Who pays for what in your relationship?

[Rach2021]

I was wondering how other households work.
How do you pay for everything in the house (ie rent/mortgage/bills/foodshop/car insurance ect) and then how do you pay for days out/dates/holidays ect.

I'd like to see scenarios from both partners working and 1 working 1 at home.

Thanks

Rach

Separate money OH pays mostly all bills I pay for cleaner window cleaner phone bill and car insurance and my fuel, half of food shopping , half holidays days out , stuff for DD.
OH earns 5x what I do but all the money I earn is mine pretty much.

Both salaries into the joint account, all bills and spends come out of there. Equal amounts standing order in to individual savings accounts. Also have a joint savings account to pay for bigger bits like house renovations, car bits, etc. Then, I have a LISA which we max out every year, while DP has income from a rental property in her sole name (partly for tax purposes, partly because it was her house before we met).
Most bigger non everyday spends come out of the joint savings account, but if we think it is a bit low, DP will transfer some from her rental income and we used this money when I was on mat leave. We both work, but I earn about 4x DP currently, but this situation has been different in the past.

Both work full time, make approximately same in wages. Pay same amount in to a joint account each month for mortgage, bills, car, food shopping, house insurance WiFi etc.

I have higher personal outgoings for travel to work, so DP tends to treat us both to meals out more as he has more disposable cash, but generally “fun” stuff we take it in turns. On a day out if I buy lunch he will get dinner etc. Holidays are 50/50, but DP does a fair number of Ultra runs which he likes me to come to (never expected but he likes me there and I like to support) and as it’s his hobby he tends to pay for b&bs/hotels for these trips.

His family live locally, mine are in another country and I pay for both our flights if we visit them (although he always offer half).

We both work outside the home and have two children. My husband earns slightly more than me. One joint account. All our income goes in there and everything comes out - mortgages, loan repayments, childcare, household expenses etc. Joint savings. We married with the attitude of what’s mine is yours and yours is mine. We have a shared vision for our life with our children. There was a period where I was earning less than I am now and there could be a period where my husband will be earning less in the future. We are a unit. We’ve a similar attitude to spending, value and taste. I can’t imagine it any other way.

Wages go into our own accounts. Joint account that we both pay 50/50 for bills into. Joint savings account we both pay into for nursery fees when I finish maternity leave.

Each pay half of everything (via joint account), except travel expenses (car etc) and bits and pieces we buy for ourselves, for which we pay our own individually.

Both working. Joint account. Both paying proportionate to what we earn. DH earns more so pays more. When I earned more I paid more.

Me on Mat leave. Joint account. DH paying majority into joint for bills.

We've had a joint account since a year or so since we bought our house together

@Chicchicchicchiclana

I'm obviously talking about money into the money pot LemonRoses. Don't be a muppet.

So am I - although not a muppet and don’t need patronising. Your suggestion is truly mysoginstic. The financial contribution SAHM or women working part-time or women working in ‘non career advancing’ roles is a huge financial contribution if it allows men to gain rapid progress and boost the family income.

Women raising children at home are reducing child care costs.
They are the ones who deal with the hassle and free up their partner or spouse to do what needs to be done to earn more.

I rather think I earned at least half of my husband’s income for him - in terms of willingness to move for jobs, practical support and entertaining/ social support. The difference was I didn’t get a pay slip.

DH and I have a joint account and everything comes out of this. We both work full time but did the same when I worked part time and was on maternity leave.

Prior to getting married, we both lived together and I earned significantly less as for a period I was a student. During that time we roughly worked out the bills based on our earnings.

@Chicchicchicchiclana

I'm obviously talking about money into the money pot LemonRoses. Don't be a muppet.

Well even if you ignore the childcare, cleaning, laundry, cooking and general household management contribution, a SAHP can contribute financially by meal planning and batch cooking from scratch instead of more expensive ready meals and takeaways, shopping around to find things cheaper or even income generation by matched betting, investing or all manner of other informal ways of making money.

To answer the OP, all income goes in one pot which covers all joint spending and saving, and we each get an equal amount for personal spending.

The important aim is that both parties are able to access the joint pot for anything household/family or child related and also each have some money that is for their own personal spends of their own choosing.

