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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

How should finances be split (different incomes)?

192 replies

Howtosplit · 02/03/2022 04:54

Hi!
How much do you think each person should contribute towards rent and bills?

Considering person A decided finances would only be shared to cover bills and put the disposable income will be kept in each person's personal savings and not into the joint account.

Total bills including rent, bills, food : 1600 gbp

Person 1 works full-time: 1600 gbp monthly income after tax deduction and pension

Person 2, pregnant so will be a sahm for the foreseeable future: takes home 720 pounds after deductions

Thank you

OP posts:
aloris · 03/03/2022 14:47

I don't think it's that he does not trust you. He quite openly said that he wants to keep all his money for himself and make you beg for an allowance. That is not about trust.

You are not the one who is a failure. He is the failure. He is the one treating you unjustly. It places you in a difficult position but you have not done anything wrong.

Hugs for you.

MrsTerryPratchett · 03/03/2022 15:08

I just came across another post, posted earlier today, about this woman complaining that her boyfriend wasn't earning quite as much as her and how he wanted to keep disposable money and how it was unfair on her because it meant she would have to contribute more and everyone told her to ltb. Now I'm wondering if I'm not in the wrong in this situation.

Is her boyfriend pregnant? Did they agree he would be a SAHP? No? Are they married? Then it's not the same.

Drinkingallthewine · 03/03/2022 15:10

I think the measure of a man is his willingness to share.

It is honestly a LTB situation. And I don't say that lightly at all.

A wife should not have to ask for money. I saw my DM have a lifetime of this and she was literally counting down the days until we were old enough to fend for ourselves so she could get a little job and not have to beg for fucking every little penny. And as children, we did too. It was a blight on my childhood. I never brought home the notes for school trips or extra curricular activities because I knew I just wouldn't get them. I also never told DM because she would get really upset that my whole class was going to France or wherever and fight with dad to try and get me the money to go, fail and there would be a horrible atmosphere in the house for ages. So very early on, I stopped asking. Mum still thinks that the school stopped the school trips. They didn't. I just threw those notes away.

I never got any new clothes. Not once ever. Even for a special occasion, I would have something my older sibling wore or something second hand from a charity shop if I was lucky. I never got a choice in what I wore. I always felt ugly and ridiculed during my childhood.

Yet Dad, while frugal enough always made sure his clothes were of good quality, new when he required replacements, and would buy what he liked rather than shop around or heaven forbid, go without. He was always meticulously dressed.

DM says I'm the easiest pleased. That I was happy with any gift, no matter how small. I'm not, and never have been but I put on an act since my childhood to spare her feelings because she was doing her best in a financially controlling situation. I used to cry in secret because I never got the real Barbie that my friends got, I just got a poundshop version that broke within a few months. I never had a halloween costume that wasn't a bin bag and witches hat because anything else was 'a waste of money'. During my childhood I genuinely thought we were poor so there was a kind of acceptance, but as an adult I can see that it was financial abuse, and that Dad considered us not worth spending money on. Only himself.

It's been hard to shake off that childhood, and even now at late forties, I don't really think I have or ever fully will.

I panic about being broke. Even when I'm not or when I can easily afford it I still worry about not being able to meet the bills somehow. I associate lack of money with misery and feeling unloved.

I always feel I don't deserve nice things or that they are for other people, not for the likes of me. I still avoid the posh shops. I've always worked, from my teens. We are mortgage free, I'm on an excellent salary and yet I'll agonise for ages over buying myself a damn eye-shadow I like. I feel like I have to 'need' it before I'm 'allowed' to have it. I hate shopping trips because all it ends up being is me coming home empty handed and miserable because I've talked myself out of buying something nice or panicking at the till and putting it back.

I'm working on it, but I've a lifetime of this shit to unpick. One thing I've never done though is deny my son the kind of experiences and things I never had. He'll get the school trips and the jumper days and decent shoes and a halloween costume of his choice.

So if you won't leave for yourself, leave for that little about to be born. When you become a mum, you might want to have a coffee with other mums, or go to soft play. Or buy something adorable for your DC to wear. You might want to sign them up for activities that enrich and enhance their life, or just to give them a bit of fun, like the zoo, an amusement park or a cinema trip with their friends. Neither of you will any of that as long as your husband is like the Grim Fucking Reaper ready to have a go at you every time you spend 'his' money. It will destroy you and damage your child.

Give yourself the freedom to enjoy your baby and their early years and all the years after that. Keep that job, leave and make sure that in the divorce, you get all that you are entitled to. If only to hit him where it hurts.

anon2022anon · 03/03/2022 15:16

A list here on financial abuse. How many do you check?

maggiesresourcecentre.org/financialabusep8.php

Tell him if he doesn't talk to you and sort out finances FAIRLY then you will divorce him, take 50% of the marital assets and pursue him for child maintenance.

