To ask how you split your household finances?

[FlipFlopFairy]

My husband and I have separate bank accounts but split the outgoings to allow us to have the same ‘spends’ each month. I know that sounds fair, but what I challenge is what is classed as household outgoings.

For transparency, he earns about 2.5 times my salary, and his bonuses pay for holidays.

I suppose fixed outgoings would be a better phrase than household outgoings. Included in his fixed outgoings is payments for his 2 cars. I have a company car, so my car payments are taken from my gross salary.

Because he has included both cars in his outgoings, it means less ‘spends’ for me, and it feels like I’m helping to fund his cars, when I’m funding my own already.

On top of this, my outgoings include responsibility for variables, such as food and shoes and clothes for the children, so some months I have less ‘spends’ than others. It just feels quite imbalanced.

When I’ve raised this, he just cannot seem to see my point of view. He only sees that his total outgoings from his bank account far exceed mine, and not that his cars (at the very least, the second car) are more of a personal expense, in the same way mine is.

AIBU to think that our expenses need to be reworked to be more fair?

Are finances are fully shared, all in one pot. The only issue we have come across is with gift giving, so we have discussed setting him up an account with some money so he can buy gifts without me instantly seeing where he has bought from as it makes buying me gifts impossible.

It doesn't work for everyone but we always chat through big purchases and anything else is just bought as and when we need it.

If we split finances though, similar to you, I imagine a family car would be a shared cost but having 2 cars that's definitely something that should be out of his pot. Similarly children's expenses is surely a joint expense, why on earth are you the one paying for any children's stuff separately?

I’m the higher earner - we have 2 x bank accounts, both joint.

both salaries paid into the “main” account - then the total for mortgage bills gets paid into the “house” account.

whatever is leftover after putting some savings away is just there for us both to use.

Is the expense of this second car stopping (a) you, or (b) the family enjoying life in any way? If not, does it matter?

Yours comes from the joint aspect too since the spending money isn’t factored in until after the car has been taken out of your salary though. The result is the same.
How much is the second car? How much is the spending money you each get?
Are you left with no money?
On the face of it he contributes over 2.5 times you as he puts all of his money to family expenses except the same spending money as you, plus he then pays for holidays on top.

Where is the actual frustration coming from?

Ours will change soon. At the moment we rent. I earn near on double he does.

I pay all the rent and bills which comes to around £1400.
So because he earns half I do, he is saving £700 (half of what I spend on rent and bills) towards a deposit for our house. This seems fair. On top of this, he does all the food shopping and pays when we go out for meals etc. So he probably pays around £1100 a month and I pay £1400, but I do earn more than him. I also save a couple of hundred a month towards our house, but that varies each month.

We are ready to buy now and have a mortgage agreement in principle, and have started viewing houses. When we do buy a house together, we’ve said well split monthly mortgage payments and bills equally. And then both save/spend what we can each month. But I do wonder if when we make this switch, I’m going to end up paying more for our food shop and meals out etc. But we’ll see!

As other posters say, our Income is joint. If you're married I can't see why you view any of it as his or yours. If one of us inherited some money it would go in the bank account and the person whose relative had gifted it to us would have the main say on how it was spent..

We have shared finances from day 1 but in your case instead of asking that he treat his second car as a personal spend, I would suggest that the deduction from your gross salary for your car be put into the fixed outgoings as a return to you. How can he argue that the joint account should pay for 2 cars for him and none for you?

Also if the variables budget for food or children's stuff goes over what is allocate, make sure he makes up his proportion of it - don't just spend your own money.

This might solve your issue: means-tested monthly joint pot.

We are each paid into our own personal accounts. Then a standing order goes into a joint account which covers everything - food, kids, mortgage, bills, family meals out etc.

HOWEVER: what we put in is split based on the ratio of difference in salary. So if the joint pot needs to be £4k for the monthly outgoings, he puts in £3k and I put in £1k.

Then the rest is your own spending money in your own pot.

Any big expenses outside of this are also split proportionally

Regarding cars: he should be paying towards your company car if it's for family use, and you his. The third frivolous car is his folly and should be on his dime.

I also have the children on my Bupa so he pays me a little extra per month to cover the 40% tax I'm footing for them.

We have a joint account. We both have our own monzo accounts which we put a set amount a week in to for coffees and stuff but can also use joint account as and when needed. Neither of us has a singular big expense though. Large purchases are joint decisions

@FlipFlopFairy

I think I get what you are saying - your car is paid through your wages before you put anything into the joint pot, so therefore, it is paid for by you.

Your husbands cars come out of the joint pot, so you are subsidising his two cars whereas he is not yours.

I assume you drive one of the cars so that could be classed as a family car / expense, but the other one is solely his, so therefore, he should pay for it out of his money the sane as you pay for yours.

The only issue is that he will then probably want to put less in the joint pot unless he is putting loads into savings, then he should pay for his car.

