Household income

[MolsIH]

Hi ladies
Hubby earns a lot more than me and said he’s not happy with financial set up
He earns £4800 a month and I’m £2200

Currently All money goes into joint account and we take £500 each (equal) as disposable / treat ya self income

i’ve always moved the remainder money around to pay bills, mortgage and savings etc

he came to me today and said he feels controlled and that instead he wants to be paid ‘quote’ ‘HIS’ money into his own bank account and he’ll decide how much goes in for bills.

I’m so upset by this. He earns significantly more than me and it shouldn’t be him vs me. I see it as our money and I’ve been moving / taking care of the bills as he’s always not been interested.

how do others manage their money? X

Only because you asked what others do:

Salaries paid into own personal accounts (DH is self-employed so variable salary, but I’d say I earn more most years).

Each pay an agreed amount into a joint account for joint bills including mortgage, childcare, savings, food etc. We contribute 50/50 to this account.

Remaining money is ours to do as we wish with, including covering personal expenses (each run a car, gym, phone etc).

When we want to make bigger purchases or there are additional costs one month, we have a chat about how to pay for it, mostly it’s 50/50 but not always.

Works for us.

I agree with him. Why do you think you have the right to control his money?

Money should be paid into your own accounts and you should agree on how much you each contribute to the joint account, based on what you both earn.

If earned more than double what my partner earns, I'd be pissed off to be handed £500 of 'pocket money' per month too.

I agree. But I'd also like to add that there's far too much focus on the 'one pot' approach as a magic solution on MN.
Not on the actual issue - budgeting and financial priorities.
There are many, many threads on how despite having a single joint account a woman disagrees with her husband's spending, and vice versa.

The OP's husband's statement as quoted sounds very high-handed but it's unclear what he means. Especially as the OP talks about 'moving money around', and the £500 is considered purely disposable income.

It could be as simple as being unable to spend as he wishes from the joint - as OP has taken a large chunks out for mysterious reasons. Or more sinister, as in he wants to hide his spends/disagrees with her sensible financial decisions.

One thing is clear, the mental load of budgeting etc shouldn't be all on one person. He can't just leave it to her and then complain. And why the sudden interest now..?

Also OP DH and I have personal accounts and pay an agreed amount into the joint. But we discuss savings, big purchases etc in general. I'm more financially savvy, so I made saving and investment decisions (proceeding with his agreement) but we're never in a situation where one of us doesn't know where the money's gone.

DH earns 7x my salary. We each get our salaries paid into separate accounts, and we have separate bills which we’re responsible for. When one of us gets a promotion or financial situations change, we revisit who pays what. I pay for: mortgage, mid-week top-up shop, pets, most of the kids’ stuff (clothes, pocket money, music lessons, school uniform). He pays for: cars (including insurance, road tax, maintenance, fuel), council tax, homeowners insurance, holidays, utilities, house maintenance, big weekly food shop, Christmas/birthdays (except for his gifts—I pay for those), kids’ annual school bus passes. It works for us, but may not work for all couples.

I'm the primary earner and I would also feel controlled if my husband said I could only spend £500 of it when I'm carrying the job with the bigger mental load. Sorry. No way!

Absolutely this! No way would I be handing over all but £500 of my salary to DH to do whatever he wants with.

Do you have children?

We only have one bank account. Wages go in, direct debits go out. Whatever is left before pay day I pay off the credit card (always has a rolling balance on it) or transfer to savings.

DH has an app linked to the online banking so he can see what I am spending (because it's always me!) and tell me fun facts like we spent £2k more in supermarkets the last 6 months than the 6 months before.

They have a big nursery bill, so I would assume so.

We have had a joint account from the moment we starting living together before marriage. It’s the only account either of us have. Both our salaries go in, all our expenditure comes out.

Everything is a joint endeavour. Frankly I can’t imagine doing it any differently - we are married, we have children. But apparently it’s not the modern way.

I can’t imagine the faff of paying out separate bills and moving money around each month.

The vast, vast majority of your expenditure in life will be completely joint - mortgage, gas, electric, council tax, internet, nursery fees, petrol, car stuff, holidays, food, kids clothes, school trips. Just everything really.

I do not understand doing anything other than joint. Either you’re committed to each other or you’re not.

I think non-joint has a bit of faux-independence about it (“I control my
own money” type thing), yet it always seems to be the woman footing the whole nursery bill and buying the kids clothes. Or having to ask “DH” to transfer money. I couldn’t live that
way.

@decionsdecisions62 @Q124 But he isn't handing anything over. It's in the joint - which they both have access to.
We only know that the £500 is 'treat yourself' money but we don't know what it's expected to cover.
And we don't know what other accounts exist

It's 2024 - how is moving money a faff? You set a standing order and the moment you get paid the money moves. Easy. There are many reasons for having other accounts including exchange rates, investments, current account switches, rewards.

And ironically you are commenting on a post where, despite having a joint account (and the personal only for the £500 spend), both parties aren't happy.

I can’t imagine any scenario where it makes sense for a couple to have one single account into which all their money is paid.

Apart from anything else, IT failures and cyber attacks on banks are increasingly prevalent and may mean that you can’t access that account. It’s always a good idea to have funds in a separate account for that reason alone.

