Partner says my Child Benefit should go towards his bills as well

[PrimeCrush]

Been arguing about this since yesterday and wondering if im being unreasonable.

Me and my partner have been together 3 years and living together about 18 months. I have a ds who is 7 from a previous relationship, he lives with us full time and sees his dad alternate Saturdays. My partner has no children of his own.

We have a joint account for rent, bills, food etc but dont put all our wages in there. He earns more than me so he puts in £1000 a month and I put in £650. We agreed this when we moved in and its been fine up until now. We both keep the rest of our money in our own accounts.

I get child benefit for ds and it goes into my account. I use it for his school stuff, clothes, shoes, trips and all the little things that seem to come up constantly when you have a child. His dad pays £180 maintenance a month which helps but it doesnt cover everything and he buys him presents separately as well. Ive never really thought about putting the child benefit into our joint account because its for ds.

Anyway our joint account was a bit lower than usual this month because a few bills came out close together and my partner said I should start paying my child benefit into it. His argument is that ds lives here and uses the heating, eats the food etc so its not fair that I keep that money to myself when we’re supposed to be a family.

I said I already pay £650 a month towards the bills and food and he earns more than me so thats why we agreed on different amounts in the first place. He said thats not the point and if we had a child together the benefit would go into the joint account so he doesnt see why it should be different just because ds isnt biologically his.

I do get what he means to a point. Obviously ds uses things in the house and my partner does buy food he eats and things like that. Im not saying he should have to pay for everything for my child. But I also dont think the answer is that money I get to help bring up ds should automatically be used to cover bills when we already have an arrangement.

He reckons Im keeping it separate because I dont see us as a proper family. Thats not how I see it at all, but now Im wondering if Im being unfair.

Should child benefit go into a joint account when you’re living with someone who isnt the child’s parent?

Is he actually resentful that he works full time and you don't? I can see why it would feel unfair for you to deliberately work reduced hours and then use your lower salary as a justification for paying less to joint expenses. It's obviously normal in a house with shared children, but less common when there's only one child who isn't shared.

If you worked full time on minimum wage, you'd be bringing in 45% of the household income to his 55% (compared to 40:60 now). 5% sounds like a small change, but it's around £100 in reality, about the same as the child benefit.

Before we moved in together, I was working then as well.

Its not £280 every single month that I spend on ds, some months its less and some its more. His school shoes were too small last month and he needed new ones, he had a school trip to pay for as well. He does swimming lessons which I pay for and then theres birthdays, parties, clothes etc. Christmas and his birthday come out of my money too, I dont have a separate pot for them.

Im not buying him loads of toys or expensive clothes, most of his clothes are from supermarkets or wherever is cheapest. I probably could list every single thing I buy him but I dont keep receipts for everything so I couldnt give an exact breakdown.

His dad could probably contribute more but £180 is what we agreed and he does have him some Saturdays, although its not overnight. Im not looking to get into a whole thing about his dad because thats a separate issue really.

I think my partner sees the money going into my account and assumes its spare money when it isnt always. But I do understand people asking what I spend it on because I probably havent explained that very well in the OP.

If you’re using all of your child benefit and maintenance for DS’s needs then I don’t see what difference it makes. If you pay all of the money into the joint account then that’s where DS’s expenses should be paid from. I do think he has a point because those expenses will reflect in household/food bills too.

She gets around £300 a month that she ringfences for child related costs. She's said she works round school hours so doesn't have childcare costs, which would potentially have been a big chunk.

£300 a month is a lot to spend on clothes, school trips and incidental bits and bobs. Although it would be worth OP doing this exercise so she has a budgeted amount to cover her DS's expenses.

If a single mum who is not a high earner lives with a partner, the state expects that partner to contribute to the child's costs. The benefit legislation is open about this. That is why when the state assess for universal credit they take into account the partners income. They assume the total income from mum and partner are used to support the child.

A partner who wants to only pay his costs usually means a single mum is better off financially living apart as she will get universal credit.

It's why posts like the OPs alarms me. If she listens to her partner she will be putting her partner before her own son. He will lose out.

“He said thats not the point and if we had a child together the benefit would go into the joint account so he doesnt see why it should be different just because ds isnt biologically his”

the difference is that if it was his bio child he’d be paying towards all child’s costs such as school uniform and shoes etc. At the moment he only pays partially towards the small amount of extra food and extra power used by having a 7 year old in the house.

In which case her child's father should pay more, and OP should increase her income by working full-time so that she can also contribute more. Why is the responsibility for paying more for her son falling solely on her partner, while OP and her ex continue paying a relative pittance. There are breakfast clubs, after school clubs that she could use or ex could contribute to the cost of childcare or take some of the childcare responsibilities on himself.

But housing, bills, and food, are all costs in supporting the child. It’s not just clothes etc.

It also sounds like OP is working part time based on £1,450 take home.

So he’s presumably earning more at least in part due to working more hours, paying a big proportion of his pay into the joint account for bills, but is only 1 person. Whereas OP is paying less but the additional cost of her child is still included in the joint cost.

Unless there is a mortgage in his name only I think OP has a pretty good deal at the moment, and some of the child benefit/maintenance should be used towards the bills, as the bills would be lower if not for her child.

I’m guessing OP’s child has his own room, uses electricity and water, and doesn’t survive solely on fresh air.

I have a ds from a previous relationship and we pooled all our money once we moved in together, as it's impossible to genuinely separate expenses like food and bills when you're living as a family, and it was less hassle for admin. As it happened I had to stop claiming the money for child benefit after about a year as DH's salary went up above the threshold, which cements the idea really that it should be seen as part of the household income, since the govt viewed it that way.

