How do you split your finances

[Jamie8671]

Was reading another post and thought it was interesting how unmarried couples split their money.

I earn 90k and partner 28k. Our net salaries all go into one pot for ‘bills/savings/life’ and each person spends as they like. We don’t keep our money separated but have been together 8 years and whilst we’re not married we share all else. No DCs.

The one difference is that my pension contributions are much higher as both of us are % of salary rather than £ amount.

What do you do? Genuinely interested as lots of people are talking about seperate finances

We pay in percentage to joint bills account based on our income, everything else is seperate. I put in 70% and my dp puts in 30%. We each have our own bills, savings and spending money

Married, three DCs.

All his wages and all my wages go into a joint account. Everything comes out of there too. Both spend what we need / like.

Married. Seperate accounts. He pays the mortgage & bills/outgoings. I pay for holidays/days out/bits for the kids e.g clothes, birthdays.
We both spend what's left over as we like (works out we have roughly the same left)

Until we married we split the bills and mortgage although I covered repairs etc as I owned that house in my own name. Since we married everything is shared except the money we each keep back for personal spends each month (same amount for both of us).

Married and I’m a SAHM so technically DH pays for everything. We each have the same amount of ‘pocket money’ put into our individual accounts each months and the rest goes into the joint account for family money. When I was working it was the same expect I obviously also put money into the joint account and we had a higher amount of ‘pocket money’ but still the same as each other.

Straight down the line for us and have been since we moved in together over 20 years ago. It works well for us but only because neither takes the Mick and are similar with money.

I've a friend who has zero control and constantly racks up cc debt before getting the OH to help pay it off. Joint finances would never work there so doesn't suit everyone.

I earn £60k, DH earns just over £40k We both get paid into separate accounts and then pay in equal amounts into a joint account to cover mortgage, bills and childcare costs.

Whatever is left is considered our own money (not shared) in principle, so we wouldn’t expect to consult each other on what we do with it. I inevitably have more disposable income than him by managing it this way but it all balances out as I tend to pay for more of the ‘luxuries’ (meals out, holidays, activities for DD, etc).

This is how we’ve always managed it and it’s always worked fairly well for us. Think it might not work as well if one earned a much lower salary and didn’t have any disposable left over for themselves.

Not married, together 27 years, earn about the same. We've had a joint account for 25 years, our money is our money. We don't split it.

Like you, one bank account. Salaries go in and outgoings go out. We don’t track what each other spends. We both have a similar attitude to how to spend and save.

Everything joint. We have no separate accounts for personal finances. We have done this since we moved in together before we married.

We have always added together the income, deducted the bills/savings and then had 50% each of the remainder.

We are an equal partnership so only fair we both have the same.

Married, earn about the same (but he has debt he is paying off, I don't).

We both have our separate accounts, we put an equal amount into an account which pays the mortgage, bills, food shops etc

Ever since we moved in together 20+ years ago, its been joint accounts, 1 Bill's account, so enough goes in to cover all house hold running costs. 1 spending account for food, cloths, trips out, etc.... plus a joint savings account.

its works fine for us.

Married for 12 years, 2 kids. I'm a SAHM, he earns about £120k. Everything goes into a pot & it's ours. Always has been. I am never questioned on what is spent. Large purchases agreed on together.
I'm retraining & when I go back to work, I'll contribute to the pot.

Same as @Lazypuppy for now, add up all the bills a budgeted amount for food and stuff our DS might need like clothes and trips put, plus a bit extra for contingencies then pay as a percentage of income into a joint account. Anything left over is ours to do as we please. We are about to take to change that however so that percentage we pay in to the joint account leaves us with the same absolute amount of disposable income rather than the same percentage of income left over.

We tend to have pretty similar spending habits so it works quite well, neither of us feel hard done to, and when we need to make a big purchase we raid whoever has the most savings.

With dp just over 3 years and lived together 2, I have 2xDC and we have a dog.
We have roughly the same income and then I get minimal child maintenance on top.
We pay an equal amount in to a joint account which pays for the rent portion of housing costs, council tax, all bills, and dog costs. We pay our own mobiles, I pay for my car and any costs related to the kids, I pay for the food shopping and dp pays for top up shops.
I’ll be earning double once I’m qualified in the summer, although after tax and pension I’m not sure what the difference will be and then childcare will be more expensive. I’m not sure what we should do after that.

Married with DCs. Everything is shared, all money goes into one account and we spend what we like.

DH earns double what I do, so it’s split 66%/33%.

We have a joint credit card for big purchases & I transfer him my portion of the mortgage and bills each month.

I prefer keeping finances separate.

We got a joint account when we bought our first home. We didn't marry for another 3 years, but as soon as we got the joint account we just chucked everything in there and shared the lot. We earned the same or there abouts.

Now, 12 years later, married and with kids, we have 2x joint accounts. One salary goes into one and the other into the other.

All the direct debits come out of one, and the other is our day-to-day spending account.

I find this so interesting! All our money is shared. DH earns more, but we have very similar attitudes to spending and saving, so money is just a non-issue. I think this is an increasingly unusual attitude though, many of my friends seem to have separate finances.

should say all money goes in the Bill's account, then standing orders for surplus goes to the spending account and savings.
extras like bonuses/over time will get moved later into either account, or both.

All shared 50:50, all goes into same account. It helps that we are on the same wavelength spending-wise, otherwise we might need to re-jig things

We aren't married, have been together 15 years and have 2 dc. We follow the "chuck everything in a pot and call it family money" method. Have had times when we each earn more or less. I can't really imagine being happy to live a different lifestyle to dp, and the details of what we each contribute is too difficult to unpick. We are both pretty fair when it comes to housework, childcare and sharing the mental load.

DH I both earn well and have always both been able to comfortably afford 50% of everything we have together. So we don't completely combine all funds because there's no point.

We have a joint account from which everything related to the house & kids is paid, we each put in the same and there's a decent buffer for extra costs. We both chuck money in joint savings - somehow we end up putting similar amounts in on average over the long run. If we have meals out or pay for holidays etc sometimes I pay sometimes he does, no one is keeping track. But we have our own financial security independent of each other which I feel is important and we are lucky to have it

I think you need to combine if theres a need for financial restraint or where incomes are very unequal.

We have never really had shared money. Been married nearly 30 years.

When we married I owned the house and had significant equity and my earning a were about 2/3 more than dh. But he was the one with better prospects because I had no quals and was near burn out. I had a pre-nup because at That point the money was mine.

Moved a couple of years later, big house, big mortgage, had a baby, gave up work. DH career started escalating. Maintained individual accounts. DH took over mortgage and bills. I had enough to pay out and give him a monthly bill: food, dry cleaning, haircuts, stuff for dc, etc. He never ever questioned and wrote me a cheque every month.

By the time ds was 5 his earnings were rather good.I went back to work when dd was 5 and my money was literally "pin money".

I climbed the slippery pole again and by the time DC were about 9 and 12 wasn't about one tenth of DH's earnings. It remained my pin money except I started buying the DC's clothes, extra activities, etc.

Roll on 20 years and he has changed tack and I have been promoted a lot. We are almost even Stevens. But all the big bills are paid. We don't share anything - except our lives, our love, our history and the grown up dc. DH pays the bills; I buy the food. It's pretty even but we retain our mutual independence.