To ask how you manage finances/divvy up money?

[MeSanniesareBrannies]

Cross post with relationships. How do you manage finances/divvy up money?

So, background info:

Me: 34, earning just over £60K (less than £20K savings). Unlikely to ever earn more than £90K.

DP: 32, earning £100K + bonus (also has £100K savings/deposit). Earnings upper limit impossible to predict.

My partner and I have been together three years, lived together two and just got engaged. He earns considerably more than me, has always paid for most things and is happy to do so. We’re buying a house (both names) and he’ll be stumping up most of the deposit.

We both work full time in fairly intense jobs, but hours aren’t crazy. We’re pretty even on housework (we’re both a bit rubbish, he possibly does slightly more, we have a lovely cleaner). No kids, but we we want them and I’ll probably stay home for a bit when we have them.

DP wants to chuck all our money (after savings and investments) in a joint account, have equal access and just not worry about it. Having read threads on here, it seems like there’s reasons not to do that? There’s lots of comments about making sure everyone has their own money, ‘ducks in a row’ and is contributing to the household according to income? If you’re long term married and happy with your financial arrangements, what do you do/would you recommend we do?

I can’t imagine ever having money based rows, but as it seems so common, I thought getting ahead of it might be good. All advice gratefully received.

I would expect most married couples would do as your fiancé seggested

Nope! We have a joint account for all household bills on direct debit. DH earns more so contributes more.

We have joint savings (teens/Uni/holidays/house repairs/car repairs etc) and individual savings, which we use for hobbies and weekends away etc

I see no harm in this - at least we have some accountability and responsibility as far as money goes.

Otherwise there may be resentment of one outspends the other. And I certainly don’t want him scrutinizing my daily spends.

You posted this last night and had replies…….

Apologies, you posted it tonight on a different board, fair doos

We do the ‘equal surplus’ so work out all outgoing inc savings etc and put in amounts such that we’re both left with the same each month.

Then I can fritter my money of nonsense without worrying.

That’s only since kids though. Prior to that we earned basically the same so just split outgoings in half.

The fact your fiancé is ok with joint money even with savings and assets etc is a good sign that he’s both fiscally responsible and generous.

We have a joint account where the majority of our spending comes from - mortgage, bills, groceries, eating out/takeaways, socialising etc., and when the children were little, childcare costs and basically everything for the kids, also 'pots' for Christmas/birthdays, holidays, big annual bills like car MOT and service and an emergency pot for appliance breakdown etc. We set a reasonable budget for all this and then contribute to it in proportion to our incomes which fluctuated for both of us over the years. We both have cards for and equal access to the joint account and also to the joint credit card which is paid off monthly from the joint account.

However, we do keep our own current accounts and are paid into them, nothing to do really with 'ducks in a row' for if we were to ever break up but more that we both like a bit of independence plus we have individual hobbies that we like to spend money on without having to 'account' for it to each other - not that either of us ever would do expect that in reality and in fact we do occasionally stick a hobby expense on the joint card if we get muddled or forget our personal card or whatever and its not an issue, but mentally we feel much more comfortable spending on ourselves from our own accounts than the 'family money' - our personal pots cover our own clothes, socialising with our own friends, hobbies, haircuts/beauty things, 'fripperies' like lunches out and presents for each other - obviously you have to cut your cloth according to your circumstances, when the DC were little and there were big childcare bills our personal spends were pretty low whereas now they're grown up we can indulge a little more.

So the basic system is salaries and any other income into personal current accounts, a chunk goes straight out to fund the joint account, a chunk goes to savings and then what's left is our personal budgets.

In terms of protecting yourself as a (future) SAHM with a high earning husband the things in order of importance I would say are (a) get married, I know you are engaged (congrats) but I know a few couples that said 'house and baby first, we'll get married in a few years' and never actually get around to it (b) have the house in joint names and keep some savings in your own name too (c) try and avoid giving up work altogether if you can bear it, I know with little kids it's hard and can seem a lot of slog for little reward when you have huge nursery bills to pay but even keeping a toe-hold in your industry by working very part-time or freelance can be a huge help to keep your CV relevant and keep contributing to a pension pot and NI. If you do all of the above having your own bank account or not becomes pretty irrelevant really!

