DH not happy with equal split of money...

[StampHappy]

I know, another one of these chestnuts... (namechanger btw)

DH and I have just got married and we have a 2.5 year old DD. Up until now our finances have (probably quite unwisely) been separate. When I was on mat leave and working part time I had far less money than DH, so I would pay for a few bits e.g. groceries, and DH would sub me money. Then when I increased my hours I paid for the nursery fees. We never actually worked out what was fair ratio wise and just carried on like this, but I was permanently skint and DH would give me extra money if I needed it. Then when we got engaged a year ago I went full time and we both saved up the same amount per month towards the wedding.

DH's job became unstable during this time and it has now changed twice which has affected our finances, some costs spiralled close to the wedding date which we weren't expecting, and the upshot is that we have some debt to pay off now. I feel uncomfortable about this and want to pay it off asap, but I'm forever being made to feel guilty by DH like the reason I have debt is because of overspending. Whilst there have been unforseen costs that have come up, I don't think I have been irresponsible, though with the hindsight of the final cost of the wedding I would have reigned it in.

That's by the by now though, we are married and we both have debt (roughly the same amount) that we want to get rid of in order to start saving and move house. I have suggested to DH that we sit down work out finances as he was under the impression that he pays far more on bills etc than I do. He earns £15k more than me. Turns out, I pay £1400 on bills (nursery fees and groceries) he pays £1600 on the rest (mortgage, council tax, car etc). His disposable income is therefore more than double mine.

I suggested that we take both our disposable incomes and split it so we have the same, and can therefore pay the same off our debts so we can clear the whole lot in a few months. This would leave us with roughly £500 each to pay for our work travel, mobile phones and other personal bills (this comes to £230 for me). He is not happy at all and says this is a shit amount. This is far more than I have had to myself each month for a whole year (plus I'm the one who buys birthday cards and presents etc). If we leave it as it is, I literally end up with £0 after bills and debt payments. DH ends up with £1000! He's just telling me he'll have a think about it, but I can't see what other solution is fair? We both work the same hours and have equal responsiblity as a parent. I think £500 each is plenty and we are lucky to have it.

I'm so upset and hate having this conversation. Before DH and I got together I was not at all sensible with money and had a huge debt, which thankfully I cleared. But I always sense he doesn't trust me with money, which in turn I suppose makes me more wary of telling him when I have run out. All I want now as a family is to pay off the money and be sensible about this and above all for it to be fair. I'm not sure it does either of us any good if we can't pay it off but I think he feels like this debt is mine and he's being penalised because of it. The only reason I have this debt is because of the expense of the last year and the fact I have had such little money of my own.

What can I suggest that is fair? And yes, I know getting into debt was stupid but it was unexpected and we'll definitely not get ourselves in this position again

Thanks if you have managed to get the end of this essay...

Agreed, your DH is being an ass. But let's not tell him that.....

I like fastweb's proportional idea as it does keep some of your finances "separate".

However, my DH and I had separate spending money in the beginning as we both like the idea of having some financial independence but we eventually abandoned it in the end because when you are married and have kids it's just not practical and it was messing up his spreadsheets. I should say that I am now a SAHM but even when I was working DH was earning 5x what I earned. Now the system we have in place is that all of our bills come out of a single pot, to which I might make an occasional contribution, and we have agreed personal expenses, like haircuts and birthday cards, which come out of the shared account as well. Beyond that, I clear any expenditure over £50 with him and I lock myself in the bathroom before rolling my eyes at the latest piece of electronic equipment he says we HAVE to have.

What do you think is the stumbling block here? Does he want his own money or does he honestly think he deserves more that you?

When he says that the wedding related debt is due to overspending does he mean your overspending? It's hard to talk about the big bills if you don't talk about the little ones. Is this something you (the two of you) think you could improve?

I wouldn't be very pleased to be splitting the bills on what looks like gender stereotype lines: "Turns out, I pay £1400 on bills (nursery fees and groceries) he pays £1600 on the rest (mortgage, council tax, car etc)."

What does he want with all that disposable income? Why would anyone think it was okay to have more to spend on fun stuff than their partner when they are in a partnership with children!

