I don’t agree with a percentage based split being fair generally as I think the lower paid person is usually unfairly disadvantaged. Now, this is usually the woman and usually there is a very large difference in income which she also contributes unpaid childcare which obviously isn’t your situation so it’s probably less of an issue. I just think that the person on the lower income will always have less to contribute to their own personal financial security which is particularly important if the marriage/partnership ever breaks down and the higher paid person can end up with loads of excess personal spending money.
If you’re living a joint life (particularly with children involved) you need to have joint finances IMO. I think it’s the only way to ensure fairness and transparency for both people, as well as security. I’ll explain the best way I’ve come up with to manage the finances with myself and DP, we have one DS and I’m pregnant with DC2. DP works FT and I work PT. He has always earned more than me, even when I worked FT. We only started this system when DS was born and I was on mat leave. Before that we contributed 50:50 even though I earned less. I felt this was fair at the time because I still had adequate money and I was choosing to do a job I enjoyed with less responsibilities over seeking out a higher paid job with managerial responsibilities like DP had done. I now work PT since our DS was born, he attends nursery PT and on my NWDs I look after him. As such, we each contribute work (paid and unpaid) to the family 5 days per week.
How we manage finances: we have a joint current account, joint credit card and joint savings accounts. We both have personal current and savings accounts too. Both our salaries and any other income is paid into the joint acc. All household/family expenses go through the joint accounts (mortgage, bills, insurance, car stuff, holidays, childcare, all kids expenses (clothes, toys, activities), family days out, house maintenance/repairs, family/couple meals out, date nights, groceries, toiletries etc). If I need anything related to pregnancy/birth/postpartum (maternity clothes, nursing bras, pregnancy vitamins, birth ball etc) this is a joint expense as I’m only incurring this expense due to carrying our child - within reason obviously I don’t take the piss buying crazy expensive designer maternity clothes.
There is a direct debit from the joint acc into our joint savings acc monthly.
When we set this financial system up we agreed a set amount of money we would each receive from the joint acc into our personal acc each month as our ‘personal money’. Crucially we each receive the same amount of personal money each month regardless of our earnings. This is important to ensure the partner contributing more unpaid childcare/housework isn’t financially disadvantaged. We view it as we each work really hard for the family, in different ways, and therefore we each get equal financial compensation. The sum we agreed as ‘personal money’ is supposed to be enough for personal spending (clothes, hairdressers, beauty, hobbies, socialising, holidays with friends, personal gadgets etc) as well as contributing to personal savings accounts/investments. We reduce the ‘personal money’ when finances are tight e.g. during mat leave or saving up for a big family purchase/home renovation.
We keep a finance spreadsheet and meet monthly to review and discuss spending from the previous month, upcoming expenses and check in on our savings & investments. I use the Snoop app to help me keep track of our budget.
Outside the finances we divide up childcare and household tasks. I mostly take responsibility for our family life admin (almost all child related stuff, organising household repairs, organising holidays, dealing with utilities companies, managing finances) as well as laundry, hoovering, dusting, mopping and meal prep for DS. I do pretty much all the planning, organising, researching, anticipating and ‘thinking’ type tasks for the whole family. DP does meal planning, grocery shopping, cooking, washing up, cleaning bathrooms, DIY and garden maintenance. We have assigned days for getting up with DS in the morning, getting him ready, nursery drop off/pick up and putting him to bed. On weekends we share childcare so we each get a break and also some family time.
It doesn’t always work perfectly, sometimes things feel unfair with how childcare, mental load etc is distributed and there are still arguments and resentments sometimes but we put a lot of time, effort and communication into trying to create a fair and secure life to enjoy together.