whose money is it?

POPPYOSCAR

lostinrates wrote: »

This, but i too am a bit sad that people can be so vehement about what op describes as a lighthearted discussion. Perhaps those in relationships where joking about money is totally banned are also in unequitable and sad marriages?

Very true, but then such is the nature of the forums on MSE.

bluebaron

Just to clear up a few things.

- It is just a light hearted discussion.
- When I say it's mine I mean that it will go in the household 'pot'
- I work similar hours as my wife so we have an equal share of childcare, housework etc. Its Just that I earn more.
-If I let the missus have half it wil go in her own personal spend not the househild pot.
- Her personal spend is about 3 times mine.(having paid the the £3000 a month household bill! (she owns a horse, nuff said!)

So as you can see although we are having a joke about it I think it does raise a good topic for discussion.

lostinrates

bluebaron wrote: »

Just to clear up a few things.

- It is just a light hearted discussion.
- When I say it's mine I mean that it will go in the household 'pot'
- I work similar hours as my wife so we have an equal share of childcare, housework etc. Its Just that I earn more.
-If I let the missus have half it wil go in her own personal spend not the househild pot.
- Her personal spend is about 3 times mine.(having paid the the £3000 a month household bill! (she owns a horse, nuff said!)

So as you can see although we are having a joke about it I think it does raise a good topic for discussion.

Crikey, i pay for several horses on less money per month than that!

RHYSDAD

My wife and I just assume all income to be 'The Family's'. There is no your's and mine, only our's.

Pollycat

bluebaron wrote: »

Just to clear up a few things.

- It is just a light hearted discussion.
- When I say it's mine I mean that it will go in the household 'pot'
- I work similar hours as my wife so we have an equal share of childcare, housework etc. Its Just that I earn more.
-If I let the missus have half it wil go in her own personal spend not the househild pot.
- Her personal spend is about 3 times mine.(having paid the the £3000 a month household bill! (she owns a horse, nuff said!)

So as you can see although we are having a joke about it I think it does raise a good topic for discussion.

I think if you'd said the above in your first post you might just have got some different replies.

However, I'm wondering if you're changing your story a little as you say you work similar hours but in your first post you said you're full time, your wife is part time.

bluebaron wrote: »

I recently got a mortgage chq for £3500 due to over payments. Now I work full time and earn quite a bit more than the missus who works part time.

Steel_2

Dan_Thunder wrote: »

On a personal note, I think it's ludicrous for people to say "Well, if you took into account all the childminding/cleaning/whatever she does.........". The house she gets to live in, the gas and electricity she gets to use, the food she gets to eat etc,etc all come from somewhere and that somewhere is her partners wage slip. To imply that the OP is getting something for nothing is ridiculous.

And to imply that the OP is not getting much for his money is ridiculous. You're missing the point of why people are bringing up the issue about homemaking and childrearing.

Homemaking and bringing up children is seen by too many people as a valueless occupation. A stay at home or part-time working parent is often regarded as sponging off their partner/spouse if they doesn't go back to work full time. There have been people on this forum who think if someone is at home with children they're being lazy and getting an easy ride.

The reality is both the person at home bringing up the children and the person at work bringing home the money work very hard at their own 'professions' to keep that family unit working. And the stay-at-home/part-time working parent still has to deal with the fact that if they will be on a much lower wage and status than they would have been had they stayed at work full time (that's if the stay at home parent manages to get back into the workplace at all having spent so many years out), and will have lost years of contributions to their pension - both occupational and state - so they'll receive less pension to live on when they retire than they might have done.

Both partners make sacrifices when one goes to work and one stays at home or decides to work part time.

So yes, people are going to bring up the worth of childrearing and homemaking in this case as they contribute to the overall household economy of the OP - in different ways granted - but it still contributes.

To pout and say "it's my money and they never contributed" is to negate their contribution. To say "the OP pays for the bills and the roof over her head" negates the daily effort she puts in to raise his kids to be decent human beings and reduces it to being valueless effort (that's assuming she does the lionshare of the childrearing as she works part-time)

fluffnutter

bluebaron wrote: »

Hi All,

I recently got a mortgage chq for £3500 due to over payments. Now I work full time and earn quite a bit more than the missus who works part time.

