Simplest fairest way to manage married finances

[BlueRaspberry7]

What's the simplest and fairest way to manage finances as a couple with 2 kids and a mortgage?

DH and I are on the same salary but I only work 4 days a week (from home) while he is F/T.

We're currently don't have an official system or a joint account and divvy things up as we go along, but want to get organised and proactive.

Simple systems and ideas would be much appreciated.

All into one pot, where all household and joint costs come from then transfer your personal spending amount to your own accounts.

Three current accounts, one each and one joint.
All salary and income paid into joint account.
All bills, food, child related expenses, rent/mortgage etc from this account
Then equal amounts to your own accounts for personal and hobby spends
Dont forget to set up savings accounts, and either hold these jointly or have equal amounts in each persons name

You are a family, and all money is both of yours. Your day off probably saves a fortune on cleaners and expensive ready meals.

For us (obviously) we think the way we work is best.

Each paid into our individual accounts.

Direct debits set up into the joint account. And also into our savings account.

Joint then covers mortgage/bills/food/DC clothing/clubs etc etc.

We pay in relative to our incomes.

But DH earns much more than me so is left with more "spare" cash. But then it's him who spends on meals out, holidays, DC birthday presents etc etc.

He's also incredibly generous in ways he needn't be in paying for things for me just to make me smile.

So for us it works fine. And the joint account being a set "budget" means it's very easy to see if we overspend in a month etc.

I pay bills partner does mortgage, both about a grand a month. I’d hate to have a joint account, creeps me out.

We do as above, all bills/direct debits come from the joint account. Salaries transferred from current account into JA on payday, excluding the amount needed for phone bills as these come from current accounts. We have a Monzo account (i have the card and DH has.it.on apple pay) that the money for food etc is transferred into each Friday, and also each Friday we get a set amount transferred from.JA to CAs for personal spending. Savings are DDs from JA. Sounds a bit complicated but it means on a weekly basis we have a cash card to spend on shopping etc and personal 'pocket money', and there's always enough in the JA to cover bills as we never spend out of it IYSWIM.

We just have it all in one account. We run any purchases over a certain amount by each other, but other than that there's no 'rules'.

We have a joint current account everything goes into and a joint savings account we transfer some into. We both just use the joint account. He earns loads more than me.

Shared account, we both have similar frugal spending habits which clearly helps and we both know what's in the account so never go overdrawn... has always worked fine.

We just have a joint account - income goes in there, expenditure comes out.

I also have a current account in my maiden name, which I use for certain things (as I still work in my maiden name).

A question.

Those of you who only have 1 account between you both.

Doesn't it ruin Christmas/Birthday/Valentines etc surprises if you can see the statements?

Pool it, I just can't abide the "you pay X, I pay Y" we still have separate accounts, we still have personal spends (the same amount despite the fact I earn twice my husband, we've always done it this way, even when he was the main earner) but we send all our wages to the joint and then divvy it out where it needs to be.

What we do is:

Joint account for bills (majority of income goes into here, regardless of who earns what. Not used for spending out of.)

Cashback credit card for joint spending: groceries, fuel, household goods, eating out/family activities, kids stuff. (Paid off in full every month from the joint account).

Personal current accounts - fixed amount of spending money each (same amount) to pay for things not ‘joint’ family expenses - solo socialising, clothes/makeup/tech/hobbies etc.

Same as a PP, we each have our own current and savings accounts, along with a joint current and joint savings.

We each pay a set amount into the joint current to cover all general household expenses, whatever is left at the end of the month goes into joint savings for anything unexpected and household related.

Holidays / clothes / random stuff we want comes out of our own spends or savings.

It works fine for us at the moment as we don't have DC and earn almost exactly the same amount. If one of us suddenly earns more or less we'll adjust from 50/50 to a more suitable split.

I've spent over 20 years of adulthood being totally financially independent and no matter how much I love and trust my husband I like having my own savings sitting there should I ever need them. Likewise he has his.

Share everything and have equal amounts of spending money. Not proportional to income as that has been influenced by eg being part time to care for dc. Just an equal split.

@FirstTimeBuyersHelp it doesn't really because we often use PayPal and also I find the purchase descriptions on our statements are not that specific, so don't give that much away when you glance at them. I don't purposely try and look for the purpose of finding out if that makes sense?

All in one pot. Works because we both have the same sort of attitude to money and spending

We have separate current accounts that our salaries are paid into. Some bills come out of one, some out of the other. Money left at the end of the month gets transferred into the joint savings account.

This works for us because we have a similar attitude to money (both careful with money and not big spenders) - I guess it wouldn't work if one person was spending loads on themselves each month and the other wasn't.

No joint account. Spreadsheet that lists all outgoings. Once they are paid, we divide the rest between two. What that goes on is private.

You can decide what's on the spreadsheet. We include a basic amount for phones, so if you want something snazzier, you pay the extra. We include debt, savings, upcoming bdays, days out, kids expenditure etc.

We've only got one bank account. DH never spends any money, so I take on the responsibility of keeping the UK economy going 😁it works because we broadly agree on what is worth spending money on and what isn't. Often I'll buy clothes, try them on and tell him how much they cost and we will agree whether it was good value or not.

We put all into one pot. All bills etc come out of pot. We both take a small amount each for our own personal use too

All into one pot and all expenditure out of said pot apart from gifts which are paid on credit card then paid off as a lump sum.

@FirstTimeBuyersHelp, as mentioned, gifts are bought on our individual credit cards which we pay off with a lump sum each month. PayPal is also good for this.

All income into joint account, all bills paid from joint account. Joint savings account for long term savings.

Separate savings accounts for bonuses, gifts, saving our spending money, hobbies.

This is a bit morbid, but we used to have income going to our own current accounts and then would split the bills. I’d pay some, he’d pay some.

Friends of ours had the same set up. But then she was killed by a drink driver and overnight her husband couldn’t access her account, couldn’t switch the bills she paid to his name. It was a nightmare for him having to send in the death certificate, hours on hold. Just did not need to go through that.

So we switched to joint account for income and paying bills and all bills are in our joint names too. So if the worst were to happen, then at least the other can access all our money and keep paying the bills with a minimum of bureaucratic trauma.

We are paid into our own current accounts and then both transfer equal amounts into a third acct managed by me where all the house expenses / food etc come out of - any surplus is our own to spend / save as we see fit

We have our own separate accounts which the relevant bills come out of and a credit card for all other monthly spends which is cleared in full every pay day. We each have a card for the credit account so can both spend on it. Savings are split equally. Works for us as we run a shared budget recording everything we each spend each month. No need for a joint account.

If the only reason for an income discrepancy is you doing childcare and you have children, I’d expect the same amount of spending money each.