Splitting 50:50 when he is high earner

[Bluebellsagain]

Will try and keep this short! Dp and I are engaged, set to marry next summer. We have been working on combining our finances which neither of us have ever done with a partner before. Last night we sat down and worked out our after tax incomes and the savings we are working towards eg. The balance of our wedding, a house deposit, holiday fund.

He is a pretty high earner and earns a third more than me (before tax and his voluntary pension contributions). After these he still earns net nearly £700 more than me per month. However, we split all household bills, rent 50/50 (always have.) In working out what we can afford to save in our different joint savings pots, we are supposed to both be saving the same amounts per month. It works out to c£600 per month savings each.
Now I won’t complain, I earn a good wage and I get a bonus which he does not. However his work provide free food, travel. Seeing it in black and white, in his account he will have £600 more than me disposable income per month. I don’t have a particularly small amount left at the end after savings/bills, I know I’m lucky, but the joint expenses and savings hurt my account more than his to the tune of £600. When I think about It this means that I can’t make the same level of voluntary pension contributions as he does. He said he is “only” £600 better off than me a month. That’s still quite a bit in my eyes?! My dad is also paying for about half our wedding and his family will not be contributing. I know this may not be relevant but I do all housework as I get home from work earlier (start earlier - we do the same hours.) I also pick up basically all costs for my dd except the odd gift he buys her(e.g. cost of ballet lessons, swimming, wraparound childcare etc.)
On reflection I’m wondering if this is the right set up. I don’t know if we should be splitting 50:50 like this. It is his choice to make those pension contributions for example - his employer already pays in a fair bit, as does mine. But we have worked out our “joint expenses” after his high voluntary pension contributions, and now I’m feeling like this is a bit unbalanced. We are supposed to be getting married after all.

Any views on merging of the finances, anyone?

We have a joint account where my DH's salary is paid into. We both have access to it, it covers all household expenses, mortgage, petrol. My salary is paid into another account and covers school fees. I also have a small side income which is spent on kids, entertainment, trips, whatever. All money is considered family money even though they come from different accounts.

I could never have a 50:50 arrangement with my OH, it just feels calculated and petty to count who owes what. I am much more comfortable with "your income pays for this, my income pays for that". I earn slightly more. We had the same system when i earned much less.

Try billing him for 50% of the hours you spend on housework at local rates (including laundry, cooking, cleaning, shopping [at PA rates] accounts and life admin [again at PA rates]) then see how much equal your incomes are. He doesnt get to have more money AND more time in the bank than you have, one has to give. And if he doesnt want to pay you then he either does his half himself or he outsources, at his own expense.

The higher earners through most of our relationship has been me, and I did pay more money towards outgoings than him then. Now I work part time and earn less for the first time, he pays in more. It's common sense, surely!

YANBU. Before DH and I got married we both earned similar. In those days it was the mum who usually gave up Work to look after children and I did that in the early years. That inevitably took a toll on my career and as DH worked irregular hours and travelled lots I picked up all house responsibilities and childcare. Our finance have always been joint as we are a partnership. We both get the same disposable income and all our savings have been joint.

In your case I would say if your DF is so mean as to make you pay the same towards household costs even though he earns 30% more than you and is able to put more into his pension I would be seriously rethinking this or at least protecting yourself. What happens if you have DC together? Is he expecting you to manage to still pay 50% bills on ML? Tell him he needs to pay 50% of wedding and keep your dads contribution in your own savings. Make sure your pension is well funded and if he doesn't help with childcare/housework he has to pay for a cleaner to do his half. If finances are split 50/50 it is only fair household responsibilities are too. Seems an odd way to go into marriage though.

He doesn't get to have it both ways. In that you do all the housework contributing to the household on an unequal basis time wise but then he gets to keep is extra in terms of money. I know you have received varying advice but in my opinion if you're a partnership you out it all in together. Like you're doing with your time and doing housework. I would struggle with this arrangement because it immediately starts to make you examine who contributes what both financially and in terms of domestic, emotional and administrative labour.
You're fortunate this extra is not a lot to you and you earn well but this could change. So it's worth thinking about how you feel about the underlying inequality rather than the sums involved.

