance?

You are married so all money is legally shared money, I think that and all other expenses should go out of your joint pot. If you or your wife wanted separate finances you should not have got married.

Well she shouldn't really be paying for your kids, married or not. They already have two parents to do that.

Why should your wife pay for your kid’s clothes when they have two parents?

There's no right or wrong answer to this and blended families handle money differently. Personally I feel your wife shouldn't be paying for your DC's clothes. But talk to her about it and see what she thinks.

Who will pay for their university fees? Or if they go in a school trip abroad. Presumably it should be split between their mum and dad. Ie it should come out of your salary and personal savings.

As, if your wife wants to buy an extravagant present for her niece she wouldn’t expect you to pay half would she?

if you split up with your wife would you expect her to continue paying for your kids? Would she get 50% of your 50% custody?

Interesting point. Should it come out of his salary before he puts all of it in a joint pot which is then shared equally. If they are putting all their money into one account and then takes an equal amount out, he may not be able to afford university fees, or school trips. My view is, as they're married and everything is split jointly then so should children costs

@YourWarmGreyBalonzi take it you don't have stepchildren. I have two. And I have never been expected to cover any of their costs.

I can understand the logic of partner should not have to pay for step children. Though I dont agree totally and feel if marry someone with children you should expect them to be supported from the martial funds. Money is secondary to the love and commitment you make to each other and the children....they become a significant part of your life ideally dont they? You love them and see them as family. I would want them to have as much as we could give them.
However in this case surely it cant be everything is split equally and all money goes into one pot and then the spare/fun money is divided in two. One partner gets 50% to themselves and the other 50% has to go three ways.. other partner plus 2 kids. That would mean one partner is in a totally different financial situation to the other. The kids were part of the deal when you got married. The marriage money should support them. If you dont want to support step kids dont marry someone with kids then share all finances other than kid related ones. Recipe for problems in my opinion. You share everything once married its a partnership. You are one team. Just my thoughts I am sure lots will disagree.

All of our money has always gone into the same pot and obviously some of it goes towards SD's expenses but it's never been an issue for me. We're all family. I suppose one thing to consider is that if your daughter's expenses are being paid for out of the joint pot, this means that your wife does have some say in what she thinks is reasonable. It's never been an issue for us but if you're the type of person who will happily spend £200 on fancy trainers and your wife is more of a what's in the sale at Asda sort of person then that might be a problem.

You are being vague about your wifes inheritance etc.
Your wife should not be contributing towards your kids.

Imho the sensible thing would be for you and your wife to sort out where you stand, i.e. workout the value of your main assets (house, any large debts your wife paid off, your pensions and any expensive cars) and how much each of you have contributed to those.

You will find that one of you has contributed more than the other, the one who has contributed the least should get a loan to balance things 50:50 between you. Then going forward you should split all bills 50:50 with equivalent pension contributions.

Then you will both have allowance of what you each have left. That is what you use to pay for your kids clothing, school trips, food etc.

Wow, so after every visit, is he going to sit down and calculate how much each meal cost to cook, the percentage of it that the children ate, the number of snacks eaten and the price of each snack and the difference between the energy bill on a day that the children aren't there to a day when they are?

What about if they buy a family ticket for a day out, how do you work out how much the kids cost vs the adults? If it's £40 for 4 people is that just £10 each or do we need to consider the difference between regular priced adult and child tickets?

And yes, what an excellent idea, for one partner to get into debt in order to ensure that they can live like roommates. Maybe they could also set up a chores rota and stick it on the fridge to make sure they are all taking the right number of turns to clean the bathroom.

I suppose it leads to a lovely, drama-free divorce, since you were never a family to begin with.

But it all sort of comes out in the wash anyway. If they divorce whatever money and assets that are left will be split and it won't matter if the wife has more savings or not. If one of them dies the other one inherits whatever is left and again it doesn't matter who has what. There really is no yours and my money. You might leave the money in different accounts, but once you are married they are legally all in one pot.

If you marry someone with kids then they come as a package both emotionally and financially…

A marriage should be about commitment, love, honesty and sharing…

I cant imagine a world where i wouldn't have bought my step-kids clothes for them..

There’s a lot of hate on here for step families and that really saddens me (not on this specific thread but mn in general)

I hope you can have a sensible conversation with your wife and make an amicable agreement between you ❤️

I beg to differ. Our wills reflect our own assets going to our own children. Why would I leave my money to kids I didn't have, and vice versa?

There seems to be so many assumptions on blended families from people who aren't actually in that situation. How you choose to split your finances and subsequent inheritances is no one else's business.

Well you can have a will but that can easily be contested by your spouse. You don't know what yours or their position will look like when you pass. They can make a claim that they are in need of your assets or some of them. It's really not unusual for wills to be successfully contested, the norm is that once married you inherit from each other.