Joint income approach

[rosegrace93]

Hi all! Myself and DH are recently married and are talking about starting trying to conceive soon. We have always split all bills (including mortgage) 50/50 to date but have never “pooled” our income or had a joint savings / spending account etc. we are now thinking about how to approach this if we have a family, and I would take 9-12 months maternity leave. I’ve popped some of the facts below - I’m interested in a) how you currently approach this with your spouse? And b) what would you recommend in our situation? How do you handle things like personal savings? I want things to be fair but I also don’t want to be dependent financially on DH long term.

• both employed full time, salaries are almost identical - £80k each.
• we have a mortgage - currently split 50/50. Mortgage cost is £1k a month.
• all household bills currently split 50/50
• I have c. £5k of student loan left to pay off which will be paid back within the next 12 months (by me)
• we each have about £5k on credit cards to pay off (honeymoon)
• no other “big” debts
• if we are lucky enough to conceive - I will take maternity leave of between 9-12 months. Company policy is 4 months full pay, 3 months 50% pay, then statutory.

Do either of you have any savings?

We each have about £5k currently.

I don't think it's that complex. You just pay everything into one bank account and pay for everything out of there. Agree a rough joint budget for essentials and fun money for each of and off you go. Everything child related (if and when that's relevant) also comes out of there.

We pool everything
always have done - I’ve worked FT but my DH out earns but significantly
doesn’t matter tho because family money is just that
Your DH wouldn’t expect you to pay 50/50 I hope when you’re on mat leave with no wage coming in I hope ?

We’ve always pooled everything together.

We handle it like most married couples in that all money is treated as joint and paid into the joint account, from which we pay bills, savings, every day spending and then siphon off an amount each for frivolous personal spends.

DH fully funded me on mat leave and was happy to do so, he’s all happy to fund me returning part time, my access to money won’t change. No need for personal savings as everything is joint.

ETA, I don’t get why people get married if they’re not prepared to share money as that’s legally why marriage is, the sharing of assets.

I concur with PP - pool your money.

Im quite amazed at how many people get married and still don’t share finances

Agree the income side can be straightforward enough, but can you not split maternity/paternity leave between you? You do first 6 months and he does the second. You will then take an equal hit and you will both have a good understanding of being home all day with a baby versus working with the other parent home. It will help both of you going forwards.

If you don't do that, consider what you lose in pension contributions and delays to future promotions as part of how you split finances.

I’ve never pooled money with dh. We’ve always paid 50:50 apart from Mat leave when he paid all the mortgage. I continued paying the DD that were set up in my name (council tax and broadband).

Pool everything. All bills and child related expenses from joint account
Agree how much to savings, for the expensive child care over the next few years. And how much long term
Agree personal spending money that can be frittered by each, and transfer to personal savings accounts
monthly meeting over the spreadsheet on a Sunday morning.

Not all mums want to split the leave, I certainly didn’t, I really valued the year off.

When DH and I first moved in together we contributed to a bills account in direct proportion to our salaries (I actually earnt quite a bit more then).

After we had kids, all earnings go into a joint account but we also have separate personal accounts. We get equal amounts of fun money to spend each month. We have joint savings and I have savings in my name in ISAs and Premium Bonds which are technically joint savings but are actually in my name as I'm the one who organises the money and DH's pension is much better than mine, so I like the security. If you were being scrupulous, you could always save equal amounts in personal savings. We have a joint spreadsheet.

We also saved a fair amount when we were TTCing and I was pregnant which we used to top up my statutory maternity pay.

We just joined all our finances and very rarely need to discuss money because of it.

We have always regarded all funds coming to either of us as belonging to both ofus. Over the years this has been salaries, bonuses, windfalls and inheritances.
Currently, his pensions are more than mine but the savings we have behind us have mostly come from me. We're both fine with this.

Don't use only your savings to fund your maternity leave. You are married, maternity leave is a joint cost therefore there shouldn't really be his money and your money. I have been on MN for almost 20 years, I have seen it all to often that the woman drains her savings to cover "her" 50% mortgage/bills whilst he still has his own savings.

How we worked it from day 1 of being married. Everything into one bank account so complete transparency on how much we both earn, no hiding bonuses or pay rises. Then a set amount into savings to cover yearly stuff like car service/insurance. Money into savings for holidays or anything fun and this is where we also saved up to cover my income reduction on maternity leave.

Any items for the baby come out of the joint account but you talk to each other about how much clothing, what you think a pram should cost because the range is anything from £300 to £2k.

We also had an equal set amount of money automatically transferred out into our own accounts to spend on whatever we wanted.

We also had regular talks about how we spend money, what is important to us, plans for the coming year.

Everything into one pot, all bills and joint expenditure like the weekly food shop comes out of it. Set amount into joint savings. Equal personal spends for you to spend on whatever you wish, coffee, make up, night out with friends etc. Once you (hopefully) go on maternity, nothing really changes, it’s just that the total amount available is less so savings might be less and personal spends are still the same, but potentially reduced. Things like baby classes would be broadly jointly agreed and come out of the joint pot.

Here it’s all joint (we have a few accounts in each of our names but it all gets split evenly). All child costs, like everything including any reduction in salary due to mat leave, is a joint cost and imho about be shared across both.

Unless there is a backstory re debt I really think either all in one pot or at a push proportional % of salary is the most fair way.

FWIW I’m not a huge fan of proportional % as when salaries become wildly disproportionate, often due to the mothers earnings starting to lag due to mat leave or working part time then it in my eyes becomes unfair.

Another person who does everything joint here! We've always had everything going into a joint pot, then we spend / save from the same pot. We're married so our savings are joint - if we ever split they would all be considered in the settlement in any case.

The idea of 50/50 sounds good but in practice every couple I know who does this, the woman ends up worse off / with less accessible money. TTC is a great time to combine your finances; once you have a child you really are a team.

hello thank you for reply - no shared parental leave isn’t an option for us.

Before children, DH and I earned the same and paid everything 50/50.

After children, this is the approach we have taken:

Both incomes into a joint account.

All bills and savings covered then an equal amount of "fun" money sent to our individual accounts each month.

That's seen us through a variety of working patterns and incomes.

Op consider saving now to make up the short fall in ML, so together put xyz to one side so you can take the full 12 months off,
You and h can work out short fall and both save enough so you can enjoy ML without the worry of finance's ,

All money goes into one pot

We have 2 kids/not married (yet). We don’t pool everything. We put together a ‘family’ budget that includes all childcare, house bills, holidays, cars, food shop, wedding savings, small savings pots etc., then whatever the total (say c.£5k), we each then contribute proportionally based on salary (so I currently earn more so I contribute 55% towards the £5k).

Whatever is left is ours to spend/save as we see fit.

I wouldn’t change how we currently do things even once married as this works really well for us.

Do you plan to return to work part/full time after having a baby? Options are either pool everything together but both have a set amount each month for personal spending or keep separate accounts and just pay mortgage and bills based on a percentage that’s fair whether that’s 50/50 or 60/40

Thank you! No back story r.e debt - just me considering how to approach this!