If you are both open about income, outgoings, savings etc you don't need a joint account. We just buy /pay as needed with me contributing more as I earn more.

We have both always worked but have each earned more at different points. We have always done the same, put all money in the joint account apart from £200-250 a month which we keep for our own stuff e.g mine is hair, make up, mobile, clothes and buying each other gifts etc. Not really set in stone though, if we need something and we are short we will just mention it and take it out of the joint account

At the minute everything is pooled and all bills etc come out the joint account, we both have x amount of spending money per month.

We both have different views as to what we prefer, he prefers what we currently have, I would rather go more proportionate as I don’t feel he should have to pay for my son. So we’ve agreed to try out each method for six months and then decide together what we will do more longterm.

We both work. My husband earns maybe £300 more a month than I but we both earn well. We put in 45%/55% of the bills money into the joint account. That covers everything, mortgage, bills, food etc. We have our own savings accounts but the savings are for joint things it's just we get better interest rates keeping them separate.

Both partners working FT; no children. We earn similar salaries, and we are comfortable but not wealthy.

We each have our salaries paid into our own current accounts. We then both pay £Xhundred per month into a joint account from which the mortgage and all household bills are paid. This account is set up to run a modest monthly surplus for unexpected household bills, eg the washing machine needing fixing. We take it in turns to do the grocery shopping.

The rest of our money is our own to save, invest or spend as we see fit. Personal spending, eg cars, clothes, phones, memberships, subscriptions comes out or our own accounts. DP has a very expensive hobby and an ordinary car. My hobbies are less cash consuming but I have a much nicer car. 20+ years together and we have never argued about about money, because there is nothing to argue about.

We’ve been married for 15 years. No children. Both working full time and earning pretty much equal amounts.

Both salaries are paid into our joint account.
All standing orders for bills come from here.
We have a number of direct debits that pay a set amount into our joint savings account, our individual credit union accounts, and then an equal amount into our personal bank accounts.

Joint account pays for everything- mortgages, all bills, groceries, petrol, subscriptions like Netflix/Spotify, meals out, days out etc.

Personal accounts are used for personal spends like haircuts, gifts, clothes, lunches out with friends etc.

If either of us need a top-up, we just take it from savings.

Prior to marriage, it was 50/50. We’d get paid into our personal accounts, then each put the value of half of our bills into a joint account. All savings etc. were separate.

Me and DH both work. I bring in 60%, him 40%.

Everything goes in a joint bank account. We earn enough to make minor purchases without discussion but would discuss if something was maybe £200+. We went through a few years where he was the higher earner and now he has changed careers and I've climbed the career ladder so now it's me. It's always worked for us and never any arguments over money or spending.

@Apeirogon

All money completely shared. Same when we are both working and when I was a SAHM.

same

We have no mortgage or car finance so we each pay for our own car insurance and our own phones.
I pay for the life insurance and he pays home insurance.
I pay for internet and waste charges
He pays electricity.
We pay for food on a whoever is shopping at the time basis.
Everything else is just whatever, whenever...
The only childcare is Afterschool but that's no much so again it's just whoever is there to pay on the Monday.

I can't think of anything else?

DH pays for mortgage, all bills, his car. I pay for school, my car.

Don't really have any set rules around days out / meals / holidays etc.

I'm a sahm....he pays an amount into my account each month. This is to cover food, everything kids need, clothes, activities, petrol and whatever I need.

We had everything paid into one account and all bills came out by direct debit, there was no separation of money. If either of us wanted to buy anything or go anywhere, we just did it, but if it was a big purchase we would discuss it first to agree on what we wanted and how much to spend. We both worked, for the second half of our marriage I earned more than him though.

I don't work, DH puts money in the joint account where all bills are paid from. I spend on a credit card and pay it off each month from the joint account. If I need extra money I ask and dh puts it in. I don't spend loads on clothes and stuff like that but dh encourages me to spend more!

All money in to one bank account and then we take out what we want to spend and save.

All income shared. It's spent and saved jointly. We've done this since we got married. It has covered all our scenarios, his redundancy, my maternity leave. We've both been higher earner at different times and having all money combined has worked out for us. We have similar attitudes and are not big spenders.