To ask about sharing bank accounts…

[stripeysquirrel]

Married last year and have our first baby on the way

I pay the utility bills and DH pays the rent, that’s how it’s always been. We are buying our first house and so will likely have the mortgage come out of our joint account instead.

Just wondering how others do it normally. Do you pay all your wages into the same bank account and just spend from that, or keep it separate?

We both earn similar amounts but obviously I’ll earn a bit less on maternity leave. Is it easier just to pool all money together or in doing so do you lose all your financial independence?

All our money goes into and out of the same account.

If you wanted to buy something without the other knowing, like a birthday gift or surprise, how would you go about it?

Different systems work for different couples.

Our wages go into our joint account, all bills, child related expenses etc come out of this account. There are two standing orders set up so that each month an equal amount of pocket money is sent to our personal bank accounts. Its works well for us as there isn’t any thinking involved, neither of us can forget to send bill money across etc.

All our money goes into the joint account, all bills come out of it and we both spend what we want out of it too.

Same here. We both have credit cards so use those if we want to buy each other a surprise present. Then pay it off immediately from our joint account 😂

Everything goes into one bank account and comes out the same bank account. I havent got the headspace for you pay for this I pay for that.

The best way to keep your independence is to set up a joint account from which all bills are paid. Your salary is paid into your personal accounts and you each transfer a set amount across each month to cover bills. Important you both look at the budget and agree how you will split the costs 50 / 50 or whatever. You might then also agree to each pay a set amount into a joint savings account to cover property maintenance / future purchases / holidays etc.

I personally would not recommend you pool all your money into the joint account, you lose independence ……….. and also you can’t buy that surprise birthday pressie for DH or indeed sneak that pair of shoes you don’t want DH to know about !

Been married nearly 40 years, still got separate finances
the only bill I pay is my phone bill £10 and the electric £100 month, rent, gas, council tax, water bill, insurances and everything else he pays
we both work full time and he earns around £10k more than me a year

Wages into separate accounts and s/o goes across for bills/ food/ yearly savings etc. -money left in separate accounts is our own to spend!

If earn similar should be left with similar play money! Bills share should be proportional to wages.

We have our own accounts then a joint account. We each pay a proportion of our wages to the account for all bills and joint expenses, leaving us both with the same amount of "spending money" in our personal accounts. We then equally contribute to a couple of fixed savings accounts (one for Christmas and one for our dogs boarding/unforeseen costs).

It's worked for us (married 6 years, one DD age 4). However, I will caveat it with the fact we both work in financial services and we are both savers by nature so our "personal spends" is typically saved towards our bigger annual expenses like holidays or home improvements (hence why we don't have a set savings account for that purpose). I think if either of us were "spenders" I'd be more inclined to pool everything.

We have one debit account for everything. Both our wages go in, all the bills go out of the same account. What is left is what is left for fun and our joint savings account.

We both have separate credit cards for things like surprises.

This fully depends on financial literacy etc - for example, my husband and I have never had any historical problems with debit/credit cards etc. I can imagine it would be different if we didn’t have that level of trust.

When I was on adoption leave, I did earn less but all that meant was that the fun money was a bit less and we budgeted differently.

We pool our income completely.

We set up a joint account for
Mortgage
Gas/elec
Loan
Pet costs (insurance health plans)
Internet
Council Tax
Home insurance etc.

There's a separate account which we put money into for food, dog walker and nursery fees as these can vary but we try and forecast as much as possible. That way the money stays separate from the direct debits above.

We then take a split of whats left for personal bills (petrol, phone, Spotify etc) and disposable spending money.

Works for us as we each earn similar amounts.

One big leaky pot here. All in.
You could always withdraw cash for surprise things/ gifts.

All our money is paid into our personal accounts. We pay proportionate to our incomes into joint account which is used for all joint expenses. All personal spending comes from our personal accounts.

I like having my own money and no one to answer to when it comes to what I spend. It would drive me nuts checking with dh about big purchases to make sure he wasn’t also planning to spend the same money. And it means that we both have total independence over how we use our money. If dh wants to buy a motorbike (which he has), that’s fine, because it’s not impacting my money. If I want to plan a solo holiday, I do it and only check with dh about the dates and not the cost. Obviously if either of us ever needed money, then the other would never say, sorry, that’s MY money, but I like having my own money.

A joint account with children is really sensible, because being the one home doing the running around and childcare means you will do more of the day to day spending on joint expenses.

This. I agreed to a single joint account when I got married 26 years ago. Wish to god I hadn't.
It's a me problem and I try to work on it but I don't know that I'll ever get past it. I grew up in a working class family, money was extremely tight. I had panic attacks in my teens about lack of money.
We live pretty much paycheck to paycheck. It's not terribly tight month to month but we don't go on holidays or save anything as there's never really enough money for that.
If there is money left it goes on something we need for the house or more bills. I would love to save money but I can't, DH refuses to budget and doesn't believe in saving, and says we can't afford to.
I feel like if my salary went into my own account and I could just transfer what was needed for the bills into a joint account, then I could budget and might be able to save. It would sit much better with my financial preferences. But I've left it too long now and there's no way back without it being extremely damaging to my relationship.
So don't jump straight to a joint account, not until you know that you are compatible in your financial preferences.

That indeed is a proper marriage/relationship

Alsmot everything we have is joint other than cars which cant have more than one named person

the only separate accounts we had were current accounts but when we both retired early within a few months of the other aged just over 50 over ten years ago - we got out current accounts made to a joint account

Soon after getting married - we just pooled our money

Been married 47 years this year. We had separate accounts until I gave up work with first, after about 4 years. From then we just had one account, all monies earning in. All spending out. From that moment it has been the families money, whoever earned it, usually DH. The only problem has been present buying as it has been like buying a present for ourselves out of our money, but can honestly say it has worked well. You are either a family with everything belongs to all of you, or you aren't.

We have our own accounts that salaries are paid into with a joint account for all household bills into which we pay in proportion to our incomes. I like having my own account. We also maintain separate savings. We have similar attitudes to money, which makes managing finances pretty easy.

Everyone does things differently but my husband and I have always had one pot. All money goes in, irrespective of who earns more at the time (it's changed over the years) and all expenses come out. We spend what we want when we want without asking, but try to be fair and sensible, e.g neither of us would take the piss and constantly buy things for ourselves.

2 joint accounts here. Both wages go into 1 and then bills money is transferred into the other. What's left in the first is for food, fuel and fun and we each just get what we want from it. DH earns double me but I only work term time to cover childcare in the hols so we both contribute to the pot in different ways.

Everything goes into and out of the same account. We know if someone has ‘personal spends’ and we don’t gripe about it cause we both have the same attitude. We don’t waste money on frivolities such as getting nails done or baylage (haven’t even worked out what this is!), expensive handbags or shite like that. Both high earners. Same amount goes into our isas etc each month.

We’ve been together for over 15 years and never bothered having a joint account.

If you both earn well there really isn’t much point to a single account.

We put our wages into a joint account. We have credit cards we can use if we want to buy a surprise (and pay off in full each month). Pool the money, especially in maternity leave. We have the same attitude to money and have never questioned if one of us buys something they want (if over £1000 we would consult to be polite, but neither or us have ever said no).

I think it depends on how disciplined you both are with spending. If you have similar attitudes to spending then a joint account can work well. Credit cards to buy gifts. If you have different attitudes to spending or want to keep finances more separate then go for own accounts.

We’ve got completely separate accounts and no joint ones. We pay the bills in proportion to our salaries.