How does your joint account work?

[Perhapsiwill]

Before my DP and I had children we used to put an equal amount into a joint account and all bills came out of that. The rest was ours to spend. Simple.

After DCs I went back to work part time. I stopped putting into joint account but paid for all food and kids stuff, this was working when they were pre school.

Fast forward 10 years and arrangement has remained, I'm still part time but never have any money as kids clubs cost lots, clothes etc all seem to add up to too much for me to afford.

I am wondering how others split this? My DP is self employed so no set income which makes it hard to work anything out!

What do you have coming out of joint account? Food and kids stuff as well as all bills? Or some other arrangement?

Thanks

All our money goes into our joint current account, money goes out to joint bill payment amount, money goes out to joint savings account.

We have a couple of ISA in our own names, but that doesn't move and is joint money.

We both know what is reasonable spending and neither of us takes the piss. Larger spends are mentioned /discussed.

Put equal amounts in but we earn almost exactly the same so prob no help.

From a purely organisational starting point

All income to joint account & balance covers all bills

Equal spending money to own account to avoid scrutiny!

Credit card that we both have a card for for all food, fuels and family spends - clothes, meals out etc. This is paid off in full each month.

Save the rest.

We used to have more cash spends each and less on the credit card but it became unfair as I was buying kids stuff

One account for all.

I spend more than DH on myself. He earns more than me but not by so much now. He doesn't seem to mind and hardly ever questions what I spend. If it's getting to the end of the month he will let me know money is tight and I need to stop non essential spending. It works for us and has for nearly 15 years. Any large purchases we discuss with each other first.

We have separate accounts. All joint bills come out of my account and my DH pays me a set amount weekly which is his 'share' of the bills.

I like that we can both still spend our own money on whatever we went without knowing that the other one can look through the statements and see what we have spent and where. Always think this must get awkward when buying presents for each other?

It has always worked for us so no need to change it just because we are married.

All money into joint account - both spend as required.

No kids, but this is how we work it:
Both our wages go into joint account. We pay all the bills (including savings), then what's left gets split into 4 - 2 parts stay in joint account for holidays, dates, etc, and we get 1 part each into our individual accounts for spending money.
When we have kids their expenses will just come out of the joint account.

One account...if we are going to spend over £50 on ourselves we consult!!!

Everything is completely joint here. All funds are 'ours'

That said, we each have an account and have a joint account, but money is transferred freely between them as required. Direct debits are randomly spread across all 3 accounts.

I also don't understand the concept of 'his' and 'hers' funds in a household

Everything is paid into joint account. Direct debits for utilities etc. Come out of joint account. Almost all spending goes on cash back credit card whic is paid in full each month from the joint account. All money and costs are seen as “ours” nothing is “mine” or “ his”....

We both pay in and all household and car related expenditure comes out except diesel. I put less than half in compared to do but pay for the food. Do pays for everything to do with his motorbike and I pay for the diesel (most of the time) and all other spending is split between us. I don't know how equal this works out but we have similar savings levels between us, we earn a similar wage (I'm self employed but I still know what I earn each month even though it varies) and neither person feels like they are paying more than the other.

Everything goes into one account. One of us earns double the other but we’ve never bothered about it. We have separate savings accounts as well as joint and transfer an equal amount to each every month.

One joint account, everything in and everything out. It’s all family money.

One joint pot where everything goes in and everything goes out. Then I have an account with our (sadly very modest!)savings in and dp has an account he uses for work. I'm a SAHM and spend more than dp. We've been together for 20 years and all money ifs family money. We both know how much there is so don't have to justify our spending to one another but we discuss bigger purchases.

DH earns 6 times what I do and I probably spend 6 times what he does .... he doesn’t care though!

We do have a savings account that I sweep leftover money into every so often. That account is solely in my name as the best interest rates are only available on single name accounts (with our bank anyway). So I currently have about 3 times my annual salary in an account with just my name on it......... good job he trusts me 🤭

Another with total joint money. All goes in and out of same pot and we have equal access to it. We would discuss big purchases.

At some stages in our relationship DH has been the higher earner and at some stages I have. Its still all the same joint money.