He's also paying to allow the OP to work part time so that she doesn't need to pay for childcare.
If she didn't have a child she would be working full time and earning more.

Sure, I said upthread I think the CB is a red herring here. There's potentially multiple ways for OP to pay more into the pot and CB is only one of them. Maybe she could increase hours, maybe there's fat to be trimmed. He may have just hit on CB as the most obvious one.

Though saying that, the older DS gets the less argument there may be for working part time and thus the agreed contribution being so much less. If they agreed this 18 months ago he was probably 5. So I don't think its helpful for OP to think of this as her not being the one who changed the agreement, because neither of them have- time and inflation did it.

It doesn't sound like a very nice relationship.

You do know OP does not control how much the child's father contributes? He is probably paying the minimum CSA require.
OP works 30 hours a week to do school rubs. No she should not disadvantage her own child by increasing her hours, so her partner has more money.

You have made it perfectly clear in your comments you don't think OPs son matters. When OP should put her son first.Rather than putting her partners wish to have more spending money for himself first.

OP. If the joint account was left short it could happen again.

I would aim for £2000 in the joint instead of £1650 - assuming that covers all bills and maybe some left to save.

if you work by percentages your should be putting in £777.78, and you’re partner £1222.22 > £2000 and both paying 55.56 percent of your wages.

it’s not about where the money comes from, it’s about taking your gross post-tax income, and his and paying the same percentage into the joint account, enough to cover everything household or shared.

With CB and maintenance @PrimeCrush is receiving £3,360 per annum for child related costs for one 7 year old. Is that a reasonable amount to spend on one child every year?

OP please please please do not have another child with this partner. It will be a disaster and your son will be the one who suffers.
Your partner is putting his desire to have the same amount of personal spending money in spite of rising bills, ahead of your son. If you had a shared child, your sons needs will be pushed out more and more.
You are his mother. Put your son first.

If you really want to get pedantic, I bet DP DP eats more than DS, and creates more washing than DS (his clothes are bigger, plus a grown man's clothes will smell more than those of a child). The heating is used whether DS is there or not.
It sounds to me like you're using the CM exactly as it's supposed to be used, so what is DP's problem with which account it gets paid into?
Keep a close eye on DP, because it sounds like he's starting to be quite resentful of DS.

Well, you could have your child benefit (and child maintenance) all paid into the joint account, and then all your child's expenses for clothes, clubs, school trips, toys etc. will have to start coming out of the joint account too. That is one way of doing it, and it would be perfectly acceptable and works well for many families.

However, if your partner is that pernickety about who pays for what, then get ready for arguments about whether or not your child really needs a new pair of shoes right now, or whether he could get a couple more months' wear out of them, or whether his after-school football club is really an essential purchase, and why do you have to buy his clothes at Next rather than Asda, and so on...

If the child benefit goes into the joint account then all DS associated costs come out as well from there. Have you sat down with your partner and showed him the income from CB and maintenance vs what you pay out for DS and what you top up with?

If he wants you to put the money in to show you are a family then all the money for DS also need to come out of the joint account because of the same argument. I suspect he will change his mind when he sees how much you top up the money.

He’s a useless man.. I can tell just from your post!! Get rid.

Yes. Probably low end of average without childcare costs for the UK. Easily google-able.

@MozzieFreeZone do you actually have children? Because it doesn't sound like it.
Universal credit plus child benefit allocates £330 per month for one child for child related costs. That is the minimum the government says is needed and is on top of other allocations like housing benefit.
You have obviously have zero idea about child related costs.

I dont work reduced hours just because I dont want to work full time, its what fits around school and childcare at the moment. If I could just do whatever hours I wanted then obviously id have more options but I cant rely on someone being available to get ds if I get kept late.

The £280 isnt a set amount I spend every month either, I was trying to explain that all the little things add up over time. Some months I barely buy him anything other than food and some months theres shoes or school stuff or something else he needs. I probably shouldnt have put it like its £280 every month because thats not what I meant.

I can see the point about us paying the same amount but I dont think it should automatically be 850 each without looking at all our outgoings and what we each have left. We agreed the current amounts together and neither of us was struggling until recently.

As for whether hes resentful about me not working full time, I honestly dont know. He has never actually said that to me. He knew my situation when we moved in and it wasnt something I hid from him.

I dont think its a horrible relationship generally, we get on well most of the time. This has just turned into a much bigger argument than I expected and now we’re both digging our heels in a bit I think.

Partner is daft.

Child Benefit is so parents can make sure the child is taken care of. Your partner is not a child.

He sounds quite mean spirited. If he doesn't want to be with a parent then he doesn't want to be with you. He can make that choice, I guess, but he doesn't get to choose you without a child, because that's not on the table. Nor does he get to spend your child's money.

I think the point is not necessarily about the child benefit money, but the larger question that your partner feels you should be paying more into the joint pot as your expenses are higher than his (you have a son and he doesn't). You keep some "income" to yourself (e.g. child benefit and child maintenance) to cover your son's costs but they are not all his costs as some of them are being covered by your partner's higher contribution to the joint account (food, heating, water, etc.). He probably feels like he is subsiding your child's costs because you are not contributing enough.

People saying that OP shouldn't be disadvantaging her son but in fact by living with her partner she is putting him at an advantage. And that's fair enough from her point of view, but it's clearly not how her partner sees it. In my view you are either a family unit and pool all your money together or you are not and you keep your finances separate in which case you pay fifty fifty.