Family & Money – fair as a couple and with kids

In depth

When incomes are far apart

The pure income-based split has a catch many couples only notice years later: contributing the same percentage still leaves wildly different absolute amounts in each pocket. If one partner earns roughly 4,000 € net and the other 2,000 €, then on, say, 2,400 € of shared costs the higher earner keeps far more spending money after the 67/33 split. That is why some couples add a „floor“: each person first deducts a base amount for their own living costs, and only the rest is split by ratio — this noticeably protects the smaller income. It gets delicate during parental leave or part-time work for the child, because income drops while care work rises; if unpaid work is ignored, the person stepping back pays twice. The cleaner approach is to reset the ratio every year and deliberately compensate for reduced-earning phases, for instance through higher savings deposits into the caregiver’s account. What matters is not the perfect formula but that both feel the outcome is fair and talk about it openly.

Saving for the child — in whose name?

When investing for a child, people often focus only on returns and overlook the ownership question — yet that is what decides everything later. A securities account in the child’s name legally belongs to the child: at 18 they gain full access, and parents may not divert the money for their own purposes beforehand, because they only manage it on the child’s behalf. That can be intentional, but it can also become awkward when an 18-year-old suddenly controls 30,000 € alone. If parents instead save in their own name with a mental label „for the child“, they keep control but pay tax on the gains themselves, and a later transfer may count as a gift. Children also have their own annual saver’s tax allowance (around 1,000 € as of 2026) plus a basic allowance, so capital gains in a child’s account often stay tax-free — as long as the child has no significant income of their own. A common intermediate mistake is also investing large sums all at once instead of contributing over years; a small standing order smooths out price swings and makes the goal realistically reachable.

Protection: cover the right risk first

When it comes to insurance, many families reflexively buy an embellished children’s policy and overlook the biggest risk: the loss of the income everyone lives on. If a parent dies or is out of work for a long time, it is not a little money that is missing but half or all of the family’s livelihood — which is why term life and disability cover for the earners usually come before anything else. A common rule of thumb for the death benefit is roughly three to five times annual income (counted gross or net depending on the source), depending on remaining debt, number of children and existing assets; on 40,000 € that would be around 120,000–200,000 €. One nuance often forgotten: unmarried couples should insure crosswise — each person takes out the policy on the other’s life and is themselves the policyholder and premium payer, otherwise inheritance tax can fall on the payout (the allowance for unmarried partners is only 20,000 €). Contracts should also be reviewed after every major change — a birth, buying a home, a salary jump — because a sum that fit ten years ago may be too tight today. The pricey children’s accident or education policy, by contrast, is rarely what actually carries the family.

The three-account model, explained

One of the cleanest ways to hold shared and separate money is the "yours, mine, ours" setup: each partner keeps a private account, and a joint account handles the shared bills. Every month, both people move an agreed contribution into the joint account, and everything communal — rent, groceries, utilities, childcare, family insurance — is paid from there. What lands in the private accounts is genuinely personal: no permission needed, no explanations. Why this beats pooling everything into one pot: it removes the low-grade friction of scrutinising each other's coffees and hobbies, while still funding the family as a team. It also survives a breakup far more cleanly than a single merged account, because each person keeps an independent financial footing. The mechanics that make it work: set the transfers up as standing orders timed to payday, so the joint account is funded before anyone spends a cent on themselves. Give the joint account a small buffer of its own so a heavy month doesn't bounce a direct debit. And write down what counts as "shared" versus "personal" once, together, so the boundary isn't renegotiated at every purchase. The model scales down to one shared account too; the discipline that matters is the automatic, agreed transfer, not the number of accounts.

Parental leave is a money cliff

The most common and expensive planning miss for new parents is treating the leave period as a short blip. In reality, a household often runs for many months on reduced or single income while expenses climb — nappies, gear, higher heating because someone is home all day. A frequent mistake: the higher earner keeps their full personal-spending habits while the household income has dropped by a third or more, and the emergency fund quietly drains to cover the gap. Avoid it by modelling the leave before the baby arrives, not after. Write down expected net household income month by month across the whole leave, subtract realistic expenses, and find the monthly shortfall. Then build a dedicated "leave buffer" in the months you're still on two full salaries — a separate savings pot, not the general emergency fund, so you can watch it deplete on purpose rather than by accident. A second trap is the return to work: childcare can cost enough that the lower earner's take-home barely covers it in the first year. That can still be worth it for career continuity and pension contributions, but decide it deliberately as a family, with the numbers in front of you, rather than defaulting to whatever feels normal.

When one partner steps back from work

If one person reduces hours or leaves paid work to raise children, the couple takes on a quiet, long-term risk that rarely gets discussed: the caregiver loses years of earnings, career progression, and — in many systems — retirement entitlements that are tied to paid income. The relationship may be rock-solid, but planning only for the good case is exactly how the caregiver ends up structurally exposed. A fairer framework treats caregiving as shared work with shared financial consequences, not a favour one person does the household. Two concrete money moves. First, keep funding the caregiver's own retirement savings from the shared budget during the low- or no-income years, so the pension gap doesn't compound silently for a decade — treat it as a household bill, not an optional extra. Second, don't let all long-term wealth build up under the earning partner's control by default; growing it jointly means the caregiver isn't left dependent on goodwill. Beyond money, it's worth talking through — calmly, while things are good — how you'd both want to handle the finances if you separated, and getting proper advice on that rather than improvising later. None of this is pessimism; it's the same logic as insurance. Revisit the whole arrangement whenever hours or income change.

Teaching kids money without a lecture

The financial habit that compounds most over a child's life isn't the size of the account you open for them — it's whether they learn to handle money at all. Yet many parents either avoid the topic or over-formalise it into a chore. A practical middle path is an allowance the child controls, deliberately kept small, paid on a predictable schedule. The learning comes from the mistakes: spending it all on day one and having nothing for the thing they wanted at the weekend teaches trade-offs faster than any explanation. As they get older, a simple structure helps — split each payment into "spend now," "save for something bigger," and "give," so saving and generosity become defaults rather than afterthoughts. For a concrete matching idea (illustrative): offer to add a modest top-up to whatever they save toward a real goal, which mirrors how employer or long-term savings incentives work later in life. Two pitfalls to avoid: tying every payment to specific tasks can turn money into pure transaction and undercut chores done out of belonging; and rescuing them from every shortfall removes the lesson. Talk openly about ordinary trade-offs you make as adults — "we chose this over that" — because watching real decisions teaches more than a set-piece talk ever will.