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!

@CakeRequired

I'm guessing the people who split everything don't have expensive hobbies.

I have a very expensive hobby, I own a horse. Still split everything in a joint account.

Without him, I could still afford my lifestyle by myself, including the house. If anything, he's better off having me. We are still a partnership so we split everything.

I don’t have an expensive hobby but I am expensive “to run”. Eg I have my hair done every 7 weeks at £60 plus every other one is nearer £100 because if colouring - I did say I might stop the colouring when it nearly grew out on last lockdown but DH would like me to keep it up. I have waxing every 6 weeks at £35. My running costs plus half of the bills, food etc are easily more than the amount I bring into the house but DH is perfectly happy.

Unpopular opinion but upon marriage everything goes into and out of the joint account. It's easy really. It's a partnership, we both contribute financially and practically in slightly different ways but at the end of the day we both benefit. This is only possible if you broadly agree on money, it doesn't work if one of you is Scrooge and the other an anti-Scrooge for example.

And we both have hobbies that cost

We have a joint account - both wages go in. All outgoings go out. If I want something new, I'll buy it without discussion if its not expensive.

If I know it would make a dent in our account. I'd run it past dh. I don't need his approval but it's something I do.

He does exactly the same in reverse.

We have never argued about finances.

I think we are both savers and generally only just spend on necessities.

If dh squandered money on crap (or if I did) , leaving us withdrawn - our simple method wouldn't work.

@79andnotout

There's no way my DP would accept paying half for the amount I pay on haircuts, etc. And he shouldn't have to, when he cuts his hair himself! There's also no way I would pay half of his camera equipment, computer games, etc, god knows how much he spends on those.

I'm guessing the people who split everything don't have expensive hobbies. I wouldn't expect him to pay half the cost of my bikes, or snowboard holidays, when he does neither.

I think this rather misses the whole ethos of an equal marriage. He doesn’t pay WE do. I don’t party, WE do.

We don’t really have expensive hobbies but when I wanted a piano, I bought one. When he wants a new car, he buys one. If he wants to buy our daughter a coffee machine, he buys one for her and if I want to book a weekend break for our son, I do so.

It wasn’t always this and we had to prioritise school shoes over personal pleasure but we still had equal access and equal determination of spending.

I'm on the 'all joint' side.
When we met we were 18 and 21yrs old anyway so no money per say and shitty salaries. We just had a joint account and spent what we could on what we wanted. We still only have joint accounts and never argue about money, 17yrs (and 4 kids) one.
It doesn't matter who earns what or who has expensive hobbies. As a family we decide what we can afford. DH is into archery which can be costly so we discuss when he can buy new stuff simply because we don't have too much to spare at the moment (I'm on mat leave and we just did a loft conversion so feeling a little skint atm). I have hobbies on my own and similarly we agree on how much we can afford. We're in it together.

We are in our mid 30s, together for 11 years and have always had a joint accout where everything goes in and everything comes out. We have separate credit cards for birthday/Christmas suprises so we can't see where the money is being spent but the payment itself comes out of the joint account. It works for us as we have very similar approach to spending/saving but wouldn't work for everyone.

I've always earned more than my partner but see it as our money. He took a couple of years out to study at one point and had no income or minimal income (from a saturday job). I'm now on maternity and from next month my pay will stop completely until I return. Just out of interest what do people do in these situations if they split money/bills?

Both put same amount into joint account. Everything joint comes out of that including car expenses even though I'm the only driver. When I drove to work I paid for fuel. Joint trips come out of the joint account and separate trips come out of separate accounts.

I earn more than DH (always have) so have more "play" money to myself. Is that selfish?

I suspect it would have been different if we had kids.

I couldn't be doing with A pays the mortgage and B pays for everything else.

We have a joint account, each put in 80% of our wages in which covers mortgage, bills, food, clothes etc. We then put in money from that account to joint savings each month too. The 20% is our spending money on whatever we want and I also put some of it in my personal savings.

It took us some time to figure the best way to do it but we never argue about money at all. We have no children so don't feel the need to have all in one pot.

Everyone is different though so best to sit down and discuss it and also discuss what would happen if you were to have children/one of you lost a job/ if you ever were to split up. Better to have those discussions right at the beginning to make sure you are both on the same page.

We have our own accounts. Dh earns twice what I do, but I'm "better" with money. So he sends me 50% of his salary on top of my salary.

Then he pays for his bills, his car, kids phone bills, and the mortgage. Usually more of the "fun" spends too so trips out for the very necessary chocolate or pizza delivery for example.

I pay all the household bills, council tax etc and my car. I also cover all the birthdays and xmas and manage the savings.

But if DH is short I will send him money, and if hes out and I need something he'll buy it. We dont see it as his money and my money. It's just I'm a less impulsive spender.

@Pastnowfuture I'm planning on taking a couple of years out of work to retrain in a couple of years time. I've saved 50k so I can afford to do so, and will have more by then. This means I can continue to pay my half of the bills without any issue for many years should I need to.

I like it this way as it means I don't have to ask DP if he minds if I stop working for a couple of years. It's my decision.

