The ideal financial set up for married couple

[GingerLiberalFeminist]

So Mumsnet, your wise input is required!

TL:DR should couple share finances but wife also put dosh away just in case?

If you read MN you'll see the view for women is to keep financial independence, but men should share their finances totally (!).

Our current set up is DH and I have a joint account into which goes 80-85% of our wages. Our household income is about £75k. This covers household bills etc. £250 goes into joint savings each month, every three months we chuck some in joint ISAs or DD's savings or ISA (she's 1).

The rest of our wages is "fun money" for us each.

I put a portion of my fun money into an ISA and savings each month, just in case the unlikely event that I get read The Script and find myself out on a limb.

DH knows I have some separate savings, but not really how much. I know he has a few personal pots but they don't exceed mine.

Have we nailed it? Have we got a MN approved way of splitting finances? 😁

IABU - we haven't nailed it.
IANBU - we've nailed it

I think if it works for you both then it’s great. We have a separate finances but a so into a joint to pay all bills. Similar incomes

My Grandparents did the following, they lived off my Grandfather's wage and saved my Grandmother's. They were very smart with money and enjoyed their retirement together.

We have the same disposable money, so I have a spreadsheet that calculates all of our outgoings and joint savings, then divides whatever is left by two (our incomes both fluctuate slightly due to on call individual payments etc) , I know I save more of that bit than DH does but that's none of my business or his.

The whole point is that it's disposable money to give us both financial independence and freedom. It has surprised DH when I've bought something expensive on a whim or a want but I can do that as month to month I have more money than I need, so save some. He fritters more than I do, which is why one joint account would cause arguments because I'd be questioning the necessity of it. This way it's up to him what he does with his money, but we both have joint responsibility for both bills and household savings

Similar set up here. We both put 75% of our wages in joint account and have 25% for fun money.
Personal stuff comes out of fun money. I like a spa weekend, he likes a fishing weekend for example. Any large costs we split. Any significant changes to circumstances we review and make sure it's still fair.

Sounds fair to me. When we had DTs I didn’t go back to work for six years. Several of those years we were in Africa for DH’s job. His salary went into a joint account and both spent as we liked, within reason.
when I returned to teaching part time I was earning a fraction of his salary. Mine went into an account in my name only and I would usually buy food and covet clothes and incidental expenses for the children. The rest was mine to spend as I wanted. Worked for us.

We have a joint account for our joint bills which we each pay 50% of.

The rest is in our personal accouts.

I dont even know how much DH earns.

Its not actually the ideal situation.

Never had a joint bank account in 26 years of marriage. He (higher earner) pays all the bills and I have full access to his bank account as he regards it all as ‘family money’.

My money is my own but I pay for the ‘fun’ stuff - holidays, Xmas etc. (He doesn’t have access to my account). When I was a sahm he gave me a generous monthly allowance to spend on whatever I wanted.

Never a single cross word about money in those whole 26 years. And I have a colleague who coincidentally has exactly the same arrangement with her DH. Has always worked for them too.

We pay our salaries into one account and all bill/savings are paid out of that. We have a joint savings. We each get the same allowance per month paid from the joint account to do whatever we want with.

We have similar-ish in that we put an amount into the joint account in proportion to earnings and that pays bills. My share into the joint account is lower than it would be because I buy food/stuff for DS on my credit card. We do whatever we want with the leftover. We pay a bit extra each month into the joint account but otherwise all of our savings are totally separate. I like having my own stuff in my name which DH can't access (although he knows where it is in case I die). If we pay for something out of savings, we pay from it proportionally from each of our savings.

It's fine if you're both happy and have thought through all scenarios in the future (poss divorce, pensions, death etc).

It wouldn't work for me though. We're married, we share everything. Dreams, hopes, bodies, money. All of it.

(I realise this is too simplistic for couples on a second marriage or who have non joint children).

We have separate accounts but the Mother of all spreadsheets, that we both deal with.

We have one joint account, it has about £100 in it. It’s a historical joke as is the tiny remnant of our wedding fund and it’s our 25 year anniversary this year. Whoever outlives the other is to spend it on a very nice dinner for themselves and to toast the departed.

One reason we don’t have joint accounts is we both invest so make individual decisions on those investments. We were investing before we got together and from young ages.