@Starcup

You posted this last night and had replies…….

@Starcup I posted it tonight on AIBU about twenty minutes after posting this and I said it was a crosspost. Is this against the rules? Not trying to be underhand, just wasn’t getting any replies.

@Starcup Posted on ‘relationships’, I mean. And I just saw your second comment. All good!

In our house we have a joint account for household bills/mortgage/an agreed amount for joint spending e.g going out for dinner which we would contribute to proportionally (37.5% of joint costs from you, the rest from him). The rest stays in our own account or savings

I posted it tonight on AIBU about twenty minutes after posting this and I said it was a crosspost. Is this against the rules? Not trying to be underhand, just wasn’t getting any replies

@MeSanniesareBrannies

I can totally see why you’d post twice and that’s fair enough. It’s just sone people do duplicate posts just to troll. Then people reply in good faith and siege time doing it etc and it was just a wind up.

I totally don’t think you’re is though of course. Hope that makes sense

spend not seige lol

@maxelly That was really comprehensive and fantastically helpful. Thank you very much for taking the trouble to write that all out!

@Starcup Totally understand.

Married and husband earns more than me. Everything goes into one joint account with equal access. All bills, clothes, restaurants, holidays, food, activities, mortgage etc come out of there. All savings go into the same savings account. Nice and simple. No arguments. We don't keep tabs on each other's spending or argue over who spent more one day etc... but to be fair, he's not a big spender. And if he was, that wouldn't be a problem as he brings home more money. He never questions what I spend. Having said that we're not overly materialistic.

When I stopped working to be at home with the baby nothing changed. Except I no longer had a salary to put into the pot. This has never been an issue as we're married and support each other. One of us has to be at home with the baby & the other brings home the money. When I go back to work full time I'll be able to contribute again. No biggy.

Whilst on maternity leave I pay into by pension using savings/left over money at the end of the month so pretty ad hoc as I currently don't have an income. Just make sure you think of that. Although being married your husband's pension is also half yours if you were to divorce but it's not a reason to not continue building your own pension whilst at home with baby.

Guess this set up only really works if your partner is not financially controlling. Seeing he just wants to throw everything into one pot, he is making sense. This will be a lot more straightforward when baby arrives, as your income will diminish anyway, he'll have to support you financially whilst your pause your career and look after baby. He seems like a good egg op.

Even without a baby in the picture, I think what he is saying makes sense. It's straightforward and clearly he trusts you. FYI We had the above arrangements before baby arrived. Deposit wise he also had more but we're 50/50 owners on the house.

What was ours before we got married stayed in our own names (bought house jointly).
All earnings go into joint account and we each take the same amount for personal spends (clothes, presents, going out). any left in joint at the end of the month is used for joint saving or used to fund ISA and pension contributions. (More into mine as I was behind).

It's worked for us through periods of not working and it doesn't matter who earns the most as long as together we earn enough.

Similar to your dp, full access to all money.
Dh earns substantially more than me, but I'm a TA, so work term time only, meaning childcare isn't a concern.

We have 2 accounts (1 wages/bills, 1 savings) and a credit card each.
All wages go into same account, set amount goes into savings on my pay day (I get paid the day after dh) all bills come out of joint account, inc food shop and fuel.

Credit card each we use for personal entertainment, sensible (read affordable, so if maxed we won't be in trouble if we paid it off outright) credit limit and we have a dd from the joint account paying them monthly.

We find it easier to mix it all together, I have married friends who still have completely separate finances, it's what works best for you and dp, I don't think there is a right or wrong way to do it, as long as you're not getting yourself into financial hardship.