BeckyWithTheGoodHair010101 · 03/03/2022 15:16

We do it like this.
A - 3000 take home
B - 2600 take home

2800 - Joint bills including food shopping, car payments, childcare, all utilities and mortgage and a small buffer.

A - puts 1500 joint account
B - puts 1300 joint account

Each keep leftover money on whatever we want including personal savings.

Not married though so sensible to keep separate finances.

BeckyWithTheGoodHair010101 · 03/03/2022 15:19

Apologies should have RTFT. Agree with others re financial abuse. Thanks

Seapoint2002 · 03/03/2022 16:26

Put both of your salaries in one joint account. Then whatever is left after bills you decide an amount which you each take back into your personal accounts for 'me money'. It should be the same for both partners.

Ivyonafence · 03/03/2022 19:09

@Drinkingallthewine what an honest and insightful post. I'm so sorry you had to go through that. Thanks

fallfallfall · 03/03/2022 19:41

@Drinkingallthewine wow well said!

WhatyadoingDH · 03/03/2022 19:50

We are not as organised as the spreadsheet thing. We have 3 current accounts. All wages go into one and this is the joint account. Then we each get a generous allowance each month into our own current accounts. But all family spending like food and bills, kids parties, clothes etc etc comes from joint

Bitconfusedhmm · 15/03/2022 16:25

Hope you’re ok @Howtosplit

TwuntyFriend · 16/03/2022 11:32

Hi OP,

I'm not convinced he's being honest with you about his income for a start. You say you moved to an expensive area and he got a substantial pay rise? But he's only taking home £1600 after tax. What does he do for a job? That's not a high wage he is on and I dread to think what his wage was before he got the pay rise.

I also agree with the masses and that he is being financially abusive. You will struggle to get a work from home job whilst caring for a baby - as most employers will want to know that you have childcare sorted. Childcare is expensive. My childminder is approx £50 a day in school holidays, obviously cheaper when he's at school.

You will be much better off if you leave him - financially and emotionally. You need to leave him OP and start again for you and your baby.

Crikeyalmighty · 16/03/2022 12:12

He’s an arse OP and I think you know it— I would make sure you see a payslip too so he’s not feeding you bullshit. How on earth does he think he’s going to save10k up with you not working and him on a very modest income too? Seeing the payslip will also be handy if you do separate — any decent man would expect to be paying more of the bills in this situation and having equal access to any spare cash

AChocolateOrangeaday · 16/03/2022 13:42

I was a SAHM and now full time carer for DS who is severely disabled.

From day one DH has paid all the bills and then whatever is left over is split 50/50 to do as we please.

c190 · 16/03/2022 14:00

We contribute the same proportion of our individual income to the joint account. So when he earned twice what I earned, he paid 2/3 of the household expenses and I paid 1/3. Now we're pretty much equal on salary so we pay the same each.

Whe I was on ML, we worked out what I would be paid over the 12 months, and divided that by the same period. We then split the same way, to ensure all bills etc were covered. Anything for the kids etc is considered a household expense. If I want new shoes/makeup/whatever for myself, that is my own expense. Same for him.

It might not work for everyone, but it works for us.

itssunnytoday · 16/03/2022 15:30

OP are you the same person who posted a while ago saying that you were pregnant and were on your way to your husbands parents but you started feeling sick so you went home and your husband carried on and left you? He wasn't going to contribute to the baby and was planning on saving £10k just for himself before thinking about saving for a house. Was that you?

Haffiana · 16/03/2022 22:18

We nearly divorced because of various issues and how unfair I felt he was being to me (not financial things)

Like you doing all the cleaning and housekeeping, for example?

It is all the same, OP. If he is abusive and unfair with money, then he will be abusive and unfair in other ways as well. This is HIM. This is what he is like. There is no 'better' him that will appear because you explain it all to him, about the unfairness etc.

He likes money and he likes being in control more than he likes you. This will be so natural and obvious to him that he won't even be able to hear your distress, not that he will care anyway.

It is better that you get out of this relationship now, before you are so exhausted with having a baby that you will -I guarantee it - be the one doing EVERYTHING for, as well as all the cleaning, cooking etc etc, all without enough money. The special time with your newborn will be buried in a welter of worry and resentment.

You will end up leaving him anyway. You know that. So do it now and don't waste any more precious time.

Start having a good read about what financial help is available through UC and what contributions he will be required to pay for his child if you split up. You will be a fair bit better off than his 'pocket money' schemes, and you won't be living with an arsehole.

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