Help me deal with a talk about money and not have a blazing row

[mosschops30]

Ok bit of background:

Me and dh have a credit card each (his is 2k mine is £800)
We have another card which we threw all this years hols on and said we would pay £2k each. So far ive paid £1100, dh has paid £25.
We are about to buy my mum a house cash (£130k) but are taking a £10k mortgage on it £5k for housing emergencies for my mums house and £5 to clear the cards. When my mum passes away then the £130k will be for me and dh and we will pay off that £10k.
I am about to work full time for a year, (uni course and practice, fully paid) my choice and dh said he was happy for me to do it as long as i could cover the childcare costs (approx £580pm).
This morning i asked him if he could pay £72 per month for ds2 childcare.
He said 'fine, but im buying a bike -£1300).

Now i am really pissed off about this for the following reasons:
I struggled to pay that £1100 off the holiday card, dh has paid nothing and now it will be cleared. I dont see why he shouldnt have to pay anything, and then buy himself a bike.
He has 2k on his card because he buys what he wants. I have £800 on mine because i am reasonably careful.

Weve just rowed about it on the phone, i dont want to row, i just want him to see that hes not doing me some massive favour.
Right now i feel like not paying his card, half the holiday card off and just paying mine and using the rest of the money for extra childcare but thats a bit childish isnt it?

I absolutely do get the my-money-your-money thing, but only if it is done fairly.

I would only put his name on your mother's house if he had paid for half of it.

Buying a house together with a mortgage is a completely different thing, you put in hours of work to pay for it, not lumps of capital.

Forget the small stuff regarding the credit cards and childcare, you are handing him 65K of your mother's hard earned estate for free and he could walk off tomorrow and still own it.

"I asked him about pooling all the money but he says he cant o that because of work, petrol etc (he pends about £100 pw on petrol alone, i spend about £10)"

That makes no sense.

Doesn't he understand what pooling money means?

I guess not if he thinks he needs the reward of a £1300 bike to compensate him for having to contribute to family expenses and would have allowed you to pay off £2000 run up buying himself treats.

What jifnot suggests struck me too.

If you keep separate finances, why is he getting half your mother's estate?

Surely that comes under your money, no?

We have clear lines drawn with the big investments (house and a lump sum) but when dp was made redundant the payment was shared because we 'earned' it together.

We got a massive loan and are paying it off together - it's in both our names because it's for both of us.

I think the only way forward with this is to get a joint account, pay for everything out of that.

But why do you consider "him paying childcare costs while you did your degree" some sort of massive favour? Childcare is a family expense, surely?
Likewise, his commuting costs (to work, in order to earn money for the family to live) should also be a joint fund. Him wasting spending 1300 quid on a bike is pocket money.

Ok so how do you all do joint finances.

If dh spends more, does that leave me with less?

Its not a massive favour him paying the childcare for me to do a 3 yr degree but it was nice, i couldnt have afforded to do it otherwise. Why should he have to do it all again?

How to do joint expenses:

You have a joint account that you both have access to. You both decide how much money goes in here. This is for all joint expenses. Rent/mortgage, bills, food, household stuff, any child-related expenses.

You then both have your own separate accounts. Leftover money is divided into these equally for your spending money. You only have access to your own. You are not allowed to comment on how the other person spends their spending money. They can spend it all on handbags or on xbox games or whatever they like because it is their spending money.

That is how we do joint finances. I did say upthread somewhere...

You sound like two single people sharing a house
Surely it was a joint decision for you to study
So childcare should be a joint expense
Just like sahm's shouldn't be grateful for their husbands paying the bills

Ok but dh earns double my wage so how would we work it?

Do we put the same amount in the joint account?
It would mean dh had much more, but then he needs more for petrol for work.
Im just not sure hw to work it

No - you put enough in the joint account that you both have the same amount left over.

(am I invisible?)

Paying petrol to go to work counts as a joint expense because it is not "spending money" it is "necessary money".

