Individual spending money in a relationship (amounts included)

[bearbit]

Person A:
income £887.20
bills £416.01
leftover £471.19

Person B:
income £2818.78
bills £1793.26
leftover £1025.52

The above is the situation in my household, married with 2 children. No official joint finances, e.g. 1 on the mortgage, separate bank accounts etc.

Person A does top up food shops throughout the week from their leftover amount, Person B does the weekly big shop which is included as part of their bills (approx. £550pm total).

How should the leftover spend be split when Person A pays towards food from their leftover amount? And how much would be reasonable to save from what's leftover each month?

@Berga nailed it. I read your post and my head immediately started spinning and I work in finance. Both salaries into one (joint) account. All bills deducted from this account. What is left is for saving and spending. Anything else when you're married with kids is just unnecessarily complicated.

I agree it would be easier to have joint accounts but we don't and won't be getting them so need to work out another way.

Going on the consensus, and according to my figures, then we're probably not too far off 50/50 as Person A probably spends more for the household from their spends in the top up shops throughout the week.

I wouldn’t care if I’m on the mortgage loan (debt) or not when married. All I would care about is being a joint tenant on the deeds. Being on the mortgage when you are the low earner is of no benefit to you. If your high earning DH walks off, you are then stuck with being equally liable for that mortgage payment if he won’t pay. If only he is on the mortgage then he is still solely liable to pay the mortgage and all the defaults, CCJ and what not go against him not you and if the bank repossesses and dies a sale, you still get your half of any proceeds left over. As a joint tenant, he still needs your consent to sell unless he gets a court order…you don’t need to be a debtor on the mortgage loan to assert your rights.

Then the saver has two accounts, one for their personal spends and one for all the bills and expenses and food money.
The spender sends all their money bar the agreed £200/£150/100 for personal spends to the savers second account.

i am getting the impression you are the spender: don’t underestimate how much this will annoy your saver spouse and the resentment will build over the years if the amount isn’t capped .

Well both need to add up ALL household costs - include car and house repairs, childcare, top up food shops, holidays, birthday and Christmas, pensions contribution, life insurance, kids swimming lessons, kids parties. Everything.

Once that's all been accounted for both get the exact same amount of spending money. If A spends more then it goes on their credit card and they pay it off rather than dip into savings. If B chooses to save that's their choice but should go into their own rather than family savings.

That sounds like a LOT of hard work😂Have no idea where I'd even start with some of that!

knowing your total household expenditures is the only way to make a split system like this work. Otherwise someone is going to be treated unfairly.

family savings also needs to be treated as a mandatory bill. There can be additional savings, but family savings every month is a necessity.

you could handle this by letting each person keep a set amount of money and paying everything else I to a joint account for household bills. So 3 accounts instead of 2.

We have a joint account and an individual current account each. He gets more than me so his contribution is more. We get paid into our own individual accounts, and the housekeeping money is transferred to the joint account each month. Whatever is left in the joint account goes to meals out, days out etc. Our individual accounts are for savings or whatever we want. I like it that way , as I can do what like without having to explain it, i can be senior frivolous! I can buy his birthday and Christmas presents from my personal account, without dipping into the joint account. I don’t want my personal money being swallowed up in a joint account. Because he gets more he is happy to pay more towards things like holidays, car, big treats. It works for us. We both know exactly what each other gets a month, and has in savings, there are no secret funds.

Exactly.
dh and I don’t have a joint account and some bills come from mine and some from his. Some savings are in my name and some in his, but it’s all ‘our’ money.

Make that spreadsheet.

Then you can both see how much of those 'additional spending' is on household needs.

I see why you may not be on the mortgage but I presume you are on the deeds of the house as co owner?

And that you have access to the savings.

You are married. It all belongs to both of you. I can understand agreeing to set spend/save amounts but not to all the rest of the he said/she said stuff.

You both need to be more transparent.

Get a joint credit card and put all family/domestic spending on that, including food. Pay the bill in fair proportions every month (e.g. if one of you earns double what the other does, that person pays double). Then you can still have your separate current accounts, personal credit cards and savings without faffing about, but you know it’s fair.

A spreadsheet is not that hard op. Start with bank statements.

MONTHLY OUTGOINGS

INCOME

SALARY
£2500

SALARY
£1000

£200

CHILD BENEFIT
£87.20

£4000

OUTGOINGS

TV LICENCE
13.37

FINANCE / L
65.00
New finishes 03/25
MORTGAGE
1000

GARAGES
148.50

COUNCIL TAX
210.00

EE Phones
50.00

BT - 4 X MOBILES, TV & BROADBAND
52.49
Mobs 01/22 BB June 22
WATER
56.26

E SAVINGS HOL/CARAVAN
150.00
HOLIDAY COSTS £1200 PA
BREAKDOWN INSURANCE
8.71
exp 5/3/23?
iPhone /
49.95
Ends Aug 23
iPhone /
56.20
Ends Nov 23
Gym
46.00

