To not want to have fully shared finances after getting married

[NoMoreLimbo]

DP and I are after many years together fully blending our families. Buying a house together and getting married. Both have children from previous relationships.
I do not want to fully blend our finances though. AIBU?

We earn different amounts.

One earning nearly double of the other. I personally think it’s then fair then that the higher earner put in more into the joint financial responsibilities than the lower earner to a ratio that is fair. 2/3 of ‘everything ‘ or whatever it may be.

However, think it’s important that we both maintain some financial freedom.

We have different ‘habits’. He vapes. I don’t. I go for hair and nails a few times a year. He doesn’t. I would feel very claustrophobic if I had to ask ‘permission’ to use money to go for a haircut and he certainly would get annoyed if he had to ask to spend money on vape stuff (which I loathe him doing but that’s by the by here).

I also do not want to have a situation where everything we earn is pooled and we get an allowance. AIBU?

What do others do?

Similar situation pay 50/50 of the household bills plus food budget into a separate account - rest is ours to keep / spend / invest as we like.

Why are you getting married- especially if you have children? Marriage overrides everything - while is possible to keep things separate while you are married if you divorce the starting point is 50:50 regardless of who brought what to the marriage

Wages go into our own accounts.

Paper exercise to calculate total household income.

Subtract all bills (move to separate bills account).

Subtract savings (move to separate savings account)

Divide the rest by 2 so we both have the same personal money.

Pool all money together in a joint account and withdraw an equal "personal spend" amount each into your own account

We are married. We pay into a joint account based on income and that covers mortgage, childcare, bills, food etc. The rest of our money stays in our separate accounts for us to spend however we want. My DH earns much more than me so saves a big chunk of his into a pot which we use for house stuff eg new bathrooms. I fritter more of my money away! Ultimately, it's very easy for us and we've never had a single argument about money. I caveat it though with the fact that we both earn above average so don't really have money worries as such.

I think it can work very well. Yes, technically you assets are joined legally but this does not mean you have to pool them day to day. You would run your household the exact same way you are doing it now. For us, it was sitting down and working out what joint responsibilities we had and working out a proportional monthly sum we had to contribute to the joint pot. Everything else is kept separate for each person to do what they wish.
The only thing that marriage will change is how you handle bigger purchases. At the moment, I don't particularly care that my partner wants to blow 25k on a new car when he just need a dependable little car to use at weekends (he has a work van for all other needs). But it's his money and his debt. However, if we were married, this decision would need to be discussed and agreed jointly because his debt becomes family debt. Same with savings. Currently, my savings are my own to do with as I please. But if you are married and then divorce, these will be shared so it will be hugely unfair for one of you to save a vast portion of your salary and the other one spend at will.
Which is one of the reasons we never married. We rather love having the freedom of separate finances.
I know it is terribly dull to be thinking about the divorce before you get married... but this is the reality of legally joining finances with someone.

DH and I have a joint account that all household bills, food, pet food, insurances for house/pet/life etc come out of. We both put in x amount, this is an equal amount as we earn very similar wages.

We then each have a savings account which we both put the same agreed amount into each month (this is combined savings, we both decide where this is spent)

Then we both have personal savings accounts, this is just for us, no house, no cars, just ourselves. And we can choose how much we put in there, I just have my change saver hooked up which is about £30ish a month.

We also have a DD birthday and Christmas present/Christmas food & drink savings account, but we literally put in £20 a month in each so that the pressure is taken off of us at the end of the year as they're close together.

What ever is left over at the end of it is our own money, and we can choose what we do with it. Generally it's used for family activities, takeaways, treats for us all. But it's pretty even.

I think financial independence is very important, as long as the household bills are covered and you are both saving equal amounts into your family savings pot, then I don't see anything wrong with having and spending your money how you want to.

I never understand the need for the higher earner to pay 2/3 whilst the lower earner pays 1/3

I think - its different if one person is a child care provider BUT
some people take the absolute piss with it, choose to ease back in to a lower paid or part time lifestyle so their partner can pick up the slack

Not a partnership at all, just a free ride

It is not the higher earners fault that they earn more - they get punished for it

PS Pooling finances is very outdated. When i got married my mother said to me 'oh you are missing a trick by not pooling money' - and I told her he was my husband NOT my meal ticket, thanks

I don’t think there’s any need for you to pool finances - nor, actually, for the higher earner to contribute more of their income to the household: you don’t have shared children and neither of you can claim that your earning capacity has been reduced because of supporting shared children. Neither of you owe the other for choices you made in your previous relationships. Open a joint account which all joint household bills are payable from, plus an agreed amount for joint “fun money” for things you do together, then each transfer your agreed share of the money to that every month, and keep your own personal accounts for your individual spending on yourselves and your respective children. Doing it any other way in a blended family often just ends up with resentment.

Why do you assume you need to pool finances? I don't know any couples who have everything pooled. Have a joint account for joint expenses, contribute to this in proportion to your take home pay. Rest of your money is yours to do as you wish. Surely that's so much easier with expenses for your own children as well.

We have a joint account. Both wages go in there. Bills come out of there. We don’t ask each other for permission to buy personal stuff.

