Using my savings to fund maternity leave - what’s fair?

[maternitymoney1]

I’m looking for advice on managing finances during maternity leave please.

I’m pregnant and have just been made redundant, but once I’m on maternity I’ll be eligible for maternity allowance. My husband earns £6.4k take home each month. His outgoings including mortgage and bills are £3.5k, mine are £2.5k (he has 2 other children and pays maintenance).

He believes that whilst I’m on maternity leave he should contribute half of my mortgage/bills cost (£900) and I should use my savings for the rest. This would leave him with £2k left over each month whereas I would have a deficit of £1k before any other spending.

I have £20k more savings than him, so he thinks I should spend this first. I worry that when I return to work I’m likely to earn much less than him and I want access to the money I’ve saved.

He says there’s no such thing as ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ and that he will be happy to pay for more if I don’t have money to pay for things like holidays in the future - and I believe him. But he doesn’t actually want to combine finances.

What’s fair in this situation?

This would be my thoughts really, we have two children and my husband & I have joint finances, just one pot in & out. I don’t know how it would ever be fair otherwise, especially while on maternity leave, there’s always something to buy when out whether it’s emergency nappies, wipes, snacks, dummy etc, if you had separate finances you either end up in a situation where mum is paying for all of those random bits which do add up OR you get into very petty you owe me £0.50 for this £1 for that etc every day.

He says there’s no such thing as ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ - great, so finances should be completely combined then and you should have full access to the accounts that his salary and savings go into. If he is going to put barriers between you and accessing that money then it's absolutely right for you to keep back the savings that could end up being your lifeline.

He wants to have it both ways and that's not on. You are married which means that legally you are regarded as having completely shared finances so if you are not sharing finances then the one who is hoarding more is being financially abusive. Even if you weren't married, your entitlement to benefits would be (probably) zero even if you have zero income and zero savings, based on an assumption that he would be keeping you. So you need to tackle his refusal to merge finances.

Having children damages a woman's financial earning power in the long term, even if you return to work full time after maternity leave. Marriage is supposed to create the security that you can do that confidently because your spouse will be in it with you for richer for poorer, for better for worse. He wants it to be him for richer and you for poorer and if he doesn't buck his ideas up he is not keeping his marriage vows.

This feels off. Have you considered consulting with a financial advisor? Is he saying he will keep the house hold expenses paid because that directly affects him but he has no intention of buying a single nappy or wipe until every penny you own is spent?

Are you married? All sounds very strange his money and your money are both your money

You should be combining your finances, esp. when there are common children involved. Otherwise, what is the point of marriage? I'd be careful here, 'cause when the baby is born, he could expect you to finance all the baby needs yourself (since he has other children to look after) and also pay for the childcare when you go back to work. There have been many posts about it here.

I’m genuinely unsure of what you mean. Yes he has covered his outgoings and I have covered mine as our finances are separate. If anything I cover more than my share as I cover half of his children’s food and housing when they are here. My point is that maternity isn’t ‘my’ expense, it’s a shared one.

I have no issue in combining finances, which would of course mean pooling our savings when I have more.

Income should be used before savings.

If you were not willing to take maternity leave how much would care for your shared newborn for the hours he’s in work cost? If he’s not willing to combine finances, then 50% if this sum should be the starting point.

When I was on maternity leave I was obviously not earning so all expenses had to be covered by the other salary in the house. Marriages are partnerships so you both have to help each other out in times of unemployment.
So when he gets made redundant, by his way of thinking, he’s going to have to pay his half from his savings!!! Dear god!!!!

It’s his child too and he has to support you both financially.

What a twat!!!

You need a joint account, he pays his child maintenance, you both pay the same amount into savings, the same budget for fun and the rest goes into the joint account to cover joint bills, household costs, food, childcare, and shared holidays. Existing savings are your own back up fund.
Ask him how soon he thinks that the baby should stay at home with you before going to nursery? I bet he will be glad to have you looking after his child. You could suggest that he takes paternity leave and you get a job, and he can forfeit his salary and use his savings.
You should not be disadvantaged more than him due to having a child, it's a shared responsibility.

Charge the tightarse rental costs of your womb for nine months!!

YANBU - there is no way it’s fair for you to drain savings whilst he has £2k pm left over after his contribution.

shared money does t work lke this. Why would he want you to run down ‘your’ savings - if all money is pooled, he should be contributing more so you don’t run down your shared pool of savings.

