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.

We just put everything in a joint and redistribute

One pot and both trusted to take what they need and not be silly. I’m a SAHM so cash savings are always held in my name for my own security. (Don’t live in UK so not for tax reasons). We have joint accounts and separate accounts but we don’t have fixed allowances or anything. It works for us. It’s about what works for you really. We have had different amounts of money or lump sums during our marriage and it’s always gone in one pot.

It sounds great that DH is so generous and laid back about money.

I guess id advise a little caution. To just ensure you maintain independence and have an approach that can flex.

If everything goes in together this means he can see every coffee or cocktail you buy, every hair cut, how much you waste in beauty products and shoes etc. You can see every football ticket and bit of cycling or running equipment. If you have any different values to spending you just might not know yet until you pool it-and then the comments start happening. And it seems to be a hard set up to reverse out of judging on the threads on here.

Likewise, some partners really feel the financial pressure when kids come and they are the only ones earning and become tight. And then an all in set up wouldnt really five you anywhere to go.

If you set your stall out for equal disposable income now its become the norm by the time you are a sahm.

I'm really surprised how many responses are 'all in the joint account'. Proportional contributions to a joint bills account here. Having sole access to my own money is really important to me.

We just have one pot, everything goes in and everything comes out the same. We both have our own current accounts which we can use to buy presents for each other so we don’t see it on the joint statement, but we don’t use them for day to day spending. I have more of an interest in personal finance so I’m in charge of savings, but everything belongs equally to both of us.

In my experience, separate finances works fine when you’re a couple on your own, but often becomes unfair when people have kids. You have less money on mat leave so you have to ask your partner for some of “his” money, or you burn through “your” savings and he gets to keep his, or child related expenses somehow become the woman’s job to pay for.

@SunshineThelma

I'm really surprised how many responses are 'all in the joint account'. Proportional contributions to a joint bills account here. Having sole access to my own money is really important to me.

Also surprised at how fair the responses have been. Wonder if the less fair/equitable responses just haven't been disclosed.

DP wants to chuck all our money (after savings and investments) in a joint account, have equal access and just not worry about it.

This is exactly what we do

DP and I both on about £40k each. We each put £1k a month into a joint account to cover joint expenses e.g. mortgage, bills, food. Then have the rest to spend as we like. If there's a big purchase we go halves e.g. I don't drive but bought we a car and run this as I get the benefits.

We bought**

We have one pot. All money in irrelevant who earns what it’s family money. Works for us.

Might help that at different times we’ve both been the higher earner but we’ve always had one pot.

I earn twice what my husband does. And his salary fluctuates each month so he's never sure what he's going to get.
I started to resent feeling like I was paying for everything (because I earn more, I'd always buy dinner, holidays or pay for work to be done to the house), so I asked that we each put half of our take-home pay into a joint account, and keep half for our own personal spending and saving.
This works really well for us.
We're both left with plenty to spend ourselves, but there's always joint money available for holidays, house projects, meals out, furnishings etc.

You guys have a massive income so it seems unlikely that there'd be too much squabbling over who spent the last £50 in the account on a pair of shoes. My OH and I have always pooled everything but when money was really tight, we gave ourselves the same amount of pocket money each so there was no chance to feel that the other person was spending more of the small amount of disposably income we had. Now we have much more coming in and we just bung it all into the one account. I earn twice what he does and honestly have no resentment as we give what we can and take what we need in our relationship. You can always start like this and if it presents any problems, change the plans. If you're going to be not earning for a while with kids then honestly, with a man who wants to share (and why marry one who doesn't!), this seems the best way for you to have equal access to the household money.

If everything goes in together this means he can see every coffee or cocktail you buy, every hair cut, how much you waste in beauty products and shoes etc.

Not necessarily. I have a credit card with rewards. All my expenditure goes on that and is then paid off through the joint account. My OH does not have access to this level of detail - not that I'd hide it from him, but if you felt the need to it still can be done even if finances are being shared.

We have everything joint except for £100 ‘pocket money’ a month for frittering on lunch, pub, clothes etc. i earn almost £50k and DP around £15k, I also contributed more to the house deposit. But we’re a partnership so it’s all for our mutual benefit. Our bills pay for things that we both use, our savings are for things like home improvements and holidays for us both, just seemed logical that we would share the money.

All our money from whatever source, and regardless of who was earning more, has always been ‘ours’.

We’ve been married for a long time and it’s worked very well for us.

We have a big difference in earnings. We put everything into a joint account and then take out an equal amount for personal spending. Anything that isn't used up by outgoings from the joint account goes into savings or is used for joint spending (meals out etc).

I'm married, two preschool age kids. I'm a SAHM until next year. Husband earns £75kish. We live in a cheap area. All money goes into one pot, nobody counts anything, if I need something I buy it. Nobody takes the piss, we both bust our balls daily. He also pays into a LISA for me that was opened when I became a SAHM, to cover a gap in pension contributions. Also I get state pension credits.

Well I'm a sahm now, dh gets paid in to his own acct then puts 2/3 of his salary in the joint acct each month. He covers a few bills from his account and the bulk comes from the joint. When I worked I did the same with my income. We have our own savings accts but no joint, I have multiple ones for different things (like car insurance rather than having a monthly dd which saves ££). If one is struggling with their budget because of any unexpected costs the other helps out.

Dh earns more than me but we both earn enough to cover half the bills, buy what we want, and save a bit. The only difference is the extra DH earns means his spare that gets saved is higher.

We have a joint account that we each contribute to for the big bills. DH puts a little more in than me. Then we have savings accounts, I have a chunk of cash that only I have access to (I think its important to have this as the lower earner). Then the rest of the savings are a big jumble that we both have access to, in all our names (me, DH, kids) to use tax allowances effectively.

@MinnieMountain Completely joint. Are there concerns around this?

@jackiebenimble “If you set your stall out for equal disposable income now its become the norm by the time you are a sahm.”

This seems really sensible. Thank you!

@androiduser I did specifically ask for people who were happy with their financial arrangements, so that might be why we’re not getting any cautionary tales. Super grateful for all the great advice!

At the moment we manage our money separately; he pays house bills, I pay childcare and food shop then what we have left is our own.

However were set to move into a bigger home soon so we’ve decided to do as your DP suggested, all goes into one joint account, all of our outgoings/bills go out of the joint account and then once we’ve works out how much we realistically have left over we’ll take the same amount each as our own money and leave a buffer in the joint.

The only joint account we have is our rainy day fund which we’ve never touched.
The rest, we keep separate. One of us pays all the bills, the other the mortgage. Other household expenses, either just pays without any rows or thought about it. Sometimes DH gets out his card, sometimes I do. We never keep check of it. I’ve always paid childcare expenses simply because I sorted out nursery when DC were starting. I have no issue with DH not contributing to that because I can afford it and he pays for other things.
It works for us as we are both high earners and our expenses aren’t an issue. It’s also good from an investment risk perspective. We both invest our own money separately so diversify our portfolios well. Crucially both of us are financially sensible.

I earn more than DH, but he has more savings (largely money he inherited). We don't have the same attitude to money, I consider myself careful, DH probably thinks I'm frivolous. He sees himself as careful, I consider him tight.

So, for us the current solution is:

• We each pay the same amount into a joint current account
• We each pay the same amount into a joint savings account
• The remainder is our own. I do make sure to save a significant chunk each month to bring my savings closer to his. Once my savings have reached a similar level to his we'll probably move to proportional contributions instead.