How to work out finances with your OH

[Seaqueen24]

In a married couple, if one person earns 26k and the other in excess of 80k what would you say would be a fair split in paying the monthly bills and food shopping? Bearing in mind that the earner of the 26k salary does all of housework, washing and cooks meals etc and the earner of 80k pays for most of the work to be done to the house (house renovation). I know not one size fits all, just interested in hearing other people's opinions...

Why doesn't he pay for a cleaner so you don't have to spend all your free time doing housework? He sounds a bit low-grade. What does he bring to the relationship besides money?

I would pool all money into one pot. Seems very skewed otherwise. You're a family and therefore all the money is family money.

So the person earning more is paying for repairs. Is the house something that belongs only to that person? If the couple split up would the person earning more think that they were entitled to more because they had put more into repairs? Because it seems to me that the person learning less is doing donkey work and won't ever see a return on that.

I often read on here all finances should be joint but none of my friends do this with their husbands.

Perhaps this is just my friend group, but I think it might be an age thing. Majority of my friend group (30s) opt for separate finances with bills split by salary percentage. Whereas my DM friend group (60s) opt for the one pot method.

What is your set up OP?

We put it one pot did this before DC. I earned more initially but DH earns more now.

I earn significantly more than my wife, probably just over 3x (she’s always a bit vague about hers!). We pay the same for household bills etc but then I pay for holidays, both ours cars, any house things including work, furniture etc, any meals or days out etc etc etc.

I don't understand why MN is so obsessed with 'one pot'. Fair enough if there's a SAHP but people should always have their own money. You can't stop the other spouse from cleaning out the joint in case things go south. Also women were only allowed to open individual bank accounts about a 100 years ago.... I'm never giving mine up on principle!

OP, where the money is doesn't matter but bills/shopping should be split proportionate to salary.

One pot here. We are a family, it's our money . We discuss big expenses but other than that no issues.

Thanks for all of your responses...I think my Husband is old school and believes as he works away and is the 'provider' ie able to buy us a big house, earns more etc I should be pulling my weight in other areas ie doing all the housework, washing and ironing his clothes (even though I'm in a full time job too) If I'm honest I'm unhappy in my marriage and there is a host of all other issues that are getting to me, which I'll not go into, but I'm kind of feeling a bit lost and worthless at the moment hence why I'm looking for other opinions as I get a gut feeling this isn't fair. For clarification we're not that old either so not sure why he's like this (me 40, him 47).

Edit: His job is in the offshore industry where he gets all of his meals cooked and his washing done for him while he's on the rig, I think he just expects this service to be continued when he's back home.

Get a cleaner, at the very least. You might still be doing washing and cooking, but there will be one less job to do and you'll have clean floors and a sparkly bathroom.

Going against the grain here but I don't think 100% pooled finances is entirely fair here. However:

Lower earner should not be acting as a housekeeper to higher earner.

Lifestyle should be set at lower earner's affordability, ie lower earner should not be left short in order to cover bills.

You husband sounds like a bit of a arse.

No, we have roughly the same because he pays a much higher amount of his salary in the bills. We are both left with about £1000 each month.

My situation is irrelevant as the low earner is male (& therefore not subject to motherhood penalty) and makes more than your partner.

However, in this instance...

I'd tell the person on £26k to focus on improving career and earning so they dont have to play dobby the house elf to their misogynist husband....and to absolutely under NO circs have a baby out of wedlock.

I'd also stop doing his washing and go on a "special diet" so he has to cook for himself.

@iamnotgroot0 how do you work out the household chores?

So you're married, he earns vastly more than you and still has you splitting bills?

I'd fucking divorce him.

In fact I'd divorce him just for being 'old school' Which is just a flowery way to say you married a sexist pig who thinks all the grunt work is for women.

You have no kids, young enough to start again at 40.

Get out. This man is not good enough for you.

If we had a fiver and a fifty between us there has never been a time when we didn’t pool them then take out essentials then share. We both would rather the other had any extra and that’s why our decades long marriage has survived us both being the bigger earner, periods where one didn’t work and now a future where dh probably won’t work again. Fortunately I don’t see his value as being represented by £s and our money remains shared after bills have gone.

I think those feelings you have are very valid and I would encourage you not to dismiss his willingness to see you as less important than him as him being old fashioned or traditional. It must be hard if he doesn’t make you feel like you are special.

If he's not willing to pool finances I wouldn't be pooling the housework.

I bet he isn’t.

My DH earns well over double what I do but everything still goes into a joint pot.

We used to have separate finances before marriage, but after we were married it was put into a joint pot.

We each have equal amounts of personal spends and he would never even contemplate that I should have less because I earn less.

DH and I have a joint account we both pay into equally because up to now we've both earned virtually the same amount every month. We both have our personal accounts for personal spends on mobiles, dentists, haircuts etc, and gifts for each other. It's worked for 18 years. DH will be retiring at the end of March due to health but won't be able to claim his pension until September. He's been saving for it for about 4. Months. He will pay a nominal amount into our joint account and I'll pay more to keep the joint account afloat until in September he'll get a lump sum and has said he'll pay for both our holidays this October.

We're not married, together 13 years, two DC each, older though, 20, 19, 18, 14.

We have a joint account for bills, we pro rata our salaries, he pays 70% into the joint and I pay 30%.

Works for us.

Married with 3 teens. Husband earns 3-4 times my salary and everything goes into one pot and we have equal “pocket money”. Everything has always gone into one pot in almost 30 years of our relationship. My dh is far from faultless but he’d never see me drive a shitty car while he had a Mercedes.

Why is one person doing all household jobs? Being lower paid doesn't make you a slave