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 money in one pot starting from approx. one year after we started dating.

We have never merged our finances despite being together for 35 years. Neither of us has ever wanted to. We have similar incomes, separate finances. He pays the mortgage, I pay almost everything else - council tax, gas, elec, tv, wifi, phone, insurance, most kids expenses and most food shopping, cleaner, window cleaner, which works out roughly the same. I pay most of holidays. He pays for the things we do on holiday and for most meals out. I save, he builds up value in his business. For big expenses like home improvements we both chip in. For the future, I have a decent private pension, he has a rental property plus value in his business. We are both free to spend on hobbies and our own socialising, we both live within our means. We are both equally responsible for keeping our overall finances steady. When one of us has earned less (studying, parental leave, redundancy) the other has stepped in and carried more of the costs.

Own accounts and pay money for bills, joint expenses etc into joint account. I pay more because DH retired & has a lower income.

We've been married for 20yrs, lived together for 23yrs.
All income into joint account, (wages and child benefit). Bills paid directly out. We each get £250pm in our own accounts to spend/ save as we wish. The remaining funds are saved as joint savings (even if singularly invested / saved in ISA). We have a joint credit card to spend on house / kids stuff. Big spends are discussed / planned.

This has seen us through 2x maternity leaves, his redundancy, pay cuts etc. We've both been the breadwinner at different times, currently we earn about the same.

FWIW, My parents had separate finances and I've since learned that there was financial abuse which is very upsetting to now know that my Mum lived in rags and struggled to fuel her car whilst my Dad booked us on holidays to Hawaii/ Australia and Bali. (They are now divorced, she took half and is now doing alright, he is skint apparently.)

One pot, joint account. We are family.

All money is family money. That's how we do it.

Prior to children we always paid everything proportionate to our salaries - he out-earned me but only by a bit. After children, I became a SAHM for a while so he paid for everything. Now I work part-time and while I earn a very good salary, his career has taken off and he earns 10 times what I do. We pool everything, we work out where to spend and save our money together and everything is absolutely a shared pot with shared goals. He paid into my pension while I didn't work and still tops it up now. We're a team.

We have a joint account which all bills come out of (including food, fuel and childcare costs). All costs from this account, plus extra surplus ‘miscellaneous stuff’ money is then split proportionately to our net income which we contribute. I earn more, so I pay more. Anything left over from our salaries is ours to do whatever.

When it comes to big expenses which the slush fund in our joint account can’t cover, we tend to do 50:50, as my husband has more savings behind him (age gap).

While we save separately, we would still use our savings for the family. It’s just a psychological thing; feels like a mini accomplishment to say ‘I saved this much’ even though it doesn’t matter in reality. Plus, means we can buy silly things without having to run it past each other.

We have been together for 14 years and married for 9, so works for us!

My husband pays all bills and my spending money is from interest on are joint savings (saving are in my name)

We used to both pay into joint account as a % of salary and then everything else was personal money. Now we've got some big savings goals so trying to live off his salary (including equal personal spending money out of this) and then put my salary into joint savings.

Wages go into our own accounts, then we pay into a joint account for bills based on our wages. It's pretty much 50/50 at the minute, but has in the past been more 60/40. That covers all bills, money left in our own accounts is ours to spend/save.

We have always earned similar amounts and put a set sum into a joint account each month then have whatever is leftover to do whatever we like with. It's worked for over 30 years.

When we first moved in together, we put money into a joint account in proportion to our wages to cover bills, rent etc. For a while DH was putting in more than me, then I was putting in more, then back to him. Then we got married and changed to everything going into the joint account and spending from that. Then I stopped working for a few years and so it was all his wages, but I had a standing order to my personal account for a smallish amount so that I could spend on myself guilt-free because before that I wasn't really spending anything. He encouraged me to just spend what I wanted but I didn't feel comfortable with that initially. More recently all my salary went into my account but the spending was primarily on a joint credit card and whichever of us remembered would pay it off as and when. Now I'm not working again and still have that standing order but tend to spend from the joint account so I really should stop it! We've got savings accounts and ISAs in both our names and joint but obviously it's all coming from his account. At some point all money became team money. I probably spend more than he does on myself and my hobbies but he's very supportive of that.

