Financial equality

[SarahOxford]

Hi,
New here!
Just wondering how you deal with making sure you are financially fair to both DC and SDC.
We put in £25/m into each of DS(3.10) and DSS (10) savings accoutns, and as DS got the £250 into his trust fund we put in the same to DSS's account when we could afford to.
Just not sure how 'fair' it is, and difficult to discuss as i feel guilty as if i'm trying to get more for my biological son or beign too mercenary talking about money in relation to children.
It's just that if DSS's mum put money aside, say the same amount, then DSS could 'end up' with double what DS gets. This makes me feel guilty and that perhaps we ought to put in proportionate amounts, i.e 1 bioparent's worth for DSS and 2 bioparent's worth for DS. It seems petty and unfair to give them different amounts though.
Then there's the fact that my parent's put more into DS's account and i feel guilty about that and wonder whether we ought to be compensating by putting more into DSS's account.

How do others organise this? And how to not feel guilty about treating your DC differently to DSC? We're the only 'providers' for DS so naturally we spend more on him than DSS as his mum gets him clothes and the like. Although we do spend equal amounts on presents, but i'm not sure how fair that is - we spend £60/m on each but DSS mum gets him roughly the same value so he gets double the presents on xmas day. It's all so confusing and fraught with guilt!
Thankfully they're not quite old enough to pick up on these subleties but DSS will be soon and is prone to jealousy often neglecting to remember that he gets stuff from his mum. His instinct seems to be that we ought to give them the same.

Sorry for the long ramble, would love to hear others experiences/strategies for ensuring fairness!

Hi Sarah,
We are probably unusual in the fact that we don't do savings for DSD, DH pays for things she needs/wants in addition to money he gives to her Mum and spends money on her when she is with us, I guess as she gets older (she is 11) she may want the cash and then she can choose whether she saves or spends herself. DH is not amicable with her Mum so her prefers to keep these things separate, I think he gives her £10 credit for her phone a month, that sort of odds and ends. We save in DS trust fund every month between us and save in his money box etc. for him. I would not expect my parents to contribute to my DSD's savings, she has two other sets of grandparents to do that for her, it would be generous of them but I would never expect them to as they don't contribute to any of their grandchildren's savings. I may get flamed for this but I consider what we do for DS to be our business and we wouldn't share this information with DSD and vice versa. Either way they are both pretty spoiled and have much more than myself or my siblings did when we were growing up.
Just an alternative viewpoint
Onion x

Oh this is a minefield I think! We have avoided really thinking about it in two ways. Firstly for a few years we were so skint we couldn't save so put it off for ages .

Once we did think about it we have decided we will save in a general 'for the kids' account with decisions to be made later.

Obviously this is not so tax flexible but it has saved us masses of stress and given we are nowhere near saving both adult ISA limits at this time it makes no odds.

It is yet another Chelen cop out - we have no idea who will need what money when so we are just saving and will consider funding applications when they emerge! I am also forever banging on about the value of vocational qualifications and how marvellous it is to have a trade so maybe I will get to blow it all on a cruise instead of funding them through uni?

Its a hard one thats for sure! My dd often ends up with a lot more than my ds as her dad buys her lots of expensive gifts (guilt presents for being a crap dad .) I used to fret over it all the time, but these days I accept that she has more 'stuff' than ds, but I make sure they share. For savings (I'm separated from both my dcs's dads) I save the same for each, but my exP also saves for them and puts more in ds's than in dd's (she is his dsd).

Rightly or wrongly they will never be equal in terms of their savings.

It's so stressful I hate thinking about it. Although my Dh and my money is 'our' money I put £25 a month away out of my wages for our DD as she is only 10 months and doesn't really need anything except the essentials. However when we have DSS he often has £5 here £10 there which adds up to the same amount.

This means he probably won't have a lump sum from us and whether or not he'll understand that I don't know. Hes 12 atm so in say 6 yrs time at 18 our DD will be nearly 7 which is when she will probably start wanting cash. However if I can I'd still like to put it away for her future.

DS at 18 (for eg) will benefit from him mother, his grandparents and my DH's mother who is obsessed with him and has a savings account for him and buys him whatever he asks for yet she hasn't set anything up for our DD and doesn't buy her anything even though she is also her biological GD which is rather a sore point for me this means our DD will only benefit from us and my parents so in the long run she will actually get less. Which is why I don't feel guilty for not putting away for DSS.
If everything was more equal I would put the same away for both but at the end of the day in a split family it's never going to be 'fair' if we can help out when hes older with uni or whatever we will.

