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?

Been married 18 years. We have a joint account in name only. DH pays all the bills, mortgage, holidays. I pay for food and anything for the children.

I'm sure my husband would love to drop his hours at work earning less and being at home more but as in a lot of cases our family works better me being part time.

I'm more maternal than him (obviously) and my son would always prefere me to be at home more, as would I.

It doesn't have to be a depressing thing.

Like others, married 25 years, all income is shared. It helps that we earn roughly the same I guess but it wouldn't be any different if there was a gap in earnings. We're a partnership, our children, house, holidays, cars etc are family expenses. We each have a monthly allowance to spend as we see fit.

Oh, that's good. I'm also envious of people who are really good at organising their own time without an inbuilt structure such as work. I only had eight hours of lectures a week at uni and it was a disaster for me. For this reason I also dread retirement a bit, and WFH was also a disaster for me. How do you keep motivated to get things done when you are your own master?

We have our own accounts where our wages get paid in, then we each transfer money into a joint account for house, cars, food etc.
My dh has an expensive hobby so most of his spare money goes on that. I'm a saver and, over the years, my savings have paid for a few holidays and I also used savings to pay off the mortgage. If we only had the one account, I don't think we would have had much saved in it as dh would probably just keep spending on his hobby.

One joint account. Both of us spend from it as we wish. Neither of us have any money we consider our own, it is entirely shared. Including money received as gifts from our parents. Both our sets of parents are the same and consider any gifts from them to be to both of us equally

All of our money is "ours". It has been this way since we bought a house together nearly 20 years ago. He earns 5 x my salary now, although when we got together we were pretty even.

Savings are mostly in my name for tax reasons. I've always been in charge of finances, clearly he trusts me, so it works for us.

It's not the individual situations, it's the strong trend on the thread that's a bit depressing.

We pay all bills, mortgage, nursery fees, food, dog stuff, car stuff, house stuff ... from the joint account into which we put money every month. Because we have very similar salaries (I earn slightly more than him) we do 50-50. We keep the rest of our respective money to ourselves and do whatever. For extras like pub, take aways, cinema, etc. we sometimes pay with the joint account or one of us will pay from our personal ones. That works for us.

I am the higher earner and have been for 20 years. Money is separate but shared. I transfer a set amount plus a bit extra for the bills OH is responsible for. They can use my card for groceries.

If any extra is needed, we talk about it and I transfer it. We have the same amount of spends. I work longer hours, they do more household tasks. It might not sound it, it is fair, more importantly we are both happy.

I think it's totally insane for everything to all go in one pot personally! Absolute not a chance and puts women in a very vulnerable position!!

We each get our salaries into our own account. We have a joint account for the mortgage, tax and other household bills but we split it equally. Our money is our own to do what we like with after that, but I'll counter that by saying that we're both financially sensible and there aren't any secrets about what we spend on etc. I can see why in some couples it suits to have everything open and transparent!

Our money has always been the family money (even before kids when we lived together). We pay all bills from that money and spend on things for ourselves as well.
But neither of us spends any high amounts on anything, before discussing, so that's never been an issue.
If it matters, I've always been the higher earner, for 20 years.

This.

We get equal ‘pocket money’ as adults. Everything else one pot (well multiple shared pots but it’s a one pot mentality)

@Horsie that’s mainly due to an awful lot of slightly older part time women workers on this site - I guess a lot of women have realised that the you can have it all culture actually meant they were doing it all and expected to earn too - however to me personally I feel this is a ‘nice to have’ ‘if’ in a position to do so off your own financial resources .

Married for 18 years, all the money goes into one pot…mine and I deal with all the finances. (I am female and married to a man-not that I think that matters but other people might).

You’re possibly inferring from that something incorrect. Husband and I earnt the same before kids, but I am much better at caring for the children. So it made sense for him to do the one thing he’s good at. Not necessarily depressing.

According to arethereanyleftatall you're 'financially abusing him...by law! '🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤣
Some people on here are absolutely nuts.

One pot here as well. I am the bigger earner.

Completely separate. We've never had a joint account. We have separate bank accounts, separate credit cards, separate pension pots, separate (small) share holdings, separate savings.

He paid the mortgage on the flat we live in and school fees and bills. I paid the mortgage on the flat I owned and later bought a second small flat. The title to the one we live in is in his name, the other 2 are in mine.

Food and holidays, meals out, cinema , theatre are picked up each of us ad hoc. Stuff for our son when he was young was picked upad hoc. We never discuss our personal spending on clothes, hobbies, etc.

This is exactly what we do

Together 18 years, married 13 years
Always had separate accounts
He pays the mortgage and a few small bills
I pay all the other bills
We each pay for shopping
I earn more than he does

It works for us

It's the strong trend that's depressing, not any one situation.

We have a joint account - we pay in from our salary monthly to cover mortgage, food, utilities etc. I earn a lot more so I put in more.

We are both paid into our own current accounts, with standing orders set up to transfer the joint monies on payday. Rest of the money in either person's account is theirs to do with as they please, including putting some into savings.

We both put money monthly into DC's savings accounts too (again, I tend to put a bit more in there too).

Overall I save a lot more than DH, as I have more monthly disposable income overall (even after paying more to the joint account) and I also overpay the mortgage often too. But whilst its me doing the saving, I do see that as our joint savings as it pays for joint things in future (holidays, house improvements, retirement savings for us both). And tbh, if we divorce he gets half of that anyway!!!

Joint account for everything. No personal accounts. We have individual savings accounts but that's so we max out the Isa tax free allowance.

Salaries paid into a joint account. On payday, money left in there for bills, mortgage, food and family activities. The rest is moved out to personal spending money [equal amounts] into a personal account for spending on clothing, solo going out, saving etc. and to Joint savings accounts for holidays, big annual bills, school fees etc.

I have mostly been the higher earner through our marriage but I see it as our money. It would be nice to have more personal spends/savings to play with but that ship sailed when we put the kids in private school and either way, it's a shitty way to treat your spouse when frankly imho it's often just blind luck that you end up in a well paid career. I don't think I'm working any harder or adding more value [probably less] than a teacher or a nurse who would be on substantially less.