To ask you to help me understand marriage & finances.

The allocation of assets of a married couple only happens if you divorce. Within marriage you can do whatever you like. It suits some people to have everything in one pot but I would hate it. We have one joint account for bills and joint expenses, into which we pay in proportion to our salaries. Then we have our own current accounts and savings.

We have joint accounts and have done since before we got married. Day to day we spend what we want. Bigger spends like a new laptop, holiday, car clearly discussed between the two of us.

If you are married and you divorce the starting point for dividing assets is 50/50, but there are plenty of variations and nuances in practice. Within a marriage couples can organise their finances as they see fit.

I think the 50/50 thing tends to work best in partnerships where the man is the sole or main earner or where the couple married young and the assets in the relationship have been accrued together.

I’m not married in my current relationship and this is because I am the highest earner and have a child from a previous relationship so in my case being married would be a risk as opposed to a benefit.

My personal view is that in relationships where a woman is financially independent marriage is not a good idea because the risk is a transfer of value to a man who has not pulled his weight financially. But it’s horses for courses.

We do not have joint finances in the MN sense, we are like yourselves and have quite a lot of individual assets.

Women often go PT, take a career break or become a SAHP for a while which is why MN is very much get married. I acknowledge some women earn more, this was me at one point.

We do know about each others assets and income streams though and have the Mother of all spreadsheets that we both have input to but DH as ultimate data cruncher has tweaked to work out multiple scenarios. We both started investing as teenagers, before we met. I’m not asking permission to do x with my money though we do discuss what we are doing and run things past each other.

I have a friend who married later in life and owned two houses, he owned nothing and earned a third of what she did. She was almost 50, no children on either side. In her case I thought she was mad, he is steadily enjoying the fruits of her labour. Even DH doesn’t like him, it is incredibly rare for him to comment negatively about anyone, twice in 27 years about people.

I would say marrying is usually good for women financially but occasionally it isn’t.

most important factor is having the same attitude to money. Dh and I have separate accounts, both current and savings, but we share the same strategy and have an agreed budget for everything. Which pot the money comes out of is irrelevant.

We married quite young and I just thought of marriage as a big party for our friends and fam, and the fact we were committing to each other romantically. Only now (25 years later) when we suddenly have friends starting to divorce, has it actually occurred to me the legal implications of that party! Like others on here, we started with nothing and only have one joint account and share everything. We just kind of respect the account, buy ourselves things when needed but are not really big big spenders on clothes etc as too many bills to pay!

Everyone seems to have a different solution but it really comes to a head if you have kids. Fine to keep everything separate now but if you have kids you need to make sure you are paying equitably (not necessarily equally) for that. For example if you go on unpaid leave will he make up the balance ? They are your (plural) children not yours singular. I'm shocked at the women here paying for childcare or kids clothes out of "their " money. We did a family pot as soon as we had kids so there was no arguing over who did what. I can see us separating finances again now kids are grown and we are doing different things but basically no one partner should be financially disadvantaged by the choice to have a family

I used to be adamant about keeping our money separate. Even after marriage our salaries went into our own accounts, and then we transferred a set amount into joint account for mortgage, bills etc. I think this works well pre-kids.

Once kids came along, and I was on maternity leave, we switched to using the joint account for everything. It felt really weird at the beginning and I hated not earning - I never got used to that. But once I did go back to work, we just carried on using the joint account. We don't check spending with each other unless it's a big purchase, but in general terms we might say, oh it's a bit tight next month because X, Y, Z, and try to limit our treat stuff. It works, especially now we are a family. And we've been together a long time so we trust each other.

I’d say the most important thing is that you talk about it - and keep talking through life as things can and do change. And having a reasonably similar outlook on spending / saving.

