Sharing of bills while on maternity leave

Even though we have separate accounts we view it as our money not mine and his.
Obviously as I will be on significantly less money he will be putting more of his salary into paying bills, as I won’t be able to.

I guess everyone’s circumstances are a bit different but we find the mindset of ‘our’ money rather than his and mine makes it very simple 🙂

We will be splitting the bills proportionally to what we are bringing in, it’ll probably work out that whilst I am on mat leave, he pays 80% and I pay 20% - this seems like the most fair way to do it as I can’t afford the pay half the household bills and my own bills (car, phone etc)

We have a joint account that household bills come out of and our personal things come out of our own accounts, he earns a lot more than me so he pays 60% of our stuff and i the other 40% but making sure I have enough left over in my personal account to live for the month. So yes he should be paying more whilst you cannot he chose to have a child

I was very clear with my husband that I’m not going to take off my savings just because I’m at home taking care of our daughter. Being on maternity leave already means I pay less into my pension and I can save less every month. We split the fixed costs (e.g. mortgage and bills) in proportion. My friend pools all of their money into one pot, pay all of their outgoings and then divide what’s remaining equally - that way you can spend and save the same amount. There are so many ways to do it, but I hope you find a way that works for you and your partner!

I also paid 50/50 prior to this but unfortunately it is the woman who takes the hit in their career and my man knew the sacrifice was on me. For one year he will be paying about 75% 🫶🏻

I saved enough for my half of the bills for the time I wanted off for maternity leave and any extra my husband covers.

My partner and I split the bills according to our income so whilst I’m on maternity pay I’m contributing less

We split whilst I’m on full pay but once I’m on stat/no pay he will have to cover most costs. Luckily we have savings x

I currently pay the mortgage & bills as my wage comes in each month. I’m happy with doing this & its more convenient as he gets paid cash in hand. I had a chat with my husband as when I go on maternity leave I wouldn’t be able to pay for these and he suggested he deposits his wages into my account to cover the mortgage&bills and also he pays for food shopping and other things. This is teamwork, just open up the topic and wait for him to make suggestions, you don’t have to ask him to pay more, he should offer it when this topic pops up. Xx

Having a baby is a joint decision and a joint sacrifice. If he can't contribute equally through time off, then he needs to contribute financially instead. It is completely unfair that he would expect to have a baby and it to have no impact on his life.

You're contributing your time, which means you will earn less. So he contributes money, as he cannot take time off to help. Both of you make a sacrifice

If he doesn't take time off to help, and just pays the same he always has then having a baby has had no impact on his life and he's expecting you to shoulder all of the responsibility

It really should be proportionate to your incomings, it wouldn’t be fair for you to still pay half whilst bringing less in. When I was pregnant (unfortunately had a MMC) our plan was to save up whilst I was still working full time, and then out of those savings, top up my wage each month from the savings to what I would have had coming in, so that I could still pay half the bills and he wouldn’t have to pick up the extra slack in terms of bills. That may not work for everyone and I guess it depends on your capacity to be able to save each month

We both put the same amount into our joint account each month. I saved enough so that I could still do this while on maternity and then ‘live off’ smp. I know not everyone’s able to do that though so in that instance, I would say he needs to contribute more. It’s stressful being on mat leave and you need a bit of ‘you’ money to get you through xx

He defo should pay more if he is earning more

I am only eligible for 5 months of Mat Pay from the government here in aus, my partner has already said I just pay MY bills, so my phone & insurance. Everything else he’s covering. However I don’t plan to go back to work for minimum a year. so when I stop getting payments, he will pay the entirety of our bills, which he is completely happy to do. He wants me to enjoy motherhood and focus on raising our baby the way I choose.

We have the same situation with bank accounts. But I think how bills are split depends on the individual situation. For example I own our home so my boyfriend just pays me "rent". We have had discussions of rent being increased to cover increased bills and nursery fees but it would be unfair for me to expect him to pay more than half as its my property therefore the mortgage is my responsibility.
It also depends on what your maternity pay is like, if you are dropping to SMP then of course he will have to help towards the bills more as your income won't be able to cover it. Whereas if your employer pays enough to cover your share of bills and leave you with some money to spare this needs to be reflected in what your share is.

We have a joint account so I will pay what I can with my money and my partner takes on the rest and every month he will put money in the joint account for me to use if and when I want or need to so I don't have to ask him for money, my main issues was using all my money for bills and having nothing left and feeling to proud to ask him for anything

Luckily my partner earns enough to cover all the house on his own and have a fair bit left over so we aren't worried but I guess it's your individual needs and what you can manage

How do I bring this conversation up with him I don’t want to seem like I’m just asking too much off him. Obviously all the points made are valid I still just feel bad asking him to put more in than we both already do

Ask if you can sit down and look at finances together. Tell him you’re bringing a lot less money in now and it’s going to be impossible to pay half everything when you earn so much less than him. Ask him what he thinks the best plan would be

We each have our own account and a joint one. We both agreed on an amount that we both keep (can be different depending on months for example with SMP, I could keep 300, but now I am working, maybe a bit more). That means whoever earns more money contributes more and both have the same amount each month to spend on themselves.

We have a lovely excel sheet with our budget on it. Means we can see exactly what is coming in and going out and be clear on what we can afford, and then budget accordingly

Money discussions can be sooo uncomfortable! I do believe in honestly and transparency in those discussions, focus on the hard facts and hopefully that should remove the emotions around money. Show him your income and outgoings as of today and how it will change once you’re on maternity leave and hopefully it’ll become quite obvious to him that splitting 50/50 on an income that’s clearly not equal isn’t fair

My husband earns the money I juggle the finances and stay home with our child we are a team what’s mine is his and visa versa

I’m gonna be the controversial one here. We’ve always paid 50/50 and as we were in the process of buying a new house we discussed bills etc to ensure we could afford everything. After long discussions, and me wanting to make sure I was paying my way, it was agreed that I still paid 50% and it would come out of my savings. That way my SMP was for me to spend on me and my daughter. My husband did say that he could cover my half but it’s not how our relationship works.

I’m glad you guys found a system that works for you! I tried asking my partner to pay more than half but he wouldn’t so I told him I was only paying for my own food (he eats much more than I do as I have quite a restricted diet) and he didn’t like that either because his shopping bill was so high 🤷🏼‍♀️

My other half and I had this problem what we have done is he covers all the rent and the rest of the bills are split which makes up the percentages of what I’m loosing xxx

We have separate accounts, used to do 50/50. Once I stopped working, I wasnt paying anything at all. He transfers me money monthly for expenses, food shopping etc.

We usually split 50/50 but when my pay dropped we made it 80/20 until I was back at work.
We too have a joint account for all things household and we put the money in there.