He doesn't get to have it both ways

This is why MN and the advice that is exchanged here gives me hope for a future which becomes more equal. At the moment, he is having it both ways, your financial contribution is exactly equal, at the expense of your pension and you are doing all the housework. I hope you get to see how unfair this is, and how it bodes no good for your future lives together, especially if you go to have children, will he still expect you to contribute 50% of the financials while making leaving you to do all the night wakings?

He might just not have thought this through, he might not have noticed that you are contributing more than him. There are plenty if stories on here where the first post was 'oh, i know im so bad with money, DH keeps telling me so' which go on to realise that he is insisting on her contributing 50% of the finances even when on maternity leave and doing all the childcare.

I speak as the higher earner for most of my marriage.

Is your DH to be happy that you might struggle financially and have to do without while he can afford to go swanning off on expensive weekends? Does he understand that once you are married, in law everything is jointly owned?

If I ruled the world I would make it so every married couple had a one-pot financial setup. Might just focus a bit of thinking.

"I feel like I do carry a lot of the emotional labour which is maybe what’s really on my mind. I would say we are fairly equal as partners but then I do all of our admin, household management, planning holidays/groceries etc".

So you are not equal then and he also sees your DD here as your main responsibility financially too. If you did go onto have children by this man, those children could be treated very differently. He also used a cleaner previously, my guess is that person will become his "share" of the ongoing cleaning. I also think you are being played here and there is potential here for him to further abuse his power by further financially abusing you.

Do not further walk into this blindly blundering about; this is the sort of man who does not want to share. He could well lead you further into a situation whereby he has all the power and control in this whereby you have none. He has more than enough power and control here financially, do not bend over and give him yet more all too willingly.

You mention having children by him going forward. How does he feel about marriage and before they come into being?.

In the first couple of years of living with my husband, we used to work out how to split bills etc evenly based on what we earned. I earn almost double what he does, and as the high earner I was happy to pay my share. He moved in with me anyway so rent and bills were all in my name, and he gave me money each month to contribute his share. When we started saving for a wedding and house, we talked over a lot of options (putting an equal portion of our wages in savings, living off my wage and putting all of his in savings, him sending me all his money every month to manage) and came to the conclusion that it was just so much easier to scrap individual bank accounts and both be paid into one joint account. There’s no dividing based on earnings now and we’re both happy considering that one pot to be our collective earnings.

I know this isn’t for everyone and there has to be a lot of trust, but it’s worked for us for 5+ years now. No kids for either of us though so might not be as straightforward as that with one of you having a child from a previous relationship, particularly if there is child support coming in from the father.

We contribute based on proportion of earnings, have a joint account to cover bills, mortgage, household expenses. When we got together my husband earned more and contributed more, now I do and I contribute more. 50-50 doesn't make an ounce of sense if you earn differently and it's a bad precedent in case one of you goes part time or ends up in a poorer paid job later on. We review our contributions every year and change accordingly.

How much is your bonus, and what does it get spent on?

If you are happy to value each other's worth in financial terms and for him to be the superior partner, then you are going about it the right way. If you think your arrangement represents a partnership of equals, you have it wrong. You doing all the housework and admin and him having the majority of the spare cash is a ridiculous arrangement. It may not even be tax efficient for the higher earner to have more savings, if he's money obsessed. It seems to me the only advantage of your current arrangement is you can separate easily, which isn't the most important factor in a relationship intended to be for the long term. The other advantage is solely for your dp, in that there is an unnecessary imbalance of power in your relationship, in his favour. By all means contribute an equal amount towards your goals, but why not then share the savings equitably? Why is it only "equitable" in his favour, whilst he also conveniently completely ignores your family's contribution to your wedding? Tbh, he sounds a bit of a thoughtless prat if he thinks your current arrangement is fair.

