Completely Joint finances - weird or normal?

[WoodworkingDad]

Chatting at work recently I have discovered that sharing finances completely even when married puts me in the minority of.... well just me and DW!!!

I work full time and earn £50k wife works part time and earns from two jobs about £15k. We have two daughters 4 and 1 years old.

When we were married and both working FT we opened a joint account and paid similar amounts in for mortgage and household bills (excluding food and fuel) I think I paid slightly more as I earned more.

After number 1 child came along and wife went went back to work PT after MAT leave it became far too complicated to work out financially every month. With the drop in income, nursary fees and us getting paid at different points in the month I suggested having a joint spending account. So now we get paid into our own accounts, I then fund the old joint account for bills and pay remaining money into separate joint (spending) account. Wife pays all wages into same joint spending account so we know exactly how much joint money we have. We effectively don't have private money (own accounts left with £1 in each month). All savings/investments are now pooled for tax purposes. To be fair I manage all our money as DW has zero interest, I know it's not ideal but that's how it is, she however has access and passwords to view and manage all accounts if needed.

Does anyone else completely share all finances with there partner? Or are we genuinely weird? It seems no one else I work with really trusts there OH!!!

Thoughts?

We do this too as does everyone I know. Perfectly normal.

Same here. Simpler. Wages go into the same joint account. Which is our spending account. We have a separate joint account for direct debits and bills and another joint saving account. I deal with the money as DH isn't interested and i moved money into the accounts as required. DH and I met when we were very young adults with no money of our own and never saw the need to keep things separate once we lived together. We did have separate bank accounts at one point, not sure when that stopped entirely. Probably around the time we had children....

Because if one of you dies the other won't be able to access the money in their account until you've gone through the huge hassle of probate?

I think it's important to have some autonomy, so we have our own bank accounts that our wages go into, but we send the wages to the joint, and despite earning differently have always taken the same sum each for personal spends. Have always done this.

All income into one account and all bills paid out.

Joint savings.

We share everything.

I earn a lot more than DH but in the past he's earned more. We've also both had time as SAHPs and part time.

We are a family and pool our resources.

Similar to a lot of others - all wages into a joint account and then equal amounts of spending money transferred to our private accounts, even though DH is the higher earner.

But I had friends who kept finances completely separate, even after kids. They would have to transfer money across for their half of the kids dinner if they went out to eat or bought a magazine on the weekly shop, which I thought was madness!

The way it works for us is that our salaries get paid into our separate current accounts. The bills come out by direct debit - some from his account and some from my account. We both spend whatever we like from our own accounts (plus bigger purchases on the joint credit card). Then whatever is left at the end of the month we both transfer to joint savings. So we have autonomy (own personal current account) but at the end of the day everything is completely shared (both have access to the joint savings account).

I think maybe this only works because we have similar attitudes to money - we're both careful with money and natural savers. I guess it wouldn't work if one person was spending a lot more on themselves while the other was transferring more to the savings account, or if money was very tight and we needed to keep track of every penny. We've been married for 20 years and have never had an argument about money.

Separate current accounts, joint savings. We each pay a proportional amount of bills. It's worked OK for 30 years, we are transparent and trust each other.

DH and I always had joint accounts. No secrets between us, and no arguments about money.🙂

I think your way of doing it works if either:
a) you have so much money you can spend without thinking
b) you have very little money, and can't spend without discussion

And also - one partner is happy to take control, and one partner doesn't care.

However, if you have a chunk of spare money, and both want to spend on unbudgeted items each month, then not being able to do that without checking how much your partner has spent is a pain. Also, if you both want to feel a level of control over savings and investment decisions and have different risk appetites, then it's asking for arguments.

All couple I know have some element of separate money even if most joint. It works for us to have a joint account for all shared expenses and individual accounts for our personal spending. But we do earn similar.

My husband and I both work full time and we earn similar salaries. That salary is paid into our own separate current accounts, and we contribute the same amount to a joint account for the mortgage, childcare etc. I don’t see the point in sharing when we have the same amount anyway.
I bore the financial costs of my maternity leave myself without help from him 2 years ago though, and since I’m likely to start out earning husband when I finish my course next year, I won’t be joining finances with him at least until I have my savings back up to where they were before maternity leave.

