How do you split finances?

[OTA1]

NC and posting on Relationship instead of AIBU so that I hopefully don't get a hard time

I'm just wondering how people split their finances with their DPs?

DP is completely against the idea of pooling money- I've tried for years to get him to do this but he doesn't want to. Fine.

So for those who don't pool money together, how do you go about things? I outearn DP so 50/50 wouldn't be fair. Do you do % of income? I earn 63% of the "house money" so should I pay 63% of the bills?

At the moment, the bills are not split equally and even bills which are his responsibility, I seem to be paying for more and more (e.g food shop. I seem to be paying for this now because I use contactless (covid) and he doesn't)

Prior to marriage we didn’t pool incomes. He warned more than me but only by a few hundred pounds a month.

After marriage we pooled finances because we were going to have a baby and we knew that costs would incur during pregnancy and then we’d have maternity pay to contend with too so we wanted to make things as far as possible.

We have two children now and my husband’s monthly take home pay is double what mine is but it’s all pooled together in our joint account.

We then send £400 to my personal account and £400 to his personal account so we have equal spends.

All outgoings that are related to the house, holidays, bills, children, cars, food etc etc all come out of our joint account.

I outearn DH too and pay the proportion of the bills equivalent to my income, so does he. We use joint account for bills, separate joint savings account and each one of us has a separate account for our personal expenses.

you are at a serious disadvantage or even in deep financial sht should you split and lose 50% of the value of your house*
Exactly - but you're talking about getting him to pay his share of the mortgage with a smiley, as if it was a funny joke. And saying that it's "fine" for him to refuse to pool resources. Are you trying to persuade yourself that it's not as bad as it looks, or what is going on there?

Does he not know that you are in debt because of him?

Halves on everything. Bills, shopping, kids clothes, presents etc. Whatever we're left with is our own.

I think you've been incredibly naive/silly to have split a mortgage with this man when he pays 15% of the bills. You're being taken for a mug and then he'll waltz off into the sunset with half your house

We are married, no DC, I am the higher earner (approx 65/35 split)
We have a joint account for agreed shared expenditure and savings. Pay in pro data to income, however I work ‘part time’, 0.90 of full time hours. I maintain my payment into the joint account as if I am still full time, so the ‘household’ isn’t impacted by my choice to work fewer hours.
PS where I work, 30 hours a week isn’t ‘full time’, it’s 4 days....
Anyway, having read your updates, my adding this seems a bit irrelevant. He’s a cocklodger.

Sorry, I completely missed out the relevant part of my post above which is what we did before we pooled finances.

When we met I was renting and he had a house which I moved in to. He did earn more than me, but not significantly, and I gave him £500 a month. This was put towards the mortgage and bills I imagine.

Regarding food shopping, we just sort of took it in turns, we didn’t really keep track of who paid for what and when.

If we went on holiday together we would split the costs 50:50.

To be honest, if it wasn’t for having children together then I doubt we would ever have pooled finances whilst our incomes were relatively similar.

It sounds like you are in a really shitty situation though and I think those who have suggested splitting costs based on percentages of your income have it spot on.

Good luck talking about it to your partner, these things are always really difficult

How much does he have in savings?

Why are you allowing this?
A joint mortgage that only you pay?? So if you split he gets half of a house he’s not paid a penny to!!
Why is he only working 30hrs?
List all outgoings inc food and split it 60/40 and tell him it’s to be in the bank every month.
I’d be taking him off the mortgage too.
First class cocklodger.

I don't think I necessarily want those last 7 years "back" where he hasn't paid the mortgage. I was happy with the financial arrangements we had at the time. However as time has gone on, my wages have decreased but the amount I am paying has increased.

We have decided to try again with our relationship so splitting is not on the cards now, but it will be if he slips back into his lazy, slovenly ways.

@OliviaBenson I don't know how much he has saved. It's in his personal accounts. Doesn't find it's way to our joint savings. yet he nags at me for not putting anything in there

Dh and i transfer half of the money for bills into our joint account each month out of our personal accounts. We each buy food. Our remaining money is for anythong else from haircuts to clothes. Personal stuff. We go halves on trips out, everything for our ds etc. I think it's a very traditional, quite old fashioned thing to pool all your money but do what suits. I do find it a bit strange when people have different pots or accounts for outings, haircuts etc or give each other pocket money. Above and beyond bills and necessities, I wouldn't dream of dictating how dh spends his money nor he me.

