Couples - how do you divide money

[Nojustalurker]

Although we have lived together for a while, I have only recenly sold my flat. Currently he pays all the bills, except for food while I put a large sum into the joint savings account. This situation is only temporary as his flat is on the market and we are looking for houses.

To help us decide how much we can spend on a house we need to decide how to divide up money. We already have a shared account which we plan to use for house hold cost/future children but can't agree on what % we put into the account. My take home pay is 1250 a month and his is 2500.

Can I be cheeky and ask how to you divide your money?

I give DH £100 a month towards bills, do the supermarket shop & pay for my personal expenses - contact lenses, mobile etc. I tend to do Christmas & birthdays as DH is bit of a Scrooge restrained!

DH pays the mortgage, bills & does a Costco run 4-6 times a year & bulk buys household stuff - washing powder, loo rolls, shampoo etc.

He picks up the majority of additional household expenses i.e. if any white goods pack up he replaces them, and initial outlay for holidays (I pay for most of the food & days out when we're away, he pays travel and accommodation costs).

I get the Child Benefit and pay for the majority of DDs expenses which are minimal at the mo as we don't use childcare and she's not doing any out of school clubs currently.

Its all mine!

DH is the earner. I'm home with the three DC. Eldest is Autistic, youngest preschool so other than pin money and maintenance for my two eldest i don't bring in a lot.

I do all the accounting, shopping around, savings and investments. DH gets a bit of cash for little bits and bobs every few weeks and leaves the rest to me. If he fancies a day at the football/ rugby/ golf I find the money. I always have a pile of stuff waiting ebaying and make sure that the cash is available. He doesn't abuse that and if things are a bit tight he scales back his plans.

I have very low outgoings and so if there is something I want I know I can get it. I'm to frugal to be frivolous.

Any big purchases, over £40/50, we discuss but only to make sure its a rational not reactive purchase.

This is my second marriage. I know how screwed things can be when it goes wrong - I've been there. I don't however understand how when people have children that there are such separate pots.

I get each having guilt free money but the bills, childcare, who uses up leave for maternity/ sick days/ takes a career back seat so they can get to school plays etc how on earth do people value and divvy up all that?

We have separate money. DP pays for stuff. I pay for stuff. We spend what we want. We split the cost of holidays.

One pot of money here. We make big purchasing decisions together. We have to be careful with most spending tbh. It works really well for us.

When we first moved in together (pre dcs) we set up a joint account for household related stuff and both paid a certain amount into it (I paid a bit more as I earned a bit more) - at first this was just to cover mortgage and bills but over time we started using it for more and more stuff. It was a pretty natural progression to only using our own accounts for fun stuff and then when the dcs came on the scene we just pooled the lot.

Everything goes into one big pot and we each spend what we need to from that. I teach very part time and DH earns about 10x my salary but there is no his and mine just our family income.
I couldn't be doing with the complexities of percentages etc. we've had the same system since we moved in together before we were married or had kids.

One pot and discuss bigger purchases. Cannot remember ever discussing it. I had capital to get DH out of a financial pickle when I first moved in, and then supported us both through a brief spell of his unemployment. DH now earns 6+ times what I do (I am PT but my FT earning potential is no where near his and never was - my job is more secure though so we have never exposed ourselves to anything (mortgage) that we couldn't manage on my FT wage).

DH lived in our house with his, now ex, GF for 6 yrs before I moved in and things were very separate with them. They split all the bills I think apart from the mortgage and house maintanence which DH paid by himself (he bought the house - not a joint venture), so she effectively stayed rent free (she did earn less than him, as do I). She had a horse and I know DH didn't want to fund any of those expenses.

Pre DC we earnt broadly the same amount and would pay the same proportion of our salaries in to the joint account to cover bills.

Post DC my salary is 60% of what it was. We keep the same amount back in our own accounts for our own spending money. The rest goes to joint account.

After a decade together we pooled our finances last year. Joint account into which wages are paid. We then transfer fun money into our personal accounts.

