How did you work out your finances when you first moved intogether?

[nappyaddict]

DP is moving in with me and DS.

I'm not 100% sure of DP's wages but I think it's about 2000 a month before tax, I earn 700 + tips after tax (I am a waitress)

On top of this I currently get CTC and DLA for DS.

We want to have a joint account for bills, groceries and rent. We have worked out this will probably be about 1200.

It depends if you want to keep ds's expenses as yours or part of the household expenses, that will determine whether dla/ctc and maintenance are treated as your share of the income or not

Otherwise add his £2k plus your £700 to create your overall income and then take out the £1200, and then split whats left equally between you

Or, work out a percentage of the bills based on your income...

Is DP willing to see you all as one household with a common budget? That is how the tax credits agency will see you, so you'll lose a large proportion of your CTC when you move in together (though not your child benefit or DLA, as far as a know). So if you try and split things equally but you paying for DS, you could end up very poor.

On the plus side, if you're each paying rent at the moment, you'll save some money there.

We are both paying board at parents but we don't pay any seperate bills.

DP thinks we should each pay in 600 pound to the joint account and keep what's left over (with me keeping DLA, CB & CTC)

But you won't get much (if any) CTC once you're living together. They work out what you get on your household income, so they'll include DP's income

I think your DP seems to see your DS as your expense. I don't disagree with this necessarily, but I think it's important that the two of you decide at this early stage if this is how things will be, and you to decide if you're happy with that.
Do you get maintenance? I guess it's hard to decide without knowing how much you get in total relative to your DP.

Were you on the June08 thread?

June 06 :)

DP and I have discussed getting married, buying a house and him adopting DS. IMO this should mean DS is a shared expense but perhaps I am being unreasonable in this?

We should still get CTC but obviously it will be reduced compared to what I get now.

His income is 2083 gross, but I don't know how to work that out as net income.

Also I mentioned in front of him and my mum that it was unfair we put an equal share in when he earns so much more, my mum agreed and said what about when DS needs clothes etc and he said don't worry DS won't go without, so I'm not sure he does see DS as my expense?

I don't think you will get a lot of CTC at on those figures, and aren't the limits going down again in April?
I would put your figures through entitledto.co.uk and see what it says.

nappyaddict, I think I would pin him down on what he means about DS not going without. Very easy to say, maybe not quite so easy for him to do? Does he have any idea how much kids cost?

According to the income tax calculator 25k gross income means he will get a monthly net income of 1613.60

I get 788.15 a month. However I can potentally earn another 650 a month in tips and with 133.16 CB+CTC that's 1571.31 and then there's 21.67 child maintenance but I'm not including that cos I never get it!!

We are actually a lot more equal than I first thought. This is banking on the fact that my tips don't reduce though - obviously it's not reliable income.