I don’t really know what we do. There’s never been any debt collectors banging on the door though.

Dh and I have been married 15 years and never had a joint account. We both earn pretty similar- about 55k each. We've no mortgage and 1dc. Both own our cars outright and no other debts (apart from some CC that we each pay off). We are each responsible for certain bills that roughly amount to the same amount. We have our own savings and investments. If we need to purchase something big or do repairs or pay for a holiday a we just split it 50:50. Take turns in paying for meals out etc.

We'll never have joint accounts. We both value our financial independence. Wouldn't work for everyone but does for us.

You've nailed it if it works for you. We have a joint bills account and a joint everything else account. We earn the same, we take what we want when we want. We don't have our own pots of money. I manage all the monies anyway he wouldn't even know log in details (his choice). Can't imagine either of us would ever attempt to screw each other over.

Ours is and has always been really uncomplicated. Joint accounts and if we want to spend anything we just do without consultation. There was never need for an escape fund on either side, as worse came to worse and one of us left the other, we’d have just hot footed it down to the bank to open individual accounts and had our pay directed there instead. I guess we would have asked the joint account to be frozen pending legal hoo haa, but no idea if freezing accounts in this scenario is actually possible.

HelloDarlingWhatAreYouDoingHere · Today 19:21

My Grandparents did the following, they lived off my Grandfather's wage and saved my Grandmother's. They were very smart with money and enjoyed their retirement together.

That's it. This is how clever women and loving men do it. Everything is to protect the children , therefore the wife needs to be able to have the security just in case he goes first

Just curious as to how having a joint account means you don't have financial independence? We have joint accounts and we take what we want when we want and we earn the same. We set up joint accounts when we moved in together years ago, we've since more than doubled our salaries and are not dependant on each other whatsoever.

Sounds like it works for you, in which case YANBU.

In our case we both pay our full salary/wages into a joint account and I control it. I hold the savings/pensions/investments so it’s basically win/win for me! Good job he trusts me!

Well, I do it this way, anyway. Whoever wants it any other way, is welcome. I won't be even around reading it

I think it is all down to personal preference. If it works then it’s a suitable solution.

We’ve been together for about 20 years and have never even given consideration to a joint account. I just don’t see the point. We don’t need it.

We do similar, except our savings have always been separate. We're thinking of adding a joint savings account now though.

I think joint account plus separate accounts is by far the best option. Only separate seems incredibly complicated for keeping things fair in terms of who pays for what. Only joint really doesn't seem safe to me. Escape fund forever!

We do everything paid into one account, from there we transfer to joint savings/investments and then have equal funds in sole investments (ISA’s premium bonds and most tax efficient way to do it) so on paper we both have access to equal amounts. Bar my husbands pension he is very high earning and I am not, that said I am comfortable with this he pays the max in he can before tax so it makes sense for our long term future - I also have no concerns we would ever split and if we did I would be entitled to part of his pension anyway. We also own our house jointly without a mortgage. I think you have to just do what works best for you and what sits comfortably, as soon as we moved on from being a couple to being a family we reorganised everything so that it was joint and balanced. We have annual reviews with a financial advisor and appreciate I maybe in a better financial position to many but even before we got to that point and finances could be a struggle it just would never have occurred to me to squirrel money away for myself “just in case”

@LoubieIoo
Dh and I like to spend our own money on things that the other may not always agree with. For example, I like to treat my mum, sisters and nieces (clothes, meals out, theatre) outside of normal birthdays etc. there's no arguments, just I'm closer to my family than he is to his, so he doesn't see why I do it. He also has only 1 family member he would buy gifts for whereas I have about 15, so it wouldn't feel fair him subsidising my choices. I'm more of a spender generally than him, but I can afford it so don't need to be answerable to anyone.

Dh and I like to treat each other too and him buying me a surprise bunch of flowers/ taking me on a birthday trip from a joint account wouldn't feel the same.

We have a great relationship and this set up works for us.

These things are easy if there is plenty of money and you're reasonably similar spenders. We don't have allocated fun money we both just spend what we want on a join credit card which I pay off in full each month. I put £2500 a month into a joint account where the bills and mortgage come out of and save anything left over. DH has a very erratic income but usually about 10k or so a year he just saves all of that. We focus on my pension as it's massively more tax efficient than paying into one for DH.