More a wwyd, household finances?

[sailorcherries]

My OH and I aren't married and have rented together since 2015 and finally bought a property and moved in in August 2016.

Currently we each have our own accounts and a joint account. We each transfer roughly the same amount each month (I earn a little more so transfer a little more, roughly £60ish). This is enough to cover the bills and leave a little extra in the account in savings. We then use the rest of our money on our own expenses (car, petrol, phone etc) and savings.

He is soon starting a new job, with higher potential earnings. Would it be wrong to ask him to increase his input in to the joint account to ensure we have joint savings and can afford days out/holidays etc from there and not personal money/savings? My career is a steady wage that will increase over the next 5 years (6 point scale and I'm currently on the 1st rung). I input the same amount each month and as my wage increases I plan on increasing the amount accordingly. I'm not asking him to put thousands in but say and extra £100 or so if he has it free, giving us £2000- £2500 sitting for birthdays/holidays/christmases etc.

How do you and your OH split finances if you don't mind me asking? I know my parents only have 1 account and each of their wages go in there with all bills coming out. However, they never had separate financial lives before committing.

I think it's sensible to budget in 'fritter' money, you don't have to fritter it away but it means you don't blow your budget if you do something impulsive.

I was going to explain how DH and I organised our finances (see below) then I saw that you are currently the higher earner, he is about to outstrip you and you are planning to take maternity leave. I couldn't continue without asking you whether you had considered the security marriage would provide for the lower earner? I wish you all the very best, for you and your family,

We are now both independent adults, no dependent DC. We worked out a generous budget for the household and split it 50:50. I would have preferred percentage of earnings but I started with the higher salary and DH insisted that he 'pay his way'. We top up the household in anticipation of Christmas. There is usually enough it to cover living expenses when we are on holiday. We save independently but know that we 'own' everything 50:50.

Maxwellthecat that's not the way we work.

No one needs a budget for frittering as neither OH or I have expensive impulse buys.

Good for you mindtrope

We don't do expensive impulse buys either but we've found it good to budget for those things that seem to pop up and haven't got a category in the budget. For example this month the piano needed tuning so we took it out of that pot.
When I do my budgets sometimes it's difficult to think of every last little thing that might come up so it's good to have an amount for random things. It's kind of like a buffer before dipping into the savings.

I don't budget for anything except house purchases or cars, I try to spend at little as possible while having a comfortable life.

I really don't understand how putting in a percentage of each wage is fair? That way the higher earner will always have a percentage more in their own account. I work part time so that I can do all the other stuff. Each of our salaries goes in the joint account and we then get an equal amount of spending money. Surely that's fairer? We couldn't go completely joint as we don't need to be judging each other's 'bike pedal' purchases.

DH and I put all our salary into the joint account and maintenance from XH and child benefit goes there . We each have £125 transferred into our personal accounts to cover clothes and any other personal things for us (books, visiting the cinema, luxurious bath things like Molton Brown for me). Everything else is accounted for to the penny on a spreadsheet. We have a budget for different areas including saving for for yearly costs including holidays, car insurance as is cheaper to pay yearly, Amazon prime etc. Any surplus at the end of the month goes into a "general surplus" savings account

I do some extra work which I put into a joint savings account and we can use this for extra trips. Also need to cover my self assessment tax bill.

We've been doing this since March last year and so far is going all right. My salary is unlikely to increase much - DHs may in which case we'll reassess what to do.

mindtrope if not budgeting works for you then that's great.
i find that when I budget my money goes a lot further as I am aware where every penny is and I am able to decide how much I can afford on what. Its probably a spill over from the business to be honest as for ages I was a sole trader so my personal and business was mixed and I had to be hyper vigilant of where my money was and what I had available for what.
I now pay myself minimum wage throughout the year so still need to be super careful with money and budgeting helps me do that.

flashheartscanoe

I think you're right, we used to do this and we thought it was fair until I realised my DH had almost 3 times he disposable income than me!

Now I pay % of bills but we both get same disposable income as anything above that goes into mortage overpayments.

I really don't understand how putting in a percentage of each wage is fair? That way the higher earner will always have a percentage more in their own account. I work part time so that I can do all the other stuff. Each of our salaries goes in the joint account and we then get an equal amount of spending money. Surely that's fairer?

I agree completely. I tend to see the percentage solution as the sad compromise of the lower earner who is either living with, or is herself, someone who believes that a higher income is a sign of a more deserving person.

Yes dh and I earn broadly similar amounts- however going to work ft is more expensive than being at home with tinies assuming food/fuel costs are "joint". For example business clothes, transport, works do's, office presents, professional subscriptions, indemnity fees etc.