I really don't understand having separate pots and allocations.

We have a set amount that is separate from joint finances. It works out as roughly equal. Then all bills and child costs come out of the joint account, leaving our personal accounts for spending on things for ourselves. It is up to us if we want to spend it on lots of little bits or save it for something bigger. If the joint account gets a bit low due to an unexpected expense, we would decide together if it should be topped up from our savings or both put a bit in from our personal accounts.

It feels fair and we have no problems with this system.

When we first moved in we didn't have a joint account, we split expenses.

When we got married, we opened a joint account and paid for all joint expenses out of it. We paid in 80% of earning and any left over went into joint savings.We earned a very similar amount.

When we had kids, we went to an equal amount per month for ourselves (£200) and the rest is joint.

Over the years the list of things that are classed as joint expenses has gradually increased to the point that we not far from being completely joint. It now even includes social events which the other does not attend.

I still like to have a separate account with my own money because we do have different preferences so it is good to be able to buy something the other thinks is not worth it without causing resentment.

One pot both attempt to piss in it.

We’ve always had one account and both spend what we need. Over our life we’ve switched who is the biggest earner a number of times.

We also have a budget and several joint accounts (food, bills, savings, holiday money) and 2 private accounts each (pocket money and savings).

All household stuff and kids stuff is done through the joint accounts. I like having several personal accounts for private stuff as our spending habits are different (plus dp is a smoker and it would annoy me to have his fags come out of family money. That needs to be his own expense!)

We both work full-time and earn similar amounts of money.

When we moved in together we opened a joint account for bills with a percentage split on our earnings at the time. This has evolved into our family account when we got married and had DC. Everything family comes out of that eg the big food shop, holidays, kids major expenses eg shoes. The only bills we keep ourselves is our phones and travel. We do consult for larger items from our personal money though. I earn more but pay slightly less in to the account percentage wise to account for me paying the childcare vouchers and savings through my wage on schemes at work. I do run all our finances though we're a typical Yorkshire family!

We had a one account, all money is 'ours' approach for many years (15 or so) but reverted to each paying a contribution into a joint account and keeping the rest in our individual accounts a year or so ago.

DH spends money on things I consider an absolute waste of money and it doesn't bother me any more because I don't see it coming out of the joint account. Things like endless coffee shop visits, he thinks nothing of spending £15 on lunch in a swanky independent coffee shop in town (he is based at home three or four days a week) whereas I take my lunch from home and have an aero press and nice coffee in my office.

He takes the train to work once or twice a week which costs £55 per trip and involves two changes whereas driving would cost half that.

We have very different views!

We put the same percentage of our salaries into the joint account which is to cover mortgage, bills and anything to do with the DC. Our child benefit is also paid into here.

The rest of our own incomes we keep to do as we please. If there are going to be any extra known expenses for the car or a more expensive activity for the DC we discuss this first and add extra into the joint account accordingly.

We have an emergency account which is linked to our joint account - this has about 10k in it and is for emergency things like boiler, large car expenses etc and we both have access to this.

We both keep separate savings accounts - DH saves to pay down the mortgage and I save for holidays, days out and treats. We don't have a set amount going into these and we don't monitor each other's savings as they can vary, we just use them when we are ready to.

It works for us. I spend a lot more on clothes, beauty stuff and meeting up with friends than DH does - he is more frugal than me and he earns more so I don't think it's fair if this was in a joint account - I'd be spending a lot more than him. We're still married and no one is unhappy so all good!

All money goes into a joint account, used for all bills, food, kids stuff and other things like meals or days out, we then get an equal amount in our personal accounts as an allowance for want of a better word to spend on whatever we want ourselves. Money left over from the joint account goes into joint savings, money left from personal account into own savings. This system has worked for us since we moved in together - for some of this time I was the sole earner while DH studied, now we have 2 DC and I'm part time while DH is full time.

Joint account
Both salaries go in
We each get 20% of our salary for our own personal expenditure.
Everything else is direct debits
My husband is a massive spendthrift
I am relatively good with money we would have been divorced years ago if we didn't have this system.
We more or less earn the same.
I earn a bit less but have a company car so it is more or less equal when that is taken into account.