If you work part time & your DP works full time …

[rickyyrickkaayyyy]

how much of the bills/rent/ mortgage and childcare should the person who works part time pay ?
my dh earns well , quadruple what i earn and pays the main household bills mortgage and bills where i am part as we have a toddler.
i am home with our child 2 days a week. just because i pay less than 25% of our expenses i feel he still does not value me or my non financial contributions to our family.

Everything in the family pot.

First post nails it as usual.
I'm the higher earner but it's varied a lot.
We have separate credit cards because who wants to see the shop your DH bought your birthday gift from, on your credit card statement.
But the bills are paid from joint funds.

You’re a family, all money is joint/family money.

The reason one person works less than the other is because someone needs to care for your joint children that you both decided to have.

You’re not working part time because you’re sipping cocktails carefree all day.

Either you both work full time and you have to pay for someone else to look after your kids or one of you works less so you can look after the kids yourselves. It’s not rocket science.

If earns quadruple the amount you do you'd have the same issue whether you were full or part time. We do everything into the family pot and we both then take out a small equal amount to our own accounts for personal spending. I work part-time but I earn more than DH does even pro rata I bring more in a month. We both do a week's worth of work as best as we can and pool our resources.

I'm the full timer in our relationship, on around 50k a year, DP does between 2 days and 3 days a week on minimum wage. We keep our finances technically separate but all our accounts are joint, just one is "hers" and one is "mine".

I pay for pretty much all household expenses. I think the only bill that comes out of DPs account is her phone, Netflix and Amazon Prime. Petrol comes out of her account too because she uses the car for work and so she gets mileage.

We do a percentage basis depending on expenses. DH earns over double what I do so he paid 70% I pay 30% roughly.
We work out a monthly budget and add extra for ad hoc things. This then going into a joint account.
DH will then usually then top up the holidays budget with some of his 'left over' money when we need it.

We worked like this pre children (because I have always earned less even at full time) and it works for us to carry on that way.

We do a 70\30 split, I work FT as does my H but he earns double what I do, money goes into bills account, this includes food shops, school dinner money etc.

we both pay our own bills out of our own money ie car insurance, phone, petrol.

both left with a healthy amount disposable per month.

One pot then equal spends moved into our separate accounts for the month. I am the higher earner and do more hours now, but he has been at times and also has to travel for work trips.

Everything in the pot here and then we pocket get the same amount of person spending money. I’m a sahm now and we still have the same system.

We add up our monthly costs (including food, stuff for DS etc) and then divide contributions proportionate to our salary. In the past, we’ve put a ‘floor’ in so that I don’t need to contribute beneath a certain level of salary. We are accountants though so love this shit.

We put everything together and budget it out from there, including equal spending money (we both work full time but do not earn the same).

But to be honest, how you split the money isn’t going to change anything if he doesn’t value you.

I'm part time and DH is full time but I still earn more than him (both high rate tax payers). We pay a % of our salaries into the bill account. % is based on our salaries.

"i feel he still does not value me or my non financial contributions to our family."

What makes you feel that way, OP? You actually said you feel your husband does not value you. I feel the discussion on household income is something of a distraction.

I think it matters less who pays for what and more how much spending money you both have and whether that is fair and equal.

Married 34 years and have always had the same system - all wages into one pot which pays for family expenses. Set amount comes out each month for each of our spending money (same amount into each account) and of money buds up in the central pot we funnel it into savings every now and again. There is no ‘his and hers’ money, only ‘ours’.

Thats been the same whether I’ve been full time, part time or SAHM. DH has always massively out-earned me whatever hours I was doing (I’m a teacher and he’s senior management in a finance role) but it was never an issue in any way.

This system has worked v well for us all this time. I don’t think we’ve ever had an argument about money….

100% of all bills come out my husbands account, he then saves the rest for the family holidays, birthday / Christmas presents for the kids etc, then my part time pay is our ‘fun’ money as we can it, can be family days out or any clothes / shoes we need / want etc. it works for us, we’ve got 3 children aged 4 and under, I know everyone’s different

We don't put everything into one pot we have individual accounts and a couple of joint accounts for bills and joint savings. We both put a set amount into them every month.

Our contributions have varied over the years depending on who was earning what. It's best to look at this long-term, because it changes based on what's best for your family at any particular time. Right now, you and your DH presumably agree that two days a week with your toddler works best so that lowers your financial contribution. The alternative is a higher contribution, plus two more days of nursery fees.

If you're sensing resentment from your DH, sit down and discuss the situation with him. He can't have it both ways.

Everything is pooled. We share bonuses and lean times together. Anything less and I would not be part time even though our child has additional needs.

Everything goes in one pot. We only have a joint account.

We have a bills account and both put in a proportionate amount according to what we each earn. (I am 0.6, DH is FT so he puts in more than me). Then we both make sure we have some personal money left for whatever we want. We never talk about your money / my money though - except for Christmas / birthdays where we make sure we don't buy each other's presents from the joint accounts 😅

I just don’t understand the whole each person puts in a percentage of their wage etc. What’s the point of being in a partnership if one person has loads of money and the other doesn’t.

Higher earner wants to go for a fancy meal but lower earner can’t afford that place.

Higher earner wants to go on a 5 star holiday but lower earner can only afford 3 star.

If you’re a family and partnership it shouldn’t matter who’s the higher earner or who does what hours, you’re a team and if one person wins everyone does together.

If there’s children involved I agree with others it’s a joint pot. Maybe you should invoice him for all the things you do that he doesn’t.

My DH earned 20 times what I did. I did pay the deposit on the house though (over £125k). But it was such an imbalance that he just paid for everything and I used my earnings to pay for my own personal stuff.

We are a one-pot-family. Everything we earn goes in, all bills are paid, savings set aside and we share what's left.
At varying times, one or the other of us has been the higher earner. We still always share

One pot family here too.

Discussions about who pays for what don't really feature for me and DH. We just do whatever is convenient e.g. because I do the food shop I use my card to pay for it. We have a joint account but don't use it to add fixed amounts each. I would feel weird trying to divvy everything up so it was 'fair' - most of our spending is not for our individual benefit only so it doesn't really matter.