To ask how you and OH manage finances?

[Strawberryfelineforever]

Just wondering how to go about organising financial responsibilities when I move in with future husband later this year. I earn about half of what FH earns at the moment but he has more expenses than me eg he has a car to pay off whereas I don't drive. We have no children and he is covering more than I am for the wedding as I earn significantly less. He suggested he could cover rent/mortgage and I could cover the food shop and bills? We didn't talk about what specific bills just yet. We both agreed we would set up a joint account whilst still having our own separate accounts (I think it's important to have your own account as well). Does this sound reasonable? Should I be putting the same amount in the joint account if I earn less? Just wondering if anyone has tips on splitting things and what is fair. Thanks!

Meant to say though that neither of us had a huge amount. Had I (or he) had, say, masses of money or property, I would have insisted on a contract that protected what I/he/we had going into the marriage in the event we divorced.

I'm all for the sharing but I'm not daft. 😁

What if you have children OP?

Splitting bills is OK when you are ijust a couple, things get a little trickier if one of you gives up work or has to go part time to care for kids.

I gave up work when we had kids- made no difference- OHs salary was "our" money.
Then for a while I was earning half of what he was- again a central pot , shared money.
Now I earn twice what my OH earns- again all shared.

We agree what counted as joint expenses, and set a household budget, and have a joint account into which we both pay pro rata to salary. That includes an amount for joint savings.

He had savings coming into our relationship, I had debt. Both remained with whom they belonged

In the first few years he earned more than me, latterly I earn more (I now earn about 70% more than him now)
We have no DC - if we had have had children our arrangements would have changed I think.

Separate and joint accounts.

I can't abide the idea of someone being able to critise all my spending and like having the ability to buy things secretly (eg presents) and save for frivolous things eg clothes without it feeling like I have to explain it

However joint account is also massively helpful. My dB and dsil don't have joint accounts and were forever saying well I bought xyz, so can you buy the petrol?. I like the idea of when you do a joint activity you can both jointly pay or when you go food shopping the bill just comes out of the joint account

We have a discrepancy in earnings so both pay a percentage of our wage into the joint account. It does roughly work out as one pays bills, one pays rent etc.

I would say that at times we paid different percentages so it we didn't have wildly different amounts at the end in personal accounts eg. I didn't have 500 and she had 80 to spend.

I have seen people be strict with the percentages or insist on both paying the same amount and person A is left with barely enough money to replace broken shoes and person b is buying x boxes and nights out.

I'm fairly lucky in we both have similar spending habits

We will change when we have children as the wages won't allow for our current plan

We have totally separate accounts. I would never ever have a joint account after experiencing some twat wiping out my sisters finances.

Keep separate and agree who pays for what. We do t have any problem at all and works fine

We have our own accounts and a joint account.
When we first got married, we put the same amount into the joint which covered all bills including food.
When I had dc, dh put more into the joint account as I switched to part time.
I still have money in my own account that covers all my own stuff. Dh is generous and has no qualms about topping up any account if we need extra money for anything.
I think attitude says a lot. Check how he feels about unexpected expenses, if you decide to have kids and take some time out or switch to part time.

For us everything goes into one joint account and I am 'in charge' of all the finances. I don't think he'd know how to access anything TBH! Lucky he trust me

We get our wages into our own accounts and pay into a joint account which pays for mortgage, bills, food and things for the children.

We have discussed changing it to have our wages paid into there and then withdraw a spending allowance, so we might do that this year. If you're married it shouldn't matter if you earn different amounts, you should each have the same personal allowance to spend or save as you wish.

I'm another one for everything belongs to each of us. DH didn't want a joint account when we got together, I assumed that was the only way to share, but we share entirely and transparently without joint accounts (we did open one once we had our first child but consider that the 'kids account' - I've moved most of it into long term savings for them now though). We have only ever had one car and one house at a time so had to share. Having separate accounts did mean moving some money around when we were young and poor (my payday was 18th so our 'end of the month' fell at different times).
We have always earned roughly equally, but I wouldn't be happy with one having double the spending money of the other. We argue about most things but have never argued about money.

All money goes into one pot and everything is paid out from this.

We tried dividing expenses pro-rate, DH always will earn more than me, but it caused huge stress.

After three years we decided it's not worth it and threw the money togehter.

Luckily none of us has extravagant hobbies/fashion tastes so our money covers stuff we do togehter or buy for the house/joined pleasure.

Everything bigger (£100?) is discussed but that's rare.

With DD now and me reducing hours it is even more important that I am not a looser financially and I would have hated getting an allowance.

We are not married and I am pretty sure our situation won’t be relevant but my money is my money and I have my own account. I pay for the rent and all household bills because I earn a lot more than my partner and he is in and out of work and I also am organised and feel like I need to be in control of stuff like that. However, I do not want to feel taken advantage of, so I do ask him to contribute and so he transfers an agreed amount into my account every Friday which helps pay for food shopping. I think it works out as around a third of his wages but I am not sure. If he earns less, he gives me less. I don’t want to support him fully so this seems fair to me, even though I do have more disposable income than him.

