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

(I work part time and take home about 50% of what he does so he contributes more to bills/savings.)

@Dotdotlineline

Do people who put both their salaries into one account feel awkward when buying things for themselves/ treating themselves to the hairdressers etc?

I'm just curious as this has always held me back from wanting to do this as I feel like I'm 'using up the family money'

No. Not now. When money was tighter, we both limited our own ‘treats’ and prioritised other things. We agreed what was important. I’m quite low maintenance and he needed more purchases for work, but neither indulged ourselves above the children or long term finances. We knew what we could afford to spend and didn’t go outside of that.

Now the children are young adults and money is more plentiful, we buy what we want whenever we want. We usually discuss bigger items because we want to offset tax as far as possible or might want to buy something for someone else that is over a few hundred. We’ll agree holidays etc but ‘ordinary things’ like haircuts, dentistry, clothes, cars, food, entrance fees, books, trainers etc we just buy what we want.

DH works full time, high earner, I work part time not a high earner. He pays for everything but 4 mobile phone bills which I pay for, I also pay for treats for the kids, my clothes and petrol and manicures, coffee and nights out with friends. I started working to be able to buy him a birthday present for a big birthday and carried on so it's just spending money for me and the DCs.

We have a joint account that we deposit a fixed amount into each month that covers all our expenses and leaves a slush fund for meals out, shopping etc. we contribute equally. The remainder is our personal money and it’s up to us what we do with it - neither of us is extravagant through and we are both committed savers so that works fine. I am part time but earn more than DH. I save most of the difference (although do spend more on myself generally as I’m higher maintenance on clothes and personal grooming etc) and then we would use what we have set side for holidays, house projects etc. We’re not wealthy by any means but we earn good salaries so don’t have money worries.

We have a personal account each, a joint account for all our bills and a joint account for spending. Each time we get paid we pay everything to the joint bill account minus a nominal sum for ourselves (£100-200 depending). I then do a weekly transfer for spending which includes food and anything else we might need to do. Anything left over goes to joint savings (sometimes I round money down to the nearest 10 to try and bulk up savings. Works perfectly for us.

Dh works, I'm at home. Dh pays for everything. I'm on house deeds, car stuff, other stuff in my name. I have some savings and investments in my name. When I was able to work pre covid I paid for the kids stuff ie birthdays, Christmas clothes, uniforms. When I work again I'll go back to that.

I work, he doesn't, no DC. We are married and both late 40s/early 50s.

One way or another ultimately I pay for everything but I earn a good salary so money is rarely a concern. I'm happy for DH to take on the domestic side of our marriage.

We have a joint account for bills which I pay into monthly based on expected annual costs (when he was working it was both of us pro-rata, now I cover it all.). I overpay so that builds up a decent savings buffer for holidays and emergencies.

I pay mortgage money into his account and he pays the mortage. We do it that way because it's a premium account which gives us travel and gadget insurance but he needs to run a minimum amount through his account each month to keep it.

We own equal shares in the house which has a decent amount of equity.

He runs the house, life admin etc. He puts grocery, shared travel, holidays etc on a joint credit card which I pay off each month. He'll decide who we use for insurance, utilities and so on and move the direct debits around as needed.

He gets £300 a month from me for personal spending and will just use the joint card if he needs anything more. I've asked him if he wants more cash in his own name but he says no, he doesn't usually spend it anyway and he's got access to plenty of money on the joint card and joint account if he needs it. Honestly, I think he feels a little like he shouldn't take it because I earn it, but I'm comfortable that even if most of the money is in my name should the worst happen he'll inherit it anyway, and if (god forbid) we go crazy and decide to divorce each other he will have a claim on my assets so I think he's protected for both scenarios even if the money's not in his own name.

We are both very low maintenance - we have one shared 16 year old car that does about 2k a year, high street/second hand clothes and personal grooming means keeping clean not maintaining an aesthetic image :) We sometimes spend money on travel but not recently for obvious reasons.

If we go out, stay in a hotel etc it'll go on the joint card so either one of us might "pay" at the time, but I'll pay the CC bill.

He has a hobby that involves a lot of kit but also has a strong second hand market, so he tends to fund the hobby by selling old kit and he enjoys that more than sitting on piles of stuff he doesn't use.

@Dotdotlineline

Do people who put both their salaries into one account feel awkward when buying things for themselves/ treating themselves to the hairdressers etc?

I'm just curious as this has always held me back from wanting to do this as I feel like I'm 'using up the family money'

We have an amount each month to do with as we want. The same amount each, that comes as a standing order, along with all our 'bills'. We use that for anything we might want to spend it on that is a 'treat', and also for presents for each other. It was a tiny amount when we were skint, but the principle was there.

Exactly @Kite22, separating out an amount for personal spending for adults is probably the best way to deal with situations where people might be either reluctant to spend money on themselves, or be tempted to spend too much.

