How do you do your family money?

[booklover164]

I'm sure this has been asked countless times but I can't find any posts on it.

I'm going back to work after mat leave and will be working part time. My hubby will be taking home significantly more than me. How do you all arrange your finances to pay bills, socialising money etc? How do you work out contributions to the mortgage etc?

Thank you!

All is joint. Well, several accounts, and I use primarily some while he uses the other, but in principle we both have access to all of them. Some separate savings accounts for tax reasons too. I don't have any issues with DH seeing what I buy. No I don't worry about own money - you mean in case he runs off and cleans us out? I consider this risk low enough.

I can't remember exactly how we worked ours out. DH has been putting in a lot more than me to our joint acc since I went part time. But I have a horse to fund so have huge outgoings he doesn't. I was the much higher earner until about 5 years ago so I don't feel tooo bad. Plus I have increased my hours even though he said I didn't need to because I want to pay more.

I think he'd rather not have to clear a credit card of vets bills and have less in the family pot, but happy Mummy, happy family to be honest.

I'm a sahm and don't have any income.

My husbands wages and child benefit go to a joint account. I move out bill money into a separate account and what's left is budgeted and moved to another account - I divide by 4 and pay a weekly amount into the joint account.

We don't really buy anything for ourselves, definitely not without discussing t first.

We have seperate accounts and responsibility for different expenses.
DH does food shop, petrol, car insurance and tax and child minders fees for the youngest.
I do mortgage, council tax, utilities, kids clothes, after school club for the eldest and incidentals.
We have similar amounts left over for personal spends.
We get paid at different times in the month so theres also a fair bit of switching cash cards around if one of us runs out of funds before the other.

All money is 'our money'. DH couldn't earn what he does if I didn't take care of the majority of 'house' and 'DC' responsibilities. We view our inputs as equal even though his is $ and mine is time. We spend what we want and big purchases are discussed.

We both have our own accounts and a joint account. DH earns significantly more and all the big bills come out of his account. I have a couple of small bills that come out of mine. We both transfer money into the joint account which is for groceries, family stuff, stuff for the kids etc. We leave ourselves with an equal amount of 'pocket money' which is ours to do whatever we want with.

We used to both keep the same amount back for pocket money (clothes, haircuts and socialising etc) and put the rest in our joint bank account for family expenses (bills, anything for DD and family days).

Now I’m a SAHM we have reduced our pocket money and I have a monthly direct debit from the joint account to pay my pocket money into my personal account.

We're a family - not two unrelated people. All our income goes into the family pot and we pay for all expenses out of that. There has never been "my money" and "your money". Anything major, we discus it and make a decision.

christmaschristmaschristmas No I've never felt constricted by not having "my own money". When we got married it was to form a couple / a family. Sharing the money works well for us - if I need or want money for something I just get it, I don't have to ask or justify any expenditure and neither does he. We have a budget and we are both pretty sensible so neither of us has to worry about what the other one spends.

Both work full time, earn very similar amounts. Money goes into our separate accounts, then the vast majority goes straight out by direct debit into the joint account. We're both left with enough for treats/lunches/personal stuff like clothes and cosmetics, hobbies etc. I have a separate savings account, but it's really just to stop me/us frittering it, which we might if it were in my current or the joint account.

I would never be without my own account. Very happy for everything I earn to be 'family' money, but it needs to come to me first. I'm not sure what I'd do if I had no earning power (i.e. long-term sick) - I'd feel very uncomfortable being solely reliant on someone else.

If/when I'm on mat leave we'll work out a fair distribution based on what I have coming in. I imagine I'll use the joint account for most spending over that time, as most of my costs will be 'family' rather than my own.

The reason we have pocket money is for privacy. It's none of my dh's business what I spend my money on and vice versa.

but do you not feel constricted and worried at not having your 'own' money?

This is why we have our own separate but equal pocket money. It means we don’t feel guilty about spending money on ourselves and we can’t get annoyed with what the other person buys and it is their money and their choice.

No I absolutely don’t feel ‘constricted’ about not having my ‘own’ money. If I am prepared to share my life, my body and have a child with someone then the least of my ‘concerns’ is going to be sharing a bank account. I can’t understand people who will, to put it bluntly, share a bed with someone but not a bank account.