IMO you shouldn't have put the £250 extra in as that was from the government not you and things like interest rates will change you can't get it the same to every penny and you will go crazy trying to! Kid's should grow up to learn that its swings and roundabouts and some things are out of your control!

Sorry that was long!!

We do what you suggest, the proportioante amounts. So our 2 DC get 2 parents worth, and DHs DD gets 1 parents worth savings and pocket money. After all she does have another parent to provide for her also. When I say we, DH had no input, if I left it to him, no one would have anything.

Oh I must be a really bad person because I don't save in proportion at all.
DS1 is 12 gets £15 a month pocket money - this is for phone credit and crap every day stuff.
DS2 is 8 and gets £10 a month but he never really spends anything so he just stashes it away.
They both have savings accounts for birthday/christmas money and DS2 has the Child Trust Fund government thing.
DP doesn't give DSD and DSS pocket money but his parents have set up accounts for them and he spoils them buys them stuff when he has them.
We do spend roughly the same on them at Christmas and Birthdays but it isn't set in stone.

We save an amount for all dc's and will use the money as required however I also assume that DSS will have money from his mum so I'm guessing proportionally more will be spent on DS. DH tried many years ago to have a discussion with DSS's mum about savings and how they could approach it but she wasn't prepared to have a discussion so we are not sure what the situation is.

Today DSS has more money available to him than our DS, through CSA, as DH couldn't afford to contribute 15% of net pay to DS (which I think is common for most families).

I'm not sure the situation will ever be fair however as DSS's mum has a different philosophy, she is materialistic and DSS has to have all the latest 'toys and gadgets' whereas I have always valued education and therefore Uni costs are a priority for me. As a result our DS has less now but he will have a saving pot for Uni. I guess it will even out in the long term.

We save £25 a month for Dd and Ds and nothing for Dsd. If it wasnt for me then Dd and Ds wouldnt have any savings and savings for Dsd are up to Dp and his ex to sort out.

Dsd gets spoilt rotten by her grandparents on her mothers side and gets far more bday and xmas presents than dd and ds because of the nature of "blended" families then things will never be exactly the same although I have suggested that Dp starts saving for her first car (dsd is 15) as that would be a big financial gesture but whether he does it or not is down to whether I remind him enough and more and more these days I have learnt to suggest something and then leave it to ensure family harmony!

We need to sort out a will soon and that is a similar quandry.

Sorry about the lack of punctuation, I hate mnetting on my phone!

Thanks for the replies some really interesting approaches.
It seems we're unusual to do same for both. DH wants it that way partly as he's compensating for 'what dss has to go through' (whatever that means), but also because he's sure dss's mum won't do any savings and doesn't want dss to suffer for his mum. She is like you say Smum99 - gets all the latest tech and buys a lot of clothes, but not really thinking about the future.
As dh makes 3/4 of the money in our household i think he sees it as him giving equal to his kids rather than us.
I just don't think he sees that if dss's mum did say buy him a car or fund him through uni then there will 'end up' being a vast inequality by the financial opportunities available to them at 16/8. He just dismisses this as petty and 'isn't ds getting a much more stable family life so he's really the lucky one'!

I guess like you all say it's impossible to get it exactly right. We started DS's account from about 6m but DSS was started at about 2yr, ie. not long after i'd been on thee scene and suggested it! So in theory he'll have more months worth put in, and of course what my parents put in.

Needless to say i love my dss to peices, just trying to be fair. I have the same quandaries at xmas time! Haven't even thought about a will, i think that's a can of worms i'll ignore for time being!

Hi I reluctantly mentioned the subject of Wills with my Dh a while ago and he was surprisingly in agreement with me.
I work full time and contribute everything I have (he adds more financially because he earns more but I do more household chores etc so it's as even as it can be!) so I consider half of everything to be mine. (we don't own our house yet but hopefully we will by the time a will comes into effect!) My suggestion was that we divide everything in half and then split our own half between our 'own' children for example we have one DD together and my husband has one DS so in effect my half will go to DD and his half will be split equally between DD and DSS (and again if we have any more DC's). It means our DD will get 75% and DSS will get 25% but he will also get 100% from his mother so in effect DSS will get 125% and DD will get 75% so I see it as the fairest way. If DSS got 50% and our DD got 50% he would end up with 150% and DD with 50%.

Although once you throw in the grandparents it opens a whole other can of worms my MIL favours DSS so I am almost 100% sure he will benefit more from any will she leaves in fact she hasn't even got our DD on it at the moment. On the other hand my my DD will benefit from my parents but I also have a sister so it would be divided by all grandchildren fairly. It's a minefield and I don't think there is a 'fair' way to do it. I am just glad my DH saw sense this time

Thats just got me thinking though my DH has a half brother who he doesn't really have any contact with but they have the same father (who died 11 years ago) surely he would have a right to a percentage of my MIL's house? I'm sure hell would freeze over before that happens funny how she over compensates for DSS not having a together family but she has nothing to do with her own step son! how the tables turn!

