Moving to completely joint finances, what to think about

[IsTheRainEverComingBack]

DP and I are talking about moving all finances completely into one bank account. We’ve had a joint account since we moved in together 5 years ago, for all rent/bills/food/travel, which we put an amount in proportional to our income, which has fluctuated for both of us over that time. We’ve had our own accounts as well that money is paid into, and a few direct debits have continued to come out of those, as well as personal spending money.

We’re getting married next year and planning to TTC straight away, so want finances to be joint for when I’m on maternity. Also I recently went freelance so I’m not getting paid at the same time every month. This has meant almost all his salary is going in at the beginning for bills, and I’m then topping up in the month as needed. But this has meant (as one example) him say, not having enough money to go for a drink with friends, even though between us there’s more than enough money, so he’s using the joint account and then me putting money back in there to top it up. I just think it would be easier and fairer if things were completely joint and getting salaries paid into the JA and then going from there.

But I’m thinking then about buying presents for each other, or I do spend more on socialising and things like make up than he does. How much should something be before I mention it to him before buying? Im the one who generally keeps track of the budget as it is.

Those of you with completely joint finances, what should we be thinking about before we do this?

How about keeping your own accounts and giving yourselves "an allowance" for things like presents, personal things etc...

We have our own accounts and only have a joint for expenditure - dp puts more in the joint account for tHan me as he earns more but overall that works well

Have a look at this thread, OP.

How about giving each other a nominal socialising 'budget' that comes out of the joint account. Keep your own personal accounts and transfer money from joint to single accounts? Id also recommend something like Adminbox.co.uk or Onedox to keep on top of the bills when youve got less income.

Cheers. Should add we're paying off joint debt together so would make sense for that to come out as one, we also want to save together but neither of us have current savings.

Yeh an amount for personal spending would make sense, but my personal spending is always going to be more than his. I think I’d probably spend less if it was from joint money tbh, wouldn’t hurt me to buy a bit less make up!

Joint Account for salary in and DDs out -
Joint Account for joint spending (groceries/house improvements/kids stuff) - specific amount paid in to this account every month
PErsonal Account each - specific allowance paid in every month.

Some savings accounts which are in my name for ease (they are online instant savings accounts) for irregular bills/costs like car insurance/holidays/childcare.

How do you decide what that allowance should be and what it should cover? If you want to go for dinner or something does that come out of the joint account?

@IsTheRainEverComingBack me and my partner will never have fully joint finances. We both work hard for our money and want to spend it on different things.

I don't want to have to ask permission to spend money i've earnt and vice versa.

Keep some money in a different account (can be joint as well) in case you lose access to your one account (IT issue, stolen debit card, fraud, identity theft).

Allowance is iterative really and depends on how much you have coming in and what you need/want to spend on.

For us, we pay mortgage/bills first. Put enough into joint spending account for sensible level of spending there. Allocate to savings and then split the remainder.

If I go for dinner with my friends, I pay from my allowance.
If we go out for dinner together, either we split the bill, one of us will treat the other (and next time the other will pay) or if the joint account is flush, the joint account pays (which always feels like a nice treat!).

We've been doing this for about 8 years now, from well before kids so it works pretty well and it was well established by the time that babies arrived so that the principle that we both had our own money and that all kids stuff was a joint expense was easy to implement. We used to have a lot more fun money pre-kids but sadly those days are gone!

I would go for the personal allowance system, you can pay for individual socialising, clothes, toiletries, presents, hobbies etc out of them. DH and I have a similar thing in that he's much more of a spender than I am, he spends all his allowance without fail whereas I usually have quite a bit left at the end of the month. I end up spending my leftovers on 'enhancements' for things that are technically joint expenditure like holidays or Christmas or just putting into savings which i don't mind doing although I am contemplating an expensive gift to myself at some point too!

I think its important to have the same amount of personal allowance so you and your DP just need to agree what's sensible on your (joint) income, that could mean you cutting back a bit or him having a bit extra each month that he can treat as personal savings, or perhaps a bit of both?

DH and I have totally integrated finances.
I do not think about who spends what or why.
Its all family /couple money.
We each have our hobbies and habits but they are part of what makes us a couple.
I have no idea which of us spends more or on what.
Its our silver wedding anniversary next week.

We also have completely joint finances. We would discuss any large purchases. We would spend roughly the same on each other at christmas/birthdays etc but we don't track it.

At some stages I have earned more and at some stages DH has been the higher earner. Its all family money though.

