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

Congrats on the promotion.

You have a combined income of €460k and 70% mortgage paid off.

Prioritises for me would be:

1. Full review of life assirance and critical illness - salaries like that need protecting.

2. Determine what each of you need to max out your pension contributions

3. Then determine what the household expenses need plus 10% (split that in line with your net income after pension funding)

4. Determine personal fund required for new position - extra travel, wardrobe whatever else). Deduct that.

5. Then agree next prioritises - rennovating house, building up savings, education finds for kids etc overpaying mortgage (again split based on what you both have left)

6. Then what's left over is fun money for you both.

I earn twice as much as my DH but everything just goes into one pot, wouldn't occur to me to do otherwise

I've always wondered, those posters saying 'it all goes into one pot' do you mean all your money goes into one current bank account?

I mean we both get paid into one joint account, credit cards and bills gets paid from that account. Spare money means our ISA’s allowances used first, then GIA, pensions allowances are small but done. All done from the man account although it does have attached pots so we can hive off other monies - tax, etc that’s needed as cash. We tend not to hold too much cash.

Everything proportional - bills, savings, other expenses - and I'd say yes, proportional personal money too. Well done you for doing so well!

Yes.

We have one joint current account and both our earnings go into that. It always did. We pay for everything out of it. DP had a small private pension and I had a teacher's pension. My pension is more than his but both are now just paid into the current account. There were times I was at home with children and we lived off his wages. There were times when he had little work (self employed) but I was full time and we lived off mine.

We have savings in a joint account where each month x amount transferred from the current account into the joint savings. All bills come out of current account on direct debit. Both of us just buy whatever we want out of the current account. It would only occur to us to 'ask' the other if it was a very large purchase, such as a new car, kitchen, luxury holiday and that's only because we'd be discussing it and choosing it together. DH might say 'can we afford it?' because I deal with all the finances, but he's only after a 'yes' or 'no'. He wouldn't be able to tell you how much his pension is, or how much is in the account but only because he's completely disinterested.

It works for us.

Interesting. As OP and her DH would have about £20k going into a current account each month, I'd say it wouldn't be a good idea to put it into a current account, but to transfer enough into the current account to cover bills but then have agreed places to deposit the excess

Some people manage to spend about that a month…

Amazing. Though I do realise that we live frugally compared to many on Mumsnet 🤣