I know he plans to do the same at some point, he wants to take a sabbatical and do a fine arts masters (for fun). As long as he's got his half of the bills saved, he's good.

@79andnotout Thanks for replying. That makes good sense.

@Pastnowfuture no worries. It would be different if we had kids, we'd have got married and pooled finances then. However we couldn't have kids and too many of our friends have already got divorced (and our parents!) so it seems foolish to bother getting married when we're happy as we are. We've left everything to each other in our wills, and if we are still together in our old age maybe we'll have a late life wedding to have a good party.

We have separate accounts and one pays bills the other rent but it works out the same amount each. Currently earn similar but I used to earn more. I used to pay more too but my partner wasn't happy with that - he wanted things to be equal.
We don't quibble about other things though. Sometimes he pays sometimes I do (food, car expenses, holidays etc). We aren't married but even if we were I don't know that I would change the system. We each seem to have enough spending money. Perhaps if we were very short of money we would need to split things more evenly.

OP,
Can you drive?

If you can't and even vaguely think you might, get lessons and learn to drive as a priority.

It is a great basic life skill that becomes so vital when you have children.

Make sure you have discussed the cost of children and childcare costs before you even consider having a child.

Women are very vulnerable once they have children.

I am in a different camp, I think if there are no children both people should contribute to the bills equally

Everything goes into one account. It pays all the bills, and we trust each other not to blow the rest of the cash on drugs, prostitutes and gold toilets.

@79andnotout

There's no way my DP would accept paying half for the amount I pay on haircuts, etc. And he shouldn't have to, when he cuts his hair himself! There's also no way I would pay half of his camera equipment, computer games, etc, god knows how much he spends on those.

I'm guessing the people who split everything don't have expensive hobbies. I wouldn't expect him to pay half the cost of my bikes, or snowboard holidays, when he does neither.

But it doesn't really work like that.

We put both salaries into a pot (joint account) and just buy what we want from there.

My husband loves technology and clothes etc. I love holidays. If he buys a new laptop, I wouldn't think I've bought half of it. If I went away with friends, he wouldn't think he'd paid half of it.

At times, we will discuss big purchases, just to ensure we can afford it.

A friend and her husband had separate accounts and paid half the bills each and then kept the remainder of their salaries to themselves. He would be buying lots of new things and she couldn't afford them as he was earning a lot more the her. She'd be scrimping and saving for their family holiday and she could barely afford it, whilst he was out and about spending all his money. Never seemed fair to me!

We worked out our earnings monthly and our outgoings monthly and then split the balance between us and rest goes to.joint account to cover expenses. I earn roughly twice what DH does but don't feel I should have more. We are equal partners in everything, minding the kids, housework, laundry etc too.

When we first got married we had that kind of set up, his wages paid rent and bills, mine paid more of our daily spending (food, travel, rare holidays) then we had first DC and my earning potential plummeted while his rocketed so since then we’ve had one joint account that both our earnings go into and we use a budget each month - in that budget we have the same amount of personal spending money. YNAB is brilliant for this and has allowed us to have multiple credit cards taking advantage of cash back and points but paying off in full every month

Everyone does it differently, we have our own accounts and paid 50/50 even though i earned less and had debt (he didnt want to be responsible for my debts!). Now things have switched around and i earn more and we still do 50/50. I must admit my parents dont understand it but the one thing i can say whilst we argue about everything money isnt one of them ha ha.

Do what makes you comfortable. I earn slightly more than DH so pay % higher into the joint debit account (for mortgage/ food/bills) and then we put whatever we can into our joint savings acc. We each have our own personal accounts to for our own spending.

In your situation I would get a joint account. Work out all your fixed costs and both contribute enough towards the joint account to cover. You could maybe take off his car loan, then work out percentage wise how much more he earns and he contributes that much more to the joint pot. Anything left goes into a joint savings pot for unexpected household expenses or holidays.

There's no way my DP would accept paying half for the amount I pay on haircuts, etc. And he shouldn't have to, when he cuts his hair himself! There's also no way I would pay half of his camera equipment, computer games, etc, god knows how much he spends on those. I'm guessing the people who split everything don't have expensive hobbies. I wouldn't expect him to pay half the cost of my bikes, or snowboard holidays, when he does neither.

But surely it’s just joint money?

My husband earns over double what I do and a lot of our monthly income goes on Uni fees for me (2 year course) and he would never ever tell me that because that because the course is something ‘for me’ then I have to pay for it myself. He knows I could never afford to pay the fees on my own wages so of course he’s happy for it to come out of the joint pot. He would never have even thought to suggest otherwise....it’s just the way we work as a team.

Before marriage I would have a joint bills account that you have all bills going out of, and work out your % earnings that would cover with extra for an unexpected bill. You dont access this account. No cards. Purely bills.

Have a second joint account for food, meals out, nights out, day trips etc. Again work out what will be enough, then split according to earnings.

Then the rest is your for your own spending and saving.

Dont split one pays mortgage and other bills. Mortgage will go down. Bills only go up.