Big difference between no kids both working to kids and a need for some time/ earning potential to be sacrificed. Also redundancies - job changes - relocations- business start up- house buying- investment opportunities - need to support extended family etc are likely to come up at some point over a life time, and if you are a unit there will be consequences of these decisions for the other person, so they have to be jointly
made and owned.

for what it’s worth we moved jn
together pre kids, but already both owned property. had joint account just for day to day spending and bills and gradually everything became ours. We do still have individual accounts and savings, but both hold the view that everything is really ‘ours’.
same as others- below a certain threshold we each just buy what we think is sensible.
Big spends we discuss and agree.

Like others we didn't have assets when we married so the issue was probably simpler. Our attitude was that marriage is a long term contract that gives security and stability for all involved including children if and when they come along. Everything is shared .You choose to marry because of shared values and in my case not for the bottom line of income. One partner might have a better paid job, one might be working and contributing within the charitable or public sectors, one might fall ill or be needed for family duties and thus earn less ; this is all part of for better or for worse.

We threw it all into the pot. We were young- I think it’s different if a blended family. You have some clashes along the way as to what your budget plan is and what’s important, but not being financially aligned is a big cause for break ups and I think that’s not often less because you keep finances separate - then you get unequal incomes and spending power and limited
right to input to the others decisions, and typically if there’s a negative impact it’s that women are worse off when you have children as they either take an earnings break or/and see and contribute more to the daily needs for children.
so we did an outgoings and incomings estimate, bucketed it all into categories, and went from there, that was close to 20 years ago.

You can do whatever feels comfortable for you. We have a joint account for all bills and we both put money into it to share equally and we both have individual personal accounts. I will never, ever only have a joint account. I've seen too many people come to financial harm doing that.

Not being married first before children would surely leave you more vulnerable as a woman? Never mind the financial stuff.

Check whether your pensions will allow for non-married couples to benefit in death. Some schemes won't pay an ongoing pension to a partner only a spouse/civil partner.

It might work for you now not being married but of you're still together in 30 years it might be more financially beneficial being married.

Date of marriage can also impact pensions, so thinking "oh we will just get married when we retire" might not be as beneficial as you think.

TLDR think about long long term not just short/medium term

Respectfully even with a prenup unless it's a very short marriage protecting your initial assets upon divorce is not guaranteed. AND if you accrue assets unevenly through the marriage almost impossible to achieve as they are marital assets.
Op you've got to have the same attitude to money, savings Vs spending and gender roles, childcare Vs paid work (and their financial value) to make it work.
Before marriage DH and I split bills 50:50 but I often paid more/all for big ticket things like travel as I earnt more. Only one joint account for bills.
After marriage and around kids we started to split according to income ratio, making sure our financial commitments were covered (higher earner paying more) then after they were covered giving ourselves the exact same discretionary spending money. The higher earner/part time worker/child care person was always treated equally. We also agree how much and what to save for and budgets for food, holidays etc. We have a huge spread sheet, multiple joint accounts for different pots and our own bank account for the discretionary stuff that neither has access to/ is bothered about. We never row about money......

We are joint everything but have been together since we both had nothing, I was 18 he was 22. We had no assets at the start. When we first moved in together, typical story, he earned more than me, I was independent too and insisted on paying 50/50. I had to pay for my car, he had a company car. I was sliding into debt, he was wasting all his disposable income on stupid hobbies.
Before we married, we decided to combine income and outgoings. It was a smart decision as we both have been the higher earner, it has seen us through 2x Mat Leaves, redundancy, him starting a business with little income for years. We also have similar spending patterns although his £12 haircut is very cheap compared to my monthly hair and beauty expenses.

We have totally joint everything - savings accounts, current account, credit cards etc.

When we moved in together we just started lumping everything together and it went from there! We just spend day to day as we normally would, I don't check before paying for my nails or buying some clothes (literally just placed a £400 asos order for holiday 😂) or anything for the house. I'd check before buying anything hugely significant but this amount will probably vary couple to couple.

We're also married now, so it's all joint in our minds as it's just "our" money even more. We don't really abuse this and there's just the knowledge that we won't take the piss and start buying £££ solo holidays or similar!

