If you became a SAHM..

[wastedtwenties]

How do you manage your finances? Assuming your partner supports you, pays for bills etc... then does your partner give you "spending money"?

If so how much? In comparison to his earnings?

We view all money as family money, though we use multiple individual accounts and don't have a joint account. It just works out better for our tax/admin that way. His salary goes into one account where regular bills come out of, and we have spending accounts for anything else. We have a decent income so we transfer a lump sum a few times a year into each of our spending accounts, but it's not really an allowance or budgeted, it gets topped up whenever it runs low, so we can spend on a big item without feeling like we then have to scrimp for a while. We don't really discuss the financial side of purchases and buy what we like without asking permission, although in practice we're both quite sensible and I like to shop around for a bargain.

I pay the max allowed into a private pension and ISA investments so I'm covered pretty well for retirement savings, though his pension is far bigger than mine as he has decent employer contributions and has paid into it for longer.

Married 21 years and money is just money in this house - it all goes into the same pot.

I was a SAHM for many years when the DC were little. I didn't charge my DH for childcare and he didn't give me 'spending money'.

All the above is so interesting but I wanted to ask how do SAHM's have "leaving funds" in case they find their relationship breaks down? For that reason is it best for both people to have their own spends transferred into their account so a SAHM can save up if she so wishes?

We have a joint account for all bills and another joint account for food money. Then we each get an equal budgeted amount of pocket money from the left over money after savings that goes to our individual current accounts that we can spend on whatever nonsense we want as recklessly as we want without worrying about it effecting our actual important expenses.

From my own money (some of which was from work and some from my pocket money) I built up a small emergency fund, and a small balance in a S&S ISA (and a separate short term savings fund of "holiday money" for individual holidays away from the family).

I was a SAHM for five years. Before that, we'd always had our money paid into a joint account and bought whatever we needed out of that. With only one income, we needed to make cupbacks and it was agreed we both have the same amount transferred to our individual accounts. Even though I'm working more now, we still do this - it's always worked and I think keeps our spending down, as we always have an individual budget which covers treats, socialising, buying presents for eachother and our own friends. As I had more time, I pretty much dealt with household expenditure from our joint account, DH totally trusts me with this and know I'm careful to stay in credit.

Forgot we say include in my post, we both get £120 transferred to our accounts. The amount we've had over the years has never been in a ratio of income, but what we thought we could afford. We're a bit better off now with me working though.

I spend whatever I need to. There isn't a set day for food shopping. DH trusts me to make the right choices. He never questions my spending.

Same as most above. We just had a joint account that DHs salary and all other income went into and then all our costs come out of. We have the same now that I have a job, I just have a salary too to add to the pot

We’d discuss any big purchases but we each paid for coffees or new clothes etc for ourselves from the joint account. It was never an issue. I never felt like DH was questioning how much I spent on lunch in soft play or anything like that. neither of us is a big spender though really, we’re definitely on a similar page. I had full access to all of our money same as him. It was all shared.