Joint finances? Wwyd

cornflourblue · 22/04/2025 21:53

We do the same as you currently, works for us. We always have equal personal spending money each month, adjusted to our personal income over the years.

Intranslation · 22/04/2025 21:55

Joint account, if you end up working part time or taking a salary cut you will regret not have full access to a joint pot

IReallyLoveItHere · 22/04/2025 21:57

We just have 'money', most in joint accounts some in personal for no real reason, but neither of us is inclined to spend on frivolous items, there's sufficient surplus and we have similar attitudes to money.

I earn a little more, at one time earned a lot more, and then had several years earning nothing with DC - none of that changed it.

If we were the type to judge each others spending or struggle to keep it in check I think we'd have personal accounts with the same amount of discretionary spending.

I don't know how you'd make it work if you had very different attitudes, if say I spent all my monthly 'allowance' and he saved his. His 'savings' would just revert to family money, I guess that's fine as long as there is no tention or judgement.

ForLovingAquaSheep · 22/04/2025 21:59

We always have had separate accounts with a joint one for bills.

If he wants to waste money on an expensive car or lads weekend away he can. Likewise me spending on my interests, he isn't paying for it.

There's no resentment on 'wasted' spends

confusedlots · 23/04/2025 00:04

We have our own personal accounts which our salaries go in to, and then we both have a monthly standing order to the joint account, he puts in more than me as he earns more. Mortgage, bills, grocery shopping, days out etc all comes out of the joint account. Personal things like haircuts or meals out with friends etc comes out of individual personal accounts.

Superscientist · 23/04/2025 10:30

We have personal accounts and a joint account but we live from our joint account so it doesn't just cover bills but everything we need to pay for family life over the year - we have a spreadsheet! Our personal accounts are for savings, buying presents our own family members or ourselves and some clothing. I often do orders with something for everyone which come out of the joint account but if I'm buying nice underwear or pretty dresses that comes from my own account for example.
We scale what we put into the joint account according to income. I was on slightly less so the split was 55:45 but I'm now unemployed after going through redundancy so my partner is currently solely paying into the joint account.

Sofiewoo · 23/04/2025 10:34

Everything joint except about £300-500 depending on the month which we keep in our own account as frivolous spending. We keep this separate mostly for budgeting reasons as I run out joint account to a tight bottom line and transfer out savings first so there isn’t a surplus in it. This means if either one of us spaff money on something stupid it doesn’t affect the budget.
Mortgage, bills, kids stuff, days out, kids activities, holidays, gifts all come out of the joint, our personal account is like lunch at work, drinks with friends individually and little bits and bobs.

SamDeanCas · 23/04/2025 10:35

cbbo · 22/04/2025 21:49

Curious to hear how married couples handle their finances, and why.
me and my husband always have personal accounts each and then we have a joint account for rent and bills only, this stayed the same when we married.
im now leaning more towards combining the finances completely and both just living out of the same account.
we’re planning on buying a house soon and we have a child, so each having separate money doesn’t seem logical any more.
our incomes are relatively equal if that makes any difference.

We do this, a joint account for bills and the rest we keep in separate accounts. We earn similar so the disparity in disposable income is low, which I think is fair. If one party owned a lot less we’d ensure that we had similar ‘spends’

we did discuss joint accounts for everything, but decided to just do this when we retired as we both like not having to feel we have to justify spending.

Wigtopia · 23/04/2025 10:39

confusedlots · 23/04/2025 00:04

We have our own personal accounts which our salaries go in to, and then we both have a monthly standing order to the joint account, he puts in more than me as he earns more. Mortgage, bills, grocery shopping, days out etc all comes out of the joint account. Personal things like haircuts or meals out with friends etc comes out of individual personal accounts.

Exactly how we work it too. 🙂

Yellowtracktor · 23/04/2025 12:45

We have everything in one pot, with equal access. I just find it easier that way. Neither of us are huge spenders and aren't going to care if one of us spends more than the other on frivolities from month to month.

Psychologymam · 23/04/2025 12:57

Before we got married we had joint where we each put in our salaries and just kept the same amount back for personal (higher earner put in more)… after marriage and kids everything is joint, much easier. But we are both responsible and have similar financial outlooks.

