to ask you how you split your money in your marriage/partnership?

[Objection]

I always thought Oh and my arrangement was pretty normal - we calculate our shared costs (mortgage, bills, food etc) and split them in two. We then both put that about plus about 5% or so into a joint account. The rest of our money is for ourselves and treat each other as we see fit.
But after some previous advice here and from reading other threads it seems this method is largely viewed as selfish or weird...
We don't have children but I imagine when we do we'll just roughly calculate the extra costs and split them too.

How do other people manage theirs?

nearthewindmill we don't discuss our own purchases just ones ffrom the joint account. We have our own money for our own use its just most of our money goes in the joint account for bills etc.

I have my own account and my husband's account is our joint account . No, we've always had separate accounts. I'm a huge saver and although DH gives me half of everything we spend on (bills/mort. etc), any left over goes into an ISA. It's not in his nature to save and he happily admits it and is equally happy for me to do the saving. It works for us. Nothing selfish or weird about this arrangement or similar arrangements in my opinion.

We've always had a joint account and have never done the his money / her money thing. Any money either of us earns is 'our' money. We always check with each other before spending any sizeable amount on non-essentials. It works for us - I don't think we've ever had an argument about money.

We have a joint account into which all monies are dumped & I transfer the same amount into our personal accounts for personal incidentals. We've been to the brink and back in the course of our marriage, but never about money. Husband is generous to a fault.

Joint accounts for everything. Bills are paid by DH and we we both spend smallish amounts without consulting/explaining. Anything that constitutes a KPI we both decide and agree on.

Joint account into which DH and I put a % of our salary for bills. The rest of our salary is for each to spend as we wish.
I am a saver, DH a spender.

All money goes into our joint account. We mention big purchases to each other but don't try to limit each other's spending, but we both spend sensibly within the budget we've agreed.

I think I wouldn't like it if one of us always had more spending money than the other, I think it would lead to resentment.

We have a joint account and both wages go into it. I earn a regular wage, DH is self employed so his wage is very sporadic. I've sometimes earned more than DH, sometimes less. We discuss big purchases but not small ones. All bills, food, kids stuff etc comes out if the joint account. We don't have our own spending money, if one of us wants to buy something we just take it from the joint account . It doesn't matter who actually contributed the most or who spends the most. We have a mutual respect and this system works for us.

It all goes into the one pot and we spend as we see fit. Neither of us are big spenders though.

Havent read the thread....

We are currently on a very low income (dont ask) so we are thankful for every penny that comes in. He works and brings in a wage and we get CTC, WTC and CB. I deal with the finances and make sure that we pay the bills and have food in the cupboard, for his part, he never spends a penny without checking that we can afford it. We have money that is individually ours, but that is gift money usually from Xmas or birthdays and we can spend that on whatever we like without discussion. Everything else is shared. He trusts me that I dont spend what we cant afford and it works for us.

If we were both working (as we were pre double redundancy) then everything went into the pot, bills were paid and we split the rest 75/25 in my favour because I look after clothes/shoes/school trips etc for the kids (we have 5 under 16). It always ended up that we had about the same for ourselves over a month.

All money goes in one account and I run the lot. Dh doesnt know how much I earn, he earns, or how much any of the bills are. He asks for money and I say yay or nay.

Joint account.

DH is a SAHD, it all goes into one account and whatever is left at the end of the month for fun stuff we split.

We never argue about money. There isn't a great deal left after the bills are all paid.

DP and I have a joint account where all earned money goes into and all household bills are paid out of.

We save jointly for annual expenses (car insurance, Christmas, holidays) and each get an equal amount of cash for free spends.

I check the balance on the joint account every few days to make sure there is enough for the direct debits and Aldi shopping and we don't generally touch it for other spends, using credit cards or our personal cash accounts (the amount we get as free spends is reduced by the amount of personal spends on the credit card in the previous month - credit card is paid off in full every month and earns cashback).

Joint accounts with full access are fine, providing that neither partner spends the mortgage money etc, because that leads to unnecessary bank charges and bad credit records.

Separate accounts are fine, providing both partners contribute fairly, based on their income.

I think the main problem is when one partner doesn't have free access to money or the amount of personal spends is unequal. However, the amount of free personal spends must be affordable, and based on what is left after bills including child related expenses have been paid, and savings have been made, at least for known annual expenses like car insurance, Christmas and holidays if you have one and some savings for things like car replacement, house maintenance or unspecified 'rainy days'.

I don't think its fair for anyone to expect to be able to spend hundreds per month on luxuries like clothes/eating out/work lunches/coffees/gadgets if the above mentioned basics have not been covered. This is where it is crucial for couples to be on the same page, for their financial relationship to be a fair and happy one.

I don't think it matters at all how the money is split and shared providing it is split and shared equally.

In the eyes of the law marriage is one economic unit and one partner hogging the lion's share or not allowing the other access is a recognised form of domestic abuse.

We had friends some years ago where he was financially abusive. She was a SAHM and he allowed her no money at all. Not a penny. If she needed aything ( and she dressed in stained ripped clothing ) he wrote it down in a book to be repaid when she returned to work.
She just accepted this but she was the weakest, drippiest person I'd ever met which he exploited but it changed the way I saw him and in fact we are no longer friends as I coudln't be friendly with suach a controlling and unpleasant person.

My MIL thinks that DH earns the money so he should keep it. Her exh divotced her and took everything and she thinks this was absolutely fine as he , " earned the money". She hates the fact that I own the house jointly and we share every penny of OUR money .

Oh yes the joy of working! When MIL comments "well, it's my money, so I'll buy what I want". My crashing extravagance you see - 49 on a pair of cotton trousers!

Before I was a SAHM we did similar to OP. DH earned slightly more but not massively so I suppose it didn't feel like a major disparity. Now of course DH and I have some budgeted spending money for ourselves (this is more for DHs benefit as if he isn't very good at keeping an eye on spending unless he has a budget) and everything else is joint. When the time comes for me to stop being a SAHM I will guess we may stick with everything being joint money.