what should get paid out of joint account?

[nomoneymoreproblems]

Hi

I'm looking to open a joint account with my husband.

I earn the same every single month, theirs varies (sometimes earns the same as me but can earn up to £400 more.

Do you think the joint account should cover their gym membership? or their car which is on HP (he uses daily but we if we go out together its always his car used as its bigger - I have my own car that is owned outright). what about each of our petrol bills? mine is £40 a month his is £270

I'm not sure

just would like opinions please

Ours only has the house bills e.g. mortgage, utilities etc.

We pay our own cars, gym memberships, petrol etc from our personal accounts. We don’t subsidise each others personal costs (I’m the lower earner in our household).

Ours is mortgage all house bills and utilities and a budget for food

Car , fuel , gym all come from our individual accounts unless it’s fuel for a holiday in which case it comes from joint

Household and shared expenses from the joint account.....utility bills, wifi, mortgage / rent, household maintenance, groceries, house & contents insurance, things like meals out or travel you do together.
Gym and petrol for your own cars would be out of your own account IMO.

Everything.

That's how it works for us.

Joint account: (all things relating to the house/family)

• mortgage
• council tax
• home and life insurance
• utilities
• broadband
• food shopping/eating out
• household maintenance
• kids pocket money
• kids clothes

Personal accounts: (everything else)

• petrol
• car related things
• clothes
• gym membership
• going out (when not as a family)
• other extras eg. Theatre/cinema tickets.

Our joint account is used for all household expenses and travel including cars. Also dh's work related food & accommodation costs. Pretty much everythig except our personal spending.

This I thought it was normal.

You might as-well go all in

You seem worried about supplementing his car cost of £270 but over the year his extra money will likely cover those 12 x £270

making you roughly even

For us everything comes out of the joint account, an amount goes into another joint account for groceries and whatever is left gets split between our personal accounts.

We only have 1 car so all expenses for that come out of joint account. Apart from if one of us does a longer distance trip on our own we’d buy petrol ourselves. Otherwise it’s mortgage, house bills, supermarket shops, insurance, meals out together, childcare, child’s clothes and activities. I pay for pet expenses for my cat. I think you should keep your car expenses separate, his choice to have a more expensive car and drive more-unless youre doing a long distance trip together

Ours pays all household bills and expenses it also pays the mobile phone bills.

It doesn't pay gym memberships or subscriptions etc...

Everything comes out of the joint account except for a few hundred each month we each keep back. This personal money is for gifts for each other and big spends with friends - eg weekends away.
All other spend is on the joint account. Neither of us is bothered about who earns most and who spends most. In fact I definitely spend the most as DH is not interested in buying stuff - no expensive hobbies, no strong feeling about clothes; He likes that we go on fabulous holidays, eat well, have everything we need in our home and the kids have a good lifestyle and nobody feels hard done by.
We use this joint money to make our lives better or to add value in some way - we have a regular cleaner, our kids have had tutors, and we save monthly for university costs.

I recognise that we’re privileged to have good incomes and we’ve paid off our mortgage so we don’t need to count every penny these days. However we’ve always managed our money jointly even when we didn’t have much, and it’s always worked well for us.

We do similar to this.

Same here, all money into one pot and all outgoings paid from it.
Income is from work, pension, dividends, PB's etc but regardless of where from, all into the same pot.

We have multiple separate savings pots (ISA's, PB's etc) but that is because of the limits on different accounts.

I’ve never understood this way of doing things. I’d feel resentful all the time if my partner was spending on unnecessary things, or guilty if I bought something unnecessary! No way would I be supplementing his choice of fancy car for example. Essential bills absolutely - everyone has to expect to find their own essential living - but not individual choices.

I know couples where one earns WAY more than the other and basically uses the joint as an all you can eat buffet.

I'd do as others have said... joint costs ONLY from the joint account, the money you don't put in is yours to do as you please.

All the above should be covered. Think of the gym,dentistry, exercise classes glasses, hearing aids as health related. We pay all health related out of joint account.
Petrol and cars, maintenance etc likewise are family expenses.

I’ve never understood this way of doing things. I’d feel resentful all the time if my partner was spending on unnecessary things, or guilty if I bought something unnecessary! No way would I be supplementing his choice of fancy car for example. Essential bills absolutely - everyone has to expect to find their own essential living - but not individual choices.

We talk to each other.

We discuss expensive spends before committing to them. We discuss how much is going into savings. If we decide this month has to be less spendy, we are both mindful of our spending.

This has always been the case, including when I was an unwaged SAHM for 14y, and now, when I earn a fraction of what dh earns.

We treat each other's needs and concerns with respect. Our individual choices are parts of our mutual commitment to each other.

We flip it. Everything in the joint and we each get a certain amount of discretionary spending. The discretionary spending is really for fun. He buys beer, video games, nonsense. I save and go on adventures with my friend.

Gym, cars etc. is all day-to-day and none of it comes out of discretionary.

All household bills including cars come out of ours, but we both earn fairly equally over a year, however DH's income is more variable than mine. His car is more expensive to run but it is our big family car which we need for holidays (mine is tiny), it's not a flashy gas guzzler and both are fully paid for so its just fuel, insurance, MOT and repairs. Anything joint such as us all going out for a meal together comes out of it too. DCs expenses come out of joint.

My gym membership comes out of my separate current account (he doesn't use a gym) but if it was a family membership it would come out of the joint one, so our NT membership does for example.

Only money that goes into our joint account covers mortgage and bills and we split food shop 50/50 . We keep the rest separate

We do roughly this, although petrol all comes out of the joint account as we only have one car and use it fairly equally. If one of us did a big trip for personal reasons I guess that person would pay the next top-up.

We earn similar amounts, but my partner earns a bit more so pays a bit more in.

I would hate to be accountable to my partner for all my spending! He doesn't need to know how much I spend in Pret or the garden centre 😂We are both sensible with money and have both solo and joint savings, so we trust each other to just live life and spend what we want/need.

I can understand having one pot if you have a much lower income than your partner, or are a SAHM. Would make me incredibly uncomfortable though.

We're also off the view that the joint account is our money, everything goes in everything comes out.

We just have one bank account too, in mid-thirties but married over 15 years. Through times of plenty and leaner times we have never ever ever had an argument about money, gifts are smallish but still a surprise and we both go on minibreaks and meals out with friends.

I think it's more usual to have all household bills including costs for going to work (eg petrol, parking and childcare) coming from a joint account and either contributing proportionately - adding up all the household spending and contributing eg 70% if you earn 70% of tje household income - or taking an affordable amount of personal spends. That wouldn't really work for us as it's an unnecessary admin faff but it's a decent compromise I think.

Ours is all direct debits that are joint, a weekly amount for food shopping and a weekly amount for 'pocket money'. We transfer from our wages everything bar £100 each and enough to cover personal direct debits (basically phone bill). It works for us because we earn vastly different amounts but end up with the same in spends which feels fair to us