Joint bank account for bills?

[KadieK]

How do you split bills when married?
Or pay bill and mortgage?
Do people prefer a joint account that all bills come from or keep seperate?

Trying to be able to keep better track of everything.
My DH pays mortgage out his account as he was the only one on it but now we are both on the mortgage and remortgaged to do some home improvement and I said I'd pay the extra. Is it better to do standing order to his bank or get a joint account?

Well there’s a million threads on this which if you search will show you that everyone has a range of different options. Personally we share a single joint account and everything comes out of that. So much easier. But on MN many people hate the idea of not having your own account, so often have a joint one for bills and individual ones each.

We have 2 joint accounts, the main one where all our money goes. All bills, kids clothes & activities etc go out of this one. We also have a grocery account for food & petrol. We each have a set amount of spending money that goes into our personal accounts. Any spare goes into our savings accounts & we have some joint & some separate ones. Works for us especially as I'm only part time & have a much lower salary than OH.

Depends - originally we had joint and separate and we both kept a certain amount for ourselves and put everything above that in - so higher earner contributing more. Then kids came along and just was easier to have one joint acc- everything goes in and out of it. One person earns way more but consider everything our money and have similar financial goals.

So both wages get paid into a joint account?

And all bills come out that account?

All one pot here.
Everything in, and all bills and spends paid from it.

if that’s for me - yes both wages go in and everything goes out of it. I work very very part time though with small kids and husband earns significantly more.

We have one joint account where we each put money into and bills come out of, and our own personal bank accounts. It works for us but we know that we need to discuss when situations change - ie one of us has a pay rise etc.

We have one joint account that my wage goes into and all the monthly bills come out off, with the remainder going to joint savings at the end of the month.
Then a second joint account that DHs wage goes into (he gets paid weekly), which we use for food, petrol, random spending etc and top up pots each week for holidays, Christmas, anything particular we are saving for.
We then each have our own account that we have a standing order each week from DHs wage that is our personal spends, relatively small amount but can be saved or used to buy gifts for each other so we can’t see that spend coming from the joint or what ever really.

We both get salaries paid into joint account and all bills are paid from that account.

We have one joint account and both wages come into there and all bills come out!

Oh and when I earnt a lot less so my wage didn’t cover all the bills, DH would have a standing order each week to top up the bills account.

Joint account for mortgage and bills, we pay proportionately into from our salaries. We each have equal spending money of our own. Plus joint savings.

Worked for us for 20 years, the amount we've individually paid in has varied according to salaries, time as a SAHM etc. But always equal amount to spend on ourselves.

That’s how we do it.

Each have own accounts and pay in 50:50 to cover joint bills into a joint account here.
So if household costs are £6k/mth, both put in £3k/mth each.
If more required, both put in. If a surplus has built up, we spend it on holidays.
Personal spends / savings are at own discretion from sole accounts, we’re not even sure what each other earns.
Not married though and never plan to, suits us both.
But the set up raises eyebrows amongst the traditional types. 😆😆

I think this is the perfect example of not one plan suiting everyone - your way sounds ideal for your situation and we do it the more traditional way but we have kids and are married so it is completely different scenario! It’s unlikely that one method will suit all people and all situations so the idea that there’s one correct way seems unlikely!

We do this too, although we pay into the joint account in proportion to salary (which happens to be 50/50 at the moment). We are married and have a child. We've done it this way since we moved in together. It works well for us.