I think having literally one account for everything is quite unusual among people I know. We have a joint account that all our money goes into but we still send "fun money" to our separate personal accounts which we spend or save without consulting the other.

We just have one joint account. All money goes in and out of that. We are in Ireland though where the banks charge fees for use of the account. No way where we paying fees for 3 accounts 🤣

i wonder if age does play a huge part and also where someone is in their stage of life. With my DP, we get paid salaries into our individual accounts and then transfer X about into the joint account to pay for our mortgage and bills.

The rest we can spend or save freely and this works well (he likes cars and I like holidays). We are very open generally about our finances though and agree that we will shift things if we have children etc and I am earning a much lower amount. As it is, I’m actually the higher earner and offered to pay more in but he refused.

I think I would feel suffocated at the thought of not having control of my own wages or having to discuss an expensive haircut etc as day to day I spend more than my DP but then he will buy bigger tickets items.

DH and I have separate accounts but pay an equal amount into a joint account. It works because we get roughly equal income. We pay all household bills and food out of our joint accounts. Only personal spends like lunch out with friends or gifts to each other come out of personal accounts.

Brilliant. 👍👍👍👍

I don’t really understand the poster who described having separate accounts as having ‘financial secrets’ which they don’t have in their marriage. It comes across as a slightly smug view but I think it has unnecessary paranoia of deception and it’s as silly as me claiming that having a joint account is the sign of an untrusting couple. There are no secrets in our marriage either. We have separate accounts simply because we both had separate accounts and it was easier to just keep them that way. Has worked perfectly for over twenty years and we never argue about money, nor are we secretive and untrusting!

I think a good idea for a lot of couples is a personal account each for some independence and a joint one for bills. But if a fully joint one suits you both, who is anyone else to interfere?

It's important to remember that just as one partner could go off with all the money if you have a shared account ... if you have separate accounts and one of you dies it is not always easy to access the individual bank account. I volunteer at a Food Bank and we are currently supporting a widow who cannot access her deceased husband's money .... I am sure it will be resolved eventually but it's a horrible position for her to be in.

Our finances are completely joint but we introduced separate spending money this year, it's worked out great. He no longer judges my ebay and amazon deliveries that come through the door and I no longer 🤔 the 100s he spends on tech.

To me, it's normal.

Either you are a team, or you aren't.

My parents did joint account, it was pretty dysfunctional but they were a team with shared responsibility.

My ILs did not and their relationship was all kinds of fucked up, mainly due to bitterness about money.

First thing we did after the honeymoon was get our joint account and close our personal accounts.

If it gets to stage of leaving and divorcing, finances would need to be sorted as part of this. Regardless if single account or joint, both parties would be owed some of this.

Worst case, husbad cleared out full savings, I still have shares I could sell if absolutely needed (although, as above, he would be entitled to a portion of the money from this). Then I am paid monthly anyways, so I suppose I would just start building it up again.

Don't get me wrong, wouldn't be happy about it but it wouldn't be the distaster you mention. And I prefer we pool all family money so no one feels they have more/less than other person.

Only time we ever discuss spending is for big ticket items (ie. New car), however my husband is on a boys weekend currenlt. His flights/hotel/all spending money will come from our joint account- things like this we wouldn't even discuss. So I don't feel worried about it 🤷‍♀️

We used to share for years with one account but then DH became a high earner and I got into spending money just because I had it 🙈🙈. So I now have a separate account and DH pays me an allowance (SAHM).

My name is still on the other account in case of emergency or whatever but I don't access it and see it as DHs account /money. I know some people will probably be clutching their pearls at this but I actually feel much more relaxed knowing what I actually have to spend and DH is much better with all the financial stuff and saving than me as numbers are his thing.

Joint account. Everything in and everything out. We share everything. No financial secrets. Couldn't imagine it any other way. We have both been main income providers at one time or another.

Yes. It happened very quickly but sort of organically within 6 months of meeting, and years before marriage.