Joint bank account - is it the answer? Please help me get family finances organised

[Mangaroo]

Hello!
My partner and I have been together for many years but have moved around the world quite a lot so have ended up with very disjointed bank accounts and such. We now live in the same country and have accounts at the same bank. We don't have a joint account but have always shared all our money and this has never been an issue for us. We now have a young child and getting settled down so I am hoping to streamline things and make our finances more organised.
We each have one of these at the same bank:

• Current account (this is where our salaries arrive)
• Savings account (roughly same amounts here for each of us but we move money as we need it)
• Credit card (for online payments, we pay these off in full every month)

Direct Debits and online purchases are spread between us, mainly for historical reasons (i.e. which one of us was first to set up a grocery account or a broadband...etc.)

I am thinking that this is now all a bit too disjointed and maybe would be good to have a joint bank account for all the Direct Debits to go from. However, I am worried I am just going to add one more account to the mix, making it even more complicated.

I would love to hear from others if a joint bank account is a good idea and what helps you keep things organised and streamlined. Is it good to have separate accounts too or is it best to just go with one joint account for everything and get rid of individual ones?

Thank you!

I think your set up is fine, it's more about how you work out the money each month and it sounds like it's all fairly equal already. We actually have a 'do the money' hour at the beginning of the month and budget for the month move money around into our MANY accounts we have a couple of joint accounts but our bills actually come out of dh current account and we transfer my wages into his account on payday until we do the money

We have joint account for house hold bills then our own current accounts where our salaries go into and then our own savings accounts. We're getting married next year so that might change. But it's been working for us so far. I just have a standing order set up to transfer bills money to the joint account at pay day and then we top it up if we spend too much of the fun money.

Thank you for the responses. Maybe it is not worth disturbing what we have and just leave it as it is?
We are working on getting a life insurance at the moment and considering writing a will, so I think it was just in this frame of mind that I felt if we had a joint account then in case one of us dies the other one does not have to worry about the bill payments and such immediately.

@Wiaa Love the idea of the 'do the money' hour, will introduce that! :)

@Lyricallie: do you also use you the card that comes with the joint account or only use it for paying the household bills?

We have both. We have our individual current accounts and savings account but also a joint current and savings account. We are paid into our joint account and then each get transferred £400 a month to have our own personal spending money. Any joint and household expenses come out of the joint account (bills, food shopping, childcare costs, car MOTs, fuel etc) and our £400 is to do with what we like so I don't have to justify when I pay for an expensive haircut and DH doesn't have to ask about buying kit for his hobby etc. Anything we don't spend out of that personal money we save into our own savings accounts. Anything left over out of the joint account money at the end of the month is moved into our joint savings and used for holidays or work on the house etc.

You could easily make one of the savings accounts joint by adding the other to it, and then closing the other savings account. Because it will be joint, it would be easy to shift money into it from both your current accounts for savings goals. Then whoever you decide will buy the item/pay for the goal can just pay it without the other having to transfer anything. It will give you both some transparency for joint savings goals no progress towards them.
I agree, don’t make a massive change, but this would be a small tweak that would give you a joint account to test run never see if it works for you both.

Sorry for typos. My pad keyboard is acting weird.

We do what Pepper does. Income into our joint current account, out of which go all bills, mortgage, and any joint/ family leisure costs (e.g. family or joint meal out, family outings, kids' clothes) etc. We each transfer £250 to our personal current accounts each month to cover non-shared costs (e.g. our own clothes, hobbies, etc). It works out well for us although we could be much better at keeping track of joint account spending

We have our own bank accounts.

We split the bills 50:50 (I hate this 'we work on a percentage' crap) and pay that half into a joint account.

The rest of our wages are kept independently to do what we want with.

It works for us. Bills are paid fairly and we taken it in turns paying for meals out and so on.

We don't have a joint account. We find the key is a spreadsheet. It has everything on it. Bills, mobiles, gym, savings, credit card. Then what is left we divide by 2. We just move money around to do this. It's so transparent, but you do have to have everything on it. It gets updated every month to include any birthdays or special events etc.