Split of the bills

[spey2]

Hi just need some help

I'm due to get married and we are planning a joint account for bills and then have our own money separate.

I earn quite a lot more than my partner so I'd like to make sure we aren't uneven in terms of disposable spending.

I take home £1200 more than him per month so just looking for help on how much of a percentage of the bills we should both pay so that the lower earned pays less of that makes sense.

I'm rubbish with maths

Anyone ?

Would a 65/35% work?

Add you income and his income together. Let's say £750 plus £1500 would give £2250.

Then divide your income (1500) by the total household income (£2250) ) x 100 to give your proportion of the total income (66.7%).

Then add up all bills eg £250, and multiply that by 66.7% and that gives your contribution (£166.75).

Add up all your outgoings (eg £1000 per month) so if £1000 is 100% and he was paying 35% he would pay 350 and you 650. Are you trying to leave both of you with a similar disposable outcome?

That's perfect Bucking thank you!!

You seem to have two conflicting objectives:

1. have an account for bills
2. leave us both with the same spending money

If the account is just for bills, work it out based on your proportionate incomes, but be aware you will still end up with more than him.

If it's to have the same spending money, halve the bills, work out what he'll have left, you take the same amount left so you both have the same disposable, and you put all the rest of yours into the joint account. But the joint account would then be for more than just bills, presumably.

Doing by percentages will leave you with more money than him. If you want exactly the same spending money you need to put all your income in one account and pay joint costs, including any savings for joint irregular and unexpected expenses like holidays, appliance replacement, insurances, boiler repairs or similar from that account.

Then work out how much is left as spare money each month and transfer half each to a personal spending account.

One team, one pot...why split?

One team, one pot...why split?

Because. They. Want. To.

One team, one pot...why split

That only works if neither party is a spender, or if they have plenty of money to cover all their essential expenditure and everything else that either of them may ever buy.

Many people do not, so just spending everything from one pot could lead to a situation where they can't afford an essential expense because one of them bought an expensive personal item without thinking about whether they could afford it, or if one of them is always scratching around for money for clothes or other personal expenses while the other spends a fortune each month on discretionary expenses like coffee, lunch and drinks out, clothes and personal grooming, gadgets, etc etc.

So it's good to separate essential and discretionary expenses, also good to plan for expenses that will occur in a few months time, not just thinking 'there's money in the bank now, I can spend it if I want to' and it's also good for them to both have the same amount of spending money, why wouldn't they?

OP, if you're new to money/budgeting etc, a good place to look would be the Moneysavingexpert money makeover.

Have a read and do whatever is relevant to you, even if you have plenty of money at the moment, most people can still benefit from cutting their essential bills, which leaves more money for more fun stuff and will also enable you to save for the future, which if you're getting married soon, there's a reasonable chance that might mean children within the short to medium term, with the associated loss of income and/or increased costs so if you have a head start with saving to cover these costs, things will be a lot easier.

When you say bills do you mean, travel/car bills and food shopping, incidentals for the house etc or jujutsu water council tax? What about holidays? What if you want to spend £3000 on a holiday and dh hasn’t got the fund

Would it be easier to put your wages into the joint account and then both have £250/500 or a set amount transferred to your own account to spend on what you want. Then the joint account covers house hold expenditures & you save from that into other pits for holidays, Christmas and birthdays etc

What do you mean by "uneven in terms of disposable spending"?
Because if you both want the same splash cash, you could pay everything into the bills account, and transfer whatever you think of as disposable spending into your own accounts? And, if you can be bothered sweep any remaining money in the joint account into a joint savings pot at the end of each month.

You hall raised some fabulous points!!

I'm really not sure what to do. Initially I thought we'd put both incomes into one joint account and then split whatever was left into our individual accounts but - I have children from a previous marriage so I spend money on clothes/school trips gifts etc etc

He has taken out a finance agreement on HP recently and it makes me anxious that basically this wasn't a joint decision and if he kept doing that I won't have much disposable income left and I have kids to pay for.

He would genuinely not mind either way so it's for me to decide. In one way I want us to have the same left over to spend as we like but on the other hand my outgoings relating to children are higher and vary throughout the year so I don't want to be left worse off than him if that makes sense

Oh and sorry to drip feed

We also have 1 child together.

One team, one pot...why split The thought brings me out in a cold sweat.

We did one team one pot from the day we bought our first flat. I have never understood why anyone would do it any other way, as we trust(ed) each other, we both worked, and our relative incomes ebbed and flowed over 30+ years of careers. Neither of us have bad habits, we always talk about big ticket personal items, of which there aren't many, but we always had a decent income too.

I would go one pot. If you want some 'private' money then perhaps each have a separate account with a fixed, same, contribution, say £200/m, and agree what comes out of the big pot and what doesn't.

We have always had one pot, I earned more originally now DH earns three times my income.

In the OPs situation I wouldn’t through, her DP has taken a big financial decision without discussion and she has her children from a different relationship to think of.

Complicated.