Maternity finance with partner

[Shell1989]

Hi,
New on here! 👋🏼

I’m just wanting a bit of advice really...
I’ve been with my fiancé 15 years now and we have two boys, 8 months and 5 years old.

I am currently on Maternity, coming to an end in September. I’m desperate to go back to work now for some money as I’m skint and living in my overdraft which is nearly maxed out! I hate it as I wasn’t previously and had a comfortable wage.

So basically I get between £600-£700 maternity pay per month and this goes straight away on the rent which is £650. Regardless if I have it or not my partner does not ask, it is just expected I pay it and go further into my overdraft! He knows I’m in it but not to what extent, and he hasn’t asked and I don’t tell him as I know he won’t be happy!

But I don’t know what he expects though! He knows I have no money left over from my maternity after I’ve paid the rent as Ive told him what I get!

We have a joint account that all our bills go out of and what we live off. I have never bought anything for my youngest out of it like clothes and get these personally. He pays for my phone bill which is my only bill. So basically he sorts out all bills and living costs which are high!

I suppose I just want peoples opinions on this set up.... i don’t ever ask for anything for myself. I get it personally, hence the overdraft! Occasionally he treats me.

I don’t want to paint a bad picture as he works hard and has a lot of expense with his business as he is self employed. He has a lot of stress and I don’t want to add to that.

But part of me feels upset I’ve just been expected to cover the full rent when I’m on maternity!

Please can I have your options? Honestly....

Thank you in advance Xx

My partner is also self employed and earns a lot more than I do.

We have 3 children and expecting number 4. I work in a school term time only so my wage is fairly small, but always worked well as it meant I had all school holidays off so we never have childcare costs during holidays.

Obviously when I go on maternity leave my wage will drop but we’ve discussed it and worked out what the shortfall will be and he understands I can do no more than I am, all my wage currently goes in towards rent and bills, he pays too.

He knows it will be his wage that has to make up the difference. He accepts that and is taking on extra jobs to put money aside ready.

When I return to work after maternity leave pretty much my entire wage will be spent on the childcare costs for the baby as he’ll be attending 5 days a week.

But again, we’ve discussed that and feel it’s worth it for me to again end up in a position when this baby is at school we’ll have no childcare costs again. It just means for the next 5 years all bills, rent and the majority of other expenses will be paid by my partner. I will be covering childcare costs.

I think you need to sit down and actually ask him where he thinks you can magic this money from?!

Things for your children should absolutely come out of the joint money. Why does he feel he shouldn’t pay towards those things!

@onanadventure that’s exactly how it should work. I don’t understand why people have certain bills coming from certain incomes. All your costs are shared expenses so why not just combine it all? Our wages go into a joint account so when my wage drops due to being on maternity leave it just means we have less money overall in the pot. No need for it to be made up “from my husbands wages” or for him to “need to save up for my maternity leave”. Makes it sound like it’s 1952 and he still gives you pin money.

@Moominmiss - why is your money covering childcare and your partners bills?

It's his children too?

It's these basic assumptions that childcare is the sole responsibility of women that ends up in these insane scenarios where child care is not valued at all and men contribute financially nothing to it

How long have you been engaged?

Everyone’s situation is different so nobody can really tell you what it should be like. The important thing is you feel skint and you feel like it’s unfair, that means it needs to change.

If you just asked him for £500 or £1000 or what ever without reason, what would he say? You say you have access to a joint account so why don’t you buy things out of that account instead? Or transfer money from it to clear your overdraft.

We don’t have a lot really, DP earns more than double what I do even when full time and I’m not FT atm but I still want to cover my bills myself (and did whilst on mat leave), my logic is.. fun money so money on top of bills may not be the same every month. Especially whilst we were in lockdown. So it seemed pointless me just accruing money for nothing, now that we’re out though I just tell him to transfer me x y or x and he does without question.

@FFSFFSFFS we don’t currently have any childcare costs so our money equally goes towards rent and bills.

When we have a baby in childcare full time our money will still go into the same joint account but for ease of working out what needs paying it was easy to divide it like my wage equals the same as our childcare bill and his wage covers everything else.

My husband has always paid more because he has always earned more. Now I'm a sahm, it's not his wage, it's ours!
I do pretty much all the childcare and he goes to work.

