Do most married couples really pool all money, or keep some separate?

DH and I do find the approaches of other couples weird, but to each their own.

Personally, I'm the main, all but sole earner now - DH previously worked full time even though I earned more, and my salary paid the mortgage and utilities and his paid for the food bills and luxuries. Now he earns cash in hand for odd jobs but he has completely refurbished the house since his semi-retirement (we moved north to do it), and he does 90% of the cleaning, shopping and cooking. I work full time, my responsibilities are the dog walking and laundry!

Everything comes out of my account (it isn't joint), I put some cash into his account to cover a few of his personal bills like mobile phone etc. All disposable income is ours, he just uses my card and doesn't take the piss! In fact I wish he'd spend more on himself, he's very frugal. He has put all the work into this property and our lifestyle - I just happen to earn good money. As much as everything is in my name, no court in the land would award him less than 50% of my total worth if he divorced me (or I divorced him). We've been married for 23 years and we're in our 50's.

ETA - pensions and ISAs are in my name, over the next few years we'll use his allowances if accumulated cash allows, but in any event, my private pension will support us both in retirement (and I'll keep it in flexi-access so he gets the remaining pot if I die before him).

How rude.

DH and I have joint finances and regard all our money as “ours” - we have ISAs, pensions, shares and various other things in our own names because that’s how it works best for us (mostly for tax reasons) but it doesn’t mean I think of my ISA as being my money or his pension as his. There’s a master spreadsheet that keeps track of what’s in what place that we both have access to.

Clearly joint finances doesn’t mean we literally pool all our money in a pile of £10 notes on the kitchen table 🙄

DH is an higher earner than me so we pro rata. Our wages go into our own accounts. We both put 50:50 into our joint account for food, I transfer roughly 30% of our bills to DH (he had the house before we married so bills still in his name). We have our own savings accounts for holidays and our cars etc. Holidays are 50:50, household maintenance is 30:70. DH would absolutely help me out with any big unexpected bills such as my car if I needed it but I would want to pay him back.
2nd marriage for him 1st for me, we both had previous relationships where there was a lot of unfairness around money so we discussed it very early on and this is what works and feels fair for us.

Like some others we have a joint account that we both pay into pro rata of earnings that covers all household expenses. Bills, food, petrol, pets etc. There is usually around £200 ‘spare’ in there for one off things.

We have a monthly discussion about how much we can afford to put in our savings and have a joint account for that.

Anything else is our own and we will roughly take it in turns to pay for meals out etc. I earn a fair bit more so will pay more often but it is fair.

We have different thresholds for personal spending and it took the first 10 years of our marriage to realise we were needlessly arguing about what we each spent money on. Now we can each do what we want with our left over money and there is no conflict. We do both talk about large purchases before spending but on the whole we’re on the same page and it works for us.

As an example of our approach, I recently got a large redundancy payment and we have fully discussed and agreed how we will save/spend it. I definitely think of it as joint money (aside from a modest solo holiday!). It was the same a few years ago when DH inherited some money from his Mum.

There is no one size fits all. Why do people on this platform feel the need to share their financials in minute detail and ask if its reasonable. Yes YABU and YANBU. Does that help?

We share.

DH and I pool all our money, and never owe each other or pay each other back if one of us pays for something. I have one DS from a previous relationship who lives with us ft and his expenses are just part of the household expenses. DH has always earned far more than me and put down the full deposit for our home. We have some separate accounts and some joint, but it's all one pot as our money. We've been married for 14 years and never argue over money,it works for us.

If you are joint tenants you can't leave your house to kids, it automatically transfers to the joint tenant at death

We have separate personal accounts, plus a joint account, it’s all family money but I wouldn’t go and buy a big ticket item without talking it though as we’re a family, likewise I wouldn’t go into debt without discussing it.

It's totally different when it's a second and marriage and the kids are not his, what you're doing is really sensible, you need to protect your kids. When you're married to the father of your children I think all money should be pooled in one pot, that's what we do. I'm the higher earner but I can't imagine taking more out of the pot because of that, we are one family. Almost everything I buy is for the kids or house but things he wouldn't think to buy so I'd end up spending far more of my income on shared items if we didn't share our incomes. I also wouldn't want this to be the way we lived because it would inevitably start a feeling of who is paying for what, how much of a share should be paid, what's fair, who's paid for what and contributed what amount which I cant be bothered with. There's been times when I wasn't the higher earner, I earnt nothing for a few months of each maternity leave and I'd expect my husband to still support me and give me equal access to the account then so I know it can change at any point, there's also been times when he's been out of work and I've supported him. I also think you're coming from this from a point of being a high earner, when you're living month to month having to get the school uniforms, winter coats, and weekend day trips with the kids out of your income while he spends his disposable income on energy drinks and trainers really starts to grate.

For those of you who pay food shopping from the joint account how do you know how much to put in? I find when we keep things separate i buy lions share of food shopping etc and im the lower earner which makes it feel unfair

We’re 26 years into first and hopefully last marriage. We keep things separate and pay
for different things. I earn more so pay for more and we both wanted to be financially independent at the start and it’s worked out. I suppose importantly, we earn more than enough between us to comfortably afford our lifestyle, so theres never any tension. I think people who proscribe how other people run their marriages, should wind their necks in!!

We have a joint account, a joint savings accounts and then accounts of our own. Everything gets pooled on payday and we take equal amounts of ‘fun money’ out that we can either spend or save as we see fit. Work bonuses, overtime, side jobs don’t typically go into the joint pot, but might be used for something that benefits the whole family (a holiday etc).

We don't pool money and I wouldn't be married to someone who expected it. Separate finances work well for us.

First marriage for both of us and we have 3 young DC's.

We pool it all and always have, but I’ve no idea what most of my friends do, let alone “most couples”. We earn similarly for the first 5 years or so but DH then started to outearn me and I was a SAHM for 10 years.

We’ve been married 50 years in 2027

We have two joint accounts , manage one each for spending money, all bills paid out of another account again joint.
All savings in joint names!!

We only have a joint account and a joint savings account. We don’t have our own separate accounts. We have 3 children between us (non together) and are making a will splitting everything 3 ways for the children who are all adults.

Married 20+ years money 100% pooled. We are outliers among our friends who most operate with one joint and 2 separate accounts.

I am the bigger earner by about 20k and we are both decent earners but I have no idea what we do about savings, mortgage applications, loan applications.

I have never more than signed my name at the bottom of an application form. We have paid fully for our kids at uni, organised a couple of mortgages and multiple cars so something is working out but it is nothing to do with me. It’s like the elves and the shoemaker. If I have to do it in the future I will but I’m not going to lie, I like it the way it is.

We have separate accounts but all the money in them is joint. If that makes sense.

We have a joint account for bills, food etc we each pay into. Then our own individual accounts. We also have separate savings accounts.

We've never had a joint account. We're mid 30s in case relevant. I pay some bills and he pays others.

As far as I know, everyone in my family has a joint account with their spouse for things like bills and household expenses, and separate accounts of their own for anything else. I'd do the same.

My parents had a joint account. Never occurred to me not to do the same. Married over 30 years and have a joint savings account too. Separate ISAs but put the same amount in each. I always earned more than him but it's all our money. Neither of us is a spend thrift and we always agree on larger purchases.