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?

All of our money goes into a joint account and it has done ever since we married over 40 years ago. The only exception is the grant I get for studying which goes into an account in my own name. I use what I need for study supplies and books etc and the rest is savings for Christmas/trips away.

The Mumsnet Law 😬

When I met my DH, he was broke. We were students and I had a lot more money than him. I paid for things.

Then we graduated and I had a better paid job. I had a windfall and paid off his student loan, bought us a car, and put a deposit on a flat that tripled in valued when we sold it. My parents paid for our wedding.

Then I followed his dream overseas and my career suffered, we had DC, moved countries 4 times. My DH is now CEO level and earns a lot of money.

Every situation is different. However, what I earn now (about £1700 a month after tax) goes straight into investments for me and a pension. We have a joint account and all bills etc. come out of this.

This looks cushy my side, but this precedent was set up when he was broke and I was flush.

I can’t understand not pooling your money, unless he’s irresponsible. It’s not a marriage.

I bet you do most of the housework, DC, dealing with relatives, shopping, cooking and work and he goes to work but does f*ck all else? If so, what’s in it for you?

Marraige is ultimately a contract with love chucked on top. You do this for me, and I’ll do that for you and together we are a team. If one person is miserable or disadvantaged in the marriage whilst the other lives it up then that is actually abusive IMO.

He's gas lighting you!

We split by ratio because my salary is double my DHs (after tax it's not!)
So we worked out all household costs/bills including food shops which gave us a sum. We then looked at what we get each month and split 70/30. We need 3k for everything each month (nursery bill is high!) So I pay £2100 and DH pays £900.
That way we roughly have the same amount left over for individual spending.

We don't pool everything because we have very different spending and savings habits. He does stock market I don't etc.

One pot for everything, has always been the same.
We don’t have set spending accounts or amounts, but overall I definitely spend considerably more (and earn considerably less).
When there was less of a wage disparity, and we earned far less than we do now, we still only ever had one pot.

This for us too.

we do all the bills by % as my husband earns much more so we’re equally left with the same amount at the end of the month.
We contribute to savings and then any left over is our money to spend on what we want….
my husband does pay for my car though

We’ve just had a little girl so it may change to all our wages going into one pot to make it easier ie nursery fees, child outgoings.
As she’s a newborn we haven’t got around to changing the way we pay for bills.

I am on mat leave and paying exactly the same amount I did when I was getting a full wage ….i put 1k aside every month prior to my wage dropping after 6 months (company pays six month of full wages)

We each get paid into our private current accounts. We then put an equal fixed amount into the joint account, from which we pay mortgage, nursery fees, bills, food shops and stuff for the kids. What is left over is ours to spend or save.

We go halves on most big spends although he pays for the car through his company and I tend to pay for our annual holiday and various home improvements to balance it out.

All money in a joint account. All bills paid from that account. What's left over has been worked out, split in half, and goes into our individual accounts each month by standing orders. (This from when I was married, and although we parted, we were both perfectly happy with our finances).

been married 17 years. it's changed over that time, but always spends and 'contribution' was proportionate to wages, not 50:50 split. Once we had a child, we put all wages in one pot. He has more investments than I do. But as I was freelancing he pointed out that I would need a private pension and so while I was on maternity and freelancing we started that. We share, because we're a team.

All our money is joint. People like your husband working at the bank wouldn't see it because we have separate accounts but we treat all our money as ours together. We dont bother about who's paying for what because it all comes out in the wash and if over time more money is building up in one person's account we transfer chunks between us.
I wouldn't be 'going halves' unless you both earn exactly the same.

Married 25 years and never worked! I'm wildly envious. Work is the bane of my life! Do you ever get bored, especially only having one child to raise? Not being goady; am genuinely curious. Do you ever fancy entering the world of work, to see what it's like?

Same and we've been married for 33 years.

Married 35 here, didn’t work for 30. Never had time to be bored.

We pay into a joint account proportionately. We both have separate accounts into which are wages are paid. No particular reason, this was just our set up pre-kids. Means he doesn't know how much I spend on myself and I don't know how much he spends on golf day to day. Although we have a family finances spreadsheet detailing each of our big spends even if personal and not from joint acct.

