Is a Pension a household bill???

enthusiasticsaver

Personally I would think it is unfair for the OP's partner to be penalised for taking out a pension.


If the bills are being split according to income and the partner earns more and contributes more to the bills, which I think is what the OP is saying then presumably the impact of paying a pension will mean the partner will have £250 or £300 less each month than the OP even though he or she earns more. I do not see that as fair.


Presumably if the OP has made a commitment by having a child and buying a house with their partner then the relationship is long term and eventually he or she will benefit from a pension.

kidmugsy

quotememiserable wrote: »

I suspect the same is true for common law partners, but maybe someone else can confirm.

Not only is there no such thing as "common law partners" there is no such implication for people merely living together.

enthusiasticsaver

You could insist that your partner fills out an "expression of wish" form which says the pension will go to you if he dies.

jamesd

The partner would naturally object to that if the child is theirs, preferring it to go to their child instead. The trustees might also choose to override such an expression of wishes when a child exists, preferring to pay to the child as a person who is clearly a financial dependent vs the partner who may be judged not to be.

Purplesky_2

I can only tell you how we've done it. My partner makes 3/5 of the total household net income (i.e. after taxes/NI), so he pays 3/5 of the total essential expenses (Mortgage/rent, council tax, water, energy, essential insurance, transport, childcare, phones and internet and food plus any contracts/loans held jointly).
This amounts to about 45% of his net income (and 45% of mine) being used to service essential bills.

After that we contribute money to savings/investing/pension because this money is our own, as we are not married, so neither has a claim to the other's assets. Approximately 15-30% of our net income, depending on other factors (for instance while we were have work done on our new house, it was 10% for a while, because money we would have saved was going on repairs). We are 6 years apart, and at quite different points in our careers, so the proportion going towards individual/joint goals is worked out based on what we can afford/urgency.

Then whatever is left, we can spend or save as we see fit. So he has more money available in terms of £ values, but as a proportion of our wages and the total household income, we have equitable amounts.

Quick question: Are you paying the minimum possible for your bills? Maybe an SOA might be a good idea?

PeacefulWaters

It's a petty row over money and you should both grow up.

If you're missing out on free employer contributions you both need to step back, see the bigger picture and find a compromise to exploit it while retaining your partner's pension.

ermine

dazednconfuzed wrote: »

My partner insists that their pension is a household bill and as such that we are both paying an equal share of the bills.

Personally I dont think this is fair.I dont want or have the spare money for a pension at the moment.

I have no stake in my partners Pension should something happen in the future. Like death or a breakup of our relationship.

You need to have a stern talking to yourself if you are trying to force your partner to give up their pension because you can't afford one. The may be a case to be made that they pay for it themselves and that reduces their effective income. There's an example of this it is, after all, is how the taxman views a pension.

The residual gets split as before if that is you you both see things. I can see the argument that you don't want to contribute to their pension.

Probably the correct answer is for you to pay into a pension yourself and give up a bit of consumerism. But if you don't want to do that then let them pay in effectively from income before your 'household tax' and take it from there. That way you don't get to pay into their pension, which I can see would make you sore, although you really ought to pay into yours, unless you plan on taking the Logan's Run option to the problem of getting old

System

Supposing you were to put aside part of your income and save it in a special account in your name. Would your partner be happy to count that as your contribution to household bills?

Triumph13

The obvious and sensible solution is that bills are shared based on takehome pay after tax and pension contributions. This will still mean that you are better off than when you were sharing them 50:50 and I would strongly suggest that you use that extra money to start a pension for yourself - particularly as it would make your own share of the bills drop.

Purplesky_2

It feels like this thread is getting hostile and that's because between you, you earn more than twice the national average, by my back-of-fag-packet calculations, about 48k? I can't tell from your OP whether that's gross or net.
Either way though should be plenty to live with. That you only have £1200 pounds a year after supposedly essential expenses suggests that you are overspending based on your current incomes, maybe not on tat and clothes etc, but almost certainly on housing, cars, insurance and utilities.

Posting an SOA would clarify where exactly your money is going right now. It may be helpful to do one as a couple and then one each individually, to get a true picture of where your money is vanishing to. I save more than that on a salary 7k less than yours, almost without noticing (although I don't have kids). I would probably be able to 'actively' save almost twice that with a little effort.