All of our money goes in a joint account, the rest in two ISA's. I like a joint account not just for transparency, but because I also can't be arsed with moving stuff about, opening and closing accounts, keeping on top of interest rates and rewards, checking accounts for potentially dodgy transactions, and getting emails from the account providers - I would imagine it would take up too much time and headspace so I'd find it annoying. Like @Wormfanclub says, the vast majority of your outgoings when you're a couple in life will be completely joint anyway.

Just seen your update, tell him if he wants to play it that way then you'll be billing him for your childcare and keeping it. I'm absolutely sick to the back teeth of women doing unpaid labour and men thinking that because they are bringing in more cash they can squirrel it away. Sod that, agree personal spend each and any other surplus goes in to family savings.
Take it from my bitter experience, those high paying jobs can dry up and it's only my frugally saving and lower paid job keeping us afloat at the moment.
Iif in good times he'd kept his surplus and spaffed it away we'd be in a big mess.
You need to build joint wealth if you are to grow as a family. You drop all the mine and yours stuff when you have kids

Each family / couples need to find a way that works for them.

My first partner I didn’t even know what he earned! We lived and bought a house together (at this point I found out) but we both equally 50/50. When we separated it was an easy 50/50.

When I then met my husband I was the higher earner. He had a lot more debt than me but initially we all 50/50. We then moved in and had our first child. All the money went in the same pot - in theory I barely coverd the nursery fee but we saw it as a shared expense. Some 21 years later all the money in the same pot. We have individual savings (equal) & shared savings.

He earned more than me when I was working pt & now I’m back up to FT - he would like to take a step back from a stressful job. Jointly because we put it all together we make these choices together. He’s never once questioned when he was the higher earner the split as he saw it as family money. It works for us doesn’t mean that would work for all though.

@MolsIH Id tell your husband it’s a great idea. And since you are so upset that he feels you are controlling , he can take over the job of managing all the bills as well. Then you can both pay into the joint account whatever you feel like each month.

Then make sure that you amount you pay in is less than now, put the extra into your pension and take up some new hobbies.

it’s a win win - you have more fun money, more savings, more time and less stress.

You earn less money cause you work part time and look after "his" kids. If he wants it that way then he needs to pay you a childcare fee which will bump your income up.

He's being ridiculous and i would refuse to change the situation, if he doesn't like it he can leave you and pay for childcare when he has the kids and you can go back full time.

We have the same set up as you although i earn twice the amount my husband does, I look after all things financial. We're married, we have a family, everything we earn is "our" money and has been that way for the last 20 years.

This is what I was thinking. Because what OP is doing is actually taking some admin tasks off his hands. If he feels this leaves with him no visibility or control of finances, perhaps he can have a go at being the one who pays the bills and moves some money into savings.

Whatever amount he takes for personal money though, should still be equal to what Op gets or she’s effectively being penalised for saving the family childcare money by working part time. Plus IMO even if no kids it’s weird for a married couple to have different amounts personal money and not something I’d entertain if I was married !

So if he decides he should now get say £700 a month, OP should get that too.

Maybe it’s a realisation that’s crept up over time and not a sudden interest now.

I don’t think there’s anything sinister about wanting to spend money on things your partner doesn’t know about. I’m not married so I’m not qualified to answer my own question but does marrying someone mean you must account to them for every penny you spend? It’s a genuine question as I see so many people comment that it’s normal for both parties to put all their income into a pot so there’s 100% visibility on both sides as to where the money is going. I think I’d find that a bit claustrophobic.

I agree that the DH should share the mental load of budgeting, sorting bills etc. That should always be a joint job even if one person is naturally better at it than the other. I have friends who leave everything finance related to their husbands and do not know basic stuff such as who their mortgage is with or the current interest rate..

I'd be wanting to know what has prompted him to want things done differently for a start.

Personally I wouldn't be in a relationship, especially where you have kids together, where money isn't shared regardless of who is earning more, who is part time looking after the kids etc.

I earn a lot more than DH, but even when we both had similar earnings and no kids/no mortgage we kept our money separate.

We both get paid salary into our own current accounts. Both have standing order to send cash to our joint account to cover mortgage, utility bills, food and as I now earn more, our % that we put in is more proportionate, with me adding about 30% more than he does each month. I also cover other costs myself, such as the whole childcare bill for both kids, holidays, savings for the family etc.

We feel this leaves us both with proportionate amounts of disposable income and we can spend it purely as we wish, with no worry that we've taken more out one month or feeling we have to justify anything we spent on. I don't have access to his current account so I've no idea what he spends his disposable on, and provided he pays into the house joint account, I don't care.

Neither of us felt comfortable with being paid directly into one joint account.

My opinion isn’t popular here, but I think if you are married all money is joint money

My DP was severely financially abused by his ex. He was paying his salary into a joint account for her use, whilst she transferred a small proportion of his salary to him. At times when she was annoyed with him she’d transfer money into her own account as ‘compensation’ (which he wasn’t aware of until later). This continued for over 5 years after they split.

For this reason, I’ve always insisted we have separate accounts. He’s not interested in admin or bills, so we’ve agreed how things will be split (he earns a lot more than me) and I keep a list of our outgoings and he pays me his portion once a month.

This works for us but everyone is different.