Splitting finances fairly: based on Nett or Gross?

When we moved in together first we used to transfer the same certain percentage of our salaries (take home) into a joint account out of which all bills, mortgage, etc. were paid. Personal expenses including car tax and insurance were paid by ourselves. Anything left in the joint account at the end of the month went into joint savings for hols, home improvements, that kind of thing.
Now we have 2 kids and he earns a bit more than I do. I could earn more by moving jobs but my job works for us as a family with hours and flexibility. My husband and I have the same qualification and he doesn't work any harder than I do. So we now keep a set amount of euros each and everything else goes into the joint a/c. We also pay everything relating to both of us or the family out of this a/c. So we both have the same individual personal disposable income. Car taxes and insurance and petrol are now paid out of the household a/c as the bigger car is usually used to transport the kids and both cars are available to both of us.
It means we are seeing ourselves as making an equal contribution (not just financial) to our family and both have equal opportunity to spoil ourselves, spend frivolously, save, whatever we want guilt free with our own money.
 
Thanks to all the constructive replies (particularly fizzelina and iliketobake).
Update: we have opened a joint account which we will each pay our contributions to the expenses into. This went down surprisingly well, since he was always adamant he didn't want a joint account, but maybe that's so I can't see what he's spending his extra money on (!) :)

And we have calculated what my pre-tax pension contributions would be (since I pay from my gross salary) and added them to the shared expenses.

Much much happier now. I feel expenses are equal now.

@AnnR - pre-tax contributions are mostly pension to pension, but also to health, and a myriad of share options. We are married, but not under the Irish system. We have a ante-nuptial contract that favours him (since he had more assets entering the marriage). Like I said before, there is nothing at all wrong with our relationship, but financial advisors are always saying to plan for the worst but hope for the best, so just trying to cover all my bases in the event that something goes drastically wrong.
 
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iliketobake said:
When we moved in together first we used to transfer the same certain percentage of our salaries (take home) into a joint account out of which all bills, mortgage, etc. were paid. Personal expenses including car tax and insurance were paid by ourselves. Anything left in the joint account at the end of the month went into joint savings for hols, home improvements, that kind of thing.
Now we have 2 kids and he earns a bit more than I do. I could earn more by moving jobs but my job works for us as a family with hours and flexibility. My husband and I have the same qualification and he doesn't work any harder than I do. So we now keep a set amount of euros each and everything else goes into the joint a/c. We also pay everything relating to both of us or the family out of this a/c. So we both have the same individual personal disposable income. Car taxes and insurance and petrol are now paid out of the household a/c as the bigger car is usually used to transport the kids and both cars are available to both of us.
It means we are seeing ourselves as making an equal contribution (not just financial) to our family and both have equal opportunity to spoil ourselves, spend frivolously, save, whatever we want guilt free with our own money.
Click to expand...

This makes a lot of sense to me, I think it's nearly easier when you decide you are both a unit and each contributing in your own way rather than splitting hairs over money, but maybe it comes into play more when there's children.
Compared to this, we have a fairly strange arrangement, or maybe not. My husband earns a lot more than me but I won't be changing jobs anytime soon because my location suits us with the baby in the creche nearby. I pay the creche fees, all the household stuff, baby and most groceries - I take on as much as I can. This is because I am more of a spender than my husband and this limits the cash available to me to spend on handbags and shoes (but I still have some left over :)). My husband pays the mortgage and his own car tax and then saves the rest - he doesn't really spend any money so this way I know that we are saving. We split holidays - one of us pays the accomodation and the other pays the rest. I manage everything - he just has to save. It works for us because we don't have to have spending diairies etc we just make sure the savings are being put away. If we don't have enough it's up to me to cut my discretionary spending to cover everything to protect our savings rate. That's when I start making stews and lunches for work etc my husband just continues on as normal.
 
I would like your arrangement, only paying a third of the expenses. I earn half what my husband has. I have 25K gross and work full time. We have a 1 yr old baby.

I pay for big grocery shop at wkend, and baby creche fees. The rest is for me for petrol, discretionary saving/spending. Husband pays the mortgage and other big expenses eg. health insurance, heating, bills etc. He might pay for small groceries during the week, he works near the grocery store. He also saves a portion of his money. We have separate accounts.

We have a small mortgage, as husband saved up for the house. He probably has loads more than me to save, but that is just his good luck that he earned more than me. I have small house which I have let. I collect all the rent from this, and I pay all the mortgage on this when it is idle. I might give husband money if he does work on my house.

I pay a larger portion for hols, as I'm the one that wants hols, husband doesnt care about hols.

We have a car each, we are each responsible for saving a certain amount of money each week towards changing our own car. We generally try and have one newish car and one old car. Husband has old car so is due to change soon, mine is only 4 yrs old so I will keep mine.
 
Hey there, glad you have sorted out something that works for you both. I have been with my hubby for 8 years. We have a joint account, out of which comes all bills, mortgage, holidays, childcare etc etc. We pay into that proportionally depending on our earnings (started off as 50/50, then went to 66 (me)/33 (him), now back to 50/50 and will soon be 60 (him)/40 (me).) Always worked out on net income (i.e. take home pay) as I am a civil servant so pay levies, higher pension contributions et al, so he sometimes has higher take home pay even when his gross salary is lower. Anything either of us has left over is ours to do what we like with.

Tbh, we do it for day to day handiness (i,e, both contributing according to our means and both having spending money without having to justify spending to eachother) but on a long term basis, it is all our joint money. For instance, my pension will prob be better than his but it would never occur to me to think of it as 'mine' - it belongs to us as a family. Similarly, I tend to save whereas he tends to spend and we are going to use my savings to do some work on our house - again, I see that as an investment for our family that I can happily facilitate due to a period of higher earnings and due to being more frugal than my very generous hubby! Maybe the difference between my outlook and yours is linked to having kids - I tend to see us as a unit with everyone contribtuing to the family as their first priority and contributions not just being measured in financial terms. I had been planning to take a career break and then it would have been my husband contributing 100% to the joint account and my contributuion would have been to be full time at home with our sons and we would have just cut our cloth accordingly. I don't think I would have felt that it was his money and not mine
 
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