If you keep separate finances and split the bills, The starting point should be
(Your lost wages / 2) = he gives you that much money

You continuing to just pay all the rent is so ridiculous I don’t even know what to say.

There is a thread like this almost daily. Women who have somehow been led to believe that equality means they should be financially abused.

Why should you put your ambition to be a midwife on hold ? Would he do the same ?
Honestly I'd get rid - you'd be better off.

It was very stressful financially! I couldn’t go back to my job due to the cost of child care fees. It simply wasn’t worth it.
But then we had multiple arguments over finance and I ended up getting a part time job. He complained when we got the child care bill so I quit which was upsetting for me as I didn’t want to have messed my manager around. I then worked 2/3 evenings so we didn’t have to pay for childcare but he complained about it... eventually I passed my childminding training and became a qualified childminder.
A very stressful situation... but 2nd time round I know we have more help with childcare from family members now, for part of it at least.

I never knew my father.... Obviously messed me up good and proper!

And his mum and dad, dad worked all life and mum didn’t. He begrudged his mum for it and you can tell he has a strong work ethic because of it and would never want that of me. I feel infact he’s gone the other way with it so far as to push push me to work and get a better job.

Given you're not married, and after 15 years I doubt you ever will be, you are in a very vulnerable position. You really need to get your ducks in a row.

Cheers love.

He sounds like a real delight.

Maybe he's just not happy in general and needs to find an outlet.

If I transferred money to clear my overdraft we’d have no money left in the joint account and I’d have to ask him for more to which he’d stress!

Basically he transfers £100 every time I ask for some money for a bill coming up/food shop.

It doesn’t last long... then I have to ask again.

Aw OP, he really is being completely unreasonable.

What is his response when you point our that the rent is more than the money you are getting?

I can't understand how he thinks this is alright, how does he think his baby as any clothes when he knows that you don't even have enough to cover the rent currently?

I think you really need to sit down with him and discuss this asap because this isn't on. You need to tell him you cannot continue to pay the full rent.

He is totally and utterly unreasonable.

10 years in, 2 kids together and £1k a month childcare atm, no idea who pays what - everything goes into the joint account and we each transfer out around £200 a month to ourselves to do with as we wish.

we aren't high earners - me £25.5k him £26.5k but it works and there's no resentment.

I really feel for you in this situation, you're being treated so unfairly!

Firstly, the charges on even agreed overdrafts these days are really high so it's a very expensive form of borrowing (depending who you bank with some are around 40% annually) so each month I can imagine that it makes it harder and harder to get out of your overdraft and is an unnecessary added cost which you shouldn't be having to pay.

A friend once told me her colleague had to ring her husband to transfer her some money to buy their child a jumper as they kept finances pretty separate so she was living off her part-time wage (she worked part-time to allow for childcare) and had run out of money. They split bills so every month he would be living off more than she was!

Ever since then I've always thought that when you have children your finances should be joint as you're sacrificing your career / earning potential to bring up your children and you shouldn't have to be asking your partner for money to buy things for your child or living off less money than they do because you earn less when you should be equals in the relationship.

I'm about to go on mat leave in a couple of weeks now and I sat down with my husband and worked out the shortfall if I took a year off and then we divided this equally for us to save for when baby is here (we earn roughly the same give or take so made sense for us to split this way, and this figure includes all of my 'personal' expenses like getting my hair done, beauty products, socialising, clothes etc. plus a buffer as I don't want to be asking for money or dipping into savings).

I know not everyone is in this position and I'm very fortunate, but the idea is the same of sharing expenses / income so there's a balance and one person isn't having to ask the other for money.

I find it so crazy when I hear of women saving up themselves to cover mat leave with no help from their partners, when your child is a joint responsibility. If my husband earned a lot more than I did I would hope he would be contributing proportionally.

What will happen when your SMP runs out? Will you be expected to go back to work then so you can still cover the rent?

As a first step, perhaps you could ask him to help settle your overdraft (even if this takes a few months) and then look at how much you can realistically contribute / will need to live and organise for you to be able to spend money on necessary things for your family without having to ask for him to drip feed you money!

It strikes me that from a financial standing you are living as two lodgers rather than partners and more importantly rather than a family.

How evenly is the rest of your life divided? Are you the one responsible for birthdays and Christmases, dental appointments, household admin??

