Can only marred couples answer please.

[Richesme]

After my last posts about my husband wanting to go halves in paying bills rent etc when I start working full time, I’ve sat down with him and even though we had a disagreement about going halves, he eventually said, you can keep all your money to yourself and do your own spendings or savings from there.

He doesn’t believe that couples either put all their money in one pot or go halves in proportionate to their wages. His works in the bank therefore tells me that he has many customers come in to open joint accounts and they go halves.

I want to find out as married couples, how do you guys manage your money, bills, rent, mortgage, spendings, savings and investments?

We get paid into our own accounts and money for bills, mortgage, food shop etc goes into a joint account. We pay equally into there, although I earn significantly more. I then pay for the expensive things like family holidays etc. We have joint and individual savings.

Oh OP, I’ve seen your other threads now and kind of wish I hadn’t answered. Because what the rest of us do isn’t the problem. The issue is that you and your husband don’t agree and from what you’ve said it seems as though if you work you will be worse off as you’ll need to start paying for half of everything?

Do you want your marriage to work. I’m not sure I would if my husband had your husbands attitude. There doesn’t seem to be a team approach coming from him.

We have individual current accounts and a joint current and savings account, wages go into our individual and we transfer money to the joint accounts for bills and savings.
everything is one pot though, we worked out how much our joint monthly expenditure was and what we had left over, the left over is split between us in our individual accounts and it’s up to us if we want to save or spend that. We’ve got individual accounts so we can buy things without the other knowing - like Christmas/birthday gifts as it ruined the surprise if we saw the transaction on the joint account.

We have always had separate finances, we both pay an amount into our offset account for the mortgage each month, proportionate to our earnings.
I pay some bills and DH pays others, again proportionate to our earnings.

I see no reason to have all money going into one account, we are both capable of managing our own finances!

We go halves on everything but he pays the rent

It was proportionate to income.

All our money is 100% joint - one pot. Logistically, we have a mix of accounts/ credit cards / savings, some named jointly, some in my name, some in his name. Each month, we do a check of how much money in each and whether anything needs moving around (e.g., whether an account with a credit card direct debit needs more in it). I can't imagine having to fanny about with who's paying for this, blah blah. We're a married team, and it's that simple for us.

Our money is all joint money. All our income goes into the same joint current account and bills and other expenses all come out of that. We do have savings accounts in our individual names, as accounts such as ISAs and premium bonds are only allowed in one person's name, but we both consider them all joint finances. We have no money that we consider ringfenced for one person only.

I would add this works for us as we both have similar attitudes to spending and saving, but if there was a spendthrift and a saver within a relationship I could see that there may be a conflict.

For me, the actual logistics of how you do it aren’t really important - what is important is the understanding that it’s all ‘ours’.

Like a lot of couples we also have our own accounts which we pay a set monthly allowance into and we can spend that how we like and of course that spending is directly from our own account

Another with totally shared finances here. The subject has come up a few times with other couples as my DBIL is in a financially abusive relationship - his DW insists he covers all household expenses and that he also spends his “spare” money on things she wants to do (think expensive concerts and trips he has no interest in). He covers all the costs of these, which leaves him without money for basics, which she then may or may not “lend” him money for.

Since we have mentioned this to other couples we know, all have expressed shock and told us that they share finances and don’t consider any money in terms of “mine and yours”.

We don't have a joint account and never intend to. No reason for us to.

He pays some bills, I pay others. He's a higher earner so pays proportionally higher outgoings than me. Any ad-hoc spending is just paid as and when by either of us.

Never ever been an issue for us.

Everything in one pot and shared. I have mostly been the higher earner.

One pot here. I haven’t done paid work for a long time, various reasons. Husband’s earnings cover everything and he pays a monthly amount into a separate account for me (though he’s retiring now so we’ll just use the one account, probably).

100% all in one pot.
No concept of yours and mine.
It's all ours.

Significantly in my favour though as he earns much, much more than me.😅

Why don’t they just have a set equal personal allowance, which would then guarantee him equal spending money? If he’s not happy sharing his finances then why are they married?

Been married over 40 years. Always had a joint account from day one. All wages into that account and all expenses, including personal spending money came from that single account. There were times when both of us worked, periods of maternity leave, and a few years where I was at home looking after the children, then returning to work once they were in primary school. It’s always worked for us, complete trust, but you do need to be on the same page with finances. If one of you is a spender and one a saver it can easily go wrong.

We do things in a weird way that works for us but might not work for anybody else. I am self employed so have irregular income but i'm a good saver. DH has a regular employed job and earns more than me but the money burns a bit of a hole in his pocket. So... his salary pays the big 'non negotiable' bills like mortgage and utility DDs and mine pays for all the stuff that's a bit more flexible like treats, holidays, entertainment, meals out. I also pay for some of DCs clubs/activities and he pays for others.
It's not particularly transparent and I wouldn't advise it as the 'right way' but it shows that with communication and trust any weird approach can work. We've been doing it like this for around fifteen years...

Everything in one pot. Regardless of what anyone earns, even before kids. We are a team. One earns less money because they do most housework/childcare.

Joint pot for everything and the same spending money

earliest days it was a shared pot for bills that we paid in proportion - so I paid twice what DH did at the time

money is one of be things that if you can’t agree on tends to end marriages

One main account - all wages. Mortgage is both names. All bills/food/childcare from main account. Both have individual accounts still but mainly use the joint account. We do not question each other on what we spend money on and he will transfer money to his account and me to mine if we want. This does not happen much. If I want to buy a surprise gift I can take out cash

we have a slightly different arrangements. Both our current account were made joint when we married , but we carried on using them as sole accounts theoretically, but in practice I have always managed the money. When he was earning more, savings in my name and vice versa. His account was used for the mortgage and most bills, mine paid nursery, school fees and university costs and credit cards. Money moved between accounts if necessary. Individual ISAs , joint savings accounts. It works for us, but most of the time we have earnt similar salaries- apart for a few years when the kids were small and when he retired early on health grounds. But we have similar views on money

The law....which law?

Wages go into our own accounts. We put a certain amount each (proportionate to our earnings so not equal) into a joint account which covers mortgage, bills etc. We also put an equal amount into another account that covers school fees.

Whatever is left in our own accounts is ours to spend or save as we please but we would discuss larger purchases, how to pay for holidays etc. It's how things have worked ever since we first lived together so there's been no need to change as it works for us.

I am married. I don't think that that couples should contribute in proportion to their wages and therefore we don't do that in my marriage.
The amount of money that an individual makes is a crucial factor that needs to be considered when deciding your career. It is unfair to settle down for a less stressful job with less responsibility just because your partner makes more and therefore you can leech their money.