LightCameraBitchSmile · 23/04/2025 14:24

How do you currently cover stuff for the child? I think we separate finances like yours the default parent often bears the brunt of the costs too

Original poster

cbbo · 23/04/2025 18:15

LightCameraBitchSmile · 23/04/2025 14:24

How do you currently cover stuff for the child? I think we separate finances like yours the default parent often bears the brunt of the costs too

cutrently I pay childcare costs and he pays me back. And throughout the month with food shops we always tend to ‘owe each other money’ to keep it all equal. But this just seems silly and I’m thinking maybe we need a bigger pot in the joint account

OP posts:

Coconutter24 · 23/04/2025 18:19

We don’t have a joint account we just have personal accounts. He pays all mortgage and bills, I pay food shop and put a lump sum into savings each month to save for holidays etc

GettingMySpringOn · 23/04/2025 18:34

Everything in joint. Spend as we wish. However dh never spends money well maybe £20 a month.
Even when I was a sahm it was the same. When I was pt and ft.

Superscientist · 23/04/2025 19:51

cbbo · 23/04/2025 18:15

cutrently I pay childcare costs and he pays me back. And throughout the month with food shops we always tend to ‘owe each other money’ to keep it all equal. But this just seems silly and I’m thinking maybe we need a bigger pot in the joint account

Show quote history

I think a good stating point would be to work out your costs for a month and set all childcare costs and all regularly monthly costs like food shops etc to come out of the joint account.

We have spreadsheet with absolutely everything in - household, commuting, entertainment - including things like Spotify and Amazon prime, swimming lessons, annual costs such as TV licence and car insurances and so on. We make sure that what we pay into the joint account covers all of that plus a little surplus for days out and weekends away. You don't have to take it that far but it seems at the moment you are in the worst of both camps, not getting the ease of joint finances but not the autonomy of dealing with things separately as you are constantly juggling who's paid what. If you want to keep separate you still need to go through the monthly outlays and decide which costs each is responsible in a fair manner.

Spankmeonthebottomwithawomansweekly · 23/04/2025 20:13

We chuck it all in one pot and spend as we see fit. We both save into pensions. Neither of us are spenders. We wouldn’t go out and buy gadgets or something big without consultation, but we don’t monitor each other as there isn’t a need.

Pigeonqueen · 23/04/2025 20:19

We have three joint accounts which we can both see when we log in online, we use one as our main household one which all bills / outgoings come out of and dhs wages and our disability benefits go into, and we leave a bit extra in there to cover stuff for the kids, days out etc. The other two accounts we use one each as a personal account and we transfer an equal and set amount of spending money to each of these to spend or save as we wish for personal things (clothes, hair cuts, etc). I don’t work (disabled) and dh works full time. We have two older dc, one is disabled. Fairly average income (around £55k). We like having all the accounts as joint even though actually we use two of them as personal accounts so we can transfer money between them all easily and see them all. (With Halifax).

FuckoffeeBeforeCoffee · 23/04/2025 20:20

Joint account where we both put £1000 a month in.

Everything else we earn goes in personal accounts.

NuffSaidSam · 23/04/2025 20:22

Everything into the joint account.

All bills and family stuff (food, furniture, holidays, clothes etc) comes out of this pot.

A percentage goes into joint savings.

Whatever is left over is split in two and you can each put that into your own accounts and this is yours to do what you want with.

Yuja · 23/04/2025 20:23

One account which we both spend from and all bills come out of. Works fine - if one of us plans to spend more than we usually would on something we would mention it first

Elpheba · 23/04/2025 20:29

Joint account which all income gets paid into- salaries, child benefit etc and we mostly spend from that. We both have personal accounts still but hardly use them now. We started out with personal and then paying a set amount into joint. Then when I stopped working for a bit when we had kids we changed to paying everything into joint and moving out a set “spends” fun for each of us into personal account- think that helped me not feel bad for spending money on frivolous things for me when I wasn’t working. But that’s evolved again now to just using the joint for everything. The only time we properly put money into our personal accounts is if we’re given money for our birthday by parents or relatives. DH gets lots more than me but I spend much more the whole rest of the time so feels fair 😂 agree this would be hard if we weren’t on the same page with spending habits.