Please tell me about your joint accounts

[NameOchangeO1]

My DH and I have been married a long time and have mostly separate finances, with a shared joint account covering mortgage, (most) utilities, childcare, school fees. For various reasons I think it would be better (including that we would potentially be better off) if we pooled our money more.

So I've proposed to DH that we pool the majority of our money each month- eg 90% and that we should agree what costs will be met out of that pool. But I'm wondering how about other people deal with joint accounts where both of you earn a decent amount. Do you pool the lot? If not, how do you decide what you keep separate, and what things do you spend your "own" money on? Women tend to have higher necessary personal expenses (more expensive to get a hair cut, need to buy toiletries etc) than men, so do you factor that in?

Thanks

We set up a joint account when we got married with the intention of using it for bills etc but then never used it. We just kept on using our existing personal accounts. I think one bill gets paid from the joint account. My husband keeps it topped up.

Despite having separate accounts we treat all money as family money and don’t have any formal bill splitting or spending allowance arrangements. It works for us.

Same here. Salaries go into personal accounts but only for historical admin laziness - we share balances in all our joint & personal accounts monthly(ish) to work out how much we’ve saved/spent that month. Savings are in whosever name is most tax efficient, not split evenly or ‘fairly’. We did it this way pre and post kids.

Savings are in whosever name is most tax efficient, not split evenly or ‘fairly’. We did it this way pre and post kids.

It’s the same with us. There’s no need to split it evenly or fairly if it all belongs to you both.

One downside of genuinely pooled money is that birthday/Christmas presents from/to DH are a bit sad as you almost feel like you’re buying yourself the gift.

We have a joint current account and I have two savings accounts (that are ours). All. Ills come out of the CA and unless it's over £50 we spend what we want. We keep an eye on the balance and if getting low we talk about it. I earn much less than my dh.

Us too. We have an account each that birthday/Christmas money gets put into but other than that everything is joint.

We pool everything, one joint account with both wages going in, and all bills and everything coming out.
Neither of us are big spenders, if we had a big purchase to make it would be a joint decision.
It's much easier to work like this, but you do need to both be on the same page with regards to spending habits, and trust each other.

We have 1 joint account and 1 savings account. All money goes in and out of there. We would discuss big purchases/holidays etc but otherwise we trust each other and have common sense. Over the time we have been together one of us has earned more, or not been working at times, but it makes no difference.

but you do need to both be on the same page with regards to spending habits, and trust each other.

I think this is also true if you have separate accounts. Our income is much the same and we are both savers rather than spenders. The latter trait has become a bit of a problem since I retired because I’m not comfortable spending the money I saved to fund my retirement.

We have always had one joint account, shared savings accounts, shared credit card accounts. Even before we were married. Over 35 years we have both had varying levels of salary. I have been a SAHP for many years, so not contributed recently, but had a recent inheritance, and that all went in the joint pot too.

Whereas I would say that in an equal partnership, assuming the money has been earned while in that partnership, it belongs to both of you. As likely the other partner has facilitated the earning of said million. Particularly once you have children.

In a divorce it will all be treated as joint money anyway. Regardless of where it is stored.

Whereas I would say that in an equal partnership, assuming the money has been earned while in that partnership, it belongs to both of you. As likely the other partner has facilitated the earning of said million. Particularly once you have children.

I think that's it. In my scenario, when things got more complex, and I ended up taking responsibility more for our children and home (another area where there needs to be a reallocation...), I've ended up disproportionately bearing costs for things that are not really discretionary. So we either have to adjust who is paying for what, have some sort of regular true up, or pool our funds entirely but either way the whole lot needs to be seen as family money.

I think I was reluctant to pool everything when I first got married because my mother told me I should always have some "running away" money. She knew lots of women who only got housekeeping money and were deliberately kept short so they were dependent on their husbands. My father left my mother at one point and she had to ask him for money because she'd never worked and had no savings of her own. But obviously I am in a much better position having worked for many years, so those worries shouldn't really apply.

All of our wages go into one joint account, this is where all our bills go out of.

Then whatever's left at the end of month after all bills and savings have come out, we just split whatever's leftover 50/50 into our own personal bank accounts.

My partner earns extremely significantly more than me. So pays all bills etc at his house & joint purchases.
I have a child at home still so I buy everything for her. I have my own flat still, so I pay those bills although we both stay there a few days a week for convenience.

He gives me £700 a month top up from which I buy our food & household necessities (not big items)
He pays for all our treats & holidays & is extremely generous . I also have a credit card in his account which he has told me to use at will when necessary (I don't - but feel safe having it)

We don't pool because I don't feel it's fair we got together later in life so it's his money & he likes to treat his adult kids and grandkids generously (which annoys me as they are all extremely well off)

He also still gives his ex wife £1k a month despite being divorced 31 years and his youngest child 34 🤯 I do admire it as he says she enabled him to be such a high earner by doing the hard graft with their kids.

We pool the lot. One account that everything goes into and out of. No issues.

We have a joint account. All bills are paid from there, and we both spend whatever we feel like individually. Savings accounts are in my name, as he is a higher rate taxpayer.

We get expensive personal items, like laptops, tablets and optical equipment for birthdays and Christmas. I tend to spend smaller amounts more often, while he wants expensive items like Zeiss binoculars or a new camera lens occasionally.

Separate accounts, joint current and joint savings. We pay a percentage of our salaries into the joint current each month to cover joint expenses and savings. The joint account gets emptied into the savings each month. Any bonuses we get we keep ourselves. I recently took unpaid maternity leave to extend my paid leave and we paid me a "salary" from our joint savings, I continued to pay my percentage into our joint current account as normal so we didn't feel the pinch of lost earnings.

We earn roughly the same amount, me a bit more, but we would continue to arrange things this way even if we didn't. It feels like the fairest way to arrange things, each paying proportionately to earnings. I don't think I would feel comfortable pooling everything once a month, what if we fell foul of a scam that meant our account was emptied?

what if we fell foul of a scam that meant our account was emptied?

DH is self employed. He’d just take some more from the office account!

I find it bizarre that supposed couples have separate finances except maybe when step-children are involved, but even then I’d find it off-putting at least if my other half would not want to pay towards a step-child.

We’ve always had a joint account, for the first few years in our first house only one of us was working, the other at uni doing a degree. Then later the other of us was the only one working for a while, then maternity leave and much less pay for one of us, and always a large disparity in earnings too - one of us typically earnt double the other.

It’s never been an issue as we are a couple and the bills come first and any savings are joint.

We pool everything. We have a joint account and a joint savings account.

Our salaries are paid into the joint ac and anything we need comes out of there.

Once we got married we just had one account, and share everything. Sometimes he earns more, sometimes I do. Generally he does though, and our house although is both of ours is probably 70% his as he had a house coming into the relationship. We just spend whatever we want, whenever we want and don't ask each other for permission

@LucyWhipple this is exactly what we do too and have ever since we moved in together. Keep things fair when the earnings and balance aren't the same.

We also dip into the joint pot if we run out but discuss etc.

Husband earns a lot more than me. We have only one joint account and everything comes out of that.

When I look at the account, he spends hardly anything at all. I spend most of the money coming out of it.

If either of us wanted anything costing over about 50 quid we would discuss it first and both agree. Other than that we both have free rein to spend as we wish. It just ends up that I always spend more.

We pool everything, we spend what we like, we don’t take the piss.