A maths question - shared finances

[lemonyaid]

DH has 3 kids, one of who is also my kid.

We have seperate accounts and pay into joint account to cover everyday expenses, mortgage, bills etc.

Previously this has been split according to our incomes. His has been higher. Mine is now higher.

I don't feel I should be paying more than him into the shared account as he has more children to pay for.

The 2 DSC live here every other weekend and half of the school holidays.

I propose making a % adjustment based on this. Eg. He pays 5% more for each child.

What % do you think we should use?

When we rented, we split rent 60/40. It’s been 50/50 now we own a house together, but he will pay for his 3 kids food and expenses when they stay over. We have 1 DS on the way together and the split won’t change as it feels fair to us.

Mathematically:

Your DSC are in your house for about 46 holiday days and 39 weekend days per year - about 85 days in total. That’s about 1/4 of the year.
So there are
3 x full time people in the house
2 x 25% of the time people in the house (this is equivalent to one 50% person)

so in total
3.5 full time equivalent people in house per year
The 0.5 person (2 x 0.25 people) is your DH sole cost
0.5/3.5=14% - about 14% of the cost of people in the house per year is your DH cost alone. That’s about 7% extra per child.

So you could take the total cost of bills, remove 14% of it entirely for your DH to pay, then split the rest according to your salary weightings.

Of course, this is just doing the sums. You need a bigger mortgage all the time to have enough space for your DSC, so you could argue it should be a higher amount - but perhaps that’s petty, you decide on what house is needed together and I assume you are equal owners of the house. And he will be paying for them for the time they’re at their mum’s, so feels reasonable that the extra cost when they’re with you both reflects the remaining proportion. And it may depend on if he’s subbed you for anything, lots of other actual human give and take in a marriage considerations. But that’s how my sums work out.

DH has one child, I don't have any. We just pooled our resources and it worked just fine. Any other way would have been too complicated.

Surely the mortgage and bills etc would remain the same regardless of how many children are living there? Why not just have him pay stuff for his kids when they're there? I'm assuming child maintenance comes directly out of his own account rather than the joint one?

DH has 3 and I have none. We've never discussed who owes what and percentages etc. All the money we earn or acquire (DH recently received inheritance) is collectively ours. We pay what needs to be paid, including whatever the kids need. We are always on the same page though when it comes to spending and saving. We discuss any big spends in advance.

I earn more than DH at the moment but I don't think that entitles me to more disposable income than him. Our salaries don't reflect our efforts and DH works equally as hard as I do, it's just not reflected in terms of money. We are a team and we both worth equally as hard and use our different skills to put as much money in the pot as possible to give us the best life possible.

I can see the point of doing things as OP has described if there's disagreements about spending. For example a Disney dad guilt buying gifts for his kids all the time. I'd be pissed if I wasn't able to treat myself with my hard earned cash because my OH had blown it all on expensive gifts for his kids.

The mortgaged house is a shared asset, so I think charging him 14% extra because his kids have a bedroom there is excessive. You benefit from the likely larger house in general and in the future.

I'd say he covers the shopping to cover the EOW and you do it for the alt weeks when it's just you three. Same for holidays. He covers shopping on their weeks with you.

Do they use much extra power when they're there or is it a case of an extra shower once or twice and their bedroom light on for 20 minutes? I think I'd feel a bit silly working out how an extra £5 every two week evens out over the months and demanding he paid it.

Perhaps 50/50 on the bills if you're unhappy paying the extra mortgage costs from the 2bed you would have brought but it really depends on actual hard numbers - you earn 50 to his 45 Vs you earn 100 to his 30

Well potentially their onta 4 bed Vs a 2 bed

How much more are you contributing?

if so example it’s £50pm or even £300pm would it really be worth calculating costs to the nth degree to ring fence for funds from the SC?

Thank you that's the maths I'm looking for!

That's great if it works for you. It doesn't for us.

Difference is I have one. So my income needs to be prioritised there.

So are your proposing dropping your contribution to that of DPs and then cutting 14% off that.

I am stunned at what comes across as pettiness of this. Am assuming he pays the big stuff for his DCS or does this come out of the joint account.

I have 2 DCS he has 3DCS - we contribute equally to everything in the house account regardless of number, time, day or hour. Could not imagine living as you do OP - but each to their own way of peace.

No. I'm proposing splitting according to income but then adjusting the figures so I spend 7% less and he spends 7% more.

So let’s say you bring in 2.5k (56%) to his 2k (44%) bills total 2k, flat % split you pay £1120 he pays £880.

To avoid contributing to his kids you want to pay 48.5% £970 to his 51.5% £1030 so he covers an extra £160 for the food, water, gas, electricity that his kids use every other week?

Is that right?

Is his household income after maintenance or does he have to pay CM from funds after he hs paid into household?

I can’t actually believe this is a serious post and people are working it out. Don’t marry someone who has kids if you don’t want to treat them as your own. It’s petty beyond belief.

That's the principle but I don't know if the figures are right. He pays CMS out of his income. Amount into pot is based on his income before this

It might seem petty but that's how we do our finances. I pay for half the holidays away etc no question but we just need a rough idea of what is fair here for day to day.

Every other weekend and 6 weeks a year
he should pay more to the food when relevant

but lets be honest your mortgage/rent and counc tax will be the same , it doesn’t cost anymore to heat the house if there’s 3 or 5 people in . Granted there’ll be a slight increase over the year in water and cost for hot water your probably talking £250 a year absolute max do you honestly begrudge paying £4 a week for YOUR SS

That's a good solution - maybe keep it as it is and then he can buy the food out his personal money when they are here

So using my example out of his 970 remaining he also has to pay around 300 in maintenance?

Doesn't leave him with much.

How much do the SK even cost have you checked the fridge/energy meters/petrol consumption?
Would an extra 7% be too much?

Personally I think it’s petty, but it seems that many step families on this thread carefully eke out resources to ensure some of the DC get more/less.

You don’t get with someone with kids and expect to do this. You knew he had children, so I don’t think what you’re suggesting is actually fair. You’re supposed to be a team. To put it into context,

my dp has a a child from previous, I have several from previous, and we have kids together. He earns a lot more than me. Before we moved in together I got a top up from universal credit, now obviously I do not, I only get my wage which wouldn’t be enough to support all of my children. Mainly because I work less to be around for our younger kids together . So if he decided to put less into the family pot simply cos I have more kids I’d tell him he should have thought about that before being with me knowing I had kids. Ridiculous.

Do you really dislike your husband's children, and your child's siblings so much that you begrudge contributing to the food they eat when at your shared home?

I am not trying to be inflammatory here. I can't imagine wanting to see my life partner with much less disposable income than me (from paying child maintenance and paying for more food) unless I really disliked the children.

This is all so grotesquely petty, if I was the OPs husband I would be divorcing quick sharp. OP clearly does not give a shit about the SC, won’t even pay for half their food. Ugh.