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?

It sounds a fair split and without your organisation he’d probably waste money rather than saving for Christmas etc if finances wee shared.

Echoing the posters asking how much personal money you both get?

It sounds like he has personal money for booze and cigs and you don't? And that you rightly don't trust him to have joint finances because if you did he would spend more on himself and leave nothing left for unexpected bills, holidays, gifts, etc.

Him saying to give him more money and he will pay for XMas sounds like an addicts mentality. Say anything for more money now and have genuine good intentions, with no ability to follow through.

How is the rest of your marriage? No fun money, arguments, him drinking, constantly on edge. Would life be better without him?

You need to do proper budget, list all income, everything you must pay a set amount for every month then a variable expenses list like food. It’s often helpful to have a separate list of things you pay for annually including clothing allowance per person, a Christmas budget etc then divide by 12. Once you put this together you’ll quickly see how much is left over for discretionary spending each month, whether that’s on lunches out, booze and cigarettes or coffees, drinks out or whatever, this should be roughly equal.

Literally write down EVERY. SINGLE. COST. All annual costs split monthly. Including a budget for holidays, xmas, days, clothes, classes etc etc. All comes out of the joint pot. THEN assign some for emergency / savings. What is left is shared between you equally as pocket money each.

I bet there IS nothing left for pocket money. Nothing left for his beers, fags, lunches etc. He will then realise.

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

You need to agree to not spend from the bills account. That account pays for bills. You might decide to set up another account to pay for food and other joint essentials.

Basically the only account he spends from is the money that is sent to the his personal account. And no, this isn't controlling or preventing him from accessing his own money, it's protecting the family budget from being derailed.

Does he recognise that you earn less because you spend time looking after your joint children? Who does the school runs, cooking, cleaning, laundry etc? If it's you, you could always offer to work full time and he do half of everything at home.

I don't see how anyone can decide if it's fair based on what you've said. It's about what you have coming in Vs what's going out.

I don't think it's about who pays what. I think the amount left over / fun money is more important. I wouldn't want a partner that left me skint while they were balling.

Write down all expenses-
bills
food
cars
presents
clothing (for kids)
school expenses/clubs
holiday (if you have one)
savings (if you do)

Literally all of both your expenses so there no argument over joint/separate. Then add up your wage, uc and his wage. Minus all expenses and divide by 2 and see if he is better or worse off. If he’s better off he needs to start paying more in, worse off it needs adjusting.

You need to write down all of your income wherever it's from with a note as to who receives it.
Then everything you have to pay for, bills, direct debits, money for Christmas, birthdays etc. Whatever you spend. If it's occasional payments then include those too.
Add up spending, what you put into a bills account is proportional to your income. Set aside whatever you have left for treats for each of you.
It takes a while to think of all your spending, so make notes during the day.

So DH pays £1150 rent, out of what earnings?

You pay £900 bills out of earnings plus UC (I assume you also claim rent element of UC) and are about to receive a substantial uplift in UC payments.

The amount of time DH has been in your DC's lives is irrelevant; their bio father should be paying towards their upkeep (probably an unpopular opinion!).

The ideal solution is to work out full household expenditure (incl an allowance for clothes, shoes, birthdays etc to be JOINTLY agreed) and for you to each add half to a joint account to pay those expenses, as your individual incomes will be similar following the UC uplift. Everything left is your personal spends for car, mobile etc. Arguably you should put extra in to the pot to cover your DC, or arrange for this from their DF.

Should be the other way round...he should be paying for it all and you should keep your salary and spend it on what you need and when he has a shortage, you could transfer him some. I cannot live with a man who spends on beers and eating out solely on himself. This is not team work

Why should he pay for everything? Should be a fair split based on income (from all sources), or even OP paying slightly more in proportion as she has additional children.