How do you and your husband/partner divide income/bills?

[whitewine29]

I have only been married a year and have never shared with a partner before, but basically my husband moved into my rented home and so all the bills ect were already in my name. I only work part time and he works full time and i have a 15 year old son from a previous relationship.
What i want to know is how people divide their money/income and bills?
At the moment he gives me approx £900 of his £1400 earnings, I earn £700 so basically i pay for everything out of that money ..£1600 ... the rent bills food, holidays presents everything. He pays his car, insurance petrol, food and work and his debt from what he has left.
Do you think this if right? After everything is paid im basically left with £400 for petrol, food, clothes , christmas, car repairs ect ANYTHING that needs paying. I say at least he has his "own" money because even though theres £400 after bills thats not for me thats for the "house and family".

I dont know whats the fair way to do it? He does work hard and hes never lived with anyone before but i feel like hes still got his single head on and not working together as a family. I due our first baby soon and thinking is he expecting me to pay for all the baby things out of the house money?

We have been married 28 years. All income and outgoings go in and out of one joint account.That's pretty much it.

Our salaries get paid into the joint account and all household bills come out of this. We then have our personal accounts which gets paid a monthly allowance from the joint account to cover day to day spending. We're a typical nuclear family so this works. I think the key questions for you are, does he want to take financial responsibility for your son and do you want to take on his debt? If not, it might be more difficult to come to an arrangement.

Everything goes into one account. Everything comes out of that account. Has worked through both of us working, maternity leave, and having a SAHP.
Most of the savings are in my name, as at one point, I paid the lower rate of tax.

Before we were married, I paid my mortgage and bills, DH paid his mortgage and bills, but rented out 2 rooms which pretty much covered things. He paid for most of the shopping, drove at the weekend, so was his petrol, and paid if we went out.

I've seen suggested that both of you transfer enough into a joint account to cover all household spending, leaving the same amount in each personal account for personal spending. Not sure where your sons spending would come from. Essentials from the household account, IMO.

DP earns much more than me now as I work part time to look after our children. When we both worked full time we split everything 50/50 as had a similar income. We each have our own accounts and have a joint account which all bills, grocery shopping etc come out of. We worked out what all these join expenses amount to each month and split it down the middle, each putting in half of that total a month and then whatever was left in our own accounts was ours to play with (often spent treating each other to a meal out or a trip to the cinema etc, but also covered all our own clothes, social lives etc). Now I earn so much less than DP we do it slightly differently so we worked out our total income, minus what out comings we have fro the joint account, and then spit the difference so we are each left with roughly the same amount of money each, each month staying in our own accounts. So for example, if i get about £800, and he gets £1500, each month. Our joint outgoings are £1500. So I put in £400 while he puts in £1,100. We are each left with £400 approx each month to spend on ourselves, gifts, trips, social stuff, to treat the kids etc etc. It works for us, as feels like we are being fair to each other even though he is technically spending out much more towards our bills, we made the decision jointly that I would only work part time at the moment. We could've just pooled all money into one joint account but we both like to have a bit of independent spending / saving money (so we don't feel guilty making a selfish purchase!)

It's tricky...presumably he will be benefitting from your part time hours in so far as you'll have to spend less on child care when your baby comes along? I definitely think this is worth pointing out, and also discussing which pot expenses for the baby are going to come out of.

DP and I are not married, he owns the house we live in and pays the full mortgage in it. I pay half the bills and contribute towards upkeep, directly into his bank account each month. We split groceries etc equally via a joint account we both pay a fixed sum into each month . He has a DS, he pays for his stuff himself.

Apart from that, we keep our own money and pay our own way. He earns three times as much as me, but has more outgoings (mortgage/son/higher tax) so it sort of roughly works out as vaguely equal in terms of spending money, I think. I don't actually know exactly how much left over he has compared to me after all fixed outgoings...

We have a joint account for both incomes and any spending. I have a higher income but he did the bulk of the career break to look after the kids. It would be unfair if he had less because he has not had the advantage of an unbroken employment record. If I had taken time off to be a SAHP then I would be earning less.

We have a joint account which we set up 15 years ago when I went on maternity leave with DS. DH earns more than me as he works full time whereas I work PT outside the house but take on more domestic stuff. Prior to that we had similar FT salaries and split everything down the middle.

Both our incomes go into one account, all expenditure comes out of that. We pooled our savings to cover house deposit, house decoration and a savings pot for money emergencies.

When I met DP he had much more in savings, but I am on a higher wage when working ft (I'm pt for the foreseeable future while DS is little) so we figure it all works out fairly evenly in the end. We do run bigger purchases past eachother, just to keep the other aware of extra spending after bills etc. This works for us, but I would say carry on what you're doing if you feel it works for you.

We are married, and since we moved in together we have had a joint account and all money goes in and out of there. We allocate each other a little money each month but that's about it, just all in together. I didn't work for 5 years after kids, and have just gone back part time. He brought all the capital to the house as we moved into his place and then sold it to buy our first home together and so on. I do own a flat from before we together, which is rented now. So very simple here!

I only work very part time so have a much smaller wage than DH. We have separate accounts where our wages are paid and he pays all the mortgage and bills from his account , and transfers some money to my own account. I pay for most food, my own travel, phone and personal expenses, hobbies, child expenses etc from there. DH pays for most expenses when we go out, and holidays, and I sometimes use his card details to pay for household expenses online. DH tends to have more money in his account but doesn't spend more than me, just adds it to savings and mortgage overpayments.