When I lived with XP we had regular 'meetings' about our money. If there are trust issues, being open and sitting talking through finances, keeping track of debt repayment (for example) regularly could help (but not 'What did you buy that for?' conversations). Money issues are best dealt with jointly because it's a mind-numbing pain in the arse that can cause worry.

@ StampHappy

While it's a pity you didn't sort all this out before getting married, your approach seems eminently fair to me.

When I was single and in LTRs, your approach was exactly how we split up costs. Eg after paying essentials, one partner has £600/m left over and the other has £400. Therefore if we went out for a meal the former pays 60% of the bill. Ditto holidays.

Regardless of who was the higher earner at the time. Otherwise it was simply not fair. One of us might earn a lot more, yet the lesser earner was somehow expected to maintain the same lifestyle, how??

He has probably just not got used to this finacial adjustment novelty yet, but I think he needs to, because once you get into multiple kids, bigger cars, child seats, house changes etc then the "disposable" bit shrinks rapidly, perhaps to nil for a while. If he hasn't accepted the principle by then, it's not going to get any easier.

Some of the responses above may encourage you to get self righteous and shouty over this. I don't recommend this personally - you need to make him not feel like he's losing or somehow knuckling under by coming round to your view. The way to sell it I reckon is to say Look, all I'm saying is we should split stuff equally, but equally doesn't have to mean 50:50, it can mean equally according to what we can both actually afford.

Good luck.

@ Alibaba - not now no, but historically certainly, as I was coughing £12k a year childcare for 5 yrs.

@ Alibaba, just to clarify, I don't actually earn more than my DH, I'm just better at managing money and holding down jobs :)

From the beginning of our marriage, DH and I always put all of our earnings into a joint account for all shared expenses and then paid ourselves "pocket money" into our own accounts. The pocket money varied according to how well we were doing.

So when I was a SAHM for 7 years, he was the only earner and he was happy with this arrangement. And when he became disabled and I had to take over as the main earner, we still carried on.

OP, does your DH assume that he will always be the main earner? Strange things can happen in life and he could find himself in the same position as my DH - unable to work at all! Where would he be then with his attitude to marriage as a partnership?

I know Martin Lewis, the Money Saving Expert, does not advocate "joint accounts," particularly where the two partners may have different attitudes to money. It can also be more complicated to monitor and manage when two people are writing cheques, etc.

It sounds like the only thing for it is to sit down with your DH and come up with a solution that works for both of you. It's not good enough for him to put it off or to bleat on about not wanting to have less money to spend. If it's an unresolved issue for either of you, it's an unresolved issue for the marriage.

Set a time when neither will be interrupted, which won't clash with anything so there won't be excuses for cancelling. Ask him to detail the money he contributes to "central costs" and you do the same. Then deduct what each person spends on joint things from what they take home. If you can get that far, deduct other costs you have individually which might not be the same - for example if he commutes further for work, his travelling costs will be higher than yours. If he owns a car outright but you are paying finance, your costs will be more than his. Just get as close as you can to show how much money is left in both of your purses after "essentials" are taken care of.

I don't think the amount of "free money" has to be absolutely equal with one giving money to the other to make it absolutely even, unless that's what both people want to do. But, imho, it's best to have both people contributing proportionately to joint costs and essential costs so neither is extremely disadvantage when it comes to money they have left to spend on other bits and pieces.

Now, if when seeing the figures in front of him, showing that at months end, his pockets are full enough to have plenty of goodies and treats and yours are empty, then hopefully he'll see that something needs to be done - ideally that he pays a higher proportion of the "central" costs so that you have more left over from your earnings and he has less.

If he still insists it's unfair, or even refuses to engage with such an exercise, you might need skilled outside support with this - either a financial advisor or even some form of couple counselling. The financial issues are the obvious problem, but the fact that one partner isn't willing to shift, isn't willing to listen to the other's concerns, well that could all mean there are other things within the relationship that need to be sorted out.

Best of luck.

To be honest I would probably put up for now.

In a couple of years your DD will be in school and you will have have no more childcare fees. As he can keep his money you can obviously keep your money then......

Alternatively he can be a part of a proper equal relationship, share equally now and reap the rewards as well when your DD goes to school.

