Joint bank account or not.

[Mamana127]

Hi could I please ask what other people do? I know every household is different, but what do majority of people do in times of money management in marriages. Im on a fact finding mission.
I recently married not too recent coming up to two years. But we lived together as partners for years.
Before marriage we both had separate accounts which we have maintained,
I work full time and earn OK my DH earns more than me.
We split everything in the middle. We have 1 kid together and two stepchildren each.
So my question is shouldn’t we have one joint account where all wages go? At the moment my DH wants us to open a joint account where we both deposit money for “running our lives” we both deposit the same amount.
I don’t know what he spends the rest of his money on and he is not interested in knowing what I spend my money on, however He forever says he is worried about money and is waiting for payday and I don’t understand why because he earns into six figures.
should I insist on a joint account rather than a bills account or it’s quite normal for people to live like we do?

Sorry, DH earns more than you but you pay 50% ?
Who does all the housework/washing/shopping?
Im not surprised if he doesn’t want a joint account, he’s onto a good thing there

Why are you paying 50/50 when he earns more than you?
for us, everything goes in one pot and out of the same
no splitting stuff - family money is family money

Joint account for us, it's all "our" money. This has been the case when I have earned more than DH and when I have earned less. Not sure it's right for you from what you describe. He needs to contribute a fair share either way, proportionate to his earnings.

Most friends and colleagues (and myself) have separate bank accounts,mainly because most of us are self employed.
DP and I don’t have a joint account at all (I bought the house before we met). But alot of people have a joint account do cover the bills/mortgage but get paid into their personal accounts.

I agree that your DP should contribute a higher percentage as he earns more.

OP - if you own your home, do you have it as tenants in common, so that you both own 50%, rather than you jointly owning 100%?
And have you had a will written in favour of your children?

I'd be wanting a full and open financial discussion before opening any joint accounts. Either set up you've suggested is fine and people do both for many reasons - but you have been separate for this long why does he want to change now especially if he never has any money.... my suspicions are raised....

All goes in 1 account although I do pay a small amount into my sole account monthly. We jokingly call it my running away account 😆. If he earns more surely he should pay more towards bills?

I would not agree to pay 50/50 when one is earning more. That's unfair. Of course he wants to keep finances separate or put same amount on joint account as that way he keeps more money.

We've been married for years and just have a joint bills account that we pay into in proportion to our incomes. Everything else is separate although we do discuss use of savings for big things eg should I use my ISA for a house deposit, should he use his inheritance for an extension. But we have similar attitudes to money and trust each other not to do anything silly.

All earnings into a central pot; we each get equal pocket money from that pot regardless of who earns more at the moment but the central pot pays all but the most personal expenses like clothes and separate evenings out.

I was financially controlled in my first marriage, this was a dealbreaker for me (and when we set it up I earned way above what DH earned).

We got married a long time ago and having joint bank accounts was definitely more common then. We discussed finances and set a flexible household budget. I was definitely more of a spender than saver (he was the other way round). Over the years the process of budgeting and talking about money has served us well.

My DH is the bigger earner and he contributed more. Over the years our spending habits have grown together, he spends more and I spend less. Communication is key, I am always surprised by family members or friends who have no idea about their household finances.

Both our wages go into our joint account and everything is paid from there.
The only thing is do differently is pay ourselves in to a separate own account for gifts and treats , say a few hundred pounds a month.
I've always worked but DH has always earned more than me but has never been an issue.

How much more does he earn than you? Seems odd to me to split 50:50 if there’s an earning disparity.

My DH earns far more than I do. We work out our finances on the basis of both having the same “spending money”. Other than that the rest is joint. Any money available for spending goes in to a joint account (bills, food, etc), then savings are held in our own names but earmarked as joint.

Me and DH have a joint account, and we have our own separate account.

Both of our wages get paid automatically into our joint account.

I then transfer £400 into my personal account as my monthly ‘me’ money to spend as I wish, and he transfers £400 into his account too for the same reason. Any bills that are related to the house, cars, holidays, shopping children etc come out of our joint account.

We have always done it like this since we got married 14 years ago or regardless of who earned what. For example, at this current time my husband earns over 6 times more than me and we still have the above arrangement. He would never think he deserves more ‘me’ money because he earns more than I do.

As others have said, we see our money as our family income that we jointly earn, not something to judge in terms of what we individually contribute.

I’m normally in favour of paying bills proportionate to net income although with DSC there needs to be a caveat that your “share” is adjusted for when the children are with you.

