What is everyone's annual household income? And how do you split the bills?

[MustardBastard]

Just out of interest.

I earn relatively good money (although in an underpaid industry - social care), but my partner earns 2.5 times as much as I do (works in Engineering). We split our bills proportionate to take home pay.

We feel every privileged to have our income - although we are in a lot of debt so are by no means well-off.

I just wondered how much income others have and how they divvy up living costs.

Money comes in, all in a family pot and bills get paid. There isn't any splitting up.

Money comes in. Bills get paid. We save. We both have an equal amount left for personal spending. Dh earns 6x what I do.

All money goes into communal account. Some years I earn more. Some years
DH earns more. We discuss big purchases. We are lucky to earn enough that small, elective purchases like a lunch or a new shirt are generally ok and don’t really impact our budget. Some months I spend more, some months DH does. If things get tight because of an unexpected expense we both scale those back for a bit.

We don't have a joint account. And neither of us want one. So he pays all the bills and I transfer an proportionate amount (about 30 something percent of the bills as I bring in 30 odd percent of the household income) to his account.

We have a joint account to cover all bills and a big food shop once a month, we pay in proportionate to our earnings. All other earnings are kept in our separate accounts. We roughly take it in turns to pay for meals out, cinema, top up shops etc, but it’s quite relaxed, I am sure it all works out even in the end. Couldn’t be doing recording and comparing each pound spent.

We earn roughly the same so this arrangement works well for us.

I hate the idea of just one pot of money, I want to keep my financial independence.

We have a joint account and always have done. Our salaries have varied over the years, sometimes very close and sometimes very far apart but money has always gone in to one big pot.

Ours comes in to our own accounts and gets put in the joint minus any personal bills (mobile phones etc) and then all other bills come out of there and any leftover is just spent as we see fit.

No splitting or anything, it's just money!

He earns it. I spend it.

Our income is pretty even (I earn £104k, he’s on £108k). Everything in to one account (after pension contributions) that all bills and expenses come out of (mortgage, utilities, petrol, food shopping etc). Half goes to savings (saving for a deposit to move houses in the next few years and want as small a mortgage as possible so we won’t have to sell current house). Then £500 goes in to each of our accounts each month as personal spends.

Works well for us.

Everything into one joint account. All bills and mortgage is paid from there and then we just live on what's left, certainly no mention of your money and my money.

5 years ago he was the high earner with me on half his salary. Since then he's changed career and I've earned promotions so I'm not the high earner.

*now the high earner

Like many others, all money into the joint account and an equal amount transferred into our personal accounts to as we wish.

All money coming in goes into one account and we pay bills, spending etc all from that account. Big purchases always discussed, works for us and both earn similar

Wages come into a joint account, from which bills/pension contributions/trust funds/tuition fees/children's things come out of, the rest (around 65%) going into savings. We earn good amounts, but I often do additional contracts for consultancy and talks, and that money pushes my income up higher than his. The excess goes into a personal investment fund. If he opts to do something similar in the future, he'd probably have his as additional pension contributions.

We both have our own businesses on top of our jobs, and profit goes into our personal accounts once taxes have been done etc, as its up to us to opt for retained investment or not. My DH business profits partly go to fund his mum as she relies on him for income, whereas I set my parents up a portfolio around a decade ago which reduced their reliance on me and gave them more independence. I'm not entirely sure what DH spends a month on himself, but neither of us have debt, and I think I spend less than him (around £350 a month) on personal expenses. The rest of business income goes into the venture or investment. I think the lower expenditure is because I'm a bit work and children overwhelmed and that keeps me too busy to shop and spend I make up for it in the Christmas sales though...

We are very fortunate to both be very high earners so we don't really pay attention to what we spend on day to day life. We find it is the least hassle to just pool our money because anything that's left gets used to overpay the joint mortgage anyway so seems a bit pointless to work out whose money is whose.

Forgot to add - current joint household income of £60k which is more than enough for mortgage, bills, a bit in savings, all monthly expenses, a holiday abroad and a holiday in UK every year and some luxuries.

We don't have a joint account. DH earns many times more than me, and pays all the bills (mortgage paid off) and any major expenses like holidays and appliances from his account. I don't contribute towards the bills or expenses. My wages go into my account, which he tops up periodically, on an ad-hoc basis, and I use this to pay for day-to-day and the dc's expenses, my personal spends, and for my own pension/savings. He has a separate account for his own daily spending, and he also tops that up periodically. It's not really on an equal spends basis, it just gets added to before it starts to run low. If I've managed to spend my money more quickly than usual then DH just transfers another chunk over, without me having to ask. DH pays for everything when we go out together, but I tend to book things like tickets. We view the money across all the accounts as 'our money' and don't keep track of who pays for what, in any way, and we don't discuss major purchases except to decide what colour/style to choose.

DH is a high earner and we have a large surplus every month, which get swept into savings/investments on an irregular basis. Currently we're putting it in shorter term savings as we plan to move house within a couple of years.

Mustardbastard if you pay 30something percent of the bills as you earn 30 something percent of what he does. Doesn't that leave him with a much higher disposable income than you after bills. He might be paying more of the bills but he still has more money left over. I know you said you are happy not to have a joint account but that seems unfair.

@montymum Yes indeed he does. And he drives a Jaguar whilst I have a Volvo. But neither of us want a joint account and it's not his fault that his industry pays much better than mine.

I'm happy with our arrangement, I can't see another way to do it at the moment. If/when we have children, I won't have to work - it will be my choice if I return to work - and he will be paying for everything.

Anyway, as I said, I am just curious how other couples arrange their joint finances.

Absolutely ,if it works for you great. My husband earns 3 times my salary as I am now part time since having 3 children and teaching doesn't pay very well. We have a joint account for bills and childcare and I pay a lot less into that. We do have our own accounts too and we pay for the things we want out of that, I think like you we are now fortunate enough that we have a fairly comfortable Ife where money doesn't need to be a big issue.

He is paid weekly and me monthly. His money comes into one account then some is withdrawn for weekly food and spends and the rest goes into an account all our bills come out of. Mine also goes in there at the end up the month and tops up our inevitable overspend during the month plus any extras we’ve had like a camp for one of the kids or a night away etc. I then pay £5/600 towards our credit card

Money is the one thing we fall out over. He sees it as separate even if it goes into one account and he also works for himself at the weekends and will say ‘I paid that out of my money’ ... drives me mad!

DH earns about 60% more than I do. Both salaries go into joint account and from that we pay bills, household expenses, cars, holidays...... all the regular/big items. We also save into a joint savings account. For smaller or more personal purchases, we each get a fixed amount into our own individual current account.

This way works for us.

Everything into and out of one joint account. We don’t have individual accounts. I have an AMEX card for things I don’t want him to know details of like his birthday & Christmas presents.

We get paid into our own individual accounts and then a % of our take home pay (based in earnings) goes into a joint account.