To what extent to you and your partner have joint finances?

[BadLad]

I'm just wondering how other couples do it, as it is always interesting to see different ways of doing this.

May as well get the ball rolling myself. My wife (hope men are not too unwelcome) and I do it as follows:

Joint account into which we pay half the living expenses each month.
Savings account into which she pays.
Savings account into which I pay.

No doubt some will ask why we don't combine the savings into one account, which is a good question. Well, my wife has saved substantially more than I have, as she's older than me, so she has had more financially active years, and also, through fortuitous circumstances, has never had to pay rent. Neither of us do now. We earn more or less the same amount from our main jobs, although she has better pension arrangements than I do. I have a second job, through which I'm hoping to catch up with her savings. Hate the word "catch up", as it sound more competitive than I feel, but can't think of a better way of putting it. I don't actually know why we don't, we just didn't at the start (which wasn't feasible at the beginning as we couldn't live together until a few months after we got married) and we just haven't since then

Neither of us waste money, and big purchases are discussed together unless they come out of the money budgetted to frivolous expenses every month.

My parents are baffled that we don't pool our savings. We don't live in the UK, so I don't have many similar couples to discuss it with. Is the done thing still to pool all the money, if both partners are working?

We don't see the saved money as mine and yours - more like money for our future. But somehow it would feel odd bringing it up now, as it isn't causing any arguments between us.

Would like to read comments on my situation as well as how other people do it.

We both pay enough into a joint a/c to cover all joint bills - mortgage, food, childcare, utilities, children's shoes etc and a bit more. From this a/c we also put aside about £100/month for holidays.

We keep about £200/month for personal spending money. So if DH wants to spend £500 on an esoteric bit of bike or I want to buy more shoes, then that 's fine. We both pay for our pensions at source.

Everything goes into one bacnk account, we live on cash so have an equal amount each each week, bills are paid by the B&B bank account.

Thank you for the replies.

What do you do about money earmarked for saving?

We had joint finances from v early on (students) and continued that through into savings once we had some.
Savings were often in my name (tax reasons) but both of us saw them as joint money.
No longer together and contemplating how the hell to go about things with new partner.

Anything left over at the end of the month goes into a savings account which is in my name but they are joint.

We both have our wages paid into a joint account. I organise all our bills/savings and we can draw cash as and when needed.

Large purchases are discussed. If dh wants to buy something like an expensive camera or such like then it it discussed - usually not a problem and no competitive spending takes place (I don't rush out buying equally expensive item).

It works well for us.

Set amount goes into joint account (slightly more from dh as he earns more at the moment) joint account is for all bills/food shopping/joint leisure and family activities.

I look after savings so dh sends me extra money for savings (I sort out into a couple of different accounts) and I also contribute. Also any money left in joint gets moved to savings at end of month.

We both have our own spending money left in account, but if either of us were to use the joint for something it really wouldn't be a problem.. See It all as one pot really

We have just one big pot, and no concept of his and her accounts.

When we got married, we made a vow of "for richer for poorer". To me, that means we share everything.

You say you pay half each into the joint account - I say you should pay into this account so that you both have the same amount of "spending money" left over.

We do everything joint. Everything paid into joint acct, left over money goes into savings which is joint, and we have a joint mortgage. We also don't make any purchases of more than roughly £50 with out discussing it first. We also do the monthly budget together about once a week.

We have our own accounts, and a joint account plus various savings accounts. It is all our money though.

We own our own business, and are equal shareholders so receive equal dividends each month into our personal accounts. We transfer most of it into our joint account, leaving enough in our personal accounts to cover DDs and any personal expenditure.
Joint account then covers mortgage and other bills, plus food shopping, things for the DCs, days and meals out, things for the house and so on. Money goes into savings from there.

I have most of our savings in my name, it has always been more tax efficient that way, and it is also my insurance against having given up my job. DH can't have a change of personality and bugger off and leave me penniless!

One joint bank account which all money goes into, all bills paid out from it and whatever is left over spent between us. Savings accounts in separate names, spare cash divided between them, or, birthday cash etc put into appropriate a/c. We never have arguments about money, when we've got it we both spend it and when things are tight we both cut back.

