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

Our monthly wages go into the joint account. Everything comes out of there. We share everything and nothing is hidden.

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've never understood couples in an otherwise good relationship who would judge each other on what they spend.

You see for us buying a car is a joint, family decision. And a car is an essential expense (or we couldn't work)

Going to the gym however is a personal hobby. That would come out of personal spending money.

My Mulberry handbag though or dh's endless music equipment is not essential family expense!!!

You either go with everything, even personal spending comes out of it or anything that's joint or roughly equivalent. so in our case, DH's gym membership does come out of it, but so does my weekly exercise class which is less - he's happy for me to join gym and pay, but I really like my exercise class.

We have personal spending, that covers hair cuts, socialising, personal treats, coffee out, clothes, buying presents for eachother/our own friends.

My partner and I aren't even married (but been together aaaages and have two teen DC) and all our money is shared and has been ever since we moved in together about 30 years ago.

We have one current account - all wages, child benefit, and any other payments go in and we both have free and equal access to it regardless of income (there have been times when he's earned more than me and times when I've earned more). All bills and expenses as well as fun stuff are paid for from here.

We also have one joint savings account where we try to put away funds for big expenses.

I'm shocked that most cohabiting couples don't share equally. It seems to suggest a worrying lack of trust / commitment...

Everything except personal spending. I would count an individual gym membership, money spent on individual hobbies etc as personal spending. Cars and petrol are on joint account for us, because there's very little of our car use that isn't either work commute, driving the dc to places or whole family journeys (all of which benefit the family as a whole).

We're the same as @BigFatLiar

Everything goes into the joint account, everything comes out of the joint account.

We are a team. Everything goes into and comes out of the joint account(s).

"His" car was not "his" car. We currently only have one car as I am WFH almost FT now and dh has a works van so it wasn't needed, but when we needed two they were joint decisions to buy (model, budget etc) and paid for out of the joint account.

I would struggle to be in a committed relationship, especially a marriage that was any other way. It shows either financial incompatibilities and/or lack of trust and/or lack of respect for others needs (gym membership is not an unreasonable family expenditure if it is within the families means)

For us, it's joint costs.

So we get paid into out personal accounts then transfer a fixed amount into the joint account. I have a spreadsheet 😂.

It includes the usual gas, electric, Internet, TV costs, mortgage, house insurance etc but also both our mobiles (as we get cashback via the account for this), car tax, car payments (only one car here though - I paid for my old company car myself), car insurance, car maintenance / servicing and so on. We also overpay a fixed amount to build up household savings (repainting the house, a new boiler, repairs, replacements etc).

Personal costs are absolutely not from the joint account - petrol is whoever uses it, he pays for his motorbike costs himself, I pay for my contact lenses and so on. We do dip into the joint account to pay for petrol for long distance trips together.

Food we actually don't have thrashed out, it's on the to do list.

Gym membership - unless a joint / family membership - is a personal cost. As are his petrol costs and his personal car costs including the finance, servicing, tax, insurance, repairs etc. However the flip side would be you paying for all costs for your car separately from him. Perhaps you share the insurance costs for both cars?

We pooled everything once we had kids. prior to that the joint account was just for rent/mortgage, house bills and food.

Utilities
Home insurance
Petrol
Car maintenance
Car insurance
Food
Holidays
Kid stuff

The above all come from the joint account. It looks like your partners car is treated as the family vehicle, rather than a personal vehicle, so should be a family expense rather than a personal one.

Our joint account covers everything except personal expenses. We each have the same amount of personal money to spend per month. Personal expenses for us would be things like gym memberships, drinks or meals out with friends (rather than with each other or the whole family), lunches at work or on the go, when you could’ve taken a sandwich from home instead, personal grooming or subscriptions that only benefit one person, you get the idea.

Joint account gets all paid income. Personal accounts get equal pocket money from the joint account + any earnings from hobbies

The only unusual item in our joint account is my waxes, which we have agreed are a marital outgoing 😁

Household bills come out but only his wages go in. I pay into it, and get out of it from dh.
We save in seperate accounts for holidays, and cars etc.
I suggest you budget the account down further.

This is how we do it.

We put the same into ours each month (also earn roughly the same), we pay for food shopping and joint bills out of it. Occasional things like household items or stuff for the kids too.
We each have a car and we pay for those from our own accounts, so no I don't think petrol should be coming out of the joint account unless a lot of his petrol costs are from driving you places, or gym membership (unless you're both members of the same gym on a joint membership). If you only had one car then yes I could understand that coming out of the joint account.

Mortgage, bills, pet insurance and food shop comes out of the joint account. Baby due this year so imagine there’ll be plenty more to add to the list!

We pretty much do this. Anything for the good of the family or house comes out of the joint account. For us that includes cars as we have two but they are both both of ours, not one each. We use whichever is appropriate for the journey (small to pop to shops or station run, long for family trips or motorway journeys).

Commuting costs, gyms, clothes, hair, drinks etc come out of our accounts.

What rubbish. I feel a little sad for you that you think not having a fully joint account means any of the things in your last sentence.

Cars, phones, travel are all personal outgoings and no they don't come out of our joint finances. But we don't have children which would change things.

Food, bills, stuff for the house/garden, the odd meal (though usually we take turns out of our personal money), that type of thing all come out of the joint account.

We pay everything out of the joint account. Including things like gym membership.

We don't do his and her money. It's our money and we share.

Snap on that!

Do either of you run out of money or have excessive spending habits?

If one of you became unemployed or sick would the other fund or would they be expected to live off whatever they get?

We combine everything. We've earned similar amounts and vastly different amounts. It's family money.

"sad" isn't giving a counter opinion or changing my mind is it??????? Pretty pointless post.

Sorry you are feeling sad.

Perfect list.
Only remark is that IMO the joint account should cover the work commute, either train tickets or petrol (as long as the choice is cost efficient). So if the husband’s high petrol costs are because he has to drive to work whereas OP works from home then that is a joint expense.