Joint account/sharing the bills

[Nellelephant]

I'm being a bit nosy and wondering how many of you have joint accounts and how are they organised?

We are recently married and no children yet but I guess we are trying to get ourselves a bit more organised. At the moment we each pay half the rent to the letting agency from our own accounts. I have all the bills going out of mine and DH transfers his half to me each month or whenever he can afford to. He pays for petrol as I don't use the car and I probably pay for the food shopping most of the time. It's all bit haphazard. I also have no idea how tight money is for him towards the end of the month. I see the overdraft charge letters (only a couple of pounds) but apart from that I'm oblivious. I earn a couple of grand more than him and am never in my overdraft. I wonder if combining everything in to one account would be a good idea.

Our joint account is the account all the bills come out of. We both pay in a chunk of salary every month & child benifit goes in. The account always has enough to cover 3 months of bills.
DH covers mortgage, house insurance, car insurance, kids swimming lessons.
I cover all other bills.
We take it in turns to do the weekly shop on line.

All bills come out of the joint account, all earnings are paid into it.
Each month we get an allowance (equal amounts) paid from the joint accounts for us to spend on our own stuff (cafe, clothes, presents for each other etc.)

All money into joint account, all bills come out of it. We have savings accounts for different things (Christmas, Holiday, DD, General) and then what is left is split equally between our individual accounts. We have always done it this way regardless of whom was earning what.

We have a joint account and both transfer the same amount into it. This amount covers all bills plus extra for savings/ extra last min expenses like car trouble etc. we don't draw out of this account at all really. Dh also pays food as I work part time. We both spend the rest of our cash ourselves inc on our petrol. I'm not sure about full joint accounts as I think its important to have some independence in terms of buying things.

We tot up our joint earnings/benefits etc - that's our household total income.
We add up and minus from that total: all the monthly fixed outgoings (mortgage, utilities, food and household budget, birthdays/xmas/holiday budget/childcare etc; all unavoidable personal outgoings that are not fixed or necessarily equal between us but that we have agreed a reasonable 'rate' for each other - mobile phone bills, grooming/personal hygiene allowance, travel card, petrol, clothes allowance.
Whatever is left is split between the two of us as our personal spend budgets, and that's what we keep from our wages in our personal accounts each month. We pay the rest of our income into our joint account on direct debit and all the above is paid out of there. There's also a slush fund in the joint to deal with emergencies.
It gets re budgeted when income or outgoings change, and we have to be scrupulously fair about the 'personal' budgets giving a similar quality of life to us both - i can't avoid paying for tampons for e.g., I get a relatively expensive haircut (DH does a buzz cut at home!) but he's allowed a bigger mobile phone bill cos we all benefit from his iPhone and i therefore don't need a data allowance. That type of thing.

I should add, we earn different amounts as I am still part-time, so this ensures we each make a fair contribution to the household, and get a fair allowance from it

Joint account for all income, outgoings: food & petrol. Set amount to another joint for all D/Ds. Whats left goes to savings. All other spending is done on the joint credit card paid for by savings. It works great in theory but have had a few expensive months so must ice the cards for a bit.

We've had separate acs in the past but our income has switched between one being higher earner to the other a number of times it makes sense for us to pool our resources.

No joint account. Have budget spreadsheet that details all joint outgoings (house, food, DS related), spreadsheet calculates how much we're both due to pay (based in individual %age of overall income, think its currently 60/40)...DP transfers his 40% to me on payday. Cover our own mobile/car expenses etc...do what we like with what we each have left over.

We opened a joint account when we got married, all incomings go in (though now I'm part time most of it is earned by DH). All bills are paid from this account.We would discuss any big purchase but have no set allowance to spend on ourselves .

Thanks for all the replies, very interesting and helpful

We have several different accts - a main joint acct which wages etc get paid into, all DDs come out of this acct plus standing orders to accts for food, disposable income (incl petrol, bday pressies, kids activities etc), house savings, general savings, kids savings, xmas savings and holiday savings plus amounts for yearly costs relating the car and our cats. We reserve a small amount each per month and any extra from overtime etc goes towards credit card or any larger 'treat' purchases.

Works for us and I like having different pots for stuff I.e food and general spending as it limits the amount and we can't go over budget, therefore rarely need the overdraft. It also manages itself, although I review the budget regularly and check the main account every so often.

3 accounts here. Mine, his and ours. We both put 2/3 Ds of our take home pay in the JA and all bills including food come out of it.