Household Finances...

[jenny82]

Just curious really, how you organise your household finances...

At the min, my OH pays for all the bills, mortgage etc. I pay for all the groceries, petrol and everything to do with the baby - oh, and the car insurance @ £60 per month.

Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing enough to contribute, but food can be expensive - I spent 90quid last week on baby stuff and cleaning stuff alone

I'm on SMP at the minute but won't be properly going back to work until May 2011, when I finish uni. When I go back to uni in September, I'll at least have a student loan so will just have to budget that out over the course of the year.

Is this a fair enough setup, do you think? I used to pay money by standing order every month for bills but this stopped when I went on maternity leave. Sometimes I get into my head that my OH thinks that I'm taking him for a ride...even though hes probably not. I'm just not used to not paying for stuff, iykwim??

 

[special_kala]

That sounds more then fair hun. dont forget being at home with your LO is a job to and it would cost alot of money in childcare if you were working so thats your contribution to the household anyway

 

[booflebump]

It sounds pretty fair to me. I get 'looked after' in a sense too, although we share some bills, and I have the same sort of guilty feeling you do. Thats despite Mr Boofs reassurances!

 

[Boony]

me and hubby have a joint bank account and all his wages go in there and my child benefit and tax credits go in there too. All the bills, food, petrol etc comes out of there it saves arguments over who's paying what (well it did when i was earning before we had LO)

I'm a sahm so i am looked after by my hubby but he doesnt mind he earns a good wage and he likes me being at home with Jayden so he can come home and see him on his dinner whereas if i was working and LO in nursery he wouldnt be able to.

As long as you and your partner are happy with what your doing then thats great.

 

[Dizzy321]

me and hubby have a joint bank account and all his wages go in there and my child benefit and tax credits go in there too. All the bills, food, petrol etc comes out of there it saves arguments over who's paying what (well it did when i was earning before we had LO)

I'm a sahm so i am looked after by my hubby but he doesnt mind he earns a good wage and he likes me being at home with Jayden so he can come home and see him on his dinner whereas if i was working and LO in nursery he wouldnt be able to.

As long as you and your partner are happy with what your doing then thats great.

Exactally the same here! apart from OH works away.

 

[daniellelk]

That sound's ALOT fairer then the situation with me and my OH.
My OH pay's for everything, bill's, petrol, food, any baby stuff we are getting stocked up on, clothes for both of us, his bike insurence and tax, my contract bill, house and contents insurence etc.
My dad pays my car insurence and tax for now, and the house we live in is what my parents/I own so we have no rent or mortgage....I guess thats my part, putting a roof over our heads, he just pays for everything to live here

 

[aly888]

At the min, my OH pays for all the bills, mortgage etc. I pay for all the groceries, petrol and everything to do with the baby - oh, and the car insurance @ £60 per month.

That is exactly how we do it. He pays mortgage, bills, council tax. I pay for food, fuel, baby and house items (ie, we are re-doing the floors in three rooms and I have just paid for it, and just bought a shed for the garden etc) and Sky bill. The only difference we have with the cars is he pays for his two cars and I pay for my car, but I pay to have him insured on my car too (I wouldnt want to drive his cars anyway. lol), but we usually pay that in one go, depending on finances at time of renewals. lol!!

I think it's fair. He sometimes jokes about if it wasnt for him I wouldnt have a roof over my head, so I remind him if it wasnt for me he wouldnt have anything to eat, watch, sit on etc, so we are pretty even!! The only thing that probably should change is he cooks dinner when he gets home from work, when I suppose I should do that... oh well

 

[polo_princess]

Sounds like a fair setup to me.

When i was working full time i had a DD going into OH's account to cover 50% of all bills including food shopping and then whatever was left over was mine to spend on myself

Now im only part time, he pays all of the "house" bills and i pay for food, mobile contracts, Virgin TV, Brookes nursery fee's etc etc

 

[Jemma_x]

We dont pay electric as its included in our rent, OH pays gas, petrol, car insurance and tax and water bill. I pay for food, connors nursery, anything connor needs and our mobile contracts. We have separate bank accounts so anything we have left is for us

 

[pinkmummy]

We put all our money into the joint account and everything comes out of that. We don't have our 'own' money we have 'our' money xx

 

[jenny82]

I would quite like the idea of us having a joint account...but at the same time, I don't think its for us.

OH pays the bills yes, but he also has a camera hobby, xbox addiction and is a DJ/producer so constantly buys records and new equipment. THis doesn't bother me at all as its his money and as long as everything is paid for and some is saved, he can do what he wants with the rest.

Same goes for me actually. I make sure everything is bought and some saved, but anything left over, I will have no qualms buying new shoes/makeup, getting my hair done etc. I think if we had a joint account, it would just cause more arguments as we'd be constantly questioning each other or I'd be feeling guilty (OH would never feel guilty though )...

 

[Cariad_bach]

We put all our money into the joint account and everything comes out of that. We don't have our 'own' money we have 'our' money xx

Thats us too,

Its our house, our food, our car, our children, our money etc etc etc xx

 

[Gwizz]

We have a joint account (and a personal account each) all bills get taken out off and CB etc gets paid into. I have a spreadsheet of monthly costs and then it is split about 40/60 as I earn less than him being part-time. We know exactly whats going out and whats going in per month and extra in our personal accounts is then used for 'luxuries' between us. So kinda 3 joint accounts as it were!

Your situation is perfectly fine hun - dont worry!

x