How to access 'shared' finances?

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We're expecting our first baby later on this summer and i'm going to be a SAHP for the foreseeable future.

DP (we're getting married in a couple of months) has asked how we should share finances. He's asked if I would prefer us to set up a shared account that everything can go into, or if I just want my own card to his account, or whatever I'd find best.

Just wondering what's the best way to do things/what do others do.

We don't do shared finances but if we did, I would prefer a joint account rather than having an additional card on someone else's account. If you do the latter, all the money is still in his name and he could cancel your card at any time.

Joint account for all bills including child related ones.
separate personal count each for personal spends, and the personal spends should be equal amounts.
He does not get more cos he earns more. You are married and you are having his baby

He's asked if I would prefer us to set up a shared account that everything can go into, or if I just want my own card to his account, or whatever I'd find best.

assuming your in the uk

if you get added to his account it becomes joint and you get your own card

or you can set up a new joint account

easiest option is all money goes into a joint account and then if you save you have joint savings too

We have joint current and savings account and also our own. Credit card is paid out of joint and we both have cards on it (also kept our individual ones though).
All income goes into joint, all house/car/ kids etc comes out of joint and we each have the same amount each month tfr to our individual accounts to cover our discretionary spend (clothes, haircut, outings, presents).
Has worked well for us over 20 years at times when one or other of us hasn't worked or we have had a big discrepancy in what we earned.

Definitely go for a joint account so you both have equal access to the account with your own cards and app/online banking. Then decide how much to put in joint savings as well.

What accounts do you currently have? Will you get smp ?

Easiest is one joint account for everything, with joint savings as well. Or you can have the joint for all bills and child related, house related stuff and then a personal account with equal amounts of spending money to pay for personal stuff.

we started with the joint and personal accounts and now just have joint.

We have one joint account, a few saving and investment accounts, we absolutely share everything and both have access to those accounts.

This ^

Not a SAHP parent but we worked it this way:

Child benefit goes to my account (we didn’t have a joint account when we had our first child and I never updated the account details once we were married).
My salary goes to joint account.
His salary goes to his account. He retains the equivalent of child benefit and transfers the rest to joint account.
Vast majority of household bills go from joint account. The handful of legacy bills that came from our own accounts (Netflix, Spotify) we are at liberty to transfer funds from joint account to cover if necessary.

This is how we arrange things too. All bills, household, and child expenses from the joint account, and our own accounts for spending money. Child benefit is in my name, and goes into the joint account.

I think it’s really important to have child-related costs (clothes, nappies, wipes, activities, days out, childcare if applicable) paid jointly as I’ve seen lots of posts here over the years where the mum has less disposable income because she has to pay for all the children’s things too.

We both work so our pay goes into our own accounts and we transfer money to the joint account, but if one of us was a SAHP, the wages from the working parent would go into the joint account.

I think it depends A LOT on how you both deal with finances.

If you have a very similar outlook, then one joint account and everything goes in. You each have a card to access the account, each have a CC (money taken out from that account each month). As a SAHP you dint want to fall into the ‘im giving you money to spend on yourself’ situation as if he was doing Yüna massive favour for doing so.

If you have slightly different attitudes (like I do with DH), what worked for us is deciding who is responsible of what (eg I do the food shop and dc stuff), agree in a budget for that and transfer some money each month on my account. That allows me to budget my way (eg put money aside ahead of time for b’days).
You could do the same for ‘personal spends’ with you and him having separate accounts.
Id still have a joint account anyway - all the money goes in there, all the money goes out from there according to budget etc..

And YY to the idea that personal spend is the same of each of you!!

This.

The only account separate are the ISAs and we pay in the same amount.

I think we had been married for about 17 years before I agreed to a joint account.

we put an amount in each month to cover shared bills and the rest stays in personal accounts.

Joint account with both your names on it. If you want to just put all money in there, that’s fine.

I personally like having my own account and Dh and I don’t do the ‘it’s all family money’ thing. I like having my own account and my own money (I’ve never been a SAHP but you can still transfer money out to your personal account if not earning). We pay into joint account proportionately and neither of us goes without, but I don’t like having to account for someone else’s spending in my own budget so use my own account for all non-joint expenses.

One thing I'd like to mention re joint accounts for bills etc- if you have a sole account that pays the electric, rates, mortgage etc and the sole account holder dies, the account is stopped and new direct debits and standing orders have to be set up for the surviving partner to pay the bills. My dh didn't want a joint account for bills originally, until I pointed out that if i died he'd have to contact all the relevant companies, provide reference numbers, new bank details etc, whilst organising my funeral and (hopefully!) grieving my loss. No one needs that. We've got a joint account now.

Joint account. Even when i was a sahp. Everything into that account.
We each spend as we wish. Well I fact i do, dh card hasn't left the house in months. He never spends anything.

Joint account that everything goes into and all bills etc are paid from.

Joint savings account.

Separate personal accounts that an agreed amount is put into each month for personal spending.