Do you pay equally to take stepchildren on holidays?

[timelord92]

I've noticed it mentioned a few times on these boards by SM's that whenever you holiday with the whole family including the SD's that you leave it to your DP/DH to pay for his children's share of the cost.

It got me thinking about it in terms of a financial point of view. We have a joint account that we pay our bills out of and then we have our own individual accounts with our own money. However, when we go away on holiday or day trips we pay the cost out of the joint account whether the SD's are with us or not.

I was just wondering how it works for people on here? Do some of you work out how much extra it is for the SD's and then your DP/DH pays the difference? Does this not cause arguments doing it this way as its separating the families rather than it being one family too?

For me this would depend on several things. If we both had children, if we shared finances, then halving costs seems fine.

But there are some scenarios where it would be fairer for him to pay for his children - if the SM has no children or if they have a joint baby who costs no extra versus two older children who need their own rooms etc. Lots of variables.

I paid the whole cost for all 5 of us, then asked my then DP for a contribution of 30% (I earned double what EXDP did). It was like getting blood out of a stone, and even then he only gave me 15% off the money.

I pay for me and mine. He pays for him and his. I also don't expect him to pay towards mine so when we have gone away with my DD he pays for him and I pay for me and DD. (My dd is here 5 nights a week his dc only come 1 night so we look at equity as that is what they want) I happily go away with my DD alone too but he is invited. Its up to him if he wants to/can join due to shift patterns. It works for us. There is no 'perfect' solution to blended families its all new to us and we just navigate it.

I think what's fair depends on the type of holiday.

If your partner is tagging along to a child friendly place they don't particularly want to go to and is essentially there to give you adult company and help you with childcare I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect them to pay for the privilege.

However, if it's a jointly chosen place that your partner wants to go to and you don't expect them to do child friendly stuff the whole time or pitch in with childcare then it's a bit different.