Joint payment systems for Bills and food

[MusicTeacherSussex]

Me and my DP of 7 years have recently purchased a house together, rented together for 5 years, mortgage for this last year.

He works 9-5 and, after me being the lead tenant for most of our time, is I charge of paying the mortgage, service charges, tax, and insurance

I'm self employed and work very flexibly, and pay the internet, pet insurance, bills and do the pet insurance.

We earn the same amount and split everything 50-50 but we are forever pinging money backwards and forwards to each other and to be honest it's doing my head in. I want to get a way of paying jointly, but because I havent got a clear idea of the best way, he is reluctant to go for it as he doesnt see it as the huge inconvenience I do (book-keeping and chasing each other up)

What i want to know is what works for you all in terms of credit cards/prepaid debit accounts, anything else you might have by way of a system.

Please help, I'm sick of going through grocery receipts each week.

Excuse the typos and repeated bits I'm trying to do this on my phone and it is not great for mumsnet

You should have a good idea by now of how much these things cost. Put your respective shares into a joint current account each month and pay all bills from there?

We each just bung £1k into a joint account. We paid the mortgage off years ago, so that just covers the DDs, food shop and normally joint meals out etc.

Works well for us, most months there’s a small surplus

I'd agree rough guess at bills plus a little bit of wiggleroom if you can afford it so you can build a buffer against expensive bills.

Open a joint account, calculate all the joint costs, split 50/50. If you buy things just for yourself, use your own account. Simples!

We put an amount each into the joint account, that covers household costs - mortgage, bills etc. We pay our own phones. I earn more so pay for ddog, kids activities, Netflix, holidays. It's just worked out that way and it all works itself out pretty equally and we have the same amount of disposable income.

Definitely get a joint account. Helps as well with one off and annual bills.

Sounds like you all agree to open a joint account (with our mortgage lender as we then get a tiny bit back) and we can put exact funds in each month regarding our normal outgoings and then our utilities and food overestimated in case of extra costs

Keep the wine and cheese purchases to my own account obviously

Echo pps... we opened a joint account and before doing so, worked out all the dds, food shop etc. We started off paying 50/50 which has changed since having children but it works for us

Curious to see yet another example on mumsnet where the choice of bill split gives the mortgage to the man and the more incidental bills to the woman... why is that so often the case on here?

I would also go for the joint account - for bills only - equal amounts paid in. Even food shopping isn’t hard to estimate, with online banking it takes so little time to work out your average spend (though watch for Covid impact!). My XH and I used to pay in £30 each more than needed, so we quickly built up a slush fund in the joint account in case of an unexpectedly high month of bills.

Joint current account
Joint savings account
Joint credit card for all purchases*
Joint email address to keep up with all bills admin.

*credit card is actually in one person's name and partner is added as second card holder.

@Cocomarine

Curious to see yet another example on mumsnet where the choice of bill split gives the mortgage to the man and the more incidental bills to the woman... why is that so often the case on here?

I would also go for the joint account - for bills only - equal amounts paid in. Even food shopping isn’t hard to estimate, with online banking it takes so little time to work out your average spend (though watch for Covid impact!). My XH and I used to pay in £30 each more than needed, so we quickly built up a slush fund in the joint account in case of an unexpectedly high month of bills.

We did this originally for no reason other than I set up and change suppliers for utilities so they are easier in my name. As we own the house jointly isn’t makes no difference which account pays the mortgage. At the time we bought our first home we earned similar amounts.

We then moved and took on a bigger mortgage. I dropped to part time hours and DH got promoted meaning he earns roughly four times what I do. I couldn’t afford the mortgage from my wages so it comes from his account, same as before. However, we still jointly own this house too.

Why do you think it’s a problem for women?

I'd find it annoying and way too time consuming having to constantly send or receive half of every outgoing too.

I would either do as the majority have already suggested by having a joint account where all outgoings come from and/or i would get a joint credit card to cover the shopping/household expenses each month.