Then again we don’t have any financial abuse issues like gambling or secretive behaviour, etc.

For us, everything is shared and we don’t look at it as my money or his money. It’s our money.

No idea if the op would do this but it doesn't seem fair for a higher earn puts in more but the lower earners says they don't want to share finance but will happily spend the higher earners money

Why would you need to ‘ask permission’ to get your nails done? We have joint finances but joint attitude to spending. We respect each other and don’t judge each other for what each other wants to spend money on. It works easily.

DH and I have been married for 30 years. Never had a joint account.

We looked at our bills and decided what would be fair for each of us to pay, and revised that as time went along.

When we had DC I opened another account in my bank and we both paid in a certain amount based on finances to cover their costs.

Similar, except he has kids and I don't. We've been married 14 years but only recently got a joint account. Up to then we just kind of took turns paying for stuff.

When we bought our house together a couple of years ago, I'd been living in his up to then, we got a joint account for bills and the mortgage.

We pay the same in every month, he earns about 1/2 as much again as I do, and he pays out more for holidays and things.

We aren't particularly secretive about our own accounts and both have a reasonable idea of how much in savings we've got and he just has to look round the garden to see what I spend my money on....

There’s no way I’d be fully sharing finances if we both had kids from previous marriages.

Doomed to have difficult conversations about funding individual things for each others children - I’d hate to have to discuss with a partner that I was giving my child money or similar.

Im married with children and we don’t share finances. We have a central pot we put £x into a month which pays for house / nursery etc, then our money is our own.

IMO having financial independence in this way is a good thing, I’m not interested in his personal spending and I don’t want him interested in mine.

I don’t really need my partner to have oversight of every penny I earn or spend, and vice versa!

Have a separate joint account into which you each pay an agreed contribution to everything joint: food , bills, mortgage, joint meals out, outings that you both go on, furniture, window cleaner, etc. Also a joint savings account for new boiler, joint holidays etc.

Then retain your own spending ££.

Along with the harsh reality of what would happen in a divorce, have you also thought about your Wills? Do you each want to be able to retain a discrete share of your house to your own kids? In which case make sure you own your house as tenants in common, not joint tenants.

A lot can happen in 30 years, men frequently move on fast after being widowed, marry a younger woman, leave everything to her and in due course she leaves his kids out of the will. So personally, I would take care of my own kids in my will, not leave it to chance !

But to be honest, in your situation, unless you are planning shared kids, I wouldn’t marry.

Dreadful cynic, or realist, that I am.

We are married and up to now (will change shortly as we've just had our first baby) we've had a joint current and joint savings for everything home / joint related, plus our own savings and current accounts for our own personal spending. We earn approximately the same so it's been easy, we just throw 50/50 each into the joint accounts each month and keep the rest.

I expect this to change somewhat now DC are in the mix, but I will always retain access to some money of my own that DH can't touch - while I know in the event of a divorce it's all marital assets in the pot just the same I've seen too many Women on these boards who are in awful situations that they can't afford to leave. Not even a couple of nights in a Travelodge to catch their breath.

I will never, ever, be in a situation where I couldn't afford or access the money to take myself and my DS out of a dangerous position, no matter how unlikely I think it is that DH would ever put us in one.

We don't share finances. I am the higher earner, DH pays into my bank account (just because I owned the house and all bills etc come from there). He pays a set amount which is less than what I contribute and then whatever we have left is ours to spend. I have no idea how much DH has in his bank account but I know it;s nowhere near what I have (not that I am loaded!) so I will contribute more to food, clothing for kids, holidays, household stuff etc.

Just have a joint account for all bills, pay in pro-rata to your earnings, make sure it covers everything plus a bit and have a joint savings account fed from this for unexpected bigger expenses. Keep the rest to save or spend as you want.

For one thing I never understood having to buy Birthday and Christmas presents for each other out of a joint account.

I would hate to share finances, but I would never get married. Marriage over-rides any personal financial situation you have as everything is treated as shared money.

Can I ask why you are getting married? Also if you don’t mind me asking who is the higher earner?

If you are a high earning woman and you don’t have shared children marriage is almost always a bad idea…

Not a chance I would do it.
I actually wouldn't see any point in getting married.
Buy a house together if you must but IMO blending families is rarely successful.

Far better to rent a house for a year before buying, to see how it goes.

You could be so thankful you did.
Reality is usually so much tougher than you imagine.

Don't get married until as a minimum all your kids have left home.

It's not pooling personal money though. We split 75/25 but only household expenses. The higher earner still has more disposable income than the lower one. The lower earner doesn't spend the higher earner's disposable income because it is not pooled. But what it does is levelling the playing field so when we book joint holidays, for example, the lower earner does not have to go without while the higher earner is dining out in Michelin star restaurants every night.

I also do not want to have a situation where everything we earn is pooled and we get an allowance.

Isn’t this exactly what you are suggestion though by saying the higher earner pays more which effectively gives you both the same sort of disposable money? Can’t you just have one account and each month £500 or so goes to each of your private accounts for your monthly spending money?