If that all comes out of J/A then fair enough. I guess it all depends on what you define as "fun" or "discretionary"

Maxwell I am self employed, a sole trader.

I still don't budget personal spending though.

I have been both the higher and lower wage earner in this scenario, I think it is fair. However the difference has never been that great, for years we both reckoned we had around £200 pcm to choose what we spent on.

I didn't use to budget. Screwed my finances up. So I will keep budgeting and knowing where my money goes

miranda I don't feel the need to budget.

OH and I spend very little. 95% of my clothes come from charity shops, as does most of our furniture. My car cost £600 three years ago. OH and I are not into "stuff". Expensive clothes, hobbies, cosmetics, shoes hold no interest for me. I would rarely buy a coffee when I am out and about. I have a little thermos flask I take with me on my travels.
I cook most stuff from scratch using cheap seasonal produce.

Budgeting while doing all that would be grim.
OH and I save, we have 6 years salary in the bank and a low mortgage.

I don't feel the need to budget.

mindthrope

no one is making you budget, we're just saying budgeting works for us.
I'm willing to bet we have very similar approaches to spending money but I prefer to budget my money and you don't, no big deal.

It was your comment about people having 'fritter' money in their budget being 'wasteful' that made me comment at all, I don't think it is wasteful when setting a budget to have some set aside for miscellaneous things you have to be realistic about what you spend otherwise you won't stick to it.

There is no answer as to what is fair. Actually it can never be fair, not really, as we see from the threads.

The higher earner will lose out one way, the lower earner another way. If there are kids in the mix it depends who looks after them. If you split it depends who gets what out of the divorce.

The key issue is (well-founded) trust.

I think the pulling and spending money might be the way we go, once I talk to him.

We've still not discussed my working options once I return to work but it'll need to be spoken about and will obviously affect things.
Although he has the opportunity to earn significantly more there will also be months when our wages are very similar, plus I'd put in maintenance from ExOH and child benefit, which would add an extra few hundred. Currently most child related expenses are mine, as they were before we got together. However with a shared DS looming I want it to be fairer all around.

We have been together over 15 years but not married either. When we first got together as I had debts and he owned his flat I used to pay the phone and shopping bill.

When we bought a house together about 3 years later we opened a joint account and we calculated all household bills including food but not treats and put in 50/50. He earnt far more than me and whenever we went out 95% he paid.

When we had our son, he put all funds into joint account, when I went back to work I then paid for all childcare and clothes etc for him. Now 9 years later we have the same set up... DP funds everything house related out of joint account and I pay school lunches/cub subs and school trips etc anything relating to DS - I receive the child benefit.

We both have our own current accounts which our salaries go into.

Works for us!

badknee I don't see it that way.

My OH was the higher earner when the kids were young, in fact I gave up work completely for a while when they were little.
He was only able to financially contribute as much as he did and be a father because of the support he had from me.

Even now as his career has developed he still relies on my support. His hours are erratic, he is away a lot, often wit little or no notice. It's not unusual for him to announce that he will be gone that same night and not back for 3 or 4 days.

So we consider his salary to be our salary. I am lucky that I can earn a decent amount with much fewer and very flexible hours.

My partner and i earn the same so what i want to ask is - for those couples who have a weekly allowance, what would you do if the other partner smoked?

The majority of his allowance would be spent on cigarettes and not much left where as mine as a non smoker would have lots left. i don't see this as fair on him but at the same time i don't see why i shouldn't have the same disposable allowance.

I have thought that anything i had left would be moved to savings but then that means i'm putting in more!!!!

Same percentage.

So. You get a joint account. Both salaries get paid in there. All bills/mortgage/food etc comes out of that account. Out of this account, a set amount goes to a joint savings account (for holidays etc)

You then both have a savings account and the same amount for both of you is transferred to those individual savings accounts each month. This money you can do what the hell you like with, no questions asked.

I'm always a little :O at how so many MN's don't share money as one family unit. Bizarre. Surely if the husband earns more, everyone should benefit from that (the whole household pot so to speak) and vice versa.

If people don't feel 'safe' that their money is pooled, why on earth are you married to this person?

We do a similar thing. At the moment I only work 2 days and do the bulk of childcare and OH works full time. Our pro rata salaries are similar by obviously he earns a lot more. He also does some unsocial hours so brings in more anyway. At the moment I put about £400 pcm into joint account and he puts £1200. I am left with around £400 to myself and he has around £600. I tend to pay for things for the dc out of the joint account until it runs out and then I pay for things, or ask OH for £ if needed. I struggle to pay for everything each month with £400 (including car, clothes, phone, socialising etc) but it seems fair.