To ask if you share money in your relationship

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I am interested to hear how couples manage money.

Do you both put all your money in a joint account and both dip into it, or do you pay 50/50 for bills and buy other things with your own cash?

The reason I ask is me and my fiance earn very different amounts - he earns around 50k while I earn 20k. We pay 50/50 for bills, which means he has A LOT more money to spend on luxuries and leisure.

I know it's his money, but I'm wondering if married couples usually operate in this way? And what happens with SAHMs - do they get any money from their partners to buy things they need? Does their husband resent them?

We're a team so it's all in one pot, bills paid and money spent when we feel like. I can't imagine having to ask for money or see my partner have luxuries when I have none. It must cause so much resentment. We are equals.

You marry a person because you love them, care for them, want the best for them,..... but bugger me will i pay for them.

It's not so simple as that.

I became a SAHM and didn't earn anything for years.

We shared all finances- in fact it was usually me who had the final word over big stuff.

OH was only able to do the job he did ( involving lots of travel and overnights away, often abroad) because I was holding the fort at home looking after OUR children.
We had no family support and one of our children had chronic health problems throughout primary years.

OH and I have always put in equal effort, in running a functional family, so any money was also the result of equal effort.
He could phone up and extend a business trip or take on an urgent last minute job away from home knowing that our children were being looked after.

No joint account but all costs are split 50:50 (although we don't exactly keep running ledgers so I couldn't swear to that lol!)

Mortgage payment comes out of DHs bank and I have a SO set up for my share towards it, he buys the regular food shop but all household direct debits (sky, utilities, council tax, insurances etc) come out of my bank account.

He pays tax and insurance on one car I pay it on the other.

Any ad hoc purchases or things like holidays are just paid for by whoever as and when.

No joint account but all costs are split 50:50 (although we don't exactly keep running ledgers so I couldn't swear to that lol!)

Mortgage payment comes out of DHs bank and I have a SO set up for my share towards it, he buys the regular food shop but all household direct debits (sky, utilities, council tax, insurances etc) come out of my bank account.

He pays tax and insurance on one car I pay it on the other.

Any ad hoc purchases or things like holidays are just paid for by whoever as and when.

When i was married we had a joint account and our own accounts. We each contributed to the joint account for shared bills/childcare on the basis of whoever had it, paid it. There was never any argument or begrudging and we didnt keep tabs on who paid more or less.

Everything into one joint current account and one joint savings account. Bills food shopping holidays etc all come out of them as well as anything for DC or ourselves. Discuss before big purchases. He works full time and I only do two evenings tutoring but obviously I have DC all day. We have access to everything together. Our money is all our family money.

DP and I on similar wages to you. Our wages go into a joint account which we use to pay all bills etc and most other things (day / nights out, takeaways, holidays etc)

We pay a small amount into each of our accounts which we then use for things like presents for each other and things for our own hobbies.

We both work full time and he earns about 3-4 times more than I do but I work more hours!
We both have our own businesses it's just he has lots of staff.
I couldn't have actually had my business int he first place without his money.

We just see money as money, there is no 'pot' but there isn't a his and hers either.
He pays most of the bills, I pay some and save but we both have the same spends a week.
We take £120 a week each for spends like patrol, personal stuff etc.

So it doesn't really matter what we earn we both have the same at the end of the day.

If we go out together then one of us will pay with spends or if it's a lot then 'the house' will pay for it

My mum and Dad have separate money completely and if always seems really strange to me.

We have both brought different pots / incomes to our marriage and it has been / all is shared. I was lucky enough to receive an "early inheritance" from my parents, around the time DH and I were getting married. We used it to - jointly - buy our first flat, and then to invest the rest - in joint names. When we were both working and earning, we initially had separate accounts, but juggling to keep things fair was really complicated. So we set up a joint account, had both salaries paid into it, and it's been that way ever since. I've been a SAHM for 10 years: we still used the joint account, although it was DHs salary going in each month. Recently I've started working again, and although I probably spend a bit more on clothes etc, it's still joint.

The key things that make this work:

We have similar values about money in terms of spending, saving and investing. Our big picture plans / long term goals are shared. When we talk about retiring, it's something we'll do together - and where the money has come from or who earned it is pretty much irrelevant.

Neither of us have expensive hobbies or tastes - we are both fairly frugal. Neither of us are high maintenance, so the expenses we do have are pretty easy to justify to each other.
We are generous with each other - we both have treats and social lives, and neither of us grudge the other - and neither of us abuses that trust.