We each get paid into our own current accounts - fixed payment into joint account for mortgage other bills expenses for kids. We each do as we please with the rest of our salary. Large purchases made on one or other of our credit cards and balance transferred from joint account. Have never bothered with joint credit as I already have two debit cards, a prepaid debit to use in work and my own credit card! For years if I bought kids clothes from my next or m&s account I’d just pay with my own debit card but then gave my head a wobble and now ensure I use the joint one.

Car expenses etc come from our individual accounts. Should say we earn roughly the same so no issues about being left with less individual “fun” money.

@CeeceeBloomingdale it’s not a comment about individuals, and if you have a joint mortgage then even for individuals it’s not a legal problem. I’m not criticising any one person for a set up that makes sense for them.

My comment was about a wider attitude to assignment of bills. This is anecdotal but on MN I see it time and again that man “pays mortgage and council tax, woman pays shopping and childcare”. I’ve also seen other people on here make the same observation. Where that’s problematic to me is about how we still often, as a society, divide those tasks. Note that my comment was that I’m curious about what I think I see here. Here as in MN, not here as in this specific OP alone!

It’s possibly more a thread on its own 🙂 but I threw it in alongside my advice to the OP.

@Cocomarine thanks for replying, I was wondering if I was missing something and leaving myself at risk. Glad you agree it's not an issue legally but yes, interesting how it often splits that way as per the traditional husband is the wage earner, women take care of children set up. In our situation DH is too lazy to switch utilities to save money whereas I'm tight so I like to save cash

@Cocomarine

Curious to see yet another example on mumsnet where the choice of bill split gives the mortgage to the man and the more incidental bills to the woman... why is that so often the case on here?

I would also go for the joint account - for bills only - equal amounts paid in. Even food shopping isn’t hard to estimate, with online banking it takes so little time to work out your average spend (though watch for Covid impact!). My XH and I used to pay in £30 each more than needed, so we quickly built up a slush fund in the joint account in case of an unexpectedly high month of bills.

I see what you mean, I guess I just got so fatigued being the one in charge I kind of said "can you bloody take care of it please"

We took it in turns being the pragmatic one over the time it took to purchase and move into a house during a pandemic

Same as many pps. We have our own accounts but also have a joint account which we generally put a grand in each month and use that for shared things.

[quote CeeceeBloomingdale]@Cocomarine thanks for replying, I was wondering if I was missing something and leaving myself at risk. Glad you agree it's not an issue legally but yes, interesting how it often splits that way as per the traditional husband is the wage earner, women take care of children set up. In our situation DH is too lazy to switch utilities to save money whereas I'm tight so I like to save cash [/quote]
I think you're fine as am It is a joint mortgage, and we dont have kids
We pay everything 50 50 it just is annoying to have to settle up every bloody week

Joint bank account with agreed payments in 50:50 or equal disposable income whatever you prefer.
Joint credit card (one name and additional cardholder) for household spends, food shopping, lunches out etc.

We've never had joint bank accounts (married over a decade). We are however very open with our finances, know how much each other earn, what we have in savings and outgoings and pensions. We did have a spreadsheet, but no longer use it as we feel we have a good handle on things without it. The most important thing is openness, not the way it is managed.

We do joint bank account for fixed bills, and agreed savings like holidays, kid’s expenses like clubs/childcare, annual house maintenance/improvement etc.

Then we have a credit card (in my name with DH as extra cardholder) for petrol, food, variable expenses like entertainment/eating out etc. Cash back is paid on purchases and balance paid off every month in full. That way it’s easy to see if we’re overspending on stuff and it keeps the joint bills account hassle free to run.

Like PPs we have a joint account for joint costs.

We know our regular outlay and average spend on food, and have a standing order from our sole accounts into the joint account set up for the day after payday.

We pay for all joint and shared expenses from this account. Bills, groceries, household repairs, kids clothes, kids expenses. Takeaways, meals out. And aim to build it up a bit for new boiler, holidays, guttering etc.

Then we keep our ‘disposable’ in our sole accounts and savings accounts.