Same as Claire here. Marriage vows we used included 'all that I have I share with you', so it all goes into our joint account. We also have no concept of separate spending money; if one of us wants something and there's enough in the account to pay for it, then he/she gets it. It's a lot about give and take, so if I buy something one month then there is an unspoken understanding that if dh wants something the next month he will get it.
I am very lucky that dh does not consider that the majority of the money is his just because he earns it. When we got married, we stopped being individuals and became a couple if you like. He considers the child care and housework I provide to be just as important an input to our family life as his career. As far as he is concerned, they are our children that we chose to have together and it is our money, regardless of who earned it.

Like a couple of other people on here, we have shared finances. We have a joint current account into which we both get paid and pay bills etc; joint savings account; only individual things are ISAs and pensions, which have to be individual. Big things get discussed before purchase, but we don't have a concept of "his" and "her's" money (and don't really understand why, if you trust someone enough to marry them and have children with them, you would keep money completely separate, unless there are very specific reasons eg gambling problems)

We have no joint accounts as banks made it too difficult when we moved in together. We move money to each other every couple months, each have savings accounts, but all the money is 'family' money. We mention any proposed spending of over £50 ish to ensure it's ok that month.

Possible reasons to have separate "spending money"

ability to buy presents or surprises without the other noticing
always knowing exactly how much you have
not worrying that if you spend the last spare tenner the other person will have had a plan for it
not worrying that if you have a plan for the last spare tenner that it will get spent by the other person
being able to spend as you like without feeling guilty, because you know it is for spending
not being concerned about how much the other person spends on things you consider frivolous
not being concerned about how much you spend on things the other person considers frivolous
being able to save it up for a bigger purchase and knowing it won't get spent
being able to spend it and know that the other person wasn't planning on saving it up for a bigger purchase

I trust DP but I don't expect him to read my mind.

Trills, apart from the present / surprise point (and I usually take out cash to buy real surprise stuff, so DH doesn't know where I spent it), the other stuff can be pretty much avoided by talking to each other about spending plans, surely?

I'm a SAHM so DP's bank account, became a joint account.

All our money goes into our joint account.

DH spends very little, the DCs and I spend the rest. Any meagre amount left goes into savings.

The account is in both our names, but in reality he doesn't know any of the passwords, doesn't know what goes out when and I do all the paying of (non DD) bills etc

Totally joint. I am not working atm, but when I am again, all our money will just go into the one bank account. It seems so complicated to do it any other way!

I find it easier to have my own money to deal with as I please than to have to have a discussion every time Oasis sends me an email saying that there's 20% off dresses today only (or similar).

There are also plenty of people who would feel bad spending money on themselves out of a joint pot if they felt that their partner was not spending as much.

A joint current account which all bills and mortgage are paid out of
My personal current account which my salary is paid into.
My savings account which holds our joint savings (£0)
A joint Shares account
His Shares account
A joint French bank account
Premium bonds in my name that are actually ours

In theory on payday I transfer everything except £300 to the joint account. But now we are repaying a loan from my personal account so that has to be factored in.

It's all got a bit messy tbh.

Although we have a joint current account I never access it (never even set up the online bit for myself and don't know the pin numbers for the cards), I just don't need to. I buy shopping or whatever with 'my' £300 and if I run out we just move money about. He uses the joint account as his 'personal' account.

It sounds really complicated but it works out ok because it's all one and the same anyway.

The Share accounts I also have no idea about, he just buys and sells and I only find out at the end of the year if we are up or down because I pull everything together for the accountant. But I don't know what the value of the pot is, it could be millions for all I know!

The French account I know more about but there's never anything in it as we just transfer enough to cover the mortgage and bills so it's straight in and out.

We manage personal finances separately, joint ones mostly jointly.

We have:
Joint account into which we both pay according to our abilities. This covers most house and child related things. Except when it doesn't.

Separate personal accounts into which any PAYE salaries go. DP has an overdraft. I don't have an overdraft.

My business account into which my freelance earnings go.

I would absolutely hate to be at the whims of DP's profligacy, just as he would hate to be controlled by my tight-fistedness. And as we got together in our 30s, the idea of merging our finances would make me feel very uneasy and out of control.

Ah, see, luckily we don't need to have any conversations about spending money and I reckon we probably spend about the same amount as each other on clothes etc. But we don't keep track, anyway.