Merging finances - advice and tips needed

[Rupiduti]

Hello all,

For those of you who put all money in to joint accounts and then each take a certain amount out for personal spends, how much per month do you have for personal spends?
And what counts as personal spends?
Say for example it's partner 1's mum's birthday. Does the birthday present come out of personal spend or joint account?

Another scenario example, partner 2 works part time as there is a child. Each week partner 2 meets up with a friend for lunch (with the children) does that meal come out of personal spends or joint.

I realise there's going to be different things that work for different people but just trying to figure out some typical rules people follow.

We are actually really open about money and finances but being a woman I want to protect myself in case anything happens in the long run.

We don't have children yet.

We are both on board with merging finances either by percentage of earnings or altogether and then take out 'spends'

I don't like the idea of nothing being private. Like if I want to buy my partner a present its nice that it's separate from joint!

Also does anyone know of an online calculator that helps work out percentage ?!

me and DH earn different amounts, we pool all but £500 each of our wages. All bills, savings, food shopping, school uniform and house renovations which we are currently working on come out of this pooled money. For personal things like gifts, days out, restaurants we use our personal spends.

Thank you @Sunshinesally78 this is super helpful and roughly along the lines I've been thinking :)

We are both paid into joint account. We used to give ourselves £500 per month personal spends (lovely) and then once we had two kids it went down to £300. And while on mat leave £200 (difficult). Our rules are that all gifts are joint apart from maybe a work colleague or close friend of just one of us. Food.and activities with kids is generally joint e.g. farm entrance or picnic. If it's a restaurant then I spend personal money unless we're both there as I see it as a treat for me, I guess. But I don't think husband would have a problem if it went on joint. My personal money is mainly spent on meals out / evenings out for just me or any clothes I buy. Toiletries all joint but neither of us have extensive taste. I think it works well. If we want to do something and have run out of personal money, then we discuss whether the joint acc can afford it and if so, it gets transfered. Our set up works well but we aren't huge spenders. Combined income of 80k so lucky to earn a decent wage.