What’s the fairest way to do finances when you’re married?

[Lollypopbeach]

I earn less than DH
We have 1 child together

Currently have separate finances but want to get things sorted. some people find it odd we do it this way

YANBU - Separate finances all the way
YABU - Joint account!

I paid for child care for both kids as I wanted kids and they didn’t , I used my inheritance

i paid deposit on house 300k and paid for renovations 70k ( inheritance)

mat leave : I used an over draft and credit card , second mat leave was 2 months because I had no paid mat leave as it was a new job

currently I pay Morgage and utilities kids tutoring , car repair loan etc

partner pays for food , breakfast after school club , kids clothes and 3 phones and gives me £400 towards bills they earn £1000 more than me

I’ve always thought this was fair but worried that if we split my contribution to child care (100k plus ) and house deposit would be lost

For me the point of marriage is pooling everything. Otherwise why bother? Over the 25 years of my marriage, both of us have at times been the higher earner. It has mostly been me, plus I inherited a good sum, but we just have a joint account, everything shared, no questions. Cannot imagine his and her money. But each to their own of course.

Well that's absolutely fine as long as both parties are on the same page. Likewise me and DH said from day one we wanted everything to be joint. It doesn't really matter as long as you're both happy with the arrangement.

However from the OPs further posts, it sounds like she wants joint finances and her DH wants to keep them separate which is where the issues start.....

My DH earns more and has more savings. We still share those jointly too.

We prefer to have a joint account and separate personal accounts. We each pay most of our salary into the joint account each month, leaving us with the same amount of spending money each. I prefer to buy personal stuff for me and presents for dh out of my own account. Also presents for my family (we tend to spend more than dh's family).

I paid for child care for both kids as I wanted kids and they didn’t , I used my inheritance

Eh?

We have a joint account that both our wages go into and all bills are paid from and we transfer the same amount into our own accounts for personal spending.

We have a joint savings account that gets paid into from the joint account and we each have our own savings that we pay into from our own accounts.

Always been joint account here. Not something you want to think about, but if one of you was to pass away, then the surviving account holder can still access the money.

If I were married I would be having discussions around what we were doing with that money.

When my wifes gran passed away some inheritance came to her, we decided together to use it on a family holiday.

If my partner had a large savings I would be discussing with them what it is for.
If it is their pension savings etc, great leave it in their name and forget about it until retirement. If it is just savings for savings sake I would be discussing together how to spend at least some of it but I am very much of the view you cant take it with you, f**k it, spend it and hope the future is ok.

Everything in 1 account. Everything goes out that account what's left we spend as we please. There's no ' he earns xyz and I earn less ' although dh maybe spends 20 a month that's it. I spend whatever I wish he just isn't fussed

Either pool together or a mixture of both. Make sure all child related expenses and all household expenses come out of the joint pot of money. If you decide to just do joint for shared expenses then make sure you contribute to it fairly (not 50/50). Personally I like everything pooled or everything pooled and equal private spends.

Joint for utilities yes, but have a current/ savings account of your own too for buying birthday presents, treating yourself etc.

From a purely practical perspective, you're not maximising your tax-free interest potential here. For the purposes of taxation, you're treated as individuals, even though you are a married couple and therefore a team. So at a minimum, you (jointly) want to be putting £20k of his savings each year into your ISA or that's your ISA allowance wasted while he pays tax on interest. There'd probably be benefits to both of you of him paying into your pension as well.

I’ve always felt the odd one out here as we’ve always had separate accounts! Husband higher earner so pays the mortgage, bills etc. I buy the food and general day to day kids stuff. It all sounds a bit muddled and I can’t really explain how, but it’s worked for over 30 years, I’ve always liked feeling a bit independent somehow! I’m sure our own accounts and a joint one for bills would be a good idea but I don’t really want to change now ‘

To me, I don't want to ask permission to take money from a shared account for a haircut, new shoes, a totally unnecessary piece of jewellery, a new motorbike (last month!) whether fripperies or essentials.

I don't want him to feel he has to ask for permission to buy motorbike parts, vapes, tat on Temu or a round in the pub.