We've never really done a comparison of income and split it in any way, some of our income comes irregularly but overall it's always worked out that he has far more income than me. He's happy/able to cover the main bills and I'm happy with what I have to spend so it works for us.

Separate accounts here with us both paying different bills. Dh pays mortgage and puts £500 into family savings, i pay bills and we both pay food shopping as needed. If were out together, he always pays. Never been an issue but do need to keep a better eye on total family spending as were both spending a lot on random/not needed rubbish!

Joint account and that is all.

Has always been this. Incomes have varied over the years but always been our money. Simples.

Joint accounts, everything in and out of one pot.

My DH moved in with me before we got married. It was him who suggested that we put all our earnings into a joint account, paying all the bills including my mortgage from that account, and then taking what we needed individually from that account for clothes etc (luckily we spend about the same). When I gave up work to look after DCs it was just his money & child benefit going into joint account with all bills coming out of it - as money was tighter we then agreed a maximum monthly amount (same for each) we were allowed for our own personal spending. It's worked well for us for 20 years.

Me and DH have been married nearly 5 years but lived together for 7

His wages went into one account that all the direct debits/mortgage/rent came out of. Nothing gets taken out of it. It just ticks over but at the end of the month there's always a bit left over so that covers us for any emergencies
My wages go into another account that we use for food/going out/clothes the usual day to day stuff

There have been periods where I've been the main earner and now he's the main earner now we have a DD but while living together we've just split everything

Everything goes in and comes out of one joint account. Savings accounts are in both names. Mortgage and all bills in both names. We both have equal access to excess money in the joint account once everything is paid. DH earns 4 x what I do.

What sort of discussion about money, childcare, you returning to work, etc did you have before deciding to have a baby together?

Two joint bank accounts. One for direct debits and one for food and household expenses. A personal allowance paid to each of us monthly from the joint amount. DH earns alot more than me, I looked after the children to enable this. It's family money, without a doubt.

We wont have childcare costs thankfully as both our mothers have offered to help and husband is on 4 days on 4 off pattern which will help a lot. I think its more the fact i worry about money and that we are getting the best deals and not over spending ect while his only responsibility is his own personal debt and car.
I like the fact i have control of most of the money and like my own personal spending i just feel like he doesnt feel the responsibility i do.
We havent bought any big baby items yet and he has been doing lots of overtime so that extra money should go on the baby.
Its early days and we are both still finding our feet, especially with me being a single mother for over 10 years and him living at home and not having financial responsibility before.
Thanks for everyone replies its not something many people talk about and i always wondered how couples get the right balance. Sounds like its a personal preference what works best for that family :)

We have a joint account where our wages go in and bills come out.

When we were engaged DH wanted to have separate accounts and transfer money etc but I refused saying if we couldn't trust each other with joint account then I didn't understand why we were getting married... yes I actually said that He quickly agreed to a joint account and it works perfectly fine for us.

To begin with DH earned much more than me but now our salaries are pretty much the same.

We both buy what we want, any large purchases say over £100 (for one single item) we would discuss with one another anyway.

I'd suggest you sit down and talk it through and hopefully you will come to an outcome you both feel is fair.

We both have our own accounts, I pay for everything related to the house apart from food, DP pays for that. I get paid more than him though... We just buy/save what we want to but we don't save set amounts or limit what we spend. DP pretty much keeps what's left over after what he has spent on house/family and I do much the same. If we are out or want to buy something and either one of us has money they buy it. We don't worry about who buys what nor do we count out who has paid for what - it's not really important to us.

We both work pt earning about 18,000 each.
Council Tax, Bills, Mortgage and holiday comes out of mine.
Food shopping, car and petrol come out of his.
Ive not worked out if its equal or not. I think DH is left with more- but he frequently uses it to overpay on the mortgage- and the house is in my name!
Plus- he doesnt get within a mile of the Child Benefit and Tax Credits.

We have our own accounts which our salaries are paid into, then transfer money into a separate joint account for bills and for grocery shopping and another for savings. The rest of the money is our own for clothes, going out, whatever, no questions asked. DP pays for the Sky subscription completely because I wouldn't bother if it was just me, and I pay for the TV license because I moved mine from my place when we got a house together. It all evens itself out.

Before we had children but after we bought our house my husband and I paid the same amount into a joint account each month. That covered everything we did jointly, bills, mortgage, food, car, holidays, meals out etc. We both had 'our own money' left over which we used for things we might want to buy/do alone or presents for each other, savings etc. We had similar salaries. Then we had a baby and I decided not to return to work. My husband now puts most of his salary in the joint account each month and pays for everything. He keeps back a small amount so he can save, play golf etc. I have a small amount of savings which I use for any clothes I want to buy, or meals out with friends, and my gym membership. I spend pretty much nothing on myself as I'm rarely away from my child and so I'm trying to make a couple of grand last me several years!!!

My partner pays the lot! Although our energy bill is only £24 a month and water £22 a month count tax £125 month. But I do get told off if I turn the heating on, we don't have a telly so no licence.

I do my bit to save on water bill by waiting until I get to work for a poo, which not only saves the cost of the water but also the toilet paper and I get the satisfaction of thinking I'm getting paid to poo.