Couples that live and have children together- QUESTIONS

[Isabella26xx]

It's a predicament I'm in and wondering if everyone who lives together as a couple (unmarried preferably) with children can answer:

*Who pays for what? As in financial responsibility etc,
So bills , good shopping, toiletries etc, kids clothes and food?

And if you have separate cars who pays for insurance, MOT, road tax etc - do you pay for your respective own?
*
I am just baffled cos everyone I'm talking to seem shocked when I tell them I pay for everything I own MYSELF. Long story short, me n partner lived together , at the time I paid for food and childcare bills and he paid the rest (all household bills), but I had my own car so always paid myself for it's MOT and West & tear etc
Fast forward 6 years later we split up. I had to move out as his parents bought the house so he would pay them a kind of rent/mortgage fee monthly
Anyway, I had to obviously get my own house on mortgage
Fast forward to two years later we get back together!!!! Now back to living in original house, I'm still paying my mortgage for MY own house but only paying for food, he pays all house bills as I'm still paying for mine and renting it room only basis atm
But people seem shocked by this arrangement? They say he should be paying for everything. ??

Also he's on 30k and I'm on 15k

Please can everyone advise me if this is ok or normal ? ?!?!

If it works for you then it’s fine. I think before you owned your own property it was very uneven as when you split you were without a home of your own while he was sitting pretty in his parents house. Now you have your own safety net that he has no claim on (same as he does with his house) it’s slightly more even (although I hope he’s paying for half of all child related costs as that is also half his responsibility).

All the money we earn goes into the bank account & everything gets paid for - there’s no ‘my’ money or ‘his’ money, the house is ours, the car is ours, the kids and the money the cost are ours. I organise a lot of it because I’m better at admin, he earns most of it because I’m part time & earn a pittance. But essentially it is family money - no distinction & has been since we had our first child 15 years ago.

Each to their own though - I’d find it odd to say ‘I pay for this and you pay for that, but that’s not my ‘normal’, as long as it works for you with no resentment or issues it’s nothing to worry about?

@DaisysStew
Ahh thanks for reply Daisy
He does pay for a lot of child related things - we have two children.
But just wondering if the person with the bigger wage should pay more anyhow? As in ratio wise.

I think every couple Iv met so far say they have a joint account and the man because he has the bigger wage pays more info it and works of ratio

We've NEVER actually had a joint account anyway so I think that's why we're a bit odd. Always kept his money to himself and same with me in my account. I'm just worried because I want us to become more serious and committed now we're back together and wondering if I should approach him regarding financial responsibilities.

Whatever the arrangement, you need to sit down and work out how much you each take home, spend on essentials/fun stuff and save etc. Only then can you work out if the split is fair.

My DP and I are considering becoming more financially entangled as he is looking at a massive pay rise, putting him on 10 times my salary. At the moment I try to do things fairly evenly as I don’t want to feel beholden to him, but there’s no way we can sustain a balanced and equal relationsship with such a disparity in income.

It’s harder for us, as we don’t live together all week (complicated family situation) but it’s important to me that I feel we are a team and if I’m supporting him emotionally and practically while he’s here, then he needs to step up with supporting me financially/practically too.

I know it doesn’t seem very romantic but that’s the trouble, we get so caught up in the ideal, that we end up sleepwalking into a situation where we haven’t talked about the nitty gritty and feel resentful at the imbalance.

I just wrote out a long reply and then accidentally clicked on one of the links at the bottom and it took me away! MN please open those links in new tabs!

Ultimately - DP earns 65k and I earn about 15k, so he pays for most stuff. We have an Amex account which we both have a card for and he pays the bill for that. I pay utility bills and he pays rent. Food wise whoever goes to the shop pays.

Car wise I bought my own, pay for fuel, road tax and MOT but DP paid insurance on both our cars, but both insurances are under my name as he bought himself a car with a big engine and hadn’t been driving long enough!

We are expecting a baby in two months so will be opening a joint account for everything to go in and out of. Also we will get married next year to ensure my financial protection, although I do aim to get a better paying job once maternity leave is finished, this job was a bit of a stop gap and then I got pregnant.

I don’t see why he should be paying for everything, it’s great you have your own house and can afford it. If I dp and I split now and I still only earned 15k, I would have to move back to my parents.

We split all household and childcare bills 50:50 from joint account. Any individual debts we pay for ourselves (e.g. I pay for my car and credit card etc myself, not from joint account).

However our salaries are pretty much the same. If one of us earned significantly more than the other we would split bills as a percentage of our earnings.

@chipsandgin

Well exactly! This seems to be the norm how you have yours arrangement.
However, since I met him 15 years ago he was always very money minded . He used to go on about "money grubbers" and women wanting men just for money, this is while we were dating in Uni and I guess because of tht I always pretty guarded and made sure I never 'sponged' of him so kept everything separate, when we had first child I didn't have a job as just finished uni so it was naturally agreed he paid for household although the house was his parents and I'd pay for all food cos I'm the cook lol
Including all clothes, bits n bobs for our dd
But yeah you're right it shouldn't be "your money" "my money" this is what I'm starting to worry about, it's been so long that we're just stuck in this arrangement now

All money we have is family money. We are married though. Also DH feels more entitled to spend money he earns on himself, whereas I've only recently started to do that, I would have placed myself at the bottom of the family money priority list until recently. My DSis is also married and there is financial inequality there, regardless of which of them is the higher earner (higher earner has varied over the years). Oh we don't have a joint account, but that doesn't seem to be an issue.

