Joint money pot advice

[Financialsense]

How does everyone go about organising their joint household money pot? DP and I currently get paid into separate accounts then transfer the same amount of money to a bills account for the mortgage and all bills then I just tend to do the food shop and he will pay for fuel and any vehicle costs.
I’m wondering whether there might be a better way to organise ourselves so that we can make savings and be more financially aware. Can people give me a breakdown of what works for them?

We both pay the same amount into a joint account every month. That money is used for everything for the house, including food and petrol for the car, car insurance, home insurance, etc.

The money we have over that amount is in our sole accounts and is for us to use (spend and save) as we wish.

However, this has only worked for us because we've both always earned pretty much the same amounts. If one of us earned significantly more/less than the other, then the amount we pay into the joint account would have to be altered accordingly, to make it fair.

All money into one, joint, bank account.
Equal amount of money diverted into a savings account for each of us the day after pay day (by chance we get paid the same day - DH earns much more).
All bills come out of joint account.
All spending onto joint credit card.
Pay off cc in full each month. Money shifted out of savings to do this if required.
We are VERY fortunate that every penny doesn't need to be accounted for. I don't think this would work if we had lower income/higher expenses.

Salary gets paid into our personal accounts.

Add up all joint bills, add money on top to cover food and a surplus for other stuff (days out, annual insurances etc).

Calculate out net income as a percentage of total household income. Use same percentages to work out how much we put in for joint bills.

Any money left over remains in our personal accounts.

We have a credit card we both have cards to which is used for extra spends and is paid off from the joint account (like food). If we have bigger purchases we tend to go 50:50.

All of our money bar £300 each a month goes into the joint account. All family/joint costs come out of there. Any individual costs like clothes, hairdressers, socialising with friends solo etc comes out of our own £300.

All salaries go into one account, from there x amount goes into a bills account, x amount goes into a separate bank account for our personal spending money. Includes fuel, coffees, clothes etc. Everything else one from the main joint account. Also money goes for there into savings

All money into joint account. All bills out of this one account. No separate accounts for either of us. Both on the same page with money. If either of us want to spend more than about 50 quid on something, we would discuss it first. Both of us have same ideas on money and we are both savers at heart.

We both have our own accounts. Both pay the same amount into a joint bills account. We also have a separate joint account for food shopping and fuel, so that we can leave the money in the bills account alone so we don't accidentally spend too much of it.

There must be thousands of similar posts on here if you search but the half the house bills and costs including grocery budget (but not alcohol) and put into a separate account , what we have left we can spend on whatever we choose to or save it

All money paid into joint account. We both have Monzo cards so we transfer our spending into that after

You should be paying relevant to your pay, not just 50%, unless you earn the same.

One pot here. all money goes into one account. Bills come out via DD and then we just spend from that account as normal. Anything major we tell each other to make sure budget allows

We get paid into separate accounts and pay out the regular monthly bills from those accounts. We pay roughly half each. We then pay an amount each into a joint account that is then used for all day to day spending for the household so groceries, but also DDs' clothes, petrol etc. We are fortunate that we can transfer more than enough into this account so it builds up over the months and can be used to pay for things like Christmas presents.
This is all calculated so that after bills are paid and the set amount transferred into the joint account (and an amount into savings) we are left with the same amount in each of our personal accounts to have as our money that we know we can spend without it affecting the household budget.
Whenever a regular income or outgoing changes, we update our spreadsheet and recalculate how much money goes where. Eg I am currently on mat leave and from next month will just be getting SMP - this will reduce the amount I put in to the joint account (so DH's contribution will increase), and both of us will have less personal spending money until I go back to work.

Written down this seems complicated but once set up it works fine and means either of us can save or spend our personal money without worrying about the household bills and groceries etc being paid for. It also means we have all our set monthly outgoings tracked on a spreadsheet and we know where our money is going.

I should add - DH gets paid more than me, but we still work it so that we end up with the same personal money each month.

Thank you for replying everyone, some great ideas here for me to work with. Both DP and myself are big savers but I can tend to have a habit of frittering away small amounts on needless things so trying to figure out ways to make myself more accountable.

Strongly disagree with this , I was financially independent before I got married and forged a career that pays more despite living with two chronic illnesses and a stroke recently - it’s a fair arrangement if both parties agree but I don’t and it’s not always the woman who earns less

What do you do about savings? And do you both end up with equal disposable incomes once you have paid into the joint account?

Everything paid into joint account. All bills and savings paid from there. All children's expenses paid from there. All joint expenses and health care paid from there. £200 per month paid to our personal accounts. This is for clothing, socialising without the other and presents for the other.

Everything into a single (joint) account and all bills paid out of that.

Savings are split up equally:- Two Premium Bond accounts with similar amount in each, same goes for ISA's and even shares are split into two holdings (helps with CGT). My private pension comes out of the central pot.

It is an equal partnership after all.

All our bank accounts are joint except for one each which we put an allowance into each month. Household bills all out of one of the joint accounts.

All money in one account and all bills and spending from same account. It's worked for us for 19 years.

We have DC together and for a number of years I was part time and DH eared way more than me. I now earn more than him, but it doesn't matter. All household money is family money. Maybe I'm lucky, we have similar spending habits, and my DH never really says much about what I spend.

We have a joint account. Any savings are in both names. Money totally shared. We're married, why not?

We get paid in our own accounts then we add the same amount into the joint account. We pay the following bills from the joint:
Service charge
Council tax
Internet
Electric
Streaming service
Water

Then we also use the joint for the following variable expenses:
Food shop
Dog food/ vets etc
Petrol
Household stuff (light bulbs, cleaning products etc)

Then we have a saving pot in our joint where we each save a set amount for annual bills:
Tv license
Home insurance
Car insurance
Mot
Pet insurance.

I monitor it just because I came up with the system. I have a spreadsheet 🙃 because that's how fun I am.

It was a bit of trial and error at the start with amount but it works well. Fully expect we will have to raise the amount we contribute over the winter months.

When we have some money left, we use it to do something nice. Eg if we have £30 left we get a take away, if we have £50 left we have a meal out. So it's a good incentive to come in under budget!

Also worth noting we aren't married. If we were we'd just have the one account.

Why?

He doesn't earn less because he is looking after kids or doing more around the house. We don't have kids! And we do 50/50 around the house. Him earning 1/3 of what I do isn't my problem. If he wanted to change job, start a business or do some training he'd have my full support but he doesn't want to so he earns less 🤷‍♀️

Everything goes into joint account and we each have the same amount transferred out to our own individual account each month. We tend to put all joint things onto a credit card which we pay off out of joint account each money, this includes things like household items, food, petrol and obviously all other joint things come out of our bank account.

We weren't married initially and DH moved into a flat I owned. Over the years he earned a lot more than me and has received inheritance. Sometime in the near future I could potentially inherit quite a lump sum - if this happens I'd like to buy a much better property which will be jointly owned. It's always worked, never had an argument. We know we can trust eachother though and are fairly good at letting eachother know we've spent say £100 on something.