I don’t think the system matters as much as ensuring that you both have the same personal money regardless of your income.

That is a lot of discretionary spending.

Have you got holidays, savings, car tax, MOT, new tyres and annual service, new furniture fund, pensions, presents for other family members, emergency new boiler and so on in the joint account?

We started with a joint account for all bills and food and the above list and added about 5% to it to be sure it was all covered.

We have separate accounts but all money is our money and it has been like that since we married. It doesn't matter who earns more as long as we have enough as a family. We discuss bigger purchases and we both always know how much is in which pot - there was just never a need for a joint account.

We have never had an allowance. We just spent what we had after bills, with large purchases being discussed. Neither of us are particularly spendy people, but we did used to go out a lot before we had children. We would start going out again but for some reason there is nowhere open!

I earn double what my husband does so out of my account I pay for the car and all the bills apart from electricity and food. I would usually pay big purchases and for holidays I pay for holiday and he saves the spending money.

It ends up we both then have around £100 disposable income.

We have discussed joint accounts but when we moved in together and got married I have individual debts and a spending problem, so didn't seem fair for him to take it on.

It works but 4 years later I do want to combine more as I have a bit more control over my spending and can see money being wasted by both parties and it would help control spending a bit.

And our discretionary spending is for our mobiles, clothes, hobby’s and nights out with our separate friends.

We have taken it in turns to be the higher earner, but this has felt fair all the way along.

We manage on £200 a month a each as our personal spends and are due to retire early as we have saved so much over the eyears

We have one account and it all goes in. DH changed careers and didnt earn for a bit, I have had 2 kids and was on Mat leave, I had loans from university (not in the UK), he had lower wage when we married, we both have had different levels of earnings over the time. It never mattered. We both had access to money and neither of us suffered financially or had to figure out how to pay our half etc. We have the attitude that we got married so money is ours for our family, plus I had no idea how I would keep track of who paid what, who buys for the kids, who pays for the joint car if one drives it more than the other etc. We have never had a single argument about money. I know many do it differently and make it work, but this has worked for us.

@DustyMaiden

You should do whatever you feel comfortable with. In my 24+ year marriage, there is no "your money and my money." All money belongs equally to both of us and who earns more is totally irrelevant. There is no "his car and my car", they are both our cars equally. We have never once had disagreements about money because everything is both of ours equally. To me, that is how a marriage should be, but everyone is entitled to do whatever they wish.

Ditto

Also ditto. Except slightly fewer years in.

We have a joint account from which we pay for all bills, food etc. We each contribute in proportion to our incomes (to make things fair), then after small personal spending we pool everything that's left at the end of the month in a joint savings account.

Given that it (almost) all ends up as joint money anyway, we probably might as well just get paid straight into the joint account, but it's developed this way and works, so why change it now?

Everything in a joint pot and then the same personal spends allocated out. I'm about to go on maternity and I'll still be getting the same personal spends even when I'm not paying in.

Set up a joint account. Have all bills coming out of that including the car. Then pay in a percentage based on your salary. That way you have the same disposable income. Review every year.

So interesting to see how differently everyone manages this!

We have separate current accounts where our wages are paid into and both transfer a set amount (we earn similar so just put the same) into our joint account. All of our bills are paid from the joint account and we use it for food shopping and things we need for DS. We also have our own separate ISAs and separate savings accounts for DS. This last one wasn’t planned but you get a reasonable level of interest on the first 5k of the ones we have (Lloyds Child Saver) and are allowed to open two so we figured why not.

It all works well for us as we have our own money and savings as well as shared family money. If I want to buy myself something expensive I can just do it and not have to justify it to anyone!

We each have our own account and we have a joint account too. We pay into the joint account proportionally to our income (40/60). We then pay from the joint account any joint expenses (food, car, electricity, etc). We have a joint savings account with money for holidays.
We each have our own expenses for property owned before we married (under the law here, not UK, they remain ours individually), which we pay for from our own accounts.
We have both been in very long term relationships before, which may have made us more wary/realistic. DH has an adult son who has never worked and is always presenting with final warnings, baillif letters, etc and I'm glad that dealing with them isn't my problem.
I pay for clothes, haircuts, nails etc from my account and like the fact that I can treat DH or surprise him without him knowing.
I also save more than DH does.
This works well for us. You need to find what works for you. With us, it evolved over time

DH earns several times what I do. We each pay x % of our salary into a joint account for all bills by direct debit, then the remainder of our salaries is into our own accounts for us to spend/save as we wish.
If DH then wants to spend £100 on a shirt it doesn't affect me. I am a saver.
My inheritance went into my savings. Anything from his parents will go into his.
Has worked well for almost thirty years.