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?

We have a bills account which we both send x to. Salaries paid into our own accounts. More independence and no having to justify spending of your own money. No arguments on money.

One account. Nice and simple.

All wages paid into joint account, all bills out of joint account. All spending is done on my husband's credit card which are paid off from the joint account each month.

If we want to buy a present it's done on the credit card. and it's still a surprise as we don't make a habit of checking the individual transactions on the account - until I do a bit of a "stock take" at the end of each the month with lots of boring spreadsheets to work out how we're doing budget-wise

Separate accounts here, he pays house and bills I pay food, fuel and other bits. He earns more than me so pays the more expensive things

We have a spreadsheet we add up all month's expenses at start of month then we pay in what's needed (pro rated based on earnings) then we agree if we are going to save anything. What's left is ours to spend as we please.

We use a credit card for food, petrol, household purchases. So we just pay that at start of the month for previous month. (Also good fit credit score)

Together 20 years, married for almost 18. We’ve had joint account since we first lived together, everything in the same pot. For birthday/Christmas we use a credit card and pay it off the following month. We buy what we want, if it’s a larger purchase we discuss in advance just so we both don’t do the same in the same month and hit the account hard! Neither has ever stopped the other making a purchase. We both have good pensions in place and joint savings. It’s always worked for us but different things work for different people. My DH earns double what I earn, the gap wasn’t always that big but his career developed higher than mine and I took gaps to raise our children.

We do the same. Has worked well for nearly 20 years.

Exactly what we do. I can't see a fairer way or operating in a partnership when one of us is the larger wage earner by a very large margin.

But to be fair I could see the model of equal 'pocket money' amounts transferred back into personal accounts working too. Just not something that we have needed.

2 current accounts, both joint.

1. bills, wage(s) go in, all bills get paid.
2. Spending, we then move a set amount into our spending account which we both use.

Then we have joint savings too that we move savings to.

You need your own money. Marriage doesn't mean you morph into one person! If you want something expensive (non essential) then you should pay for it yourself. Likewise do you want your wages to fund his luxury golf membership?

A joint account for bills and food makes sense though.

Joint current account for decades.

For surprises, either cash, or paypal.

We have a main joint account that all salary is paid into and all bills and family related expenses come from. Then we send an equal amount of "fun money" to each of our personal accounts to cover our personal spending (which would include things like gifts).

Everything joint. We don't do surprise presents, we ask the other for what we want.

We have separate accounts. I'm the higher earner so all bills are paid from my account and my husband sends a set amount over every month to cover his portion of the bills.

The rest of our money is split equally between us. A set amount goes to the savings account and the remainder is for fun things. Anything we have left at the end of the month is added to the savings too.

There’s no such thing as a “proper” relationship, suggesting this is the right way is very rude. Different things work for different people. For us, we have a joint account for bills, mortgage, food, petrol, childcare, and we keep the rest of our money to spend as we want

All our income goes into one bank account that we both have full access to and use as our ‘main’ account. Mortgage, all household bills and all DHs bills come out of that one, plus day to day household spending (groceries etc) and everything for our toddler.
Then I have my own account, from which my phone bill, the dogs insurance, stuff that generally was mine before I married DH. Then I have two savings accounts, which are technically just mine and DH has no access, but they’re ‘ours’ really. One is a ‘house improvements’ account and one is a ‘just in case’ account and the amount I put in a month varies as to our income (own business) that particular month. DH doesn’t have any of his own accounts separate from me, not really planned but just how it came about.
We both have credit cards, paid from the joint account, so we use those for anything we don’t want the other to see.
Now I’ve written it all down, I can appreciate our way needs a lot of trust.. mainly from DH towards me 😂

Pool all money into a joint account. Both keep personal accounts and have the same spending money amount each per month. Then should you earn less from maternity or decide to go part time, you're both in an even keel.

We each put 70% of our salaries into a joint account - for bills, then some of this goes into various savings accounts.

The rest is our own, for personal spending and 'treats' for each other. We earn similar salaries so this works well.

Joint accounts are good for so many reasons, especially mums of little ones. Personally though I was unfortunate to do this with a controlling partner. I've been with a great guy for nearly 20 years now and we have done it differently from the start. We both contribute to a joint account based on percentage of income. At times our income differed but it levelled out over time. It's been so long now I wouldn't like to give up my independence.

We have separate current accounts but all money is shared. So we pay for things from either account - it doesn't matter - and then everything left at the end of the month is moved into the joint savings account.

This works for us because we both have a very similar attitude to money (good at saving) and trust each other not to spend unnecessarily. (And also because we both have some money left at the end of the month - I don't think it would work if we were on a tight budget and watching every penny.)

We've been married over 20 years and have never had an argument about money.

All income paid into joint account, and all bills including all child related expenses come from this account. Joint credit card for petrol and food and other agreed expenses for credit card protection on big expenses , and the rewards are useful

standing order to our own personal accounts for personal spending money, what this is for exactly needs to be agreed no the other person is not allowed to say new shoes again are a waste of money, or new golf clubs either

monthly meeting where the spread sheets, credit card statement, joint bank account statements are checked for accuracy. And we decide if the money is in the right account and plan for big purchases coming up. No good having money in an account locked away for a year if we need a new car by Christmas. We have coffee and a cake too

contributions to a household with children can be money or time, and time can save on expenses mostly childcare related ones. This needs to be understood by you both

I think this is more a relationship style than joint/separate accounts. We have joint and never argue about money or justify spending. We did it your way pre children but then it just didn’t make sense for us. If you have very different approaches to money though I can see how it would still be beneficial!

Ours all goes into one account together. He earns a lot more than me but we're a team, not two individuals so it doesn't matter. The only "separate" money we have is various investments and ISAs made in one name or the other for tax purposes.

We never argue about money, maybe because he earns most of it but has got little interest in managing it. Neither of us are extravagant people.

Our wages go into our individual accounts, then we transfer everything apart from our personal spending money (same amount each) into our joint account.

DH earns about 25k more than me so pays a larger amount into our joint account.

if either of us gets a bonus we decide what to do with it…. usually a bit toward the holiday fund, or something we might be as for and a bit for whoever’s bonus it is to buy they’ve been wanting.

All gets pooled into joint a/c then we have a monthly amount tfr into our own accounts to spend as we please (same amount for both of us).

Works well and means we're on an equal footing if one is earning less than the other (happened both ways over the 30 years we've been together).