HOME INSURANCE
35.42

HAIRCUTS X 4
60.00

Saving
38.50

E savings
333.33

SAVING
50.00

Uni
250.00

POCKET MONEY
40.00

Personal/holiday Saving
60.00

Personal savings
40.00

PARENT
0.00
SCHOOL DINNERS
ENERGY
231.73
Gas & Electric
E SAVINGS CARS
50.00

FUEL
120.00

Car Ins
31.36
Expires 29/09/23
SHOPPING
500.00

INSURANCE
17.26

Football
25.00

- LIFE INS
26.65

£4,000

We have a joint account for shared expenses but also our own spending money and I absolutely get why people do. I earn quite a bit more than DP. He loves to save and is incredibly thrifty. He does earn enough to spend money on himself but chooses not to. I enjoy being a little more relaxed. As a result, he can also be quite disparaging of how I spend money, for instance on the DC: extra-curricular activities, replacing clothing, treats, birthday gifts for their friends, etc. If these spends came out of our joint account, he would suck all the joy out of it and consider it an unnecessary faff unless carefully planned and accounted for, even if we contributed proportionately to our income. For this reason, I am quite happy to shoulder the expenses of the 'extras' for the DC as I think it is fun.

Your figures are too confusing. If you're going to insist on separate finances, then the cost of bills needs to be accurately included. So on the surface, Person A is suffering because A has less spending money AND what they do have, is partly being spent on joint expenses. But then it turns out that Person B is actually sending Person A some money (for expenses? Other things? Hard to tell) AND that Person B is using some of their extra spending money for joint purchases. So it's impossible to actually understand.

But overall, you should have roughyl equal amounts of spending and saving money. If one of you is a big spender, a discussion might need to be had about how that works in pratical terms, with a compromise most likely to be needed - Person A spends less but also Person B accepts Person A is more social/needs more clothes/ is obsessed with skincare.

Yes this 100%

An additional cardholder on the credit card might work as it wouldn't be a joint account, or using something like HyperJar and additional household spend is paid from that with personal spend from our own accounts.

We do have a spreadsheet but only for monthly bills, not additional spends.

This, but if one of you is a saver and the other a spender, you need to jointly agree how much of that leftover money goes into a joint savings pot. Then any leftovers after savings are split 50/50 for individual spends. Saver can save theirs if they want.

Given that person A is a spender and person B is a saver, having joint finances will cause more problems than it solves. I don’t blame person B for not wanting everything to be ‘joint’ and ‘equal’. It sounds like it would only lead to less savings and money to spend on nice things such as holidays.

Sorry I struggle to understand separate finances.
Ours goes in 1 bank. Bills go out. Spend as we wish. Tbh dh never spends money. Maybe a drink at work if he's run out 5x a month. That's it so £10.
But I sort if make sure everyone has what they need. Dh works crazy hours. I wfh as I please whatever hour's i want. So if he said 'oh I could do with some jeans if you're in town can you grab some' I do .
All kid's stuff , clubs etc come out of that account. Even stuff for my dc who isn't his. Maintenance for his dc, clothes etc for his dc and ours.

We earn similar now but at one point I quit work, for 4 years and he just paid everything no question or quibble

Person B buys the kids Christmas and birthday presents, plus next month's holiday/clothes/new passports/holiday spending money etc etc.

Person A spends a lot in the shops during the week, is going away for 3 nights at the end of the month, was away overnight a couple of weeks ago, goes out every week to a hobby that costs money.

I'm Person B and I'm on the mortgage and work full time but feel I'm maybe not giving my husband enough money for himself when, on the face of it, I have "more". I suppose this thread has made me realise that it may look like I have more but, in reality, it's not in my hand and goes towards the household.

So does his generally, these trips are not usual and he does more in the house and for the children.

Swings and roundabouts I suppose!

Is Person A (your dH) feeling hard done by and putting pressure on you?

On the face of it, it sounds like you are meeting loads of family bills outside of core expenses. It also sounds like he has plenty of money for "fun" things and that you are also comfortable with your personal spending. Sounds ideal.

And of course, eh might not be on the mortgage but assuming you're married, he's still an equal owner of the asset.

Literally this.

But if there are other household bills you're not accounting for - for example, food shopping, credit card (where it's household debt) etc, they need to go on the bills list. Our bills list includes individual phone contracts, Spotify, Netflix, food shopping, a takeaway fund, child maintenance for DSS, DH's gym membership, my contact lenses etc... if it's for the health of an individual or to the benefit of the family it gets accounted for as 'bill'. What's left after savings is split equally as individual discretionary spends into our own accounts. It means when one of us has a pay rise or works more then we both benefit - and equally, when I worked part time and looked after our young DC, I wasn't disadvantaged.

Why does person A earn so little, thats a very part time wage. Are they taking on the bulk of childcare and housework, in that case spending should be equalised. If they are just having lots of leisure time, well thats on them to fund.

Definitely this, also whoever isn't on the mortgage should be put on the mortgage at the next opportunity.