Is our split of bills and Universal Credit fair?

[Ilovecake01]

Me and dp both work, he earns just over double what I do because I work part time around the dc 7&4 (i feel these bits are very relevant). We also get UC as neither of us are high earners. I also have 2 teenage dc from previous relationship.
He pays the rent and his car expenses and phone bill, and I pay for literally everything else.
Finances have always been kept separate, the UC goes into my bank account and I spend it together with my wages on bills, food and any other household expenses/anything the kids need...basically anything that needs paying.
DP feels I have been very unfair to him over the years because he's 'never seen a penny of the UC'...but I use it on household expenses, kids needs ect, it's extremely rare that ill treat myself to anything nice (if I regularly did this I could absolutely see his point!)
Have I been unfair? I was thinking this was a fairly normal set up but he doesn't...what does anyone else do?

Everyone in this scenario is taking the piss. You had two children already, you both work in low paying jobs but decided to add two more children to the mix and then argue about who gets the benefits. Who has 4 children these days? Especially if you can't afford them

@Ilovecake01 do you get maintenance for the elder 2 children? I think you need to write down all costs. We pay a set amount in each month & mostly costs are similar each month.

I wish I was about to get £600 a month extra. Instead we are on one wage that takes us just over the threshold to pay back a percentage of child benefit. You two plus your benefits probably ‘earn’ more than me!

I think you need to look at all the incoming and outgoings. Without doing that you are only guessing. My guess is that DP has far more fun money than you. Realistically. If you left him you'd probably have more expendable income. Have you looked at a benefit calculator as a single person rather than a couple. I did this recently having a trial separation from H. I actually would have £500 pcm more than I have when I'm with him as long as he pays CM. If he doesn't I'd have about the same as I have now without the hassle of dealing with him, his mess and having to compromise all the time.

My answer would simply be ….. what you have left after the rent and your car is paid is for 1 person. The money that goes into my bank covers 5 people plus food/bills that you also benefit from! I can’t imagine with bills, shopping for 6 people, necessities for the kids etc that you have that much spare anyway!

Drinking and smoking every week is a luxury.

People who earn and dont qualify for UC can't even afford this!!!

Your UC statement tells you what earnings are taken into account for both of you.

You do a household budget which includes savings for clothing, school uniform , Christmas , birthdays and car repairs. You both contribute.

Your UC is to top you up to the minimum the government say you need to live on. Therefore the majority of both wages go into family pot.

This is why the country's finances are a mess. A family shouldn't be getting UC to allow someone to smoke and drink all week.

OP YANBU; he is.

20 cans of beer ? Every week ? Does he have a drinking problem

do you get a rent element in with uc

So he'd rather his children and you suffer so he can spend more on himself. Nice.

Fairest way is for all income, ie both your wages and UC to go into a joint account that pays for all joint costs so rent, bills, groceries, car running costs if the car is reasonable/essential rather than a flash toy, holidays, Christmas, DC clothes, activities etc.

Basically anything except adult non essentials such as drinking, smoking, lunch at work (because it costs way more than taking from home). You then work out what's left over and split this 50/50 for personal spending money for you and him.

So yes it sounds like it's been unfair up to now but in his favour. He must be stupid and/or selfish if he can't see that, if things were 'fair', he'd get a lot less money to spend on himself because up to now, he's been spending your personal money as well as his own and possibly DCs leisure money too.

My thoughts exactly. I appreciate the OPs found herself in a tricky situation and is asking for help - not a bashing- but the more I read the more I found myself getting annoyed!

Can you not pay extra into a pension to mitigate this?

Why are you with someone who drinks so much? I wouldn't give him access to more money as he will drink it away.

I think he’s being really unfair and potentially financially abusive. What really matters is the end personally spending amount you have each month but I’m guessing that’s being blurred by small essentials you’re paying for that he feels are not essential! It sounds like he has a vast amount more personal spending than you.

I asked ChatGPT how much a family of 6 with teen dc should budget for clothes, Christmas, haircuts, uniform, birthdays etc per month so it can be saved up. It said £315 absolute minimum but ideally £400 a month. Can you calculate your budget with that figure in for those extras (you could transfer it to a separate pot in order to make it more “visible” what it is being spent on).

but I think long term you may need to look at your finances without him.

Without figures it’s pointless nobody can tell you if he’s taking advantage
Also you have 2 extra kids to pay for

You need to write it all down and figure it out. Your expenses should be higher as you have 2 teens to pay for also. Do you get child maintenance for them also? That being said he doesn’t sound great by the amount of alcohol he is consuming, that would not be acceptable to me.

Would you be much worse off financially as a single parent?
I would give that scenario some serious thoughts if I were you.

So currently you get Universal Credit which includes children's elements for two of your four children. Next month that figure will go up by £607.88. Your DP has double your earned income, but UC closes that gap.

You get rent contributions to the UC, but you don't use any of that to pay the rent, which your DP pays in full.

Tbh, unless we know how much your rent is, and how much you both earn, nobody can say that it's fair or not. But if you're supporting day to day living for 5 people on your part of the income, it sounds tricky.

I don't know why you can't budget though? How can you not know what's going in and out?

It's all a bit of a mess. Separate finances and shared children don't work, IMO.

Write everything down. (there is a good spreadsheet on MSE that lists all likely household expenses).

Literally everything.
All your incomings.
All your outgoings.
Your regular monthly bills
Your regular annual bills
Your irregular bills.

Separate out expenses for your DC and any maintenance/child benefit/other payments you get for them.

work out which are household expenses.
Work out which are not.
Agree a sensible split of money (personally I'd suggest having a "household" account to cover this and keep your personal money separate, but up to you).

it is entirely impossible for anyone here, including OP and her DP to know if their setup is fair with no numbers provided.

So the rent is 1150.
The bills plus food come to about 900, that's council tax, electric, water, tv licence and Internet. We both have our own cars and phone bills aswell.
I don't get maintenance for the older dc and he has been in their lives since they were very young. I totally get the previous posters point of he may feel like he's subbing them, i actually don't think he does, the amount of arguments that have been had over money and that hasn't been mentioned. He would have no issue in bringing it up if this was the case.
So on the face of it, it looks like he pays more. But as explained, I also sort Xmas and birthdays, clothes and shoes for dc plus anything else they need, swimming lessons for ds, if we had a holiday I would have to sort it and pay for it, I recently bought new (second hand) hoover and dishwasher as ours broke.
Combining finances seems like it could be a good idea but the only thing I worry about is him just wasting anything leftover and there being nothing left for anything that might come up.
I appreciate that I have made poor life choices to have ended up on uc and in this situation, believe me there isn't a minute of the day that I'm not beating myself up over it.

I think it sounds pretty evenly split to be honest. ‘You’ might pay more for birthdays etc, but it’s with the UC which is both of yours, not just yours. A discussion about all the extra money you’re about to start getting needs to be had, but your set up doesn’t sound particularly unfair on either of you.

This is also how I see it. I hope it's not worded to make it sound like I feel it's unfair to me, because I don't really think it is, it's more that he feels so strongly about how unfair it is towards him, and I didn't really think it was.

What do you think about the extra money? Is that highlighting his perceived unfairness to him? Are you planning to keep it all?

This has been an issue long before the 2 child cap left was announced. Tbh I haven't discussed it with him yet because the subject of money can't be brought up without an argument and him trying to dictate to me how unfair I am to him

So why isn’t the uc - his wages. Your wages all in one account bills and rent get paid - you put x amount away into savings for birthdays holidays break fund each month and whatever is left o. Average is divided between you both