So if your 2 DC live with you and see their dad EOW and his 2 DC live with their mum and see him EOW, you would need to pay more to cover the additional costs of having your children more of the time.

My husband earns a lot more than me, almost double, we only have a joint bank account and joint savings. All money is paid into the joint account and all bills and spends comes out. We both have similar spending habits but I do spend more on nails and hair 😁 I can honestly say after 13 years of marriage and one child we have never argued about money. When I was on maternity it wasnt an issue as all money is joint, it's much easier when it's all joint.

When we first married we always earned more or less the same within 10% say. We both have wages paid into our own accounts then pay an agreed amount into the joint account for house expenses, the same for both of us. This worked well for use because the difference in salaries was so small

Once I was approaching the unpaid part of maternity leave I did have to say that I needed him to increase his share as I wouldn’t be able to cover it. This seemed to be something he hadn’t thought about at all. I hadn’t thought to ask him to up his share when I was on half pay 🤷‍♀️

I think if there is a big disparity then you should either contribute proportionally to earnings or it all goes into one account.

Why do you pay 50/50 if he earns more than you.

we personally get paid into the same joint account and every bill comes from that. We then send a same amount to each of our own personal accounts to spend as pocket money as we wish and what ever is left over at the end of the month goes into joint savings.

if you want to keep things separate you should 100% change the % you are both paying. It’s not fair to do an even split if your partner earns more than you.

My DH now earns 3.5x what I do. We both work FT. No DC. When we married I owned a flat in London so had a lot more assets. We had some tough conversations pre-marriage about how we would share and manage money. We have always paid all earnings into the joint account, had a monthly and longer-term budget (flexible), and we give ourselves an agreed allowance each month. I spend all mine, he often saves some of his. He manages the spreadsheets a bit more enthusiastically than me but we go through ‘the finances’ monthly and make all decisions jointly. We have done this whatever the state of our finances and earnings.

For me the key was those difficult conversations. My DPs did everything jointly so that was my benchmark but despite that, I had a lot of assumptions and worries that needed to be discussed. Money is one of the most important things in marriage IME, in the sense that it’s incredibly important to talk about it, but not to drag it into other areas of the relationship. Keep it in its place!

Only you can know whether you’re getting a raw deal (I suspect you may be) but you need to be able to air your concerns. There is no ‘right’ way of managing your finances except that you need to trust each other and communicate.

We have a similar arrangement. For years we each put 50 50 into our bills joint account. He earned more than me but I could comfortably afford my share and was fine with it. Recently my income has gone right down and now I pay half what he pays.
However, although we each have separate personal money we are open about what’s going on. If he complained about being short I’d want to know why.

We’ve always had joint everything. That’s the idea of marriage isn’t it ?

there will be times when earnings go up and down for various reasons (like maternity leave, career change, redundancy) and you re a team. We always discuss large purchases and do the budgeting and planning together but I manage the day to day details.

we are now approaching retirement. DH has little in way of pensions, but I have a few and our plan has always be that the pensions re ours too. Works well.

Our situation is different to yours in that it is a first marriage and both DC are joint.

We have a joint bank account which DH's salary goes in to. My salary goes into a different account but that is historical because it is the bank I used to work for. My salary then diverts into the joint account.

It was set up like this when I was a SAHM. All money was 'ours'.

My DM remarried when I was 13 and she and my DStepF have always had separate finances because she didn't think it was his responsibility to pay for me. He has been very generous over the years but that was his choice.

I think the bank account is a red herring here, he needs to learn money management. You need to sit down together and make a spreadsheet sheet of income, fixed outgoings including saving each month and then budget for variable outgoings (food, clothes, fun expenses). He needs to be honest with you too. I suspect he's spending high on incidentals and this exercise will help him identify how.

You could then decide to put x into a joint account each month with him keeping his general expenses back or just the bills, but do a spreadsheet first

We pay 50/50 of all regular bills and we have a joint account into which we both pay 350 a month to cover food and spontaneous outgoings. Somehow 700 a month though never seems to be enough.

We are on similar salaries though. You should be paying it proportionally so work this out together and do that. He is onto a winner if you are paying more also make sure the workload is equal. Unequal home workload (including emotional labour) takes its toll on marriages and happiness.

We have joint account but wages paid into our separate accounts. We each keep an equal amount of discretionary spending money, and transfer the rest to the joint account by standing order each month. All household spending gets paid out of the joint account.