So i have to contribute to his £500 a month petrol bill?
What counts a necessary then:
Mortgage
House insurance
Car insurance
Petrol
Car tax
Car loans
Council tax
Water
Elec
Gas
Tv licence
Sky
Bt
Subscription
Childcare
School dinners
Kids extra activities
Life insurance
Food

Is that everythng?

So we split all that, then split whatever is left between us?

No, you work it out so that you have the same spending money left over, which you have in your own account and then you can spend it as you wish.

If he wants a bike, great. If you want handbags or to go away for a weekend with a mate, fine. Neither of you is allowed to moan about how the other spends this money.

Say your monthly income is £2k between both of you, and all the essentials you list are £1500. Then you can have £250 each to spend as you like.

Ali has it.

You just don't get this business of family expense, do you? "Your" degree will presumably lead to you taking on a better-paid job in the future. So it's a family benefit. His petrol bill is for travelling to work, to pay for the family, so is a joint expense. He's not spending that £500 on champagne, it's a necessary expense, like the mortgage.
We work out how much all those expenses you list are each month and put enough money into an account for direct debits to deal with. We also siphon off money for kids' clubs and activities, some for holidays, and an agreed amount for pocket money (for which neither of us is answerable to the other for). What's left over goes into a savings account. Dh earns a fair amount more than I do, as he's fulltime and I'm not, but it so happens I get more pocket money than him (because he says he doesn't need much but that's for you two to negotiate).
It's really not hard, as long as you get rid of the idea that you contribute to the household as if you were flatmates.

Tbf it is not rocket science. DH and I had our finances organised like this from about a month after we moved in together, because otherwise it was always going to be a question of him getting to 'treat' me to a meal out, or a holiday or whatever and I told him I didn't want that. He agreed completely and we set up a joint account and off we went.

Clothes, toys, christmas and birthdays, including family and friend birthdays.

Holidays should also be covered, and anything that makes your family life a good family life. Pets, day trips, new washing machine.

Are you the main carer? If so you should be getting tax credit and benefit payments to the account you choose.

Don't forget hairdressers! £100 a time for me and dcs!

You sound financially like flatmates.

Pool funds, how you do it is this

Total incoming
less Total bills (housing, food, petrol, utilities etc)
What ever is left over goes to:

agreed private spending amt (say 200quid /mth each to spend as you wish)
agreed amount into savings - long term
savings - short term for biannual/annual bills/clothes fund/sports funds etc....

And why not turn the thinking re: childcare on its head, as in you've been doing it for the last however long, on top of working shifts presumably. This has "saved" your dh (or rather both of you) a huge amount of money. Why should you be penalised for that by switching jobs and now having to pay for it all yourself? They're his kids too, I take it?

Ha ha me and dh have just sat down and written everything we pay out of our accounts, including childcare, petrol, food, meals out etc.

Dh is left with £123
Im left with £122.77

LMAO so now we're not fighting because we both know we pay out exactly the same, relative to our income and are left with exactly the same amount.

With regards to Xmas, dh gets his tax back every November and we use it to pay for xmas

Doing a Statement of Affairs might help you straighten it out in your mind and it would probably a good idea to sit down with your DH and fill out the template together - that way you will both be clear on how your finances work as a family.

This is a good template to use: www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

You list all income, all outgoings ( Inc. Debt payments) and the calculator will help you work out what is left over to split between you.

Like pp DH and I have joint finances and I use a template very like that above in Excel to manage our finances. DH's salary gets paid to the joint account (I'm a SAHM, but previously my salary was also paid to the joint account) and all expenses are paid from our joint account, and we each have separate accounts into which we get spending money, which is nothing to do with the other. DH gets an additional transfer into his account to cover his travel card.

We have also done the separate finances thing. When we first lived together we had separate finances, but contributed a set amount into our joint account - it just didn't work and lead to issues.

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