My take home pay is £3k and DH’s is £9k. There is no way we can go 50/50–I would be left with nothing and he would have a slush fund at the end of every month. I pay the mortgage, kids’ clothes/uniforms/pocket money/clubs, and the mid-week top-up shop. DH pays for the car expenses, council tax, home insurance, utilities, holidays, the big weekly shop, and home improvements (new windows, doors, carpets, furniture, etc). We both contribute to the university fund, meals out, and that sort of thing. We have separate bank accounts—he likes to do a spreadsheet and I like to do the YNAB app.

All money in one pot and has been since we married. I’d be buggered if we hadn’t - my income is 10% of dh’s!!

Everything goes in one pot and has done since we decided to live together (pre getting engaged). Over the years sometimes DH has been the higher earner, currently I am the higher earner, but it doesn’t matter. It’s all shared income. Nothing is apportioned or proportioned, all bills are household bills and all income is household income.

We have a joint bank account that all wages go into, including bonus. But each of us has separate additional accounts, mine because I run my own business and need to set aside income tax money, and I like having some separate money for buying presents and doing things without judgement.

We talk about investment strategy, and have ISAs for both us and the kids, but both of us also like to do some separate investing. Me into high risk shares, him into bitcoin most recently.

We're a mix of joint and separate.

We would never live differently based on income difference. E.g. my husband earns a lot more, but wouldn't expect to do hobbies and buy clothes that I couldn't match.

In truth we're both high earners so it's not a source of stress or angst between us

We did 50/50 on the mortgage, then split the bills so we covered similar-ish amounts. We always had separate bank accounts and any ‘left over’ money each month went into our own savings accounts. The savings were always used on joint things (holidays/house stuff) as we don’t have any particularly costly hobbies/interests but we managed our own ‘pots’ and obviously spent plenty on clothes/meals/treats for ourselves without checking with the other. Our salaries weren’t that different so it never occurred to us that we should pay different/proportional amounts. I’m now a SAHM so this has all changed for the time being! But we still don’t have a joint account!

Both our salaries go into the joint account.

From that, we allocate a set amount a week, then do the food shop, pay for petrol etc., and whatever is left is split in half and sent to our personal accounts as a bit of pocket money for day-to-day spending.

Anything bigger, like a meal out, car repairs or things we need for the house, just comes straight out of the joint account.

If he works in a bank and deals with couples opening their first a joint account, this is at the start of their relationship, before kids and making career choices around each other's needs and schedules etc..

If he was to deal with couples 10 years after opening their first joint account he'd see a different picture.

All money goes into a joint account and from there all bills are paid, shopping done, no one is really keeping track of how it’s split or who’s spent more. We spend what we need and what is reasonable - and check in with each other for big purchases. It’s never permission asking more of an FYI I’m doing this, do you need anything etc

It's depressing to see the high number of posts saying how the man earns much, much more than the poster.

We have separate accounts but all money is classed as family money, I am employed by an organization with a regular wage so most of the bills come out of my accounts, my husband is self-employed and gets random payments throughout the year so he pays for some of the bills and our holidays typically.

If we have spare money from my husband's job then he tends to buy premium bonds or put money into ISA accounts and he has done this in both his name and in my name so we have savings in both our names.

One pot, all our money goes into it, and all our expenses are paid from it. We each get the same set amount of spending money each month. All our assets are ours, not his or mine, although for some tax planning purposes they may be in one name or the other, but they are considered joint by both of us.

Once kids come into the equation, anything less than that is going to be unfair, usually on the woman who takes a career hit to look after the children and home while the man continues on with his career uninterrupted.

We have a joint account, put everything into there, then each get a standing order of our "pocket money" to a personal account. Yes we do call it that haha.
All the bills, everything house or kids related comes from the joint account.
Stuff like my own clothes / haircuts / birthday presents / hobbies / going out with friends comes out of my personal account.

We actually moved in together before we got married and at that point we first opened the joint account, but we used to just transfer a fixed, equal amount into it each month, and pay the bills out of there. It only ever had a few hundred in at that point.