How do you and your partner sort bills while on maternity?

[Kl129]

Hii I just wanted some insight really as I’m a bit worried about how skint we will be (probably unnecessarily!)

On maternity I will only be getting around £600 a month which is under half my normal pay.

My partner has a decent ish pay and wants to pay the all of the rent and house bills (we split this 60/40 at the moment as he earns more) plus my personal bills (my car etc, he doesn’t drive) so that I can live off my maternity. Him paying all the bills would probably leave him around £600-800 a month as his pay fluctuates as he is self employed.

I just feel bad about him paying literally everything!

What did everyone else do? We don’t know anyone else with a baby so this is all very unknown territory for us!

Any help on saving money in the time being would also be great!

user1480880826 The way we’ve always worked is money in our joint account is for family things, his money is his then mine is mine. That way no one gets annoyed if the other one goes out, buys new clothes etc. Works for us even if it doesn’t work for everyone

This is the kind of partner you want. One that sees b it's important for you to have equal money to him even though your income is reduced.
Don't feel guilty, feel happy that you actually found a good one!
X

We handled it by pooling our money.

We have a joint account and have done since before DC1. Makes life so much easier to just have all wages going into one account and bills going out the same account - then just see what you have left over.

We put everything into one pot for all joint spends, food, mortgage, bills etc. We then get to take out the same amount of personal spending money each month, to do with what we want (this includes our own transport costs, food at work if we buy out, clothes, hobbies, socialising, hair cuts etc). Anything left in the joint pot goes in joint savings. Any thing left of our personal spending money we keep for ourselves. My husband spends all his, I don't and have got some personal savings which I will build up and then use on a girly weekend away etc). I currently earn quite a bit more so am effectively putting a lot more into the joint pot but that will change on mat leave. I think the fairest way is to have equal money to spend on yourselves and whoever has earns more pays more of bills etc.