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?

Oh I can't be bothered woth all that. I am not necessarily recommending it as I know not everyone can be completely trusted and we have a traditional marriage in the sense that we don't have any step children or blended family situation but we just have a joint account and everything comes out of rhat . We have some savings accounts and other investments some in my name , some his and some joint depending on what makes most sense tax wise but our current account is just joint. Both salaries going and all bills and living expenses come out of it . Simple

We don't do paying anything proportional to salary . I am too lazy for that and DH doesn't care . He has earned quite a bit more than me.aince DS was born but that is fine . We jointly share everything

All of our money is joint, no matter who earns what.

We have the following:

1x joint account for bills and household payments (food, meals out, child stuff)

2x individual accounts where we put in a set amount each month to spend on ourselves (i.e. clothes, gym membership, golf fees)

2x premium bond accounts which we have an equal amount paid into each month

2x Stocks and Savings ISA with equal amounts put in each month

2x Cash ISAs equal amounts put in each month

1x joint savings account for holidays, home improvements etc

Hope this helps. I'm on maternity leave and NOTHING has changed. We are still 100% equal owners of our money. We will never put in %'s of salaries or 'owe' each other stuff.

All major financial decisions are discussed. Smaller purchases are sometimes texted if we're out I.e. "can I buy this for the baby".

We are both paid into our own accounts. We each transfer money into the joint account and all joint expenses are paid for from this account. We use the money left in our own accounts however we want. We each have our own savings etc.
We're not precious about who buys what and how much we've each contributed etc, as even though separate, all of the money is ours really. I paid for our summer holiday from my savings. He paid for some building work from his.

It's important to me to have my own account and money. I don't want to be in a position of having to justify my spending to anyone else.

One pot with no separation except for investment accounts where we can only have one owner. In these cases, we "own" the same number of accounts with approx the same amount in each. We had no real income when we got together so it didn't seem worth keeping the little we had split! Now almost 30 years later, whilst there is more money involved, we have kept to the same approach.

We are not struggling and for ten years has similar income so:

• wages into personal accounts
• dd each month into joint account for bills, subscriptions and holidays and mortgage

I pay less into joint account because I pay for all food, kids activities and clothes and so on.

We would be more strict about necessary putting spend through joint account if we had less money!

We don’t have a joint account, I used to be the main earner by far and owned our first house, so paid all the bills. Now DH earns more he transfers money towards these each month and keeps money for himself too. We don’t have set percentage splits. It seems to work but if it didn’t we’d change it.

Married almost 20 years, joint account from first day, all income goes in (DH earns more, and at times was single earner in the family. In last five years I’ve been working and earning more). Every penny is our money, we don’t ’split’ any cost… we are a team.

Mortgage joint names. Savings and investments spread across names but all visible to both parties.

edited to add detail

Everything into one joint account regardless of who earned what. Budget for roughly equal personal spending, although that might fluctuate according to need.

Married for 35 years. Since then all money in one pot, but we're similar in our attitudes to spending and trust each other not to overspend on "extras". If we wanted to have separate money for personal choices on purchases, we would probably have transferred a proportional amount each month into sole accounts.

I don't understand being married and quibbling over who's paying for what.

Most of my younger friends and family who I've spoken to about this though, seen to keep finances separate. But I can't understand the conversations along the lines of "I pay for the kids activities but I've run out of money this month"

All money from whatever source had always been ‘ours’, though purely for tax purposes I’ve had and still have, savings/investments in my own name.

How.is it depressing. It is just reality . Women earn less than men on average. One of the major reasons for this is that they have children and often take the primary responsibility for that when in a heterosexual couple with children

Women on average will be more likely to take a job that works better around her children than a man will. They are also more likely to value their children and family life over their career and over being highly financiallly successful.

This is just part of the way the world works. It is better here and in other more privileged countries but in the vast majority of countries in the world ( probably even all of them) women earn less on average than men do.

Society is not set up for the sex that caries and births children to be as financially successful as those who don't . That is a almost undeniable fact.

It's important to me to have my own account and money. I don't want to be in a position of having to justify my spending to anyone else.

Absolutely

I like having a joint account but wouldn't give up my personal account.

All of our money goes into a joint account which is for bills. We then transfer some into a joint savings account & then transfer a set amount (same for both of us) into separate current accounts to spend as we wish.
He earns significantly more than me but we’re married so we view all of our money as shared.

Everything goes into the same wok.

Both wages go into one account (I earn about twice as much as him). All bills, spending comes out of that. We have a separate savings account which is in my name only but thats both our money. If one of us inherits, that's family money. Bonuses, family money

Married 43 years . Joint BA since day 1. I took a career break for the DC until they went to school. We have the same amount of savings in our names . Everything is equal one purse ,doesn't matter who earns what . If you have always done this and now he wants to change things, what has happened for him to want to do that .