@elmo1980
Ahh okay Elmo I like this
How much more would you say
Like so earns 800 more than me
And I'm being generous there because I'm including the income I get from renting room only basis in my house - HOWEVER this isn't constant as it gets rented by foreign students (just how I prefer it)
So give and take he earns about a grand more I'd say

@Apileofballyhoo

Ah ok so do you have children together and who pays in terms of childcare costs, food, essentials etc

So is he earning twice as much as you (30k to your 15k)? He should be paying much more for joint bills then but best thing would be to do as pp said, sit down together and write a list of all joint outgoings and look at what each of you can afford to put in once your individual responsibilities are met. Ideally it would be any money left over that gets bunged in a joint account so you start building up savings but if you're both a bit cautious just put in enough to cover bills to start with.

No children but same principle.

We have a spreadsheet (we have 13 years worth of columns now)
All family outgoings are listed and split in half.
Including mortgage, utilities, savings, holidays, joint meals out etc.

Importantly we earn roughly the same.

Money is deposited into the joint account and direct debits go out.
We keep the left over money for ourselves.
Mobile phones and cars are paid for out of own money. Fun and entertainment are also individual expenses. I have a gym membership, DH has a more expensive phone and a new car. We're both insured to drive each other's cars.

We have a joint saving account and one each. But we're considering an offest mortgage and these will have to be combined for this.

You have to do what works for you, but it must appear fair to you both.

One DC. There's no who pays for what, we just pay for everything together. It's all the same whether it comes out of my account or his account because the money in both belongs to us both. We treat both accounts like joint accounts I suppose.

The only money that's ever considered personal money is when someone gives a gift of money or a gift card to one of us for birthday or Christmas.

We have our own accounts and a joint account. Have worked out roughly what all our bills cost each month and then pay into the joint account proportionally depending on our income. We work it so that once we paid in we're left with the same amount in our personal accounts.

Personal accounts are used for individual mobile bills, travel and fun things like going out, shopping etc.

This works for us as when our circumstances change eg mat leave we adjust to continue to make sure we have the same amount of left over cash for ourselves as each other. We don't count down to the penny or anything, but just generally makes it fair

DP earns 85k and I earn 40 at the moment but 65k when I'm full time which I'm planning to go back to soon.

He pays all the mortgage (2k a month) and for the car. He buys all the food and petrol. And he pays for Sky and all holidays. And house insurance.

I pay council tax, gas and electric and pet insurance. I have mortgage costs for a buy to let flat which I pay for (costs me about £200 quid a month more than I make in rent but negative equity so can't sell.) I also buy most of dd's clothes and shoes. Nursery costs covered by childcare vouchers which we both pay into.

I've probably got a pretty good deal thinking about it.

We had a joint account into which we each paid an amount and food, mortgage, household bills etc came out of that. We were left with a few hundred each per month for clothes, hobbies, saving etc. We both earned the same so put in the same but I’d expect it to be split proportionate to income if we didnt.

That’s what worked for us. Do what works for you. Nobody else’s business!

@Piffpaffpoff
Ah thanks for reply.
It's just whenever I broach money at all , it becomes an argument. He's very money minded.
I think your arrangement sounds super, I'd like to have that,
The few hundred you say you have left is that for you both as in recreational? Is it split between you?

@reallyshouldnamechangemore

Wow that seems perfect, and very similar to my situation with me having my own property etc
Do you ever have arguments or disagreements about the arrangements? Like if you feel he should pay more etc

@FrancesHaHa

This would be ideal and that's a brill arrangement,
Do you ever have any arguments or disagreements about it ever

We have a joint account only. We both get paid into that account. Everything is paid for out of that joint money.

We have a car each but costs are shared.

We live together unmarried, 7 months old DS and I dropped to part time when I had him, DP has a company car I pay for mine, he pays all the mortgage and utility bills, we spend £600 on general food shopping/groceries/nappies and stuff for the baby which we split 50/50, we split the childcare costs so he pays 2/3 and I pay 1/3, he pays for holidays but I buy all the babies clothes and take a few hundred pounds spending money for us, I pay for other small bits like window cleaner, lottery etc, we take turns paying when we go out.

We had a joint account and an ISA each.

We are unmarried with a 1 year old and we split everything almost equally, but then we earn almost the exact same, him maybe £2k more PA gross.

I definitely agree that it's easier if we pay our own commitments - we both own our own cars outright and each pay the tax, insurance etc for the car that's in our name. We have an account in my name that we both put money into every month for everything house related eg rent, utilities, council tax (I just happened to be the one that set up all the direct debits, he's rubbish with that sort of thing) and he puts more in, about twice as much as me, but I pay all of our sons nursery fees so it evens out.

In times where eg I've been on maternity and not been earning as much he has picked up the slack without question. We have always been open with our finances and sat down to look at what we'd both have coming in and how we could make our contributions proportionate.

We maintain our own solo accounts and so whatever’s left after the payment into the joint account is ours to use as we see fit, individually. We each buy clothes and other “individual” stuff like specific hobby equipment, nights out with friends etc out of our single accounts.

Unmarried with a 2.5 year old- DP and I have our own accounts where our wages are paid, plus a joint account where all bills etc are paid from. So after pay day we will each put an equal amount (although this sometimes varies if, for example I’ve bought Xmas presents for bit higher families, he’d put extra in) which covers all household bills as well as car/food/childcare costs.

This is what works best for us, but may not work for everyone. I think if you’re happy the carry on like that then it shouldn’t matter what anyone else says