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?

If one account is going to work you have to accept at different points one individual will need to depend on the other. At points in our 23 year joint account my DH earned more and I spent more than I earned personally. Now I earn more and he spends more than he earns. It's a marriage.

I learned the hard way that trust can be broken; we had a joint account but after a number of years I didn’t use it, just paid into it.
I didn’t even have a card for it. At that time there wasn’t online banking.
DH ran up a huge overdraft unbeknown to me but because my name was still on it I was jointly liable. The bank chased me for payment because he wouldn’t pay it.
Have completely separate accounts now, we divide up who pays for what.
Never again would I ever have a joint account.

We pool everything and all finances are shared. We’ve done this since moving in together at 18. I’m 40 now. We budget together and each get the same amount of personal disposable spending each month.

@Aquamarine1029

Of course I appreciate other people's circumstances. I gave my opinion. I stated what works for me, not what "should" work for other people. How that's not obvious is beyond me.

Well, possibly because you said:

There is absolutely none of "this is my money", "this is your money" nonsense.

For a lot of us it's not nonsense at all: it's pretty important.

For a lot of us it's not nonsense at all: it's pretty important.

I never once said it wasn't. Again, because you're clearly not getting it, that is my opinion for my life. I have zero concern for how other people manage their finances. Calm down.

Of course you're happy to have shared finances! You have to, you don't earn anything! If you didn't it would be finiancial abuse. Hope you've got your own pension pot.

I'm getting a very smug vibe from.all of the completely joint finances people. Not sure why, it's very old fashioned and smacks of no trust in the relationship. Like you can't trust each other to have anything of your own. 🤔

Different strokes.for different folks I suppose 🤷‍♀️

,I'm getting a very smug vibe from.all of the completely joint finances people. Not sure why, it's very old fashioned and smacks of no trust in the relationship. Like you can't trust each other to have anything of your own. 🤔
What??? That's a bit of a stretch 😂

Mostly shared yes and I trust dh I leave him to run main account.

No one said you cant trust each other if you have separate finances. People here are talking about their own experiences and what work for them.

Right now I dont earn anything (sure, if you dont count my rental income and saving/investment income) but I did have a job and income before having kids. I also contributed to 80% of our house deposit. I look after the kids and household and take the mental load. DH would not have been able to earn what he earns now without my contribution and he recognises and appreciates it and the "happily shared finances" are not one way! We are a family and a team with the same goals.

Pay continues to be paid into individual accounts but money is viewed as joint. We each keep X amount which is reviewed when either one gets a pay rise or circumstances change.
It mostly works for budgeting reasons that out ‘frivolous’ money is individual. We each know what we have to work with and splashing out on a pair of trainers or getting hair done isn’t taking away from anything else.

Early 30s with very young children.

I do think it’s fairly unusual for fully joint finances and salaries only going into one account for younger couples.

Whatever financial arrangement works for a couple is no one’s business but their own, as long as they are both happy and it’s fair. It’s ludicrous that some people claim distrust and financial secrecy if accounts aren’t shared.

DH and I have completely separate current and savings accounts. No joint accounts at all. We are 100% solid and have two children.

All our money goes into one account. We've been together since our teens and moved in together after uni which is when we combined. Very much feel like we've built our life together and everything is shared. I think it would of been harder if we were older and more established or had more disparity in initial savings but as we both had nothing it didn't feel like a big deal to combine. We have a small amount of pocket money (same for both of us) that gets paid into separate accounts each month so we can buy fivolous things for ourselves guilt free. We've each been the higher earner at different points and it works for us 😁

You honestly don’t need probate for joint accounts. Google it and you’ll quickly find many results confirming from all manner of sources including citizens advice

Tried a joint account with my ex, he would go through it constantly judging what I was buying, so it didn’t last long

I’d never give anyone power over my financial independence. You just never know.

We stayed separate until I went on maternity leave and then pooled all resources and started getting paid into our joint account. We have the odd thing that is separate but all the actual funds are pooled (eg the child benefit goes into my own account purely to keep it separate in my head but is used for a joint bill). I manage our finances so I definitely look at everything more often but he can access it all whenever he likes. He just has other skills that he utilises and I do this bit ☺️ At the moment, he’s been off work for a few weeks so we are living off my wage but at other times it’s been me not earning and we’ve lived off his.. basically it’s all pretty equal here!

Neither joint nor separate finances are a sign of a lack of trust. For me the association is that people I know with separate finances often split their expenses in ways that seem wholly unfair. Of course some people have separate finances where bills/savings are covered jointly and they each have the same amount to spend as they choose but it seems relatively common to have one person earning say 2/3 of the household income and the other earning 1/3 then they split bills or split on a proportion of salary. Either way one ends up with significantly more money to freely spend than the other and that feels very much unlike a partnership to me. I don’t think the mechanism of having your own accounts vs joint ones is in any way important but I wouldn’t have been happy with a situation where we didn’t pool/share our income in a way that meant we both had the same amount to spend/save freely. I think what people see as fair differ quite a lot though and others would think it unfair if the higher earner didn’t get more than the lower. Whatever you do as long as it works for you both then it’s fine

People are just sharing their experiences, which is the point of the thread. It's your own issues and prejudices, whatever they may be, that are causing you to read a smug tone into the comments and cast aspersions on people's relationships.

All joint in this household and has been for the past 40 years!

We have joint money but separate accounts. Most of the bills come out of mine and then i just transfer money out if dh’s if i need it. We both spend what we want. We always have done - we earn a similar amount now but while the kids were growing up dh was the higher earner.

I must say, I agree with @WitchyFingers2 .
Comments like separate accounts being 'too complicated', wide-eyed 'why would anybody NOT want to share, it's a marriage ', 'my money your money nonsense' do come across as smug.

We just have one joint account, we actually earn the same now but I was a SAHM for a while so it made sense rather than give me an 'allowance' also it was a joint decision that I stayed at home so seemed fair.

I should add that my pension is much much better than DHs so we will pool all money then also.

I'm not casting aspersions, just giving my opinion.

It can be because of a lack of trust, but still for all the right reasons.

When we were first together, I was a gambler - I knew I couldn't be trusted, so I handed over enough to cover my share of the bills every month (and a bit more) as soon as I got paid, and they all came out of the other half's account. It was absolutely the most sensible thing to do at the time, we've just never really needed to revisit it in the 24 years since...more of the bills come out of mine now (I growed up!), but given that I earn roughly 75% of our income, I transfer enough to cover my share of the bills and a good portion of OH's debt payments, and then I pay for most of the treat stuff. The only thing we've ever been strictly 50-50 on is the mortgage, because I don't want any question that it's completely equal footing on the house (lots of history of interference from family there).

Point is that we had entirely separate finances out of an abundance of caution to begin with, and it still works now because we're not assholes to each other. It's always worked that if either of us was short at any point, the other would cover it if they can. The whole ethos has always been teamwork, and ours has never been an adversarial relationship, unlike (sadly) so many that we read about on here.