You don't have someone who can't bring themselves to take money to have their hair cut, and at the same time stops spenders spending the mortgage/rent/electricity/grocery money on gadgets/trinkets/cycling kit or whatever.

Just work out what is affordable after all household spending and joint saving is covered and split it 50/50 into separate accounts.

We just have a joint account. Everything comes out of that. Savings are all joint apart from paying into a private pension for me.

It helps that we got together in our teens and have very similar outlooks to most things, including money. We have a lovely house but are otherwise very modest.

I do think it depends on if you have children or not. I don't actually remember what we did before DC. I don't think we were organised to pay a fair proportion each, which is the obvious solution. I think we each took on some bills.

Since DC any salary has been paid into the joint account, it is all family money. Both of us have periods of not working, working part time, being the higher earner. Currently I am the higher earner, but all money is ours.

When we moved in together we got a joint account. We just pooled all our money. Bill's came out and we just spent as we needed.

We are now 13 years down the line, married with 2 kids and still just do that. We now have 2x joint accounts. One salary into one - all the direct debits come out of this. One salary into the other - all incidental spends come out of this one.

The bill account washes it's own face.

Before a met dh I was a lone parent working pt with wtc.

I lost the wtc when he moved in. From that day he paid everything. My wage covered expenses for 'fun'

I now am. A sahm to our 2 children. His wage goes in a joint account. Everything comes out of there. I contribute nothing. When I go back to work the wage will prob be fun money again. Or into joint account and just use as we need it.

Everything into 1 pot (a shared current account) then automatic standing orders funnel it off into our two pensions, joint savings, etc.

All bills come off that main joint account.

This has been our setup when my partner worked and I didn't, when I worked and they didn't, and now a mix.

It's been consistent, fair, very easy to administer.. simple to keep on top of.

However, this only works when you have roughly the same behaviours when it comes to financial management. I'm pretty sure that if either of us were paired up with big spenders we'd each be called financially abusive rather than sensible or prudent.

It works because we're on the same page - and that's the key thing.

Much more than what works for other people.. ask, do we share the same financial behaviours and vision?

We both work but DH earns 3/5ths of our combined take home salary. We just put it all in one account, move a portion for saving and then we both spend from that acct. We don't ask each other if it's okay to spend on something, we just both keep an eye on the account. If someone wants to spend a lot and it'll make a bigger than usual dent then we will discuss first - eg I need a new work wardrobe and it'll cost a few hundred so I discuss with DH first.

We have a joint account

@LemonRoses I can't believe how facetious you're being.

We are married and have 2 teenagers. We both work full time but he earns around £18k more than me. Both our salaries go into a joint account and all household and individual spends come out of this. We have joint savings too.

Before I was made redundant before having our second child we both paid an amount into a joint account for bills etc and then had our own for individual spends.
We both have a pretty similar spending outlook though which really helps

I'm married and have 1 dc from a previous relationship. The house is mine (although I know we're married). I'm the higher earner, so I pay the mortgage, bills, my dh pays food and hobbies (basically everything else). I'm able to save and put money into pensions, he pays for holidays etc so we have similar 'spends' each month. I buy more clothes etc, he goes to the gym

Everything is shared, regardless of who earns what at the time. We are a family unit and money belongs to us all. Currently DH earns 3 times as much as me but we also shared everything when I was a SAHM and pre-children when he was made redundant and I was the sole earner in a well paid job.

We have a joint account where salaries are paid in and bills come out. Savings account is in my name just because I've had the same account for donkeys years and it's the one we happen to use. We both have ISA's in our names but one is earmarked for us, whereas the other is for the kids in the future and I do all of the admin related to these (not sure if DH actually knows the log in details tbh). We each have a credit card which is paid off each month from the joint account, so we can buy each other gifts etc without the other being able to see what it is.

I'm the only one earning at the moment so my salary goes into the joint account that we each have equal access to. We each have a flat from before we got married and the rental income from each goes into our respective individual accounts, to use as we like, but we'd always help each other out if needed. We are luck to bring in a good income so we can afford to do so without arguing over money.

We have entirely joint money. This wouldn’t change if one us wasn’t working.

We both have successful careers. I wouldn’t say either of us has facilitated the other’s career - most people we know have similar careers and two working parents. It’s quite unusual in our peer group for someone to be at home for years and yet everyone is a high achiever in career terms. I’m not sure what a SAHP would have added to career advancement.

DH and I have always pooled all finances ever since we bought our house. Even if money was in one name we still treat it as joint.

When I was a SAHM for 15 years all savings were put into my name for tax reasons but all income into a joint account. We did discuss purchases in the early days as we didn’t have a lot of money.

These days I earn about one fifth of what DH does but everything is still “ours” and all holidays, days out etc. just come from the joint pot and there is no discussion about the proportions we contribute.

Of course there needs to a lot of trust in the relationship for it to work. Absolutely all our savings are in my name so I could easily clean DH out but he just knows I wouldn’t do that.