We have fully joint finances and it works really well for us. There have been times when I have been a SAHM, when I have had a very low income (because I was part time/looking after the dc) and times when both of us have had pretty similar incomes. But we have always had equal access to the family money and each spend on whatever we want to. I don’t feel I need to check with dh before I buy anything, he trusts that I don’t waste money and I don’t mind if he buys himself anything or goes out and spends on a night out/whatever. Neither of us are very extravagant though which might help.

If we are buying presents for each other, we’ve done it several different ways. Sometimes buying from shops that doesn’t give the gift away, sometimes withdrawing cash from the bank over a period of a few weeks, so it isn’t noticed, getting one of our parents to order and pay and then paying them back after the gift is given, or by paying on our separate credit card (that is then paid out of the join account). Once the gift is given, it doesn’t matter If we know how much it cost, we can probably guess anyway.

I think it’s really important for you to have equal access to your dhs money once you are on maternity leave with your baby. I hate to see women living on maternity pay and struggling to pay ‘their share’ of the billls while their husbands financial life hasn’t changed at all and I think you are doing exactly the right thing by putting it all into place before you have your baby.

Thanks all. Yes the equal access to money when I’m home with baby is really important to me. We will keep our own accounts as well if needed, with online banking it’s very easy to switch money between accounts.

We think for presents we’ll agree we can transfer out to our own accounts to spend from there so the other can’t see what was ordered. We’re not really extravagant gift buyers so shouldn’t be a problem.

We do the joint finances + allowance. Joint money is used for essentials like bills or the weekly shop as well as savings/investments. We use our allowances, for hobbies, socialising, clothes etc. We find this system very useful for managing money well and saving a lot. The allowances are great for never having any issues/arguments over what useless things money might get spent on.

We have all in one pot. Neither of us ever abuse it. I take control, budget and plan, he earns most of it. We’re a team so it’s never been an issue. Neither of us checks the account around the time of birthdays etc so as not to spoil any surprises but you can always use a credit card and clear it after the event

Have a new joint account as your main account and keep your individual accounts for personal stuff/backup.

You never know when you an another bank account or two becomes useful! Our joint bank account stopped accepting international cheques a few years ago,and I had to resort to pay a cheque from my American MIL into my sole account at a different bank which fortunately still did accept foreign cheques.

Since having the kids we’ve just had a joint account and everything comes out of it. We have our own credit cards (paid off in full e wet month) so if we want to buy a present for the other person we use the CC so they can’t see the amount paid. Any big spends we talk about together first.

I’m going to throw something out there that I wish someone had told me.

Keep an account that no one else knows about except maybe your mum or sister.
Put a small amount in it every month and DO NOT use it for anything. Forget it’s there. But don’t tell your dp.
It’s your escape fund. Should you need it.

I sincerely hope you and your dp have a long happy life but shit happens and when you have dc you are more likely to be at a disadvantage financially if you split.

When my ‘d’h left me I had no income other than what he deemed “enough” for me and 2 dc, and £400 in an old bank account to call my own.
If I’d saved £20 a month for those 9 years. Or the 16 we actually lived together.

We did this just recently. Both salaries paid in and all dds paid out of our joint. We both transfer a set (identical) amount to a personal account on payday for the month for "frivolous" personal spending or gifts etc and we have a few savings accounts which are a mix of savings accounts - both joint and individual but that's more to do with when they were set up. It's all joint money just allocated to different things like car, holidays and so on. We both have cards for the joint but would probably mention a big (say £200 plus) purchase before making it! Seems to be working so far

Yes we will both continue to have our personal accounts, as the joint account and personal accounts are all the same bank, along with a couple of online saved accounts, it’s very easy to move money around through online banking.

We’re not going to do an allowance for now, but if we decide we need that we’ll readjust.

Our joint savings will be in my savings account because there’s already money in there for a start, and it’s just the easiest option for moving money around. It’s just in my name and can only be accessed through my online banking, which he doesn’t know the passwords for. So whilst I trust him implicitly (wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t) if it does all go up shit creek that money would be immediately available to me but not him.

When dh and I first started living together we had separate accounts and both paid an equal amount in to a joint account for joint household expenditure. We both earned similar amounts although for a time he earned more than me and there was a time I earned more than him.

When dc came along and I was on maternity leave we dropped the separate accounts and just had one account. We trusted each other not to go mad and leave enough to pay the bills. It has worked that way for us ever since.

Here's what we do. Each get paid into our joint account, called 'spends'. We transfer from this a set fixed amount every month into another joint account, called 'bills'. This covers all direct debits which are fixed so same amount every month.

We share the use of 'spends' for everything else- food, petrol, fun money etc. Anything over £50 we discuss first.

So in a nutshell, for us it's all family money. 100% shared, despite DW earning 5 times what I do!