Family money?

[reluctantlondoner]

Just wondering about "family money" which gets talked about a lot on MN. When did this concept start in your relationship? DH and I are married but have no kids. We both have decent well paid jobs and earn a similar amount (I earn about 4/5 of what he does). We pay equal amounts into a joint account each month and the rest is our own money to do what we want with. Whichever of us happens to earn more at the time (DH at the moment, but it has been me in the past), pays for more treats e.g. meals out / holidays, but we never tally it up and take quite a relaxed approach to making sure things are "fair". Sometimes I will pay for a big treat item if I have just been paid, for example. This seems reasonable and fair to me. I would hate to live life in a very restricted way, having to conform to budgets etc., but I do appreciate that we are very fortunate to not have to do so currently. I like to plan and be prepared for how things might change when we have DC. Is that when "family money" becomes more important? I am likely to have a significant period of time off unpaid (or very low paid) and then will probably go back part time. I guess at some point we will have to stop contributing equally to the joint account. How did this work in your relationship and did you face any particular issues? I feel nervous about this because I have always been able to pay my way (50% or more) and when we have DC that is likely to change, which may create issues in our relationship. We live in a very expensive part of the country so mortgage is a massive outlay for us, and we have always paid this 50/50.

DH had negative equity, so after we got engaged he moved in with me and rented his flat out. At that point everything got put into a joint account and, although the negative equity was in his name, we treated it as something joint to deal with. With rent and extra earnings DH paid 100% more into out joint account anyway. Moving forward, I gave up work when we had kids. At that point money became a lot tighter and we needed to budget - in all fairness to DH who was bringing in all the money, he suggested we both have the same amount per month. We are very lucky though, we both happily stick to our personal budget.

Everything else comes out of our joint account. We know eachother well enough to know what we can spend on joint things without consulting the other. If one of us notices funds are running short one month, we just let the other know and we're both careful

As soon as we decided to buy a house together we just pooled all our money. For a few years he had no personal income and then when we started our family I had no personal income (for fifteen years). These days he earns just over five times what I earn. EVERYTHING is pooled although our savings were put in my sole name for tax purposes when DH became a higher rate tax payer.

So many thoughtful responses on this thread btw. @MNHQ you should consider putting together a guide to "getting wise with your finances before having children"!

We add the total income, deduct the bills and split the rest. No joint account so we just ensure each account has the total of the bills plus half the disposable income. We've been doing that since we moved in together

When we first moved together he didn't have a mortgage per session so I didn't pay anything bar kick in for food. When we moved and took on a joint mortgage on different rates etc we got a joint account and since then all salary and everything else has gone into one place.

I had a joint account for about 2 weeks with my ex as he seemed to view all the money as his despite both our salaries funding it and he used to demand to know why I had taken £20 out or spent money in Sainsbury's when it wasn't a " big shop"so we reverted to separate accounts and splitting the bills 50/50. Note I say ex.

As soon as we got married we switched our salaries to our joint account. Both have equal access to the account regardless of who is earning more.

All spending that is out of the ordinary is discussed and agreed.

This meant that during the period that I was a SAHM I never had to ask for money, or feel guilty about spending it on necessities.

Right from the beginning of our relationship my DH was clear that I was never going to to ask permission to get a haircut or buy a dress regardless of our respective earning.

In our case, it was initially very organic. I've always earned quite a bit more than my wife, such that me paying all the bills left us each with vaguely the same spending money, and we never cared about making sure it was all perfectly fair to the penny, so we simply arranged things that way. And I think that made us both feel like everything was "family money" right from the start, so whenever we had joint expenditure to deal with, it was always just a total non-issue - sometimes I paid, sometimes she paid, it just didn't seem to matter. When our son was born and she became a SAHM, we formalised it - moved everything into a joint account and closed our individual accounts.

There's no right or wrong but, I think people that have been wronged before, have every right to do what suits them

XDH and I did this before children when we both earned decent money. When I stopped earning so much we didn't transition to a shared system: it became very unfair and very controlling. So I'd say fine for now within reason, but discuss what would happen if your earnings became unbalanced eg have children, career switch, redundancy.

As soon as we moved in together we made my account a joint one so that all the bills were in both our names, we have 2dc now and I'm unable to work so we have to keep it like that. But we were both happy to share everything from the start.

I used to be the higher wage earner, DH now earns substantially more than me. We used to have a joint account and one each but it became a bit of a pain. We now have a budget where he pays for some things and I pay for others, with overall payments about right to the proportion of our net pay. DH pays mortgage, utilities and some of our sons support money for uni. I pay for the food and the council tax. Things like vets bills, gardening stuff and house improvements we pay 1/3 to 2/3. We will review this when we retire as he has a gold plated public sector pension and I have only a private one that I have saved like mad for but doesn't deliver much in return.