My DH & I have a very similar approach to finances, we both believe in savings, long term investments, pension planning, charitable giving etc. Neither of us is into designer clothing, flashy cars or spending on technology. DH enjoys golf so spends a fair bit on that but I don’t feel I have to spend the same amount in myself, although if there was anything I particularly wanted then I would buy it. I think problems exist when you have vastly different spending patterns, but then I probably wouldn’t fall in love with someone who wore designer clothes or wanted to drive a sports car.

We have all our main incoming money in a joint account, then we have separate accounts where have standing orders from the JA into those to cover treats, personal stuff, then we have another account for house projects, maintenance etc and a further holiday account. It works for us to have different accounts so that we can track the money better and see what's available.

Both of our incomes are paid into one account. I then move 'bills' money into a separate account and we live off what is left. Out of that money a fair bit is paid into our joint savings account. I don't actually have an account in my own name. We've been married for years, 2 children and 2 pets

Neither one of us 'asks' if we want to buy anything, we just do, it's our money?

Separate current accounts, we each pay DD bills pro-rata to our income. I bring in twice what DP does at right now, so I also cover holidays and house expenses (carpets and roofing and paint, oh my) and whatnot. This way we both have enough leftover for personal expediture and savings.

We've survived over 20 years like this, paid off the mortgage together, it works fine for us. Occasionally - maybe three years total - DP has been the main earner, and whenever income changes we just do a bit of spreadsheeting to make sure it all evens out okay.

As soon as we had children, it didn't matter who's money it was..whichever bank card is closer, gets used 😁

We're like that Rocking. All the money is our money no matter what account it's in!

We have our salaries paid into our own accounts, then pay a percentage of our salaries into a joint account to cover mortgage, bills and things for children. Child benefit is paid into the joint and all household DDs come out of it.

We both contribute also to an emergency fund- this pays for unexpected expenses like car repairs or a new washing machine for example.

We have a similar salary though so our disposable income left after these expenses is similar. Not sure if it would work so well if our salaries were wildly different. It's worked for a decade so we shall carry on!

Seperate transactions and savings accounts, from which we transfer an agreed amount to the joint account each fortnight. Bills etc and any family expenses (eg, going out to dinner, holidays, items for dc) are paid from here. The amount transferred is relative to how much we earn and changes, eg, during maternity leave.

We have our own accounts and a joint account which we both pay into for household or family stuff - mortgage, bills, food shopping, petrol etc, family days out.

When i went part time and we moved house we worked out what we put in by going through my expenses (Mine as in, my credit card, my mobile phone bill, my travel to work) then what I would like as 'fun' money and some personal savings and the rest goes in the joint account. He then added on what else we need based on a budget for mortgage, bills etc. He ends up paying in about 3 times as much as me but he earns about 50k more than me so its pretty even!

We both like having our 'own' money for things like clothes, haircuts etc. and having the joint account we can both see whats being spent and on what.

Separate accounts and one joint account. A simple spreadsheet totalling all outgoings and personal inputs to the joint account. Everything logged and differences in inputs reflected in mortgage equity.

One joint account. Since the day we got married. Nothing to think about.

Joint finances with all money going into this account. We discuss big purchases before spending money. Dh never looks at the bank account and won’t download the app to track spending so it tends to fall to me although it’s me that gets the food shopping, kids clothes, house stuff etc anyway so it works better. If one person takes on the share of childcare and house duties they will most likely earn less than the other one. We are both good with money though and not careless spenders so it maybe different if one was.

We have a lot of accounts and I manage them but is basically 50/50 as we earn roughly the same at the moment.

Joint account 1 - most joint debits apart from the mortgage also pays for entertainment, birthday and petrol. Husbands pay goes in his cc.

Joint account 2 - food account only, both pay in the same amount.

My sole account - my pay, mortgage and insurances. My cc.

Lots of saving accounts linked to the first and third accounts. We pay in roughly the same for holidays, Christmas and regular savings. I save a bit more each month as it makes me happy.

This will change soon as my pay will reduce. It will change to 75/25 and I'll make sure we both have some discretionary cash.

Both salaries paid into one account. All DD from that account, we spend what we need separately, big purchases discussed. The only downside is that if I want to treat my DH he invariably knows what I've bought due to joint account. But other than that works fine for us and has done for 20 years