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 have separate finances and don’t share any accounts (my choice). Originally he paid the mortgage and most bills as I worked around our son so didn’t earn as much. Our son had additional health needs as a child so our aim was to live off one wage and then whatever I earned we used for extras like holidays and nice things. Over the years I have taken on more day to day costs as life changes and things evolve. We help each other out whenever needed but we both earn enough to be comfortable so it’s not a big deal .

We are on second marriages and both have grown up children. My dh earns more than me, so he pays about 2/3 more into our joint account from where we pay all our food and household bills, plus extras like concert tickets, stuff for the house if there is any surplus. We keep the rest to spend as we like. For major things like cars, holidays etc, we split it fifty fifty as I have more in savings. It works quite well-both happy with the arrangement.

We go halvesish according to income. I pay it all, he pays me

one combined joint pot from before wedding day. Works for us as we see everything we do as joint decisions. Married yonks.

Same here.

Been married for nearly 50 years and always had separate bank accounts; I'm a spender, so this works for both of us. We have a budget, so that we each have roughly the same spending money left over. This varies according to who earns what.

Very much in the 50/50 camp here. I out earn DH by approx 40%.

50/50 at home as well and we met fairly established in our respective careers so none of the "he/she could not have their career without the others sacrifice" nonsense

All money goes into one account where all bills come out of.

We pay into our joint savings from the main account.

We each have a separate bank account which we both transfer the same amount in each month for us to spend on 'personal', fun money, things just for us.

Completely 50/50 even though we earn quite different amounts. We don’t have children though, which might make a difference.

Both our salaries into one account. Absolutely everything is joint, married 29 years. I know couples who ‘split’ things financially and it just sounds so transactional.

We have joint savings but all monthly bills come out of my account, so DH transfers me his wage save for some personal spends.. we split all cost equally and then I just spend for myself out of the account.
It seems a bit daft, but I’m far more organised than he is so we just kept everything as coming out of my account 😂
Whatever works for the individual family IMO!

Oh and no joint accounts of any sort - all money is separate.

Every penny we have is shared.

DH earns the vast majority
I spend the vast majority (on everything for all of our family, not just myself, LOL)

When we set out I had more to "put in" and shortly into our relationship I had a significant inheritance.

We have ISAs / premium bonds etc in our own names (for the purpose of being tax efficient) but the whole lot is "ours" and neither of us have seperate accounts for everyday spending.

DH is 100% behind that he can work and earn more BECAUSE I deal with the day to day running of the house and children etc.

We are a team and we share everything. It works for us.

DH and I have a joint account for bills, savings and a bit of fun money. We also have separate accounts and savings. I pay a bit more than him because I earn more, but then also pay for all the kids' clubs, clothes, shoes etc. out of my own account as they're not his DC. It works out that we have about the same disposable income after everything's paid.

We've been married 23 years. We don't have a joint account. It suits us both. We paid half each for mortgage and he paid for most stuff whilst I was a stay at home mum. We don't have a mortgage anymore but he mostly pays for utilities and I mostly pay for kids stuff/meals out/entertainment etc. He paid into my private pension when I was not working.

His wages go into a joint current account which is used for bill & spends and mine go into a joint savings account for holidays, house repairs etc.
Anything that comes into the house is ours not his or mine. Always been that way , when we earned similar, when I didn't earn and now when he takes home x3 times my wage.

Most money goes into our joint account - DH keeps a small amount of his wages for some expenses in his name and I do the same.

Exactly this! The only accounts in pur own name are savings accounts because you need to hold them individually for tax (he tends to put more in mine as I am the lower earner).

We both spend from the joint account. We so discuss big purchases usually (he needs a new phone and one child needs a new bike), but other than that we don't really stress about it. We are a team.

I put 2.5k a month into a joint account that all the bills come out of. We have a joint credit card that we can both spend what we like on and I pay that off each month. I put the rest into savings in my name or pass to DH if I've hit my ISA limit for the year.

DH keeps the money he makes and then we sometimes use that for holidays or big purchases like a car.

Philosophically its all joint. Neither of us are big spenders so we've never felt the need to allocate money for general spending. I've always vastly outearned DH.