Joint pot here too. This has been our way from the day we married. At various times, I've been the higher earner and other times DH has been the higher earner. All bills come out of the joint pot, we trust each other to take what we need for personal spending. It works really well.

We've been together 25+ years and all our money has been shared since we got married. Our wages go into the joint account and everything comes out of there - bills, treats, holidays, etc.

DH earns more than me but I've had more inheritance to go into the pot so we're pretty equal these days. The only issue is buying each other presents - we can see who has bought what as we both check online banking daily and have spreadsheets for every single transaction we make!

Also been married over 30 years, all wages go into joint account, we have some investments in our own names but it comes out of the joint point. DH earns a lot more than i do , but because i worked part time we never had to pay childcare after dc left private nursery.

Very similar to us. I'd have been very uncomfortable with a joint account even when he earned more than me.

We have our wages paid into our separate accounts but then put money each into our joint account to cover bills and living expenses (70/30 as I earn more and it’s proportional to income). We then keep the rest to save/spend as we like. Generally though we have something in mind that we are saving for and will both contribute equally to from our individual savings I.e new car/kitchen/christmas.

We have kept separate accounts, mainly because for the majority of our time together I was self-employed and it was better for tax purposes to have all my income going in to a dedicated account. Here, even employees need to file a yearly tax return, which is crazily detailed.

Each of us is responsible for paying for different things. As I tend to buy the kid things, child benefit (substantially higher here than in the UK) goes into my account. We have similar, careful attitudes to money and will talk over large purchases/ emerging discrepancies.

Here, we need to put in a joint tax return every year where the tax office looks at how much our salaries and any other income streams have been taxed and whether we get a rebate or have to pay more. It’s a national sport, and the two+ days it takes to get all the receipts, interest statements, childcare costs, out of pocket healthcare costs, work on our house (including the chimney sweep’s bill!), etc together, input it and send it to the tax office is also a good time to talk over shared expenses.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend separate accounts, but it works well for us.

We have separate accounts, separate savings, shared mortgage and in reality split things 50/50 and are both generous and happy to share with eachother, make up the short falls etc. I get paid on the last day of the month and he gets paid on the 10th. We each take care of roughly similar bills e.g. he pays phone bills, I pay electricity etc.

(DH gets paid about 15k more than me before tax. We both work reduced hours)

We have a joint account, plus our own personal accounts.

We get paid into our own accounts.

We keep £300-400 per month for personal spends in our own accounts. This covers our phones, hobbies, personal food (eg if we go out for coffee or lunch with friends), personal clothes, haircuts, presents, personal toiletries etc.

Everything else gets transferred into the joint account.

All bills, food and family costs including childcare come out of the joint account.

We agree on big spends, investments etc before going ahead.

Luckily we have fairly similar approaches to money. Neither of us is extravagant, I'd say we're both on the tight side in day to day spending, but will also invest in things like furniture and house items to last.

We share domestic and family tasks fairly equally.

It feels fair and it works well, but we're similar earners. If DH earned three times what I did then maybe he would feel more resentful.

We both have our own accounts that our wages go into, and have separate savings. We have a joint account that we both put a set amount into for bills, DH puts in more than me as he earns more. I see it as a 'separate but joint' financially, it works well for us as we're on the same page when it comes to finances.

Everything just goes all in together, including inheritances etc. Mind you, he is completely selfless and I have to encourage him to go on ski trips or to visit friends abroad, or he would never spend a penny on himself. If he was one of those tight fisted husbands, I might think differently.

we share an account and I also have certain Bills come of my wages( we also both have our own accounts) but if I’m skint one month I say to him you will need to pay that . But 99% of the time I don’t and I also don’t go half with him when we go out ( i dont take my card )

We pulled our money from the moment we bought a house together. This was 8yrs before we got married. The only way I wouldn’t have done it this way, is if he was shit with money.
Everything goes in joint account, bills paid, savings and various accounts money is set up to go to for holidays, Christmas etc. A small amount is transferred to our personal accounts for spends like new clothes and stuff we want to buy.