Splitting finances when money drops on maternity leave
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You might be right here Sophie. I’ve just edited my post to say my savings have now halved after paying out for stuff. Just not nice to watch ur savings go down is it
No it isn't!! Totally agree. The way I see it is just investing in my little one. Plus I'd rather have taken the full year and have less savings - the time is priceless and its not like I can buy it back later. I'm also in the somewhat unique position that my employer overpaid my mat leave for 6 months - so I'm better off during mat leave but will have to pay it back over the next two years 🤦♀️
Yes I agree same, would rather have the year off & it is precious time investing in little one. I did the same with my first born, equally again hated that I had to use up savings to get me through
I’m not sure there’s another way around this other than using your savings. If you think he ‘can’ contribute ‘more than half’ during your leave then you could have an open conversation about that, i.e does he have a lot of reserve spend each month that he could use some of to help you out? There’s a separate question as to whether he ‘should’ help you out but again it’s worth getting his view. It’s a bit hard to use the drop in pay due to maternity leave (clearly a shared reason!) as a reason for him to pay more if otherwise everything else is kept completely seperate and not usually shared in any way (if that makes sense). It kind of depends how you broach money on the day to day and whether anything financial is seen as a shared responsibility already. Obviously when it comes to child expenses, day trips, ‘stuff’, childcare costs etc. that is a joint cost for both of you so a conversation needs to be had on how that will all be split anyway if keeping finances seperate.
I’m a fan of the shared income/shared costs approach (as long as each person also gets a personal amount to spend/save as they want) or proportional. In either of those cases you’d be expecting your drop in pay to be partially covered by his income - it’s less clear cut here. But appreciate there are reasons to keep separate!
Thanks Amy. I’ve always paid the childcare bill solo for our little one as he has a 13 year old he pays maintenance for each month as well which is quite a bit & pays for his weekend costs as we have him every weekend, so I pick up the majority cost of our 2 year old expenditures. Hoping our mortgage drops & thankfully the new free childcare from the Gov which will deffo help with this next one. He does want to help it’s just a massive strain on his finances. In fairness he sends me 30£ direct debit a week towards our 2 year olds food but I buy and pay for the big weekly shop. Appreciate the comments ladies
I saved so that I could do this! Still paid half all bills, but he paid more food shops than what I paid for. Now he pays for almost all bills as our circumstances have changed with our earnings
If he can't pay all of the bills comfortably, then what about if you just paid the mortgage, or would that be too much for you? It's hard to say without knowing how much you'll get and how much your bills are, etc. I don't think that you should have to use most of your savings, but maybe you'll have to use some. I'm on maternity leave. I get £730pm maternity pay and also £170 pm child benefit, and my out goings are around £500, my partner earns around £2300 pm and his out goings are around £1700 pm
Our mortgage is like 1300 a month which is really high for us but hopefully it will drop at our renewal time in august. The plan was him to pay the mortgage when my money drops and me to pay the bills. Just cost of living is high for ppl I guess atm
I've dipped into my savings to continue covering my half of everything. If you can afford to do so, and he can't cover the bills without you doing that, why wouldn't you?