I pay all the house bills, childrens bills and holidyas etc. She gets to keep all her money for herself. I have no problem with this arrangement.

Now she says because the mortgage is in joint names she should have half. I say I made the payments so its all mine.

Now I'm not looking at the legal side etc just the moral side.

Whose Is It?

Ps. We are on good terms about it just a friendly discussion!

Ask yourself this: if you got a £3500 bonus at work would you keep it all for yourself or would you share it?

Dan_Thunder

Steel wrote: »

And to imply that the OP is not getting much for his money is ridiculous. You're missing the point of why people are bringing up the issue about homemaking and childrearing.

Homemaking and bringing up children is seen by too many people as a valueless occupation. A stay at home or part-time working parent is often regarded as sponging off their partner/spouse if they doesn't go back to work full time. There have been people on this forum who think if someone is at home with children they're being lazy and getting an easy ride.

The reality is both the person at home bringing up the children and the person at work bringing home the money work very hard at their own 'professions' to keep that family unit working. And the stay-at-home/part-time working parent still has to deal with the fact that if they will be on a much lower wage and status than they would have been had they stayed at work full time (that's if the stay at home parent manages to get back into the workplace at all having spent so many years out), and will have lost years of contributions to their pension - both occupational and state - so they'll receive less pension to live on when they retire than they might have done.

Both partners make sacrifices when one goes to work and one stays at home or decides to work part time.

So yes, people are going to bring up the worth of childrearing and homemaking in this case as they contribute to the overall household economy of the OP - in different ways granted - but it still contributes.

To pout and say "it's my money and they never contributed" is to negate their contribution. To say "the OP pays for the bills and the roof over her head" negates the daily effort she puts in to raise his kids to be decent human beings and reduces it to being valueless effort (that's assuming she does the lionshare of the childrearing as she works part-time)

That would be more valid if that's what I in any way had said so you've either misread or twisted my post to fit your own view. At no point in my post did I denigrate people who work part-time or are full time-housekeepers.

My point was that people often seem to think that staying at home and looking after the household is a solely selfless act that is unrewarded purely because you don't necessarily get a salary for it and that's simply not true.

Saying something along the lines of "Well, look at all the free housekeeping he gets" is at best misguided. Whilst the recompense may not necessarily be financial it's not as though the partner at home doesn't get any benefit out of the situation. Without the other partners salary they wouldn't be in a situation where they'd be able to spend their time looking after the household. Without the partners salary would there even be a household to look after?

At no point did I state that one option is better than the other but to imply that the breadwinner is getting a much better deal purely because of an assumption they're getting someone to look after the house for 'free' is simply wrong.

Oravat_2

New to posting but I read this thread with quite a lot of interest as this is very similar to my situation. we're not married.

Firstly, my OH earns 4 times more than I do. He pays all the household bills like electric, gas, etc.

He paid all this before and I have to keep my finances separate to his anyway so there can't be a joint account for it all to go into.

I do all the household chores like cooking, cleaning, washing etc.... now all this use of electric as pointed out by Dan Thunder would have been used anyway.

It's not that I don't contribute at all, if things get low in the cupboard I will top it up, even when I am without a salary coming in.

I don't go out socialising nor do I go and pamper myself with haircuts or nails done or buy new clothes. OH goes out with his mates all the time.

When he gets money from somewhere I don't even look at it as being mine.

podperson

I would say that technically it's your money as it's a refund of money that you specifically have paid out. Trying to look at it the other way round, if your wife got a lump sum or refund, eg say she got a tax refund - so her money coming back to her - would you feel it was all her money or would you be a little peeved if she didn't share it.

However in general I would say that as you're a partnership all money should belong to both of you. It's coming across to me (could be wrong of course!) that you're not completely happy with the arrangement at the moment where she gets to have 3 times the 'personal spends' money that you do, so maybe that might be worth discussing. Obviously if you're earning more you should be paying a larger share of the bills but I know I would be a little peeved if my OH got to spend all his money on 'fun' stuff while I didn't have a great deal left over after paying out for everything.