Fair way to manage money between couples

[techiemom]

I just wanted to find out what couples do to manage their money. Specifically, if there is large(ish) difference in salary? What about during maternity leave or if one person has to go part time?

Something reasonably fair but also something quite easy to manage.

Thanks in advance

Most importantly come mat leave if receiving less than usual income : reduced income or smp the father makes Up the difference. I know too many women using Up their savings to pay half still as if the baby is all their making.

[quote Scottishskifun]@cumulonimbus523 I think this is the crux for many people you have to have the same attitude to savings and spending for it not to cause issues.

My DH does stocks and shares investments for savings which for me feels too risky and then he spends remaining on his hobby which is fine but would annoy me to spend the money he does on it if shared money.

The most important thing is to do what suits you and your family best.

Sometime MN can annoy me with "it's all family money everything and anything". I would never expect DH inheritance for instance to be my money. Its from his family loss not mine and for him to choose what he wishes to do with it.[/quote]
Re your last point- Same. Unless one person has given up work to care for children, I find the ‘family money’ approach somewhat entitled. My partner works significantly longer/ harder hours than I do, always has, and earns more. We both work, so I would never expect half of his earnings to be mine to use as I choose simply because we are married.

We also use the % approach for joint expenses.

We also do percentages. Have own accounts which our money from work goes into and then from that we pay a set amount into the joint account each which is based on us having added up both our incomes and worked out what % of the overall each of us earns then paying that percentage sum into the account to cover 100% of the joint expenses. For example of we jointly earn 100k (we don't but easy math!) and one of us earned 60k of that and the other 40k, we would each pay 60% and 40% of the total joint expenses sum into the joint account monthly. So say our joint expenses were 2k one would pay 1200 and the other 800. Anything left from our pay is ours to spend or save as we want. For large purchases unplanned we contribute the same % but the higher earner, having more left over, will often pay more for trips and holidays and dinners

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

Most importantly come mat leave if receiving less than usual income : reduced income or smp the father makes Up the difference. I know too many women using Up their savings to pay half still as if the baby is all their making.

In my circumstances I did use my savings to carry on paying my share of the bills but then I am the higher earner, and self employed, and it wouldn't have been fair for him to have to pay all of that additional not only to make up the loss from me but also when he usually pays less as his income is less (so an even bigger hit for him than if I had to sub him if he were out of work). It made sense for our family and felt fair as I had more savings because I earn more. However the deal was that he then did the same during his shared leave and made up the difference in his lost income from his savings. It felt equal.

We’ve done it different ways. I was a SAHM for a few years and then it was more of a family pot situation - he kept a bit of spending money in his own account and transferred the entire rest of his salary to me as I did the budgeting, bills, food shop etc.

Now we both are working we pay 80% of our salary into our joint account, which pays our household bills, savings (long term like mortgage OPs plus short term like Christmas and holiday) and monthly costs like food and petrol and all child expenses.

We keep the 20% in our own accounts as personal money - husband has more than me because he works full time and I’m 26 hours (though our FTE salary is virtually identical) but he has greater spending needs to be happy 😅 with my personal money it pays my phone bill and any subscriptions, fun money, my clothes plus I put £50 a month into a LISA and save some extra in case I have any bigger personal purchases in the future. Despite having more personal money my husband spends every penny of his every month, which is fine - my one rule is he isn’t to go into his overdraft which he respects.

Meant to say that our arrangement would of course change if our circumstances changed eg we are considering a third child. The important thing is not to be rigid! We are very much a team with this so we just adapt depending who is earning etc.

We have a significant disparity in earning (90k and 30k) and aren’t married (yet) so split like this;

Each put 50% of our earnings in to cover all household outgoings which comes to just over 3.5k, I put in 2.5k partner puts in 1k.

Each keep 50% of our salaries.

Once married, equal amount of fun money. Everything else joint.

Until married, most things joint, higher earner’s extra fun money was put into savings in that persons name.

No keeping tabs. Income is income.

Shared money, joint access to accounts, both trustees for our various Trust and business-holdings, an 'escape' fund for me and we both manage our own shares and investment funds. Children have shares and investment funds in their own names, both parents have signing authority.
Different lawyers.

He earns 4x more and pays 1.5x what I do for the bills. My share is still only about £100 more than the cost of my room in my last shared house but we have a 3 bed house). We pay equally into an account for food and going out costs. The rest of the money is separate because I prefer separate finances (he wants to share). If we were to have children it would absolutely turn into shared expenses.

Separate when not married and no kids - then it was up to each person to decide how much they want to work. Shared the bills 50-50, more or less.
One pot when married and with kids. I earn several times his salary and I would find it challenging to manage if we had separate incomes. So if we wanted to go away, I would stay in a 5 resort and he would need to book a 3 next door?

All family money.

When I was married we had a joint account, savings in my name because he was a higher rate tax payer. With dp he pays for most things because he earns 15x what I earn

Similar to many others:

1. joint account - all wages in, all bills out inc food shop/fuel/gifts
2. joint savings - x amount goes from the joint into this every month
3. credit cards - 1 each, this us for our "fun" money, basically anything we're not doing together and also gift buying for each other. The limit isn't huge, so maxing one or both won't cause financial issues, but we have direct debits from the joint account to pay monthly.

We did this as soon as dh realised I'm a nosey fucker and can guess what I'm getting for my birthday/Christmas just by seeing where he shopped...

Dh earns more than double what I do now, due to a career change... I think it's about balance and your attitude as a couple as well as an individual to money.

We pay proportions into a bill account, everything else is kept seperate. During mat leave, he upped his amount to cover what i couldn't in last 3 months when i was on SMP, 1st 6 months i was on full pay. I went back full time and earn more than him. I can't see us ever fully merging money

One pot. One family. Pretty irrelevant who earns what. Probably helps that at different times we've both been the higher earner.