We each kept our own, but dh is the one who works. He puts money into mine as needed. He also put money into investment account for me and the kids. I think traditionally couples have a joint account but more and more have their own. But it is not much of a marriage if everything is split 50/50 so closely, like your husband can't take it if he accidently pays more then you. 😂I have not been working the last 11 years (3 kids and a dog to keep me busy and I would like to return when the youngest is old enough to go to and from school alone and not need me so much). But before I stopped work, we just paid things without counting the pennies of who paid what. My dh earned a lot more so he paid rent and I paid for example gas/electric and he might have paid water or whatever household bills. I forget exactly how it was. Sometimes I paid when we went out for lunch or dinner, but he mostly did. It was not much thought over it. I do wish I had my own income sometimes so I do not have to ask for more money when it runs out, BUT I also want to be able to attend all my kids events, sports during school, drop the little one off and pick her up. It is not easy to find a job that works around that. So it will have to wait a few more years.

Not married but we’ve been together 22 years and have a mortgage together and all bills are in both our names.

We don’t have any joint bank accounts. DP pays the bills out of his account and I pay him a lump sum every month as a standing order to cover my share. He earns more than me and we split the bills proportionately to our salaries. DP has more disposable income and pays for the car (I can’t drive and he has a hobby that clocks up a shit-ton of miles) and any holidays.

I suspect your husband is talking bollocks when he tells you he knows most couples go halves. He might know their salaries in order to approve the account but I don’t believe for a moment that when you open a joint bank account you sit down with your bank manager and explain all the precise circumstances of who pays for what in your relationship.

All money into the joint account and all bills out of it. We have joint savings. This was a shift as soon as we had first child (we weren't married then and had previously had a joint account which shared bills came out of but our salaries went into individual accounts and we paid equal amounts into the joint one).

He is lying to you.

1. Most people open bank acounts online . I have more than 10 accounts and I haven’t gone into a branch to open one since the 1980s.
2. once the account is open, the bank staff have no idea how the money in the account is managed, who puts in how much etc
3. The money in a joint account isn’t owned 50:50 - you both own all of it.

So he is lying to you to get his own way / win an argument. I suggest you file away that piece of information for future reference .

IMHO the fairest way to split shared costs is in proportion to your income . Especially if one person in the couple has taken time out of work or unpaid leave or part time to care for children/elderly relatives in order to facilitate the other person’s career.

As you mentioned “going back full-time“ my guess is that this is you so you have been the one who has sacrificed your own career promotion opportunities and pension/savings to allow your husband to work full-time while you take on more of the unpaid work.

So it would be doubly unfair if you were penalised twice for this thing that you have done to help his career.

The other thing I suggest you do is make sure that all housework childcare and wife work are divided equally between you now you’re going back to work. I’m sure he will approve of this as he’s very keen to be fair and equal.

There are lists online that you can use to make sure that all tasks are covered. It’s easy to forget this that are irregular but take a lots of time , like making medical appointments for children, arranging time off work / school and taking them there. Or dealing with birthday party invitations , buying gifts and taking kids to and from parties / events .

If you do decide to keep your money separate, you will need to have a very detailed record / breakdown of all individual spending that is for something that should be joint. For example, if you collect the children from a club and take them to McDonald’s, that needs to come from the joint spending. If there is no joint account, you’ll have to take a note of this money and then get him to settle up with you at the end of the week/month.

If you have a car then you will need to get a tracker / app which logs every journey so you can go through it weekly and classify every journey as personal or joint . Some trips have a shared purpose eg you go grocery shopping on the way home from work , then pick up a child from football and go home. How do you divide that up ?

As you can see this becomes very complicated and creates a lot of work which is why most couples have a joint account. That way the spending for the children’s club/McDonald’s/new school shoes/ class trip can all come from one account .

I also find that lots of fathers have no idea about all these additional costs as they have not spent much of their lives dealing with the complexity that is bringing up children. So what happens is that mothers just end up absorbing all these costs into their share while their husbands sit and shake their heads and say “I don’t know how you end up spending so much money“.

We have been married for over 30 years. We have had a joint bank account since we moved in together. All our money is joint; wages, inheritances, bonuses.

We are married and all our money goes in one pot from which bills and joint savings etc are taken. We then send an equal amount of ‘fun money’ to our private accounts to do with as we wish whether that’s private savings or fun.