We have a joint account and a savings account in my name.
I am the better one at dealing with money.
My wage goes into the joint account and then I transfer £1500 into my savings. I try not to do incidental spending such as random Costas ' just because'
Dh transfers £2500 into the joint account and I transfer that into savings. We have very little overheads.
Dh fuels my car, does the food shopping, gives me cash when I need it to save going to an atm, pays for meals out, drinks and other expenses.
It's not a case of him paying for it, it's all our money. The savings money is partly his as well.
It's worked well for 30+ years as neither of us are big spenders.

Dp suggestion* sorry phone seems to be doing weird things...

I would heavily advise against this. There's lots of threads where it becomes obvious why - financial abuse, lack of protection, your partner could steal that money or gamble it away.

Me and DP have our personal accounts where salaries get paid into, and then we transfer most of it into our joint account. Our bills, mortgage, groceries, pet costs, holiday money, fun money for dates etc all comes out of that account.

We leave some money in our individual accounts which we use for our own savings and investments, personal spending, gifts for each other and all other bits.

We just worked out a % of our salary to split between our own account and the joint account. It works well for us - I'd be open to also having a joint savings account or investments as long as I have a personal one too.

My dh and I both work he earns more than me but I have more investments. We both have our salary go onto our own bank accounts then we both pay a fixed amount I to joint account which covers mortgage, gas, electric, water, council tax, food, leaning products, takeaway food, the cleaner, fuel, any garden work we have done or any other bill including joint Xmas gifts and birthday gifts. With money in our personal accounts we buy each other gifts, coffees and lunches out with friends, clothing, and if I want to treat my niece or nephews I don't feel I have to to mention it to DH.

My husband and I have been together 10 years. We earn around the same amount.
We opened a joint account together when we bought our house. We have our own personal accounts where our wages are paid into and any personal bills are paid out of (such as phone bills or car insurance). We both pay the same amount into our joint account each month and only joint bills/expenditure is paid from that account (such as the mortgage, utility bills and any big house purchases).
This way, the joint bills are taken care of and neither of us can complain what the other does with the rest of our money. We've always split bills equally and have never argued over money.
I would never advise anyone to pool their finances 100% with someone; married or not.

I have not complied with the general MN consensus on finances. We have been together 25 years, completely separate accounts. Outgoings have ebbed and flowed dependant on who is the bigger earner and whose investments are doing better. It suits us and no arguing about money ever. But we paid off our mortgage after 5 years together when an investment DH made paid it off in full. So no housing expenses for 20 years.

We have 2 accounts. One where all the money goes in and one for bills.

That's it. No credit cards, or other accounts or separate savings.

We set it up like that 40yrs ago when we bought our first house together. There's never been any his or my money. It's just ours that's available after the bills are paid. We each have equal access to it even when I wasn't earning but I probably spend more than he does. Because we've had times when we have been totally skint I check the balance every morning and it's become a habit now. So we always know what we have (or more usually haven't) got.

There's a substantial difference between our earnings.

We worked out the ratio of our after-tax earnings and split big bills according to that ratio. I pay mortgage, car payment, car insurance, kids education savings. Partner pays utilities.
Food, fuel, restaurants, household purchases we split 50/50.

Everything after bills we keep in our own accounts for us to save or spend as we wish, without any interference or judgement - the bills are paid and out of the way.
This way there are no arguments about spending on treats, weekends away, clothes, gadgets, whatever (as you sometimes see in threads on here) - pretty much same as @GirlOfTudor above. We've paid our obligations fairly based on our post-tax incomes, what's left is fair game.

I came into the relationship with a greater amount of savings and paid the downpayment on the home. Don't hold that against my partner, we're a unit and that's that.

As long as you are both good at handling money and neither of you is abusive, I can't see why not.
What I would do though is stipulate that you both have an allocated amount for spends, so you can save a small amount for yourself, whether this ends up going in gifts, holidays, hobbies or should the worst happen and you need to leave... doesn't need to be huge amounts, just enough to give you breathing space should you require it.