What's fair would be if both of you went 50/50 on the risks, mental and physical, of pregnancy and childbirth and on the disruption to your career. As that isn't going to happen, the next fairest thing would be for him to shut up and make sure the mother of his child is fully funded to be able to afford to recover from birthing his child. Absolute CF.

Alternatively, you might like to work out the average cost of paying a surrogate and then a 24/7 nanny to look after a baby and charge him for that instead, if he feels unable to manage financially providing for his own wife and child.

I know you trust him but I wouldn’t - my dh wouldn’t choose to run down savings when he could comfortably avoid that. Can’t understand that at all and I’d be dubious about a vague support commitment in the future when he wants to use savings for something easily avoidable.

Is it correct that you currently share costs for his children but he doesn't want to contribute towards your maternity leave for your shared child? Do you also do solo parenting for his children?

I don’t know how many dc you plan to have but assume not a tonne - why should you live v frugally on ML if you don’t need to? It doesn’t come around again for that baby. I’d be resentful of a man that made me count pennies when I’d paid for the cost of half his dc, presumably for some time now?

where is the reciprocity?

So to clarify you financially support his dc but he won't be contributing to his own dc you share?
Mauen spell out what cms you will get when you ditch the dick head..

Using some of your savings for wants would be ok but if he can cover needs for all of you and still have money left for wants then he should do that.

Keeping finances separate is ok but life is easier if there is a joint account for joint expenses. For the avoidance of doubt all expenses for your joint child, including childcare, are joint expenses.

Make sure to claim child benefit even if he needs to pay it back as he has a high income.

I feel like we get these sorts of posts every few days. Why are women having children with these losers?! Having a child is such a sacrifice for women - you tie yourself down, you risk your health, you damage your career, etc. Don't have it with men who don't want to provide and contribute to raising of said child.

No up until now we have both earned a full time salary and split mortgage and bills down the middle, he has paid his child maintenance to his ex out of his salary and he carries the bulk of the cost for his children.

I only mentioned it to show that I don’t feel I am stingy with money as I pay for half their groceries, contribute to days out, presents etc.

These replies have been really helpful thanks. He’s not a bad person, I think we’re both trying to protect ourselves and maybe I just need to again float the idea of sharing everything rather than trying to figure out a ‘fair’ way to maintain separate finances.

How can there be no such thing as 'mine' and 'yours' if you're not combining finances? He can't have it both ways.

If you're not combining finances then having this baby should leave you both equally out of pocket.

If there’s “no such thing as mine and yours”, you’re married, you own joint property and you’re having a baby, then all money should go into a joint account and you should jointly decide what to spend it on.

In the highly likely (from your post wording) scenario that he won’t agree to that, then during maternity leave he should pay you at least half the cost of a full time nursery place to cover his half of the childcare bill, plus his half of the mortgage and bill. Would his payment to you then cover you half of the mortgage and bills?

This should continue if you don’t return to work. If you do return to work, then make sure he covers his half of childcare or pays you to cover it for him.

If he chooses the “pay my wife to provide childcare” option, then you should just do childcare during working hours. He picks up his half of the cooking/cleaning/laundry/parcel collecting when he comes home from work. He is essentially opting to pay for a nanny rather than form a join life with his wife.

Separate finances within a marriage only work if both people are genuinely not disadvantaged at work by their caring responsibilities. This is so vanishingly rare that separate finances within a marriage is almost always a screen behind which men build their career and keep their money. Don’t fall in to that trap.

Good luck @maternitymoney1 i wouldn’t think 50/50 was fair to start with since you’re married to a higher earning partner. Even decent partners can have priors that just don’t sit with what marriage and parenting means.

i hope you don’t have student loan repayments you’re going to reduce on mat leave as you’ll accrue more interest on your debt on those, which again should be a shared cost in a married and having a child situation.

Now that you are pregnant how much does he contribute to your expenses, which are considerable now? Does he pay for the different food you might crave, new clothes, shoes, underwear etc? They are all reasonable costs of pregnancy. Plus how are costs associated with your child to be calculated, i.e. nursery, nappies, clothes, equipment?

So in reality you should be combining all expenses, income, savings etc, after he has paid for CM.

You have both created this child and you are both responsible for it. Someone has to look after it (and be earning less) otherwise you both work and pay someone else to look after them.

This is a conversation you should have had before conception or even the birth.

When you’re a family and a unit you’re a team and all in it together. Not one person having X and the other having Y.

So you have decided to have a joint child but can't have joint money.
Madness.