And yes, of course his voluntary extra contributions to his pension should count as part of his savings, not his expenses - this is how he is choosing to invest his savings, it is not an expense.

Why is dp getting to factor in voluntary pension contributions along with tax, BEFORE figuring out your joint savings/budget etc? Like pp said these are a voluntary expense. Also you’re gettjng married, presumably the pension pots are to end up another shared part of life in long term future - why the imbalance?

@HurricaneFloss because we already had all direct debits etc set up on our individual accounts and didn't want to change them all, also he didn't want me to see where he was buying presents from lol. We have a joint account but there's only a fiver in it lol. He is not financially controlling at all and has always been insistent it's our money.

Regardless of income, everything should go into one joint account that all bills are paid out of, imo. Then from the joint account you put equal amounts into pension pot and joint and/or personal savings, and equal amounts of "pocket money". I cannot fathom the idea of someone being okay with their partner or spouse having less disposable cash than them It seems so petty, and mean, and not at all like an equal, loving partnership.
As to your DD - if he's marrying you, then your DD becomes just as much his responsibility for the duration of the marriage, as you're all one family together. He gets to like it or lump it. You shouldn't be paying for your DD separately.
I like PPs ideas of adding up how much he'd have to pay you, if he took into account all the time you spend on cleaning, cooking, household admin etc. Don't let all that essential work you do fly under his radar. He might realise your financial worth more if you explicitly point it out to him.
If you two are equal partners, then he needs to be happy with equal finances, (or whatever arrangement you are BOTH happy with, if you're not overly fussed on a joint account.)

No comment on the finances but why on earth are you doing all the wifework? You need to sort that out before you get married and have more children.

I earn a lot more than my husband. Our finances are very simple. We have a joint account - all money goes into it, and that’s where we pay for things from. All our savings are in joint names. Our mortgage is joint. It would never occur to me to split out what we bring in or what either of us spend. If one of us is going to buy something big, we talk about it first to check we can afford it.

We started this arrangement years ago, before we were married but we were engaged, when my husband was briefly not earning. He was uncomfortable with it to start with. But my view was we’re a team, not housemates, we split things. We’re splitting parental leave, we share cooking and cleaning (now... that took a while to embed as he used to be a crap cook), we split up jobs around the house - but depending on who has more time rather than any sense of what’s owed. I wouldn’t do it any other way - I guess if I viewed my earnings as ‘mine’ I would personally financially be better off, but I wouldn’t feel like I was in a partnership and that would be rubbish.

I like the arrangement of two separate accounts plus a joint account for bills and general outgoings, or whatever you decide
between you to spend the money on. It makes it so much easier for me to check that we have enough money to cover the general outgoings and what is left as disposable income just for me.

I earn more than my partner and we go 50 to 50. Although the difference is only 10k. I like having my financial freedom to do things

It’s interesting all the set ups here!

DH and I have been together for 15 years but we still have separate accounts! We have one joint account for bills etc and pay in the same amount.

We both save up but I tend to use mine for our holidays and DH uses his for investments - I like holidays and he likes investing lol! All our assets are in joint names.

He earns more than me (slightly!) and just saves the extra so we both have roughly joint disposable spending.

We don’t argue over money. We used to argue over cleaning so we got a cleaner :)

You’re being a complete mug. He’s super keen to make sure everything is equal when it comes to finances, he’s really making sure that he’s not any worse off. But this sense of fairness doesn’t seem to extend to housework or admin, he’s more than happy for you to be worse off there. How predictable.

Stand up for yourself for god sake woman! Just stop playing maid, do your share and that’s it.

To add, him being paid more is a perk of his job that he doesn’t share with you. You getting home earlier is a perk of your job, and you don’t have to share that with him by doing his share of the housework!

As soon as DH and I were committed to a joint future we joined our finances and shared everything. I earned more than he did apart from the early days but it didn't matter who earned more. What mattered was that we were a team, and that included DSD.

It's his money, why should he pay any extra because you don't earn the same?

^This