I also don't want to subsidise his vape habit or him to subsidise my book habit.

This way I feel we both have some semblance of privacy and control over our own money, spending and lives.

We have separate accounts but consider all money that comes in as family money so bulls get paid by whoever and whatever is left goes on family expenditure.

Neither of us ever asks for permission. We just naturally consider if we can afford it.

Our finances were more separate, until DH lost his job. At that point, I started to put my whole salary into the joint account so that it was available to him.

We've continued with that since - so we both put our entire salaries into our joint account when we get paid, and do all of our spending from that. Neither of us keeps tabs on it. He might spend £500 one month on tech, and I might spend similar on clothes. We've always got plenty.

I then skim money off at regular intervals and put it into our joint savings.

I'll add, I've always been the higher earner and we've been together 20 years. I wouldn't be blending finances with someone who I didn't trust implicitly.

All money is family money. I’ve been a SAHM for donkeys years, but I’ve worked too.

Everything is ours, no matter who earns it and we both have equal access and make decisions over big spending/saving together.

I never have to ask permission to spend anything and I am in charge of finances in general.

Individual account for your own money and spending.

Joint account for stuff like food shopping and bills.

Practically, me and OH just pay different bills out of our own accounts because it was easier to do it that way when we got married and bought our house. We split everything proportionately - I'm the higher earner so I make sure what he pays on bills etc is fair to his income.

We both have a similar amount of disposable income.

We do the same as my parents did:
My husband’s bank account became a joint account upon marriage.

I still have my bank account.

He pays most bills.
Every so often I transfer a lump sum to our savings account.
But we got together as undergraduates without 2 pennies to rub together. We’ve never really had his or hers anything because we had nothing, so everything we have is jointly owned.

We do it the easy way. Everything goes into one pot and we pay the bills and share everything. No maths required. 😁

I suppose the fairest would be to each put the same percentage of your salaries into a joint account for bills etc and each keep the rest of your salaries.

Or maybe everything into the joint account and each have the same amount of personal spending money each month.

Salaries go into joint account. Two monthly DDs into savings account in each of our names (to optimise tax). Then the rest is split and goes into our individual accounts so that we can chose hassle-free what to spend our leisure money on (and means when you buy your OH presents, they can't see it on the statement😅). We've each been the higher earner at different points.

There's a post on here I saw today about someone who initiated divorce and now the H has instructed a solicitor ... Only she can't afford to see a solicitor ... Sadly, we often see this on here where separate accounts and income disparity (most often because of childcare) mean that one half the couple has no access to money for bills/solicitors/renting somewhere. It's heartbreaking. No one wants to think this is how it will end up, but you have to be realistic.

This makes no sense to me... Me and DH never have to "ask permission" to use our money. Yeah sometimes if it's a big purchase we will mention it to the other one but it's both our money to do whatever we want with. We trust each other to not do anything stupid and both have the banking apps to check funds to make sure we're ok.

I also don't want to subsidise his vape habit or him to subsidise my book habit.

I don't see how it's any different? If I wanted to spend £100 a month on books, I would do it. Whether it's from a joint account or a personal account. Likewise if DH wanted to buy some new trainers for his hobby or some parts for his car. It is money that we have earned and is sat in an account. Nobody is "subsidising" anything?

So each family will do things differently, and have a different version of what is fair.

But, assuming both parties equally work for the family (with that work including necessary childcare/household chores etc and both parents equally striving to bring in as much income as possible for the family), then everything pooled and each partner gets equal disposable spends. I would think savings prior to shared lives and inheritances would belong to each individual (but I'd often expect them to be spent for the benefit of the family rather than just the individual only).

However, if one partner chooses to be underemployed/under earning (either choosing to not maximise income either by staying at home other than by necessity or by choosing not to progress when there are opportunities to), then I don't think the other person should be expected to to support their underemployment if they don't want to.

So I guess I'm mostly saying everything should be equal, with the expectation that both parents contribute effort equally.

But that's just my view. Others work it out differently.