I budget it all using YNAB. We only have £50 a month fun money each but it's plenty to spend on a hobby or sport, buy a magazine or have a night out or whatever. And for the first time ever we know where we stand and are budgeting properly. We've much less money than we did this time last year but I feel richer :)

Separate finances never really worked. The accountability of joint finances eliminated guilt and stress and have is more control. We do earn similar amounts though (although I work part time and DH full time) so I'm not sure how it would go if there was a big difference in income. I'd like to think it would be the same.

All money is shared, we both spend any leftover after bills. Just the simplest way to do it!

DP earns a lot more than me and I'm on maternity leave at the moment, but we try to ensure that we both have the same amount of free time so it doesn't really matter who is doing paid work and who is doing unpaid work.

We both put a proportion of our income- I think about 45% - into an account from which mortgage and bills are paid. The rest is up to us to spend individually though we'd never do a big purchase without mentioning to the other. Everything hoes on a joint credit card and is divvied up when the bill comes- joint things like food shops and meals out are split straight down the middle. We also save via standing order 15% of our respective incomes though put everything else left over at the end of the month into the joint account too. Holidays, home improvement etc come out of this account.

*We work out all our joint expenses, including household bills, holidays, going out together etc then deduct it from the total of our joint income. The remaining amount is divided into two so we each have same amount of money. So in your example household income of 3750, if total joint expenses were 3250 then we know that's how much goes into the joint account. The 500 left over means we each have 250 left for personal things. That means from your income of 1250, you would at beginning of month transfer 1,000 into the account (leaving you with 250) and your dp would transfer 2250, also leaving him with 250.

Anything else that leaves one person with more money than the other, I think is unfair.*

I agree that this is spot on if you are married and / or have kids.

Not sure about if you are just boyfriend and girlfriend though... I don't know... "shall we move in together, and can I take a lot of your money?"

We have a joint account where the mortgage, bills, food shopping come out of every month. We put the same percentage of our earnings in every month. When we first started living together I put the same money in as him but it worked out that i was putting 60% of my take home salary and he was putting in 30% as he earns a lot more. I was always skint!!

Other than that we don't really share although I have access to his account on-line and he is happy for me to transfer money over to the joint or my personal one if I'm struggling.

We have separate bank accounts. Finances are kept separate! He pays mortgage and most of the bills and for his car and I pay for food/ kids needs/ water bill /my car I also pay for holidays and we have savings runs for spending money! If a big bill arises (new boiler for example) we pay half each! I don't ask him for money and he doesn't question what I have bought ;0)
The one thing we have never argued over is money so it must work for us!

We are not married but have children. My OH earns about six times what I do but we split everything 50/50. A certain amount goes into savings, we each have £500 spending money and the rest is in our joint account for mortgage and bills. I think it's only fair (ie I'm the one who has reduced my working hours to ensure a better work/life family balance etc)

We have a joint account and separate accounts. Basically, we save my husband's salary (gets transferred to joint savings account on payday) and live off mine. So it's all joint. Husband earns a lot more than me but he spends a lot less. I'm lucky, I know.

DP and I are really different in the way we handle money. We don't have any joint accounts because it would drive me mad. We do have joint finances, though. DP earns more, so pays proportionally more of the mortgage, bills and savings. We have a budget of so much per week/month spending money.

we have now ditched separate bank accounts. This year we are extending the house so it's easier that way to see what we have got saved.

Like Families, we have a threshold above which we discuss expenditure and, snap, we have also reduced it from £50 to £20!

We are a single income household. I pay all the bills & give my DW 80% of what is left out of which she buys the food & puts petrol in her car.

We worked out how much we needed for household and joint expenses each month (mortgage, bills, car tax, tv licence, etc) and divided the total in proportion to our salaries. Anything left over is for the one who earned it. I earn the most, so I contribute more but I also have more left over. TBH, we both save quite a lot and plan to move soon, so most of the excess will end up being ploughed into the house.

What options have you been considering?