You will have to make a list of all outgoings and see what each of you believes to be joint and separate outgoings and take it from there.

All childrens items should come out of the joint pot of money.

We have both wages go into a joint account, and all bills come out of this.
Then, we have personal accounts and an agreed amount from our joint is placed into the personal accounts for our own spending. We both get the same amount to spend. Variable cost expenses still come out of the joint account.
We have a discussion about what constitutes joint/personal spending and agree the boundaries around this.

Work out what your actual "joint expenses" are:

Children
Household bills
Food
Gifts for family/friends?

Work out your monthly budget and how much each of you then puts in to the joint account

Your car is on you
His cars are on him

DH and I have always had separate finances without too much detail it works out he has a little more than me per month left for personal use but the amount for each of us was perfectly ok. He just paid for more. He also earned around double what I did. We did still have 1k per month each after all bills sorted and ISA allowance maxed.

Unsure how your comparing pay that you feel your not having a fair cut. If he earns a lot more than you. He would have to have a very expensive 2nd car.

We have all the money going into house account then have an equal amount transferred each month to personal account for whatever we want.

I'm a high earner. DH is not. This situation is not going to change. Everything goes in one joint account. We both know what each other has in savings.

Everything is paid from the joint account with no monitoring of what is his/mine.

However - we would discuss and agree any large spends and neither of us would consider having a car as a frivolous spend unless the other could have an equal amount of frivolous spend.

We don't- everything goes into the pot, everything comes out of the pot, we each spend whatever we want.

Up until recently we had three main accounts between us - one joint account that all the bills are paid from and a personal account each that our respective salaries were paid into and our personal spending comes from.

DH has always earned more than me, plus I was SAHM for a few years and earned nothing, so he has always paid more into the joint than me. But he tended to end up with more spending money than I did.

He paid a couple of hundred more than he needed to into the joint most months to build up an excess balance to go towards holidays, new furniture etc.

He is very careful with money and keen to ensure we had good savings, so in addition to the three main accounts he had a separate savings account and he prioritised savings every month, which came in the main from his salary from his personal account. So we now have a decent buffer, going into our later years. It was in his name, I didn't want access to it as I can very easily fritter money away. I did see all the statements every month as I filed them, I knew pretty much what he had in his savings and in his personal account.

Most large expenditures (holiday, new furniture) was either covered from the excess balance in the joint or he covered the rest.

I covered "frippery" - stuff that was nice to have but not really necessary.

We still operate along these lines, but as we are both now in our 60s, and conscious that you don't know what the future holds, we are in the process of making all accounts joint, so should something happen to one of us, the other one continues to have access to all money. This is mainly for my benefit as all the savings are in his name.

@stopringingme I think I get what you are saying - your car is paid through your wages before you put anything into the joint pot, so therefore, it is paid for by you.

But if they both keep say £400 for personal spending and OP’s car comes out with her tax and then she keeps £400 it’s the same as if her full salary went into to the joint and the car was paid from that. She’s not getting less personal money because the car comes out pre tax.

I would do a joint account which all household bills come from including food utility mortgage etc. and you pay in proportionably to salary. I would also include everything for the kids so clothes trips extra curricular etc and presents. Then everything else is yours and he pays for his cars

Both incomes paid into joint account. All utilities, food, day to day expenses paid out of joint account. We both have the same amount paid into our individual savings accounts to spend on what we like. At the end of the month anything left in the joint account gets transferred to a joint savings account to pay for holidays, big household items such as maintenance or major car repairs. When we were working husband earned about twice what I did. We are on pensions now but this system has served us well for 50 years.

when you are married everything is joint. Your husband doesn’t have 2 cars- you both do! Your outgoings are joint. Your incomings are joint. It is just bizarre to me that people have these strange conversations about money.

we do have a joint account but it is honestly a bit moot - We have full access to all our accounts whosoever name it is in. If I am short of money in my account I just take from his because it is our money!

You’re right, it’s not a hill I want to die on, but it does irk me.
Yes, he contributes more financially, but we both work full time. My earning potential has been held back by taking on the bulk of childcare responsibility to allow him to have a more successful career.

We have a joint account that our salaries go into, all spending & bills come out of it. I earn 3 x what DH does but we just spend what we need, although any large or frivolous purchases would be discussed first.

I understand why you think his second car should come from his spends - I agree. All food should be from joint money unless it is eating out.

One joint bank account. Both salaries go in and all bills come out. All family spending (including childcare and groceries) happens through this account.

Agreed amounts taken out each month for savings and investments (50/50 in both names), and an agreed amount is taken out for your personal spending money (the exact same amount for each of you regardless of income).

In your shoes I would refuse to include the second car in the family pot. The money for that either comes out of his personal spending money OR you get the equivalent amount it costs to run as extra spending money each month OR he sells it.