Getting married, joint finances who pays for childcare?

System

duchy wrote: »

You're not married then

Marriage is a partnership-emotionally and financially. PRECISELY! Not a case of this is my money and this is yours. I will pay for this and you will pay for that
If it wasn't there would be an awful lot of penniless SAHMs.

Money causes more rows than anything else in most marriages so it is sensible to "start as you mean to go on" and make sure you both see things the same way financially surely !

Yes I am. Have been married (to the same person) for nearly 40 years. In that time ALL finances have been joint, there has never been situations where it had to be decided whether it was my responsibility to pay for an item or the spouse as it all came from the central pool where ALL income was put

I see a reluctance to treat family finances as joint as an indication that there is commitment lacking in the relationship.

quidsy

I see a reluctance to treat family finances as joint as an indication that there is commitment lacking in the relationship.

The you would be wrong. It is purely what works for you but will not neccesarily work for others. The OP is asking for advice on how to find a way to make everything fair.

duchy

!!!!!! wrote: »

Yes I am. Have been married (to the same person) for nearly 40 years. In that time ALL finances have been joint, there has never been situations where it had to be decided whether it was my responsibility to pay for an item or the spouse as it all came from the central pool where ALL income was put

I see a reluctance to treat family finances as joint as an indication that there is commitment lacking in the relationship.

So what part of my post are you disagreeing with ? :rotfl:

System

duchy wrote: »

So what part of my post are you disagreeing with ? :rotfl:

This

Money causes more rows than anything else in most marriages

Normally the rows are because of the idea that this is my money and this is your money, This is my bill and this is yours.

so it is sensible to "start as you mean to go on" and make sure you both see things the same way financially surely !

Which is to treat everything as joint owned then a lot of the rows disappear, not continue with separate finances and have to negotiate each time that something new comes up.

I've always wondered in the separate finances situation whether it gets so entrenched that the partner ends up with a default because it is their responsibility to pay E.G. electric bill but they can not afford it

quidsy

The op isn't considering seperate bills only on how to balance out the loss she is going to have once he moves in & she loses a large chunk of what is used currently for her childcare.

It is normal now for couples to have seperate funds after all HH costs/childcare has been covered, it has worked perfectly well in my own marriage for 15 years. But the op & her Htb are both losing financially with the move & rather than create contention are doing the sensible thing & trying to resolve the issue now.

krustylouise

quidsy wrote: »

The op isn't considering seperate bills only on how to balance out the loss she is going to have once he moves in & she loses a large chunk of what is used currently for her childcare.

It is normal now for couples to have seperate funds after all HH costs/childcare has been covered, it has worked perfectly well in my own marriage for 15 years. But the op & her Htb are both losing financially with the move & rather than create contention are doing the sensible thing & trying to resolve the issue now.

I agree, I am not saying he pays rent I pay council tax and electric etc. We would pay all bills jointly, it was the childcare that came in to question.

fredtheguava

Are you sure you will lose all of your WTC, CTC etc? I have just had a play around on the turn2us calculator and on my (admittedly not-very-accurate) assumptions based on what you've said in this post, you may still get a fair bit of it.

duchy

!!!!!! wrote: »

This
Normally the rows are because of the idea that this is my money and this is your money, This is my bill and this is yours.
Which is to treat everything as joint owned then a lot of the rows disappear, not continue with separate finances and have to negotiate each time that something new comes up.

I've always wondered in the separate finances situation whether it gets so entrenched that the partner ends up with a default because it is their responsibility to pay E.G. electric bill but they can not afford it

What on earth are you burbling on about ?
Where in that post am I advocating separate finances or bill allocation ?
Perhaps you could read what is actually there and not what you think it says. You obviously have your own agenda here but please don't try and drag me into your nonsense by implying I believe something I don't !

whodathunkit

krustylouise wrote: »

Thank you for your reply. So glad to hear from someone in the same situation.


Currently OH lives with his Dad and the only outgoings he has are mobile, insurance and petrol.
When I mentioned childcare and about how much i'd have left he just stayed quiet so I didn't push it.

So this man pays nothing in the way of food, bills and rent when living with his father but he's still got into debt?

Are you sure this marriage is a good idea?

TBagpuss

I don't thin kthere is a single right answer, but sitting down and discussing things is a good start.

As well as the issue of what it is 'fair' for him to contribute, consider the knock-on effects - for instance, if you split everything else equally, but you are paying for your daughter's expenses, isn't that going to leave him with much more disposable income than you? Is that then going to cause issues of you can't afford to pay for half of holidays, for instance, or if he can afford treats for himself and you can't?

You are becoming a new family, and your daughter is a part of that, so to me personally it would seem very odd and contrived to exclude the expenses for your daughter from the general 'pot'.Your fiance has a relationship with a person who has a child, the two of you come as a package, and he presumably knows that.

I personally tend to favour an approach which looks at the total income from all sources, the total necessary expenses (which would include things such as joint savings for holidays etc, payments into pensions , housing and general living costs and child care) and then split what is left so you each have some money which is yours alone to do with as you will, but that is based n the total family income and needs, so that neither of you is significantly better off than that other.

Another option is to work out the outgoings and split them so you each pay the same proportion of your incomes - so if your income is higher than his, you would pay a bigger share of the outgoings, but you would each be putting (say) 75% of your individual incomes into the 'pot', rather than a fixed amount.


I don't think that a straight 50/50 split of contributions works well unless you both have , and are likely to continue to have, roughly equal incomes.