How married couples manage finances

[CarrotTopParsnipToe]

Happy to have this explained to me like I'm a child!

I was just reading another thread about a married couple with kids and I don't understand why all married couples don't just have a joint account whers they both get paid and then all the bills and expenses are paid from. It's so much easier to pool money and in the event of a divorce down the line, separated bank accounts wouldn't protect your money from your soon to be ex spose. But the idea that he pays this proportion and she pays that proportion seems barmy. And why does it always seem like the woman's wages need to cover the entirety of the kids costs! A joint account solves this, so why don't committed married couples pool the cash?

I'm not talking about non married couples, or married couples where one has some sort of addiction like gambling or drugs or shopping

We always have. In (nearly) 25 years of marriage money is something that we have never argued about. Which, when you consider that “things we have argued about” includes “how to stir a stir fry”, is really quite surprising!

Me and DH have separate accounts. Together 33 years married for 23 of those. What don't you understand? Or why do you feel you need to understand people doing things differently to you?
I can say hand on heart, we've never argued about money. Ever.

Seconded; I was an adult before I learned that some married couples DON'T pool all the money, and I remember how bizarre I found it then, and nothing's changed. If you don't want to share everything with someone, or you don't trust them, why did you marry them?

Why do you care how other people do their finances?

We have totally joint money. Just because our employers valued our work differently, we value each other equally. All money is family money.

There was a point when dc were little that I earned half what dh earned as I was part time. We now earn fairly similar. But I brought more savings to the relationship when we first met. Dh has never seen money as his, it’s ours.

We have both. I want some financial independence. We pay an agreed amount into the joint account each month each, for mortgage, bills, household expenses, DS costs, holidays, joint savings etc, then get the same amount of disposable fun money each into our own personal accounts.
How do you buy presents or organise surprises if you only have joint accounts?
It also makes me less furious when I don't have to see how much DH spends on comics and paint supplies, it's his fun money he can burn it for all I care.

Ours are mainly joint.
But I don't judge people who have separate accounts.

The most important thing is having the same attitude to the money and agreeing on things.

There’s one couple we know where it makes total sense. She kept running up credit card debt buying clothes and stuff on credit so they split their finances as it was that or divorce as her dh was sick of bailing her out.

I am with you. Plus as we are getting older and I have outlived both my parents, if I were to die it's much easier for my wife to access the money we have.

We have joint accounts for everything. There is one account that is basically mine as I socialise more than my wife; she doesn't drink and prefers to carry cash when out with friends as she worries about losing her cards. It's called the fun money account, it's funded from my part time job and pays for all the fun things: coffees, meals out, clothes etc for both of us and my weekly beer with my mates. Even this is actually a joint account but my wife doesn't have a card for it because it was her old staff account when she worked for a bank...I wanted a separate account for fun.

Otherwise we have always discussed all expenditure, pooled money and been completely open

Curiousity 😊

We do essentially this.
All pay goes into a joint account, all bills/food/kids clothes/eating out/nights out come out of the Joint. We each get an allowance (same amount) every month into our separate accounts to spend as we wish (any new clothes we want for ourselves we would pay for from the allowance.) This has been less in the past when we didn't earn as much jointly as we do now.
Any left over at the end of the month (ha!) goes to savings or paying off a credit card that we use for big expenditures (cough cough Taylor Swift tickets cough*)
Always done the same even when I was a SAHM for 10 years, AND when I earned more than my partner at the start of our relationship.
Works for us.

I agree - we manage our finances exactly how you describe. Some of the arrangements I read on here make my head spin. It must take a lot of time to apportion every item of spend to one or the other person.

Because I want to have my own money and not to have to think about what’s fair to spend etc from a joint account. Also if you happen to be married to someone who isn’t great with money then a shared bank account is not necessarily the best thing.

We’ve never had any joint accounts. Been together for 20 years and never had an issue with money between us. We both earn well so maybe that’s why. We don’t really need to budget as such.

That's a lovely way of expressing it!

There was a point for us when I was on over twice as much as DH, then we had kids and now he's on about 4 x as much as me. I came to the relationship with savings, he didn't. But we're both contributing as we're able at each point in time

We have a joint account for the mortgage and bills (including childcare) but other than that we have separate accounts, separate credit cards and separate savings.

I can't comprehend the idea of having one joint account and pooling everything just like some people aren't able to imagine the reverse.

It's usually because the man earns more and HE doesn't want joint finances. He wants all his extra/spare/additional income to be HIS. He makes sure SHE pays half of everything, and he pays half of everything, because ya know 'equal rights.' Men like this only believe in equal rights though when it comes to finances, and women 'paying their share.' It doesn't stretch to pulling their weight around the house, or contributing towards childcare.

My DH and I have had a joint account (2 actually, 1 savings and 1 working account) for 25+ years. He used to be like the man I described, (from his mid 20s to his early 30s,) then he grew up a bit and became more responsible and mature and did what any decent man who earns more than his wife should do - he pooled finances with me...

It's really odd (IMO) when a married couple has separate finances indefinitely.

Also if you’ve spent 10-15 years of your adult life with your own account and not having to share then it’s not easy to get into the idea of everything being shared.
When it’s all shared how does buying clothes and individual socialising work? How do you decide what’s justified to spend on this? I look at my bank account and know if I can justify certain things so how does that work with everything being joint?

We have a joint account for the bills and our own bank accounts. I like to have my own money. I socialise way more and I would feel guilty dipping into the joint account all of the time.

We’ve been married 20 years now, and have had completely joint everything for about 25 - when we first bought a flat and moved in together. Everything is joint. I brought a fair amount of capital (gift from parents), DH brought higher earning potential. We had individual accounts for a while but it quickly became pointless.

it works for a few reasons:

we have always had very, very similar attitudes towards spending, saving and debt. Neither of us care about expensive gadgets / watches / cars / clothes / holidays etc, so there’s no conflict there.
Neither of us is comfortable with debt so we jointly agree to pay the credit card off first. And we don’t have individual credit.
We are lucky that we’ve almost always had enough income to pay the bills and have some spending, equal access to that.
We are generous with each other. when I was the only earner because DH was studying, i didn’t grudge him having a night out or new shoes. When I didn’t work for years (SAHM) DH didn’t bat an eyelid - everything was joint and I had access to all the family money, just like he did.

This is what has enabled us to have joint finances. If you don’t have that, I can see why some people would want to protect themselves or arrange things differently.

I think that, for me, it's mainly psychological. I work hard for the money that I earn and I'm proud of it. I want it in my bank account so I can spend it on what I want, whatever that might be. Because it's mine and mine alone.

Hehe same here! We can argue about silly stuff like that but never once argued over money. Hes my husband not my flat mate so it’s all
shared. I wouldn’t have got married otherwise.

There's nothing wrong with having your own current account. We are 20 odd years in doing it this way and frankly I don't want to see what DH has got me for Christmas or to have to check with DH before I buy £100 shoes. All DDs are proportional to income. So DH pays the mortgage and fuel, I pay boiler cover/life assurance/water bill. I pay petrol as I commute.

We have joint savings. DH earns more so stashes more. We are both free to take out of that what we want for anything not covered by wages. It works really well.

You don't understand why not everyone thinks exactly the same way as you?

People are different, what works for you doesn't work for others and vice versa.

DH & I had joint finances from fairly early on.

All money is 'ours'. We do discuss big purchases together but otherwise both spend as we wish.

I completely understand why this may not work for other couples though, and seperate accounts work too.

Totally depends on the circumstances/marriage.

There's no right or wrong.