Finances with partner

The way my husband and I did it. I paid for house taxes, mortgage, utility bills, and internet. Husband pays truck and house insurance and groceries 80% of the time. We both pay our own phone bills. Now that I'm on mat leave, he will transfer me money to help pay mortgage and house taxes as I don't make enough on mat leave to cover everything now

People do this a wide range of ways. For us, we treat all our money as joint. We each have an equal amount of money to spend on what we want, everything else is pooled together for mortgage, bills and general spending/savings.

I have a personal bank account where my pay goes into and then we have a set amount we put into the joint account. My husband gets paid more than me so he pays the mortgage but everything else is 50/50.
When my pay becomes SMP he is going to give me money if I need it. Will pretty much be him putting fuel in my car so I can still go see friends and family.

I don’t think it’s a case of who should pay more. I think it’s maybe helpful if there’s any way to speak to him as viewing it as a shared family income and shared family expenses. For years my partner and I have pulled our incomes together and pay everything off that - even personal things like our cars, phones etc. it becomes too complicated (IMO) to start splitting childcare costs, mortgage payments, car loans because if your earnings are different someone will always lose out which isn’t right because you both live in the same home, access the same resources and share a child. We both earn good salaries but he has always earned more than me. We are in a similar position as you and he’s currently on about 30K more but everything is equal, including what we have got personal spending each month and our savings are joint x

Do you give each other a set amount on luxuries each month? As I have 0£ left for that for myself!

We have a joint bank account and both put what we can afford in there each month for mortgage, utilities, food etc, without leaving our individual bank accounts short on fun money. He makes a lot more money than me, but we both work hard and I do more around the house because he works ridiculous hours.

There isn’t a norm, and it doesn’t matter what friends or family say, you need to do what’s right and works for you as a family.

My partner and I have this conversation often. He earns double what I do, and he is the only one on the mortgage. Because of this; he has always said his responsibility is paying the mortgage and he would never expect me to pay anymore towards bills than what his mortgage is, otherwise I’m basically paying his mortgage for him.

We have two cars, one is old (his) and paid out right and his company pays for his car tax and insurance. Mine is new and I finance it, so I pay that and insurance.

We do 50/50 for food expenses. But he pretty much pays for everything else in terms of bills. I pay for my own phone contract.

But, I also buy all of the baby things and likely will always do this bar the odd bit here and there. I take pleasure in buying the clothes for her, and the nappies etc so I will be more than happy to always cover those expenses. He doesn’t always see that, so it can come up in conversation a fair bit until he realises that those costs add up.

When my husband and I got Married we opened up a joint account and closed our personal ones. All of our earnings are put into the joint account where all of our bills and purchases are taken out from. Personally, I feel like it’s easier to manage money if it’s all in one place also easier to keep track of how much to put into savings at the end of month.

I’m also on mat pay at the moment, we private rent so I pay the rent and he pays all bills, stuff for baby, groceries and if I need anything then he’ll buy it me x

But honestly, everyone does is differently and different things work for different people in different scenarios.

I’ve had comments saying I should pay more towards bills from people on here. But equally, my car and the baby things plus food shops add up for what he pays out for bills and he still earns double what I do, so it balances out that way. Which works for us.

As for luxuries yes we both have a set amount for this. Basically what we do is every year we agree a set amount that we have in our own bank accounts each mont just to spend on whatever we want. We review this every April as this is when we normally get pay rises. We both get the same - even though he earns more. My partner has a golf membership which is about £115 a month but this just comes off our joint total as a “bill”. If for example, one of us is doing something that we wouldn’t do every month like if I’m getting my hair done then this will just get factored into the monthly outgoings rather than it come off my personal spending money. What we have for personal spending doesn’t change but if there’s a month where I’m getting hair or something else it just means we put less into our joint savings. Don’t know if that makes sense? X

We both keep the same amount of money for personal spending. My husband is taking most of the unpaid portion of our shared parental leave and will still have that same amount of money for his personal spending.

PS - please speak to him about this. It might not initially go down well but the fact you’re left with £0 to buy yourself something nice just isn’t fair. It’s almost always the woman who misses out because it’s just a natural thought that we will reduce our working hours or stay at home with the children to save on childcare costs and it’s really unequal. Just because he gets a bigger salary doesn’t mean he’s entitled to more, or luxuries that you can’t get for yourself. What he gets wouldn’t be possible if he didn’t have you there supporting him and raising your baby ❤️❤️

My partner pays £920 towards our home etc and always has done before and during baby
I get like £1750
I always spent less than him for our home but I drive and he doesn’t. I reckon I spend about £1000 a month on home/baby/ car and the rest is saved or disposable. If we need something for the home or whatever, that comes out of the UC. What I’m saying in around about way is he doesn’t touch the UC or my mat pay it’s for me and baby and he doesn’t have to hand over any more or less than what he did previously.

Defo bring it up with hubby because I feel it’s a common trend where men don’t see raising their child as hard work when in reality they don’t see they’re the ones who get the break!
You deserve to be supported 💖

We split everything as a percentage of income to make it fair. https://www.countcalculate.com/private-and-home-economics/split-payment-according-to-income

us too!

OP - usually taking on an extra job removes your entitlement to maternity pay, have you checked that?

I used to be the same as you. Somehow I ended up paying for everything and my husband paid for his nice clothes. We now make it so that we have 1 joint bank account for all of our bills, kids nurseries, mortgage and food shopping. The amount we each put into that account varies by how much we earn, but we both have £300 at the end of the month to pay for any individual subscriptions or contracts we need to pay. It works so much better that way

Do what works for you guys

Me and my partner have a spreadsheet and we move a % of our salary to the joint account. When I was on maternity leave we increased the % as the money wasn't enough. We change the % depending on the expenses of the month, so each of us we still have personal money to buy whatever we want for ourselves or to save.

I suppose it’s whatever works best for you. There are no rules when it comes to how you manage both your incomes.
Myself and my partner don’t have our own money - we have OUR money. Whatever we bring in is combined and we use it for everything.

Then we also manage things like if my partner is working full time then I do the house work and baby (of a day) then when I go back say part time then he will pick up more chores etc and we adjust accordingly x

Thank you so much everyone! It’s helped a lot. Going to be a difficult conversation I think as so awkward when it comes to money but it’s a must! Thank you.