From a money perspective we both have a personal account which we get paid into and each month we have a standing order to put enough money into the joint account to cover all household expenses, meals out (pre baby and covid), commuting costs, any day to day spending. A few years ago when I had a year of very low pay whilst I did my last year of studying and he had already qualified I paid in 25% of our month costs and my partner did the other 75%. Once we were both in equal employment we went back to 50:50 and started building up a small amount of savings in the joint account to allow for holidays and cover replacing any appliances etc. Since I have been on maternity my partner has paid about 10% extra a month and my contributions have reflected how much pay I got that month (e.g. when my take home pay was half my usual amount I paid half of what I would usually pay into the joint account). We have used the savings we have accumulated in the joint account as a back up for extra purchases. All baby stuff and classes come out of the joint account and once I am back to work nursery costs will come out of the joint account too.

You need to sit down with your partner and figure how to make this partnership work for all of you!

Oh my gosh OP, I can’t imagine being in this situation at all. I echo what everyone has said, it needs to be a joint pot and you need to sit down with him and tell him your OD amounts and agree a plan to pay it back as well as having a fair split.

My DH earns more than me, but we both good salaries, he’s always paid more into the joint than I have until I got pregnant and we’ve switched to make it more fair. Luckily I have an excellent maternity package at work so I don’t lose much from my salary as I’ll be getting 4 months full pay and 3 half pay, but we’re instead swapping to have both salary’s paid into the joint account and we’ll each be taking the same amount back out of £500 each for ‘fun spends’ on whatever we want but it’s fair that we have the same. So right now the joint pot is building to cover me being off work and extra baby costs, plus my half pay reduction.

I didn’t even have to ask, this was discussed and agreed the fairest way once we have kids - no one arguing over who pays for what, all the bills covered, the kids, pets and then us for our own hobbies/spending.

It has to be split equally - you can’t have the babies, do the childcare and continue to be expected to contribute fairly to the funds without his support.

If clearing your overdraft would empty the joint account then as a couple you are living beyond your means.

You need to sit down and make a joint budget.
It needs to include an aggressive plan to clear your overdraft.
You just refuse to use the overdraft again when he still has money. I don’t care if there are no nappies and the cupboards are bare. You have to stand firm.

But really, I think you should get this debt cleared and then leave this abusive excuse for a man. He expects you to work your life around the kids, compromise you earning potential, and somehow still pay all the rent, childcare, children’s needs and It goes without dating yours as well. Decent men don’t do that.

*Basically he transfers £100 every time I ask for some money for a bill coming up/food shop.

It doesn’t last long... then I have to ask again.*

Of Course it doesn’t last long you’re not getting money to as you please with he’s essentially paying a bill and you’re the conduit.

It sounds like you have some spare, not living hand to mouth, you need money in the purse for things too like stopping in the shop/coffee/meeting friends/hair/nails what ever

I’d definitely have a sit down chat with him and figure out how you’re going to move forward as a team.

@onanadventure This the ideal situation to me but seems a lot don't agree. I think it comes down to communication, compatibility and the general strength of the relationship.

My husband and I have one account that both of our wages go in to and that's our money. We both have good incomes but he earns about 35k more than I do. There's no bitterness that he earns more because we're doing life together as a team. There's been times in the past when I earned more.

I am always wary of only having the one joint account especially in situations where domestic abuse is possible and it can open you up to financial abuse if every purchase you make can be scrutinised by the other party. I have had a family member struggle to escape an abusive partner because all of their finances were intertwined.

This is why I think a combination of joint and personal accounts work well whether you go with all money into the joint account and split any surplus or by working out all living costs and creating a standing order for money to be transferred into the joint account.

I completely agree that everything you spend on a day to day, week to week, month to month should be from the joint account but I think also having a personal account provides both parties with a degree of independence and the ability to have a backup plan if the relationship goes sour.

We have a spreadsheet of all of our accounts and it very much is "our money" but backs against the wall and I need to escape I have ready access to cash and can walk away. It's quite a pessimistic way of looking at the world but seeing how much of my relatives life was taken over by the abusive husband it has made me value my independence and free will within a relationship knowing I have access to my own cash is an important part of this. - if I could remember the pin to my personal account as I use it so rarely I can never remember!!