Same as Kaos. DH and I have been married 30 years and have always had a joint account. Bills get paid, an amount of money gets put by in an 'emergency fund' and we do what we want with the rest. Neither of us pays any attention to making sure the rest is spent '50/50'. Sometimes I spend more on myself, sometimes he does. It evens out over time. We don't have a hard and fast money amount over which we won't spend on ourselves, but if one of us wants to buy 'something of value', we'll always check with the other (not 'ask permission') to be sure that person isn't planning on doing the same thing at the same time. If I want a new expensive handbag at the same time he wants a new expensive piece of sports equipment, one of us will usually volunteer to wait until the next month. But we have, on occasion, been known to toss a coin.

We have friends who do the separate accounts business. They argue all the time about money and who pays for what and who has what left over. I think the separate accounts makes them more jealous and possessive over 'what's yours and what's mine'. DH and I rarely argue as I we don't feel 'this is yours, this is mine'. It's ours

Husband earns a lot, I'm a PhD student so bring in very very little! We just share everything; we have our own accounts and a joint. Each month he puts a chunk in mine for whatever I want. Joint for food and bills etc, a chunk into savings and ISAs and then what's left stays in his for what he wants.

I'm pregnant so am planning on being a SAHM for a while so we agreed that more would go into mine and joint from now on as we don't get child benefit or anything and I can use that for baby groups etc I guess.

Oh, and yes, when one of us notices the account if getting a bit low we discuss and discuss what we need to do before next pay day ; 'The cheque for childcare should be clearing; I have to pay my season ticket' etc and we adapt accordingly.

I spend 30 mins every morning on personal admin so usually log in to the account and then report back, so to speak.

We merged everything when we got married. DH was earning much more than me and that was always going to be the case with our chosen careers. In the end we had two DC and I am now a SAHM as one of our children is disabled so I'm unlikely to be working again for several years although we receive some carer benefits. Everything bills wise has always come out of our joint account and we have joint savings accounts. We're both fairly moderate spenders so it's never been an issue with one person spending loads. I watch friends quibbling over whose turn it is to pay nursery bills etc and am so glad we don't have that set up. I can't imagine being married to someone who wasn't 100% open with money? Seems really weird to me. If I had concerns about money in a relationship there is absolutely zero chance I would go ahead and marry that person. Big red flag in my head anyway.

As soon as we moved in together we saved all of my salary and lived on Dp's. We knew that eventually I would be a SAHM and that we would buy a house together at some point so saved towards those.

So to answer your question. As soon as we moved in together.

We have separate accounts, I earn slightly less than dh. We both pay different household bills eg I pay water, my own car insurance, he pays all the phone contracts ( 4 teenagers) and gas & electricity. We both buy food it just depends who does the shopping. He has some savings in his name because it was inheritance money. I pay most of the day to day stuff for the kids but if I run out of money he just writes me a cheque.

We got married and just pooled everything in joint accounts. DH earned about 10 times more than me at that time, but that was because he was in banking and I worked for the health service, not because he worked harder or longer hours! I never went back to work after DC and it's been 10 years now. Even if I had gone back, I can't imagine having separate accounts once DC come along as what is the point? Day to day spending is so random and multifarious and how would you keep track?

I have just realised though that people possibly think we have separate accounts. At the weekend we had family stay, and we all went out alot. We had discussions about 'do you have cards?' when at restaurants and 'yes, I've got cards, I'll sort it'. That may look as if we have separate accounts, but was literally 'who has the card' so that person then pays.

I bought my house before I got together with DH so all the household bills came the it of my account and, when DH moved in he would pay a lump sum into my account each month to cover half. After I found I was expecting DS we planned that I would be a SAHM and we opened a joint account and transferred both our current accounts into it. I work p/t again now but everything still goes into and out of the one account, we do run large purchases past each other, but it works for us.

Another pregnant PhD student here astormgivenflesh (waves)

*We are in the minority I think but we don't have his money and my money, everything goes in the joint account and has done long before we had DD. Income and employment may change, we have both had times out of work and varying incomes but all money (except birthday/gifts) is ours jointly.

Bills are paid and we are both responsible for spending within our means. Big purchases are discussed as a couple but for day to day spending (hobbies, coffee, treats) we both just spend what we need to. We are a team, we know our means and spend accordingly.

Although to be fair what we consider fair and equal isn't always 50/50, one week he may want an expensive item for his hobby and I will spend less of our spending money to make that happen, it all works out in the end.*

This, word for word.

To throw something else into the mix, what about if one of you put a lot more money into house deposit (e.g. Lump sum from parents). What happens to that money?