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Original poster

What percentage of your income goes on the household?

20 replies

ally1986 · 13/09/2018 21:49

Hi all,

What percentage of your salary each month (after tax) do you put towards household bills/mortgage etc? And what about your OH?

In our house we both put in roughly 60% of our income each month into our joint account and that just about sees us through the month paying off mortgage/utilities/childcare/food etc with a little bit of spending money and a little into savings (not a great deal).

I’m the one who manages our finances in our house (not sure my OH would even know how much our mortgage is Hmm) and it’s hard work especially since I’ve gone back to work after maternity leave and paying out 3 days of nursery a week Confused. So I’m just curious as to what other people do!

OP posts:
ChampagneCommunist · 13/09/2018 21:53

About 80% of my income. Some months more, if there is a breakage etc

RedneckStumpy · 13/09/2018 21:57

Our system is backwards to your we have a joint account, and joint savings only. So 100% of both salaries.

champagneplanet · 18/09/2018 00:32

About 40% each to our joint account to cover mortgage, bills, groceries and a little savings pot. We are fortunate that we have no debt other than the mortgage which is fairly small.

I will start pay DD2s nursery bill myself soon by working an extra day per week.

Xenia · 18/09/2018 08:10

We always just had joint accounts so 100% and for a fair bit of time everything that came in was needed for full time childcare feeds, large london mortgage etc. Now I am single I would say everything goes on the household but it depends how you define that! Obviously I buy the occasional cardigan for myself.

SleepingBooty · 18/09/2018 08:12

100% as joint finances.

LadyLapsang · 19/09/2018 21:37

I don't know. We don't have a joint account and just pick up things as we go along. DH pays utilities. No mortgage. We usually pay for our own vehicles and each pick up food and wine and pay into pensions, save etc.

LadyLapsang · 19/09/2018 21:40

We used to have a strict budget when we were paying a mortgage and school fees.

brisklady · 20/09/2018 08:01

We each 'keep back' about £100 a month to spend on real indulgences or presents for each other. That's a much higher percentage of my salary than his. He tends to save most of his, I tend to spend mine. The rest goes into a combination of household bills and joint savings accounts.

Alarae · 20/09/2018 20:56

Mine is 55.69%, based on what my new salary will be after max pension contributions.

This doesn't include food/fuel though.

genivert · 20/09/2018 21:05

100%, both of us.

Pool it all and all costs come out of the pool.

Makes admin and money management really straightforward and easy (both have joint banking access, etc).

This is far, far easier when you both have similar attitudes towards income and expenditure (like us - we're not identical in our view, but close enough that there isn't any major problem). It's taken us a while to get there, and lots of talking (and sitting down with spreadsheets to base joint decisions on reality rather than 1 person's skewed inaccurate perspective).

Original poster
ally1986 · 20/09/2018 21:57

My OH is self employed and all his incomings/outgoings have to go through his business account so we have found it’s much easier to each pay a set amount into our joint account each month.

I’ve been doing a detailed budget since going back to work after maternity leave to try and get a hold of our finances. We can comfortably afford the bills and necessities but don’t seem to be left with a lot for anything else!

OP posts:
lovelyupnorth · 21/09/2018 12:01

our fixed bills -Mortgage/Council Tax/Utilities etc are about 30%

DaniC18 · 21/09/2018 12:05

Just over a third of my wage goes on direct debits like rent, council tax, utilities etc x

MissCalamity · 21/09/2018 19:39

60% of our net wages go into the joint account each month. DP's contribution is £320 more than mine.
This covers mortgage, household bills, weekly food shop, tv, swimming lessons, any after school clubs, our holiday for next year as well (direct debit monthly!)

We're just scraping by at the moment but I can't afford to up this as I am often skint mid month and I rarely buy anything for myself or go out
God knows how we got through the paying for childcare years as kids both at school now!

AlpineButterfly · 21/09/2018 19:42

Everything from both of us. I tend to have just a sandwich for dinner about X3 per week just so much boys have a decent meal and DH will often have a bowl of porridge

Slatternsdelight · 21/09/2018 19:51

We don't do it by % as our respective incomes are quite different; what happens is that we each keep back £500 and everything else goes in to the joint pot. It means that we each have the same amount of spending money each per month which I (and DH) feel is a fair way of doing it

Passthecake30 · 22/09/2018 07:06

We earn similar amounts so about 60%. Then on top of this we pay half of the holiday when it's booked. Out of my own money I pay all things for my car, my phone, my gym, hair and clothes.

Longdistance · 22/09/2018 07:18

35% I have a car loan, and we go away a lot, so that adds up. Mortgage is fairly low in comparison to our earnings as it’s nearly paid off. Though we’ll be moving in the next few years and that’ll jump up.

NoSleepTil2030 · 22/09/2018 07:35

Everything goes into the joint account then we both take out £50 each for any personal spending.

AliceRR · 22/09/2018 21:07

About 20% each although we both earned almost exactly the same until this month and I’ve just had a pay increase so my percentage will be a bit lower

We are on a low rate interest only mortgage though and that just takes account of the basic payment

For the most part we have paid more to pay off the capital and we usually agree an equal amount to pay eg we both pay an extra £200 per month but we’ve been doing the house up for the last 18 months, again paid 50:50 for everything, so we haven’t always had spare money

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