Sorry for crashing I just thought seeing as a few of you had mentioned wills i'd add my two pence worth !

I think we will do something similar re the wills as it is probably the only way. I just want things to be fair as much as possible but we only have control over what we do financially so it will never be truly equal.

Please don't make me think about wills - we don't even have one! I can handle splitting the cash any old way but the idea of DSS and DS potentially getting separated breaks my heart.

We put equal amounts aside for DSD and DD. They get the same at christmas and birthdays (so DSD ends up with more as her DM also buys for her).

We give DSD pocket money (seperate from her maintainence that goes to her DM) as she is a teenager now, and DD doesn't get any yet but we spend on other things for her like day trips etc that DSD doesn't go on as she isn't here.

This is as fair as we can make it, DD has more money in savings because I put every penny she is given in there (money from family, birthday money etc), where as DSD keeps her money and is allowed to spend it by her DM.

Also in the future DD (and any other DC I may have) will inherit 'our' house and my money. I own the majority of the house and have my own inheritance invested and so (hopefully) by the time DD is an adult there will still be plenty to pass on. I sometimes feel uneasy about this, that I should share it equally but DSD has her own mother (and mothers family's) inheritance in the future to consider. She already has over £100k coming to her when she is an adult from her DGM's estate.

I'm just wondering whether any of you would act differently if you knew that DSC mother wasn't going to be giving them anything in the way of savigns or inheritence?
I totally agree with the split RhiRhi123 sugested but our fear i guess is that dss will end up with just the 25% (i.e. nothing from his mum) and ds 75%
I find it difficult to accept that it's 'his mums decision what she gives so forget it', i feel like he shouldn't suffer for it. And this is DH's view.
Also if i bring up the proportinality idea DH thinks it's me favouring ds over dss, as if i'm saying he doesn't mean something to me. DH would ask me why i wouldn't want some of my half of the inheritance to go to dss too?
I know too that most of the inheritance we have to leave (presuming we live an average age before we go) will be inheritance we get from DH's parents/grandparents, my mum and dad are spend now kind of people.

Oh it's all so complicated!

I know what you mean sarah Oxford. However if DSS mum chooses to spend her money and not put it away for DSS's future that is her own doing and yes he will miss out but that won't be because of us. At the end of the day the way I look at it is I didn't choose to have DSS and when he's rude and disrespectful towards me Iit doesn't make me want to give him any of 'my half'. If things were different for us as a 'family' and I knew he wouldn't inherit from his own mum I might change it to more of a 60-40 split but at the same time our DSC our not children we didn't 'choose' to have them and I don't think it would be right for our DH/DP to assume that we should want to leave our own worldly possesions to them. In an ideal world it would be 50/50 but that will never be the case as there are 2 sets of parents.

It is horribly complicated. Needless to say we havent actually put this into practise and made a will yet :D

I save monthly for our son. My partner saves for him too. He also saves the same amount for his daughter.

Our wills are like RhiRhi has proposed. My share of our house is left to our son and my partners share is divided equally between our son and his daughter.

I don't consider it any of my business what my partner's daughter's mother saves for her, or how her will is provisioned.

I wouldn't do it differently Sarah if her mother didn't save for her (she doesn't work right now, so I guess she probably doesn't). But it is not up to us to make up for a shortfall in her mothers finances.

This is a nightmare isn't it and I don't think you can really get it right because what one side will view as fair, another side will think it's unfair.

Some people believe it's irrelevant what goes on in the step childs other home, but I do think it's relevant.

In my home, it appears as if DS has more "stuff" than DSC but this is because he only has one home, so his Dad will buy him presents and DS keeps them at our home. DSC has another parent who also buys them things but those things stay at their Mums home, so it appears they have half as much but in reality they have as much (in fact, I know they have more) than my DS. I suppose it could be argued that we should buy DSC twice as much stuff to compensate!

I've got a bit of a dilemna regarding finances at the moment, and I'm going to post seperately about it so as not to highjack this thread.

OP, I think you should be seen to be treating the children the same, for example, in buying the same sort of value in presents, but you can also put a bit aside in savings for your child too, if you feel your child is receiving less because of the doubling up DSS gets because of having another home.

Thanks everyone, I definitely think DH and I need another chat about this when things have settled down (about to relocate 200 miles for DH job and therefore have to job hunt!). It'll definitely need another think when we actually write a will!