Getting married, joint finances who pays for childcare?

quidsy

Exactly, been with husband for 15 years & married for 11 this year we hashed out all financials before committing & it has worked out well. Our way might not be for everyone but it works for us but the initial discussion & subsequent "adjustments" over the years have made it one less thing to contend with.

bryanb

krustylouise wrote: »

In October OH and I are getting married and he will be moving in with DD and I. Obviously then finances will be split with bills, food etc. We have agreed to pay half the bills and food. We will be paying our own petrol, insurance, mobiles etc.

I know you're not looking for criticism but I have to say the above sounds more like a house share than a marriage.

krustylouise

bryanb wrote: »

I know you're not looking for criticism but I have to say the above sounds more like a house share than a marriage.

Ok, so how would you do it so it sounds like a marriage? That would be advice...

purpleshoes_2

bryanb wrote: »

I know you're not looking for criticism but I have to say the above sounds more like a house share than a marriage.

Some people do split bills in that way.

I think my concern is, you are having this conversation quite soon before your wedding, you dont have much time to resolve this.

onlyroz

I'm not quite getting the figures here. You say that you work 35 hours a week and bring in £1100 a month, of which about half of this is in benefits. Surely that's below the minimum wage? I'd also like clarification on the childcare costs - is your child school age or nursery age? Because you talk about holiday clubs which makes me think that they must be school age, and if that's the case then £600+ a month childcare costs is astronomical.

krustylouise

onlyroz wrote: »

I'm not quite getting the figures here. You say that you work 35 hours a week and bring in £1100 a month, of which about half of this is in benefits. Surely that's below the minimum wage? I'd also like clarification on the childcare costs - is your child school age or nursery age? Because you talk about holiday clubs which makes me think that they must be school age, and if that's the case then £600+ a month childcare costs is astronomical.

I work 35 hours a week, I bring home £891 per month. The rest is maintenance, cb and tc.

DD is 6, she goes to holiday club which is £20 per day, 5 days a week.

LannieDuck

Another suggestion - you're going to lose out financially by him moving in. He should bear half of that.

So each month he gives you half the cost of the lost tax credits, and you continue to pay your DD's childcare as you did before.

(Although personally, OH and I have found that merging our finances altogether works better for us. You may find you need to do this anyway if you and he go onto have another child and you go on mat leave.)

krustylouise

purpleshoes wrote: »

Some people do split bills in that way.

I think my concern is, you are having this conversation quite soon before your wedding, you dont have much time to resolve this.

I'm sure it will all be resolved by then we've already started discussing it.

onlyroz

krustylouise wrote: »

I work 35 hours a week, I bring home £891 per month. The rest is maintenance, cb and tc.

DD is 6, she goes to holiday club which is £20 per day, 5 days a week.

In that case I'm not quite sure where this "I'll be worse off by £624 a month" comes from. And presumably you only have to pay the holiday club for a maximum of 14 weeks a year? Also, if you're no longer entitled to child tax credits can you claim childcare vouchers?

purpleshoes_2

LannieDuck wrote: »

Another suggestion - you're going to lose out financially by him moving in. He should bear half of that.

So each month he gives you half the cost of the lost tax credits, and you continue to pay your DD's childcare as you did before.

(Although personally, OH and I have found that merging our finances altogether works better for us. You may find you need to do this anyway if you and he go onto have another child and you go on mat leave.)

I think the person who needs to be bearing more of a share of the costs is the childs father. Im not sure that the new husband should automatically pay half the lost working tax credits. Its not his fault that the system is set up in a way that its means tested.

I do agree about merging the finances if possible.