Joint account

[pinksoda35]

I have been with my Partner for almost 10 years, we own a house together and have two children-we are not married(largely due to me not being bothered, we have committed in every other way)
We have always had our own bank accounts and money with us sharing the expense on the big stuff!
He earns over double what I do, I am self employed.
Lately though I have been wondering about having a joint account.
It feels like something we should be doing and does seem the way everyone else does it.
Then I guess everything for the house, bills,children,holidays and days out etc will all just come out of our one pot-instead of trying to make sure we have each paid fairly for stuff!
Right now he pays all the household bills, I pay for food shopping and the majority of the children's clothes.
Obviously we each have interests/hobbies which we pay for ourselves.
Would a joint account work out better for us?
really just would like others thoughts.
Thank you.

I found having a joint account the best way to sort out money. We both put all of our salary into it and then pay for all of the bills out of there. We transfer some 'spending money' to ourselves for each month to spend on clothes, make up, books etc then everything else comes out of the joint.

We decided from the beginning what was going to come out of the JA- for example we pay for hair cuts out of it. My DH gets his hair cut every 3 weeks so it balances out my cut and colour every 3 months.

We have a saving account for maternity leave( 6 months pregnant), a savings account to for the car ( mot, service, insurance), one to spread the cost of birthdays and Christmas out over the year and finally one for the house.

Took a bit of organising but it works really well now and means we know where everything is and how much we have to spend.

Every couple is different so whatever works for you.

I thinks joint account works best for joint expenses. I have always done it with my partner but also did it when I did house sharing as well.

I just always find no one is left feeling like they had to pay more than the other person.

I have a friend who is in a marriage and they work their finances the way you do. She earns much less than him and she is beginning to resent this.
Especially as she has struggled with the money situation in order to “pay her own way” during maternity leave and then only returning to work very part time.

We have two joint accounts.

One is for bills - so we put a set figure into this. It never changes from month to month.

One is for spends - food shopping etc.

DW earns 4 times what I do, we share all money like one big pot.

We have a joint account for joint expenditures ie. mortgage, bills etc. We roughly earn about the same so transfer the same amount every month, but the rest of our money is kept separately in our own individual accounts for whatever we want to spend it on. This works well for us and we never argue about money.

I’ve always found that a joint account helps with equality. All income is transferred into the joint account and then an equal amount is transferred to both of our personal accounts regardless of salary.

If you don’t have a joint account do you both have equal personal money?

We have a joint account that everything gets paid into and everything comes out of. We pay each other spending money every month for personal spends, nights out, hair, books, clothes etc etc. Everything joint so family days out, meals out family/joint expenses comes out of the joint account.

We've been together 29 years and DH earns six times what I do.
He therefore puts (by direct debit) in the interests of fairness, six times more into the joint account for childcare, food, all bills, holidays etc, and the rest of our monies left is for each of us to spend individually on ourselves as we wish. He is a spender, I a saver.

I don’t think it matters how finances are organised so long as you both have the same personal money and that family savings and investments are joint. Having money secrets is a disaster. Both should know what each other’s earns.

We have separate accounts but completely have 'joint' finances. What's mine is DH and vice versa. We each pay some bills - and groceries. Never worry about paying fairly or 50:50. If one is running low the other one transfers money etc.
It works for us. I think it helps that when we got together we had nothing - we shared our debts and worked hard so now we have some disposable income it's easier to share

We've got one joint account and no separate individual accounts. So regardless of who earns what, all money goes in and out of that account.

However, years ago, my husband and I both had very well paid jobs in London. We ended up in debt because we both saw a lot of money going in each month so we just kept spending from the joint account as nobody was really keeping an eye on it. Now I monitor our account regularly and we are much more sensible and boring!

Like a PP:
Together 34 years and no joint account, but all family costs shared 50/50. Every expense is logged (first on paper, now via app to a spread sheet).

We have a joint account. Both salaries are paid in, and all bills come out of it. We both spend from it day to day.

We both tend to use our credit cards for clothes and then pay the cards from the joint account. I have no idea why we do this. It's probably a privacy thing.

I would definitely recommend a joint account, especially as you're not married. This is of course a worst case scenario, but your should your partner be in an accident how would you access the money needed to pay bills?

You need quick and easy access to each other's money and the best way to do this is to have all your money paid into a joint pot, each month you transfer an equal amount to you own accounts for personal spends, a set amount into joint savings accounts and the rest resides in the family pot for all household bills, food shopping, petrol, kids clothes, gifts, etc... one of you takes responsibility for monitoring this account (in my house that's me as I do the most spending from it).