I am afraid I don't get this having £1k a month between you to spend when you have debts. They would be my first priority get them them on to a low interest loan/credit card and pay of the highest one first and get them sorted.

xales see your point - the £500 each we then have to use to pay travel costs, individual bills (phones etc) personal items (makeup for me, new clothes etc)

The situation I don't want to be in is where we don't have enough to cover the bits that come up each month.

We are paying £700 between us off our debts which will clear them in a few months. Our main priority is to get this under control.

He is away this weekend which is confounding my frustration I guess, as he brought it up this mornign and we have no chance for a few days to discuss it properly.

At the risk of sounding thick (my strong points are in other areas!) can someone give me the equation to work out the percentage of what we both earn (i.e. 60:40) in case we do it that way. Just want to see how that works out...

Oh god equation...errmmmm

OK

erm.

Write down his income and your income, add together for total income, guestimate what % comes from one of the incomes, check by finding that % of total income, refine guestimate and keep on checking till you get the right percent.

Something like that ?

Eg

you, 1300
him 2400
total 3700

I know that 10% of the grand total is 370, so

10% 370
20% 740
30% 1110

Oh so yours is around 30% of the grand total

let's find 1%

1% 37
5% 185
8% 296

and I need the % for the remaining 290 so lets say yours is 38% of the total income and his is 62%.

Like that.

I should have tried 40% before I jumped on 30% cos it would have been eaiser to work backwards, am dipstick.

Are the travel costs for work? If so shouldn't they be included in all the general bills? So you both have a smaller proportion of left over?

Glad you are getting there with the debt. Sorry if I missed that in your previous posts I just got the impression it was just sitting around being ignored by your H as your debt.

If it was for the wedding then wasn't it your joint wedding or did he not participate therefore he is equally responsible for it. Mind you as you are married it is a joint debt anyway.

Sounds like he just needs reminding that not all contributions to a marriage/relationship such as your maternity leave and that you are a partnership and should be respectful and equal but that he is not doing so at present.

Sorry that should have been

He needs reminding that not all contributions are monetary!

Equation.

Say you earn 20k and he earns 50k.

20+50=70

20/70=0.29 (so you earn 29%of the total income)

50/70=0.71 (so he earns 71% of the total income).

Then if you add all your bills together and they come to £2000 a month, you do:

2000 x 0.71 = 1420 (his share)

2000 x 0.29 = 580 (your share)

CleanSheetsAndSmoothLegs

You are showing me UP !!

Nah, just putting off doing the hoovering, so was willing to sit and work it out!

The way to explain this to your DH is like this:

When you were on maternity leave, you didn't expect DH to come home and do his half of the household, childcare etc. You didn't just cook for yourself or just wash your own plate afterwards. Nor did you always wait for him to ask 'can you please wash my shirts' or 'can you please feed my child for me'.

Similarly, you would expect him to share the fruits of his working hours with you (e.g. the money) and not make you ask for that every time. It's humiliating, just like it would humiliating to make him beg for his dinner every evening.

You may earn different wages, but you both work just as hard, both inside and outside the house. That's why the money should be split evenly.

And just to round things off - the next step would be to see what money that left each of you with, so if you don't know your monthly take home pay then put annual salaries into an online calculator. Using the figures I gave above, your monthly take home pay would be £1330 and his would be £3934.

1330 - 580 = 750 (left over per month for you)

3934 - 1420 = 2514 (left over per month for him)

He

there seem to be lots of complicated ways to work this out and one of those might suit your dh more. However it seems you arent' currently saving anything. 500 or 1000 is an enormous amount for a parent to have as disposable income in my view. Surely some of that could be saved for a rainy day?

My dh was made redundant and I funded him for a year - about 8 years ago - since then I have worked both part and full time and am now a sahm. There are ups and downs in life and during marriage/family life. Your dh needs to recognise that the situation may change unexpectedly and he may need you to support him at some point.
I hope you find a good way of putting this across.

Manitz, the problem is that there is debt, so that should be paid off as a priority, before starting any sort of savings program.

Totally agree that once debt free, savings are the wu to go, though!

God that would infuriate me. You need a serious 'chat' I would think after all bills etc you should both have the same £ left