Household income-help

[chesterfuckingdrorrs]

DH and I both work full time up until now have earned similar salaries so everything split 50/50.

We both have personal bank accounts/savings and have a joint account for all bills (we both pay in the equivalent of a mortgage payment each month and any money left at the end of the month is a float for the following month). Any large household costs are split from our own money.

Due to work changes there's now a difference in salaries and we need to shake up the way we handle money.

What's the fairest way to split things? I propose to split it as a percentage of net income.

Any children involved?

Pre kids, we each contributed 80% of our net income to a joint account and the rest was ours to spend. We discussed what came out of the joint account e.g. mobiles, haircuts, things that one person might value more than someone else.

Post kids, we stuck it all in the joint account, but had a set amount per month of equal spending money each e.g. no matter who earns what, we’d both get £250, or whatever.

Works well.

If you do it by percentage, the higher earner still gets more personal money - is that what you want to achieve?

Assuming not, the fairest way is to flip it round and put all income into one account, which is used to pay for all joint costs, including savings for annual and irregular joint expenses like Christmas, holidays, insurance, broken cars, pets and appliances etc.

Then split what is not needed for the above 50/50 and transfer to individual accounts for personal spending money.

Depends what the work changes are.
If one person gets to work 4 days a week by choice lazing around, is it fair if the other is subbing that? (which is actually the case with my husband and I’m happy with it)

We split everything based on income proportions. I earn more, so pay a higher percentage. Certain aspects of expenditure are mine only (all things cat related, my phone, my charity direct debits etc) and similarly he pays for his life policies etc. Everything else is shared and the rest is ours to spend as we like. Works well for us.

We put everything into a joint account, worked fine. He's now left me but wasn't money related.

We pool everything. We both work FT he earns 3-4 times what I do as he's in a far more lucrative line of work at present.
We always pooled all money, from long before having children, even when I earned four times what he did.
It helps that we both have very similar ideas of what needs to be paid for/ personal spending/saving habits.

We do a percentage of income each. You just need to do the math to get it right

We stick 80% of whatever we earn in our joint account and keep the rest in our personal accounts and do whatever we want with it.

It also depends on your philosophy about spending money. Some people think each person should get exactly the same spending money regardless of earnings. I don't, but if that's something you believe then you would just pool your money and each take the same amount out for spends.

Ah thanks for all the advice. No kids involved. The changes at work are basically a massive salary cut for me, over £7k (same job just cut backs) and DH has been promoted and has salary increments over the next few years.

DH pays massive pension and other contributions from his gross salary. Rough calculation have our net income split 60/40 so I propose splitting bills the same.

The sale of my solely owned previous property paid the deposit for this joint property so I don't feel too bad implementing some changes plus over the years I've definitely paid out more for decorative bits and pieces.

Why not pool all income, pay the bills and whatever is left is there to be used by you both, that’s how I’ve always done, never understand the separate ££ in a marriage.

It’s good that you can re-negotiate for changing circumstances. Being able to talk about money is so important.

If children are in the plan at some stage I think it’s really important to consider how your system would accommodate maternity leave, and also the long term impact in your earning potential which will widen the gap between your salaries.

@JKScot4 we don't pool all our money as I am definitely the spender in the relationship (all within my means and only after bills and savings have been dealt with) also it's how we've always done it and has worked up until now as it's been an even salaried household.

@BarbaraofSeville we definitely can chat about money. Children are looking unlikely however if it does happen we'd look at money again. DH has much scope for promotion however I'm at the top of my "trade" with no scope for promotion or increase unless I completely change career-which is still an option.

We’ve always had joined money and equal amount of pocket money going into separate accounts.

It doesn’t matter if someone is a spender or not as they just have the designated pocket money to blow on stupid things.

On the spender issue, we have multiple bank accounts, and a system of direct debits. So even though the money is joint, we only spend from certain accounts.
We also had different ideas about saving money and what it could be legitimately spent on so ended up with two savings accounts- one for long term savings and life threatening emergencies and the other for grand plans.
It’s complicated on paper but in practice very simple, and as you can only spend from certain accounts it takes care of the spendy impulses.

We pool all money, though we do have very different attitudes. I'm a spender, DH is extremely careful and hardly spends anything, ever.

I just discuss any larger purchases (say over £100) with DH before going ahead as its his money too.