DH earns the family income which goes into his account, I am in receipt of several benefits which go into my account. We use a credit card to buy whatever we need and clear this every month. Nothing is questioned. If I need to spend money I spend it. He doesn't restrict what I spend.

Edited to add we have had a joint account since we married.

I think it also depends how financially comfortable you are. Some previous posters have their own properly and lots of disposable income and they have enough money to not know what is in their partners saving pots, but many can’t afford to live like that long term as both incomes are needed combined to pay the bills / to pay for holidays / save for uni etc

I have more money than my DH and earn roughly twice what he does. No kids. We have an everyday joint account for food shopping, bills , join meals etc and a big spends joint account for holidays, big house repairs etc. We contribute to these in proportion to salary every month. We then each have our own private accounts and savings accounts. I have no idea whats in his accounts and he no idea whats in mine .. its not a secret , but neither of us are particularly bothered.

It only works your way if you truly split everything 50/50
All the childcare, housework, emotional labour.
If one of you starts to lose earnings because you are doing more family work then the splitting bills 50/50 becomes more unfair.

We started living together early 20s, bought a house, and got married. Both worked, neither brought much else in in terms of assets.
We had a joint account for bills when we moved in together and each put equal amounts in each month.
I earned slightly more which was good because women have higher personal expenses.....my clothes hair and make-up for example which came out of my own account. But some months we had no money left by the end of the month so you start swapping things around.

When I was on mat leave is probably when it just became our money...because my income dropped significantly.
Initially you ask for big purchases but OH always said yes.
Then you just start to trust each other. Neither abuses the system. Neither really buys much just for them. Most of our expenditure is house and kids so their is no issue.

I hear of couples having joint bank accounts where all money just goes into and I honestly cannot wrap my mind around this.

Surely you'd need to consult every time you buy clothes/ book a trip/ get dinner/ get nails done etc.

I don't know why you'd think you'd automatically end up having to ask for permission to spend money.
DH and I have the same attitude to money, and are both trusted to access joint money without needing to check with the other person. We have a joint account for combined things (like groceries, household stuff, stuff for the children), and after bills we are left with the same amount of spending money in our own account each month.
I'm not saying that's what you should do, but I find it odd that you say you really can't even comprehend it.

You sound similar to me and dh although we married pre kids.

We have 3 accounts
Joint
Mine
His

Our salaries go into into out own accounts and a portion transferred to joint. Day to day joint costs go from there, we use our own accounts for hair clothes gifts whatever.
Our premarital assets were ring fenced (my choice by prenup)

Savings are separate

As time goes on we have shared more.
eg
Our annual isa allowance we flex / share. Ie i use his allowance to increase our savings.
I pay for his dental and medical via my work as its better (he doesnt contribute to this)

Neither of us will touch each others assets or make any significant purchases without discussion.
There has been one incident where we couldnt agree so one person used their savings to go ahead and buy the thing anyway (this was a smallish purchases sub £1k)

I think having the same idea of value and how to live / save is important. We are almost completely aligned on our views on money so it's very easy.

Edit: I married because i wanted children and i wante dthem wothin a marriage. while the higher earner my dh is no slouch and i wanted the security marriage brings (its an emotional commitment as well as financial) and i also didnt have enough large enough assets i could be confident i would always be financially independent and a high earner post children...i entered with around 5-600k worth.

I think marriage is only relevant for specific reasons.

If you are financially independent like me there is no reason to get married.

You do need decent wills in place if you chose not to get married though (and you should anyway)

There’s no rules - it’s what works for each couple. But yes, the starting point for divorce is usually 50/50. We have a joint account for all shared expenses like mortgage, bills; food, car, childcare. We contribute relative to our take home pay. We have a joint savings. But otherwise we have our own money for bits day to day. We would discuss bigger financial things like a new car or saving for house renovation