Organising finances between SAHP and high earner parent.

[Sliverofdarkness]

Wondering how to organise finances when one parent is a stay at home parent for a number of years, from a previously good career, and the other is still a high earner? Would you pay the SAHP a childcare salary for the hours they are at home solo with the kids? Which is probably a minimum wage type salary. Or would you split the High earner parent's salary equally between the parents? Which is fair?

Update: from all your responses it sounds like I've been taken advantage of for the last number of years. As I agreed to him paying me half the going rate of childcare for 9 hours a day, 5 days a week, it was divided by 2 as they're my kids also. Now I'm back at work and my pension and salary are rubbish in comparison to his, and he still insists I take unpaid parental leave to cover all the school holidays as he's the higher earner. We are married though.

All joint and pay into pension for SAHP.
dh and I also have a budget for every category - gifts, clothing, utilities etc which we both agree at the beginning of the year. There is no his/her spending money. If there is a purchase outside the budget then we discuss before purchase is made,

All in the same pot. Me being a SAHM benefitted us all, including DH being able to work up the ladder (worked away a lot). There’s no way I would have accepted a “wage”

Is he a wanker in other ways or is there a conversation to be had about this? I suspect it's impossible to have a conversation. You would most likely do better financially from a divorce than you are doing right now.

When I was a SAHM we made it so that all money went into a joint account and we both spent as needed. I did have to have a conversation with DH to make him understand why this was fair (the 'team' conversation). We still do this now I'm back at work earning significantly less than DH. I am much better with money than he is though.

Yikes. That's not good op

The thing about it is, I spend virtually nothing anyway. I have my phone bill and a very occasional coffee or lunch out. I rarely buy new clothes, or makeup, hairdresser about twice a year. I became very frugal when I was a SAHM as it was hard to go shopping with the kids in tow. So I need very little money... I basically only spend on bills (jointly) or kids.

Did you contribute to bills out of these "earnings" or was it solely for your hair, make up, nails, gp, phone, gym.

I'm sorry. Far too many women think that everything will be lovely & they'll be able to step straight back into their old career with their colleagues acting as though they just popped out for a coffee.

I think that alongside all the Pampers ads and info on feeding the baby there should be a health warning telling women not to give up their financial independence. The impact lasts for decades, not just until the children are old enough to walk to school by themselves.

So you spend on bills out of your earnings? And your H is presumably buying what he wants and saving money? If he is dictating that you have to take unpaid leave to look after the kids in the holidays and you are not getting acccess to money, he is financially abusing you.

I just don't understand the point of marriage if you are living completely different lifestyles and he is not treating you as an equal. What are his good points?

Everything is joint.

Both of you are contributing to the family and not all contributions are financial.

The high earner has the luxury of not having to juggle their job with parenting responsibilities during working hours eg if the child is unwell. Or having to dash off for nursery pick up. Etc etc etc.

Oh and both of you will get tired and will need some downtime at the weekend/in the evening, so make sure that's fair too.

Please do not even entertain the idea of one parent paying the other. That's such a screwed up dynamic it's unreal.

Like others, everything goes into the joint account. We save any spare at the end of the month. We keep ISAs funded about equally and pay into both our pensions each year. We also have separate savings accounts that used to be fairly equal, but after DH received an inheritance, most of that has gone into my accounts as I'm a non taxpayer. We are a team, and all money has always been shared. We just run any large or unusual purchases past each other.

The only thing I would say, is that I originally only intended to have 2 years away from work, but DC3's disability and consequent ad hoc school attendance meant I had to stay at home far longer. And once you are away from work for a significant period it can be extremely difficult get back into a career at the same level as that you left.

I had access to all money and savings, dh paid all the bills. I went back to work pt, still had access to all the money and savings, dh still pays all the bills and I get to keep my earnings to myself. The gap between our earnings is bloody massive so my paltry wage is neither here nor there as far as our household income goes. I cannot believe there are 'men' out there still expecting 50/50 when children are involved. 🫠

For us we both get the same amount of fun money each to do with what we want. Everything else is shared.

Wow. I genuinely can't imagine how he phrased this - "hey darling, thank you for carrying our child to term and giving birth to her / him. How about you give up your job and I pay you HALF minimum wage to look after them while my earnings continue to increase without the inconvenience of having to look after our children?" What a prince.

WE are married, it is OUR income when we make that commitment to each other, TOGETHER.
Being a stay at home parent when the children are small is just as valuable as going out to work.
ALL big financial decisions are made jointly because it is OUR money.

Also this I never took my pension seriously (in my 20s) until I spoke to a lot of divorced women at work who had high earning partners and they were looking at facing pensioner poverty as they had no pensions

Your husband sounds like a knob, by the way.

Pensions form part of the calculations in divorce settlements. It pays to have a good lawyer.

It does but it also pays to pay into a pension incase you don't have a good lawyer

Sorry OP I don’t think you have been taken advantage of because you let it happen. You went into this and agreed with the financial
split. You are married and frankly if you divorce you would he half so why wouldn’t you share your money.

Unless there is a good reason I don’t understand women who have children with a man who don’t want to share things equally.

I dont understand this post.

Your DH 'pays you' £2000 per month.
You 'Pay' £1000 per month into joint account

You 'have' £1000 per month for own spends

You havent always had your own money from what i read. Your DH basically gives you £1000 per month. You may not have to ask DH for the money but it is under his control.

The whole family money thing would take away his control. His entire earnings into family account. £3.5k into family savings and the rest for bills and family costs. Its that simple.

Call the money he gives you Pay or whatever you want but he has control over your ability to spend money.

I've been a sahm for 8 years. We don't have any joint accounts but we don't really divide money up into mine and his. DH pays for most things directly and transfers money into other accounts. I do most of my spending on a credit card which gets paid off in full every month. I put the max into my pension and ISAs every year. We each have different savings assets in our own names. We don't spend much time discussing what it would cost to do the childcare I provide, or how to categorise various costs. Things just get paid for, some of of one account, others out of other accounts. If one account runs low then it gets topped up. It works for us and we don't argue about money