I think that if we had more income, we might go for a joint account plus an account each for treats / gifts etc but only because our setup means that the costs of any gifts are obvious to the receiver! Maybe that's one reason why we don't bother with presents any more... :-)

We have all separate accounts. DH earns ten times as much as me, and he pays the mortgage, all bills, holidays and all expenses when we're out together. My wages go into my current account, which he also tops up every now and then. I do the grocery shopping and things related to the dc, but most of our online accounts are linked to his debit card, so it comes out of that. We don't really question each other's spending, or have to check before spending large amounts (unless it's for a household item where we are mostly discussing make/model). We spend roughly equal amounts on leisure/hobbies, but we don't keep tabs really. It works for us and we never argue about money.

I work 2 days a week and earn minimum wage and husband’s wage is in the top 1%. Everything goes into the same pot and we each get the same amount of spending money.

It’s not fair that you are paying 50% of the bills and rent. You should work it out using percentages.

Roughly same incomes as yours, OP, both salaries into one account and money transferred into a bills account (annual bills total divided by 12).

What’s left in the joint account is for us to spend. I manage all of it largely, DP isn’t worried. We have independent savings from before we were together but both pots are viewed as joint money, they’ve just stayed as they were. Mine is more than his 😀, I suppose technically that’s my running away fund.

Before we had joint finances, he used to pay for a lot more than me (groceries, going out, stuff for the house).

Have you talked to him about it? I said to DP, I realise this benefits me more than you, but don’t you think it’s about time we pooled the money? Especially when I’d do a lot of things with and for his DDs. It had just never occurred to him and we sorted the joint account straightaway.

All in one pot, spend whatever we want and whatever left at the end of the month goes into savings. I don't understand how people can share a life but not share money.

Joint account for bills, we earn roughly the same so it's 50/50 and then whatever is left over, we transfer to individual Monzo cards and that's our own spending money.

I'm about to go on maternity leave so my income will drop considerably, as such, DH's contribution to the joint account will go much higher and mine lower, so that we have the same left over for spending.

We don’t have a joint account (more laziness than anything else to be honest) but as I earn 70% of the income I pay 70% of the household bills, DP pays the rest.

I also pay for the majority of days out, treats, holidays (not spending money) etc so we tend to have equal amounts left each month to spend as we see fit. Won’t work for everyone but works for us

We didn't always earn the same though and when we rented and were unmarried, we still split the amount and he had more left over than me - which was fair, it wasn't his problem that he earned more than me when we met.

Our gross incomes are quite different £55k and £35k but after differences in tax, student loan, and pension rates we take home near as makes no difference the same amount.

We both put £600 a month into the joint account which covers rent, bills, food, and a good chunk of motoring costs. Roughly every three months we have to top it up by a bit more. Otherwise our finances are largely separate (though for some things like going away or car maintenance we will split larger bills).

I should add that when our incomes have been more different we have still split things 50:50 though it is notable that when one of us is finding cash right the other tries to sneakily pay for things that would otherwise have been split.

We have a joint account for all bills, food and house hold spend.

Money put in is pro rata’d based on pay. Otherwise the highest earner is wanting to spent joint money on things that are out of range for the lower earner.

The rest is our own.

Yep.

Opened joint account when we got married. All money goes into it and, within reason, we spend what we like. Large purchases we discuss. Over the years we have both, at different times been the higher earner. I now don't work at all.

DH got a large inheritance last year. That went into account and we discussed what we would do with it. DH considers it "our" money

Worked for us for almost 40 years

We shared money the moment we moved in together, before children.

Didn't even discuss it, just happened.

I would not be able to get over the unfairness of separate money during maternity leave. It would eat at me.

We have been married for over 30 years.

• One joint account that all earnings go into. This pays all bills and everything we consider to be shared.
• Separate accounts each for our “play money”. These are for our own clothes, books, music and entertainment.
• A range of savings accounts that belong to both of us.

This has worked out well as at different times DH has been the higher earner, then I was. DH had to retire early, then I did. We talk to each other about large purchases and plan everything together.

Works for us.

Husband is hopeless with money so I have put my name on his account (to become joint) since I became a sahm. He pays everything as he was the only earner in the house, we see it as our money, we never borrow each others money even when we both work.

We pool all our earnings together. I work FT now but worked PT for years so I would be home more for the kids. My DH used to comment on things he thought I was wasting money on. I pointed him in the direction of articles explaining what financial abuse was and he stopped picking over my bank statements! You really need to talk to your Fiancé about this. He is being mean making you pay half of the bills. This could easily get worse for you if you marry him, have his kids and your income drops. Sort it out now! You need to function as a team.