How do i rebalance finances after a big promotion when our marriage has always been financially equal?

[pilii]

My husband and I have been married for 17 years. Our incomes have always been roughly equal and grew at the same pace the whole time so we've just done a simple 50/50 split on everything and never had to think about it. We both are in mid 40s, Also we both earns ok 6 digits

That's about to change. I got a promotion starting this September, and I'll be earning about double what he makes. We have 3 kids together, and I'm trying to figure out how to fairly restructure things now that our incomes are so lopsided

A few things I'm stuck on
Shared bills/mortgage stick with 50/50, or switch to proportional (I'd cover ~2/3)?

Savings/investing should contributions to joint savings also scale with income, or stay equal?

Personal allowance should our individual "fun money" also be proportional, or does it make more sense to keep that equal so neither of us feels like the higher earner gets to spend more freely?

Kids' expenses (school, activities, etc.) proportional like the rest, or split evenly since they're both our kids regardless of who earns what? They are all teenagers

We've never had to navigate an income gap before, so this is genuinely new territory for us after 17 years of things being simple. Anyone been through a similar shift especially later in a marriage rather than starting out unequal What worked and what caused friction

If you have your money arranged correctly, he wouldn’t be able to

We have one pot and I out earn my DH. I couldn’t care less

I don't think she'll even have £60k of allowance any more will she? I think she's above the threshold where you lose the allowance. (One of my pet tax system hates, and I am in no way anti-tax.)

you don’t have all your money in joint accounts to have joint money. We have 1 joint account for general day to day stuff but the rest is scattered across accounts in both our names. We both have access to the balances of all the accounts and regularly discuss maximising interest and tax efficiency.

Gor the last 36 years we have had an account where both our wages go in. Over the years he has earned more than me, other times I've earned more, then I've been on mat leave and so on. However none of it matters in regard to who puts what in. Once the money is there and bills, savings and investments have been sorted its a free for all eith the money!

You are supposed to be a unit do it doesnt seem fair to move the goal posts just because you've got a great promotion.
Congratulations btw on that promotion!

In a good marriage everything is pooled and why would you not be financially independent unless your not good with finances. My dh can pop off buy a car and me a horse book a holiday from the joint account if it's there. The most that will be said is I'm thinking of doing and that's it..Bill money is transferred for all direct debits once a month and our pensions and we do very well this way despite not earning anywhere near the amounts here lol..It's all trust and love and good communication

You're right, it's 40k at 300k salary - a pensions adviser would get it right! But her previous 2 years would have been at the 60k but again, a pensions adviser would be the one to make sure it was all being used

What stuff does she pay for that SHE doesn’t have time to do?

Care of the garden, which is hers and hers alone (apart from my mowing the grass.)

I have my own bank account. But our money is pooled.

I would keep everything 50/50 but put your excess into investments after seeking advice about how best to grow family wealth.
It is the perfect time to review finances.

Extra house, savings for kids, pensions etc spread between yourself and DH.
You know and trust DH, I assume.

I'm thinking of keeping things 50 - 50 like before, and whatever extra I earn, I want to use it for a few specific things

I'm thinking of buying another property that generates passive income and putting more money into savings. My pension distribution was €15k per year before, and I want to increase it to €30k, so having that extra income without tax would be good

I also want to upgrade our trips, and I'm willing to contribute 70% toward our home and garden renovations.......I'll also add some more money to his personal allowance not because I'm being generous, but because I love him and he's my husband. I want him to be able to upgrade his lifestyle too

Everything else stays the same because I don't want to spend more money unnecessary

I think each to their own if it works for them. It’s definitely not one size fits all in my opinion. We share finances and my husband out earns me significantly (mainly because I have 3 kids) and not once did he ever monitor what I spend nor do I feel like I have spent “his” money. Not saying my way is the correct way just explaining a different perspective

Sure I will!!

It depends. My older boy is now 18 and my second child, a girl is 16, so it took a hit when I was on maternity leave with them. My other girl is 10, and by that time he was able to cover everything, so it didn't affect us financially as much

When we had our first two babies, our financial situation was quite tight, so yeah, it wasn't the same

If this was in the other direction (husband making more), the woman would be told that he's being totally unreasonable to keep things 50-50.

i’d be wary of too much lifestyle creep - it eats away at the extra money! Our household income is about 270k and if we suddenly had a pay rise of another 100-150k I’m struggling to think what would really change.

Are either of you really feeling that money has been a limiting factor in your day to day spending?

Personally we don’t need more “stuff”, or to really upgrade the “stuff” we already own, so the idea of upping our individual spending wouldn’t really occur to us. We might spend a bit more when we travel, but other than that I’d probably be allocating additional money towards work on the house, or to building up our investments to improve our overall financial security. Other than that life would pretty much tick along as before.

Put it all into one bank account and divide by 2?

Never understood married couples who split everything in the middle; you are married in love, so who cares if one pays more than the other!

Married 30 years, always earned far more than my wife, joint bank account, no splitting of bills and if she uses all the money, I don't care.

I’d carry on as you are and put the extra earnings in trusts for the children.

In proportion if that's they way you.ve always done it. You will end up with more to save, but even if it's in your name it would be available for emergencies or just extra fun money for the family. Sounds like you are both pretty well off anyway so no real problem if it's not exactly fair.

At some point we switched from joint account (that we paid into pro rata) paying bills to each of us paying certain bills and each paying our own, like cars, phones, etc. Couldn't be bothered with all the joint account fiddling about any more and we both had reasonable but not equal incomes so if one paid more sometimes it really didn't matter. We always had totally separate savings accounts.

I just find it weird to buy each other presents out of joint money, and not having some money I can just spend without thinking about it.

I would think about how you would want DH to handle it if the situation is reversed.
Personally I would put as much as I could into pension and tax free savings ISA. First you then your DHs ISA. I guess you’re kind of doing that through purchasing an additional property, as long as you have time to manage that.

Then I would pretty much split what is left between you, but understand that if you need a smarter wardrobe because of your job either you take a higher monthly amount or a lump sum to cover that.

What's the advantage of putting all earnings in one account? And what's wrong with keeping finances separate and splitting bills proportionally?

Pool all your resources. You’re a family.

ive been giving this a lot of thought and then I realised I wouldn’t have any sort of method of working things out of proportionality. We notionally put money in the joint account for joint bills but we will pretty much pay for kids things and holidays on our own Credit cards. If joint accounts runs low whoever notices first tops it up. Bills get paid as to whoever is dealing with it. Kids mainly me, car stuff, holidays and insurance etc, my DH. Without plotting everything to the penny how do you make sure you are paying proportionality. Do people literally go though every piece of expenditure and calculate who pays what? Must be very time consuming!