Money goes into the joint account and we pay ourselves equal ‘fun’ (personal spending) money into our individual accounts. Therefore most spending comes out of the joint, with each having freedom to do whatever we want with personal money. It means it doesn’t matter who earns what, we are equal partners in our marriage and household.

We work out total income for the two of us and his adult DD who lives with us permanently as she has learning disabilities and a low paid part-time job. We then work out the proportions. He earns only a little bit more than me and DSD earns about 6% of the total. She is really happy to pay her way because she says it makes her feel like a proper adult. She has been infantilised a lot because of her disabilities.

All the house bills, mortgage, energy etc are paid from a joint bills account. All the groceries and going out together for dinner/drinks etc are paid from a joint spend account. We total the outgoings every quarter (and income following pay rises and job changes) and everyone contributes their proportion monthly.

What's left is our own to spend. I don't want/need to see what he spends and vice versa. It's expected that neither of us uses the joint accounts for their own things. DSD doesn't have access to the accounts, but benefits from groceries (we buy her food and cook for her) and meals out.

We've kept it proportionate, even after marriage, because he is responsible for DSD and will need to support her financially after his death, so she will get his half of the house.

I am likely to start earning a lot more money than him in the next year, so we will review the situation when that happens as I don't want to end up paying 75% of the house and only getting half.

The best thing though for us and the OP is talking about money and how we feel about it and not being secretive, because that way lies resentment.

We're the opposite of most posters - married 15, together 20. We have separate accounts but joint savings. No joint account.

I earn twice what DH does so pay all bills, mortgage, most costs for children but still have a fair amount of disposable income which I spend as I like. DH puts most of his into savings and overpaying mortgage and also does most of the food shops.

We each buy our own clothes, pay our own mobiles etc and will on a whim make small purchases for the house (bedding, furnishings etc). But any big purchases are discussed and come out of savings (sofas, tv etc) also any house maintenance comes out of savings.

As other posters have said, I like not having to account for what I spend my money on to someone else. My DH is quite frugal and a saver whereas if I see we need something, I'll just get it.

It works for us and we have never disagreed about money

One pot. I've kept an inheritance for pension purposes as I don't really have much accrued. I've put some of it into the kids ISAs. He over pays into his pension so we'll end up in a similarish place and if not we'll even it out. we are then both secure enough to know we don't have to stay together.

Joint account for all bills and joint savings for things pay yearly like savings.
We both put in all of our wages except spending money - which is same for both of us.
Whatever if left in joint account is swept into savings

Everything goes in to one account. That account has the facility to automatically move money into “saving spaces” which happens for large annual payments (house insurance, school fees, oil etc). Monthly direct debits come out of that account as does all “family” spending (including individual stuff like hair cuts). We each take a relatively small sum for individual spends that are “extra” to normal life - for me that is nails occasionally, more expensive than necessary clothes etc.

If you’re married then you you stood in front of your nearest and dearest and said “all that I have I share with you”. That means money too.

We have our own current accounts that our wages go into. When we get paid we each pay money into the joint account. DH puts a lot more in than me as he earns a lot more than me. We spend from that account for all household/kids/family meals/bills/holidays etc...
Our own accounts we use for clothes, extras, petrol, my meal deals for the days when I am in work and lazy, that kind of stuff.
We couldn't consider doing everything 50:50 because I work part time and just do not earn the same money.
FWIW my husband never questions what I spend money on from joint account. He said a while ago he stopped looking at the Amazon entries on the statements 🤣

Wages paid into personal account. We don't have a joint account so DH pays a lump in to my bank account and I pay all the bills. I am the higher earner, what DH pays me now is definitely not half of our household costs. I like having my own money, and he has his own money. Nobody has to check with the other what they're spending.

All of our money is joint. It didn't occur to me to do otherwise, and I can't see how separate finances could have worked for us. When I married DH and came to the UK, it took nearly a year for my visa to get sorted so I could work. When our kids were small I stayed home with them, and then it turned out that one of them was disabled so I stayed out of the workforce as her carer.

DH did say when I received an inheritance that he thought I should have 100% control over how that money was spent, but I disagreed. Whatever the source, from my POV it became joint money as soon as I received it. We had already been married for 15 years by then and had no plans to divorce, so I didn't think it should be all mine.

We do have a small bit of friction over him spending money on things I don't think are necessary. It has always been in my mind that if this ever bothers me too much, we could formalise separate spending money for each of us. In that case most of our money would be pooled and then each of us would have a separate equal pot of spending money.