@SBTLove 30hrs out of choice. He has plenty of scope at his work to move up the ladder or do overtime but he won't. He says he hates his job so won't do the company any favours. He also won't make any moves to find another job.

OP - please bear in mind that you don't actually "outearn" him either. Far from it!

If you contribute 63% of your total household income working 40 hpw against his 30 hpw, your earning potential is pretty much the same, you just spend 30% longer working to bring it in.

I’d not be giving this another try, he a lazy user. Safeguard your home asap, why is he in the mortgage when he pays nothing??
Meanness is the most unattractive trait.
He’s building his savings, you’re struggling and he’ll walk away with half the house you pay for.

He really likes to have it all his own way doesn't he! You have offered perfectly fair and reasonable ways of splitting your finances, but of course he doesn't like them because they would mean he'd have to stop taking advantage of you, and pay his fair share. I'd give up on this relationship.

I'm 30s and really want to start thinking about having kids but I just know for a fact I would be paying for everything for them. That's why I need to know now whether he's going to step up financially or not.

@Dragonsanddinosaurs I haven't had this talk with him yet. I was just working out what was fair before I had the talk.

whoa this is crazy!
Like PP I think the mortgage thing is terrible and puts you in a very risky position! please tell me that he contributed equally to the deopsit at least????

To answer the actual question, DH and I opened a joint account when we moved in together - I paid him a fixed amount for "Rent" as it was his house, and we both contributed equally to the joint account for food / household bills. Basically we put a couple of hundred pounds in every time it got low.
Then just before we got married we bought a house together - I was a little uneasy about buying before actually being married, but it was only 3 months before and the wedding was booked etc! Then the joint account became the main one, we both got our salaries paid in there and get the same amount of "pocket money" into our personal accounts by standing order each month. We also pooled what was left of our savings (after a wedding and a house) at that point.

[quote OTA1]@RhymesWithOrange yes we both have a 50% share in the house. I have actually already sought legal advice because we were on the brink of separating a few months ago. Because all the household bills come out a joint account, there's no way of actually telling which bills we're paying towards iyswim. e.g. our c/tax is £200 so he's putting £200 into the joint account, but he can just as easily argue that this £200 is for the mortgage because that also comes out the same account.

We were on the brink of separating because as well as paying for everything, I was also doing everything around the house. He has massively stepped up with the housework so fair split of bills is the next thing which needs to change.[/quote]
Get rid of him. He's using you to feather his nest and only pulling his weight in the house to keep his gravy train.

Joint accounts here, current and savings, neither of Us have any separate accounts.
We combined everything when our first DC was born 5 years ago, no issues since then and DH earns £30 more than I do.

Better than that, @ SBTLove - he'll walk away with half the value of the house AND £8400/year in personal savings he's been able to squirrel away on OP's back.

Some PP have also mentioned that you are not out-earning him either, just working more.

Assuming a 7.5 hour day, he works 4 days out of 5, so his current take-home is actually 80% of his potential salary. Whatever the actual figures, he makes a peppercorn contribution of £200 to the house/mortgage/bills/insurance/food and has £700 to put in savings, plus whatever he spends in cash per month (or now lets OP buy for him).

OP, on the other hand, is working 8 hour days for 5 days a week and spending 100% of her 100% salary on the house/mortgage/bills/insurance/food and is going overdrawn and into her savings to do so.

OP was happy with the original financial split (although God knows why while paying for him to own a property) but it has just been left to coast along while OP’s wage has decreased and DP has dropped to 80% earnings.

OP, what do you honestly believe his reaction will be to you suggesting a fairer split? How long can you afford to keep subbing him? And where is your safety net if the relationship ends and he skips off with 50% of the value of your house and an absolute minimum of £8400+ in cash savings while you are overdrawn and cash poor?

I really don’t mean to sound harsh but he does not sound like he has your best interests, or even your interests as a couple, at heart.

@Poppyismyfavourite Deposit came from me 33% deposit.

I think he'll take bad with the reduction of "fun money". Do you mean that currently he won't share finances and is benefitting from that by not paying his fair share of the bills let alone the mortgage? I assume that he will expect 50% of any profit the house has made too!

You might need to do a LOT more re-thinking before having kids with a man who won't do anything to ease financial pressures on his life partner - and even goes out of his way to make them worse!

You may need to cut and run... sooner rather than later ... if he really is that financially selfish!

Reading all your messages has definitely turned a light on in my head. I can't believe I've let this go on for so long. I've remortgaged our house to pay for our new bathroom so he's effectively had that for free then, hasn't he...?