Welcome to the forum Gizzyspop.

What's changed is that your wife is in a position to contribute towards household bills now. I'd imagine whoever is running her sequestration took her share of the bills into account when setting her contribution.

Presumably you were covering all of the household bills when your trust deed began, but it sounds like that's no longer the case if your wife is also earning.

This will effectively reduce your expenditure in some areas, which might have the effect of making an increased contribution affordable for you.

Be sure to let your trustee know about her payment into the sequestration. Also let them know about all of her individual expenditure if they're going to factor in her income to the affordability calculation.

Thanks for the reply 🙂

Hi Gizzyspop

It will have been explained to you that you have to pay whatever you can afford to the Trust Deed when you signed up. As Trust Deed Assistant says, your wife's income reduces your outgoings as she can shoulder part of the joint household costs now.

I can see that it might not be immediately obvious that something like this would affect your contributions though, so I do sympathise. It is the kind of thing a good adviser should make sure you understand really, especially if you have young children that are likely to start school during the course of your Trust Deed.

Hi Gizzyspop and welcome to the forum.

Some good advice from TDA and Kevin.

The only thing I would add is ensure that when you go over your income and expenditure with your Trustee be sure to include everything that you pay as a household. If you son is at school then things like school meals, travel to and from school, kids clubs etc all need to be taken into consideration.

Any payment that you pay should always be and feel fair and reasonable.