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?

Just married? Or long term relationships?

All our money goes into one account, all bills, savings etc come out of that. We also pay ourselves the same amount of spending money. He earns double what I do. We have our own savings that we save out of spending money as well as joint ones.

Clearly it works differently for different couples, and as long as no one feels trapped or unfairly treated, either arrangement is fine. I do object to the implication that having separate accounts makes a couple less of a team - to me, the marital team is 2 individuals committing to a partnership and way of life, not becoming somehow one person.

Weird take. Why would having your own bank account mean you'd split the bill at dinner 😂

hyperbole - I was responding to previous poster who said if you shared a bank account you would have to ask to buy a pound of mince/be in trouble if you did so! She has everything separate so presumably they split costs?

We have our own current and savings accounts , a joint bill account and a joint savings account. An equal percentage of our wages goes in the bill and savings account and we pay for our own insurance, phone bills etc. shopping comes out of our own accounts but more so DH’s as he is earning more and also has additional income, he usually pays for nights and meals out too. We are both happy with this shared money arrangement, it’s all ours and not mine and his.

I'm not sure I ahould be giving any financial advice as the reality is I just dont think about it too much. I know that there is no way I can predict the future and it is possible DH and I have not saved enough for all of our retirement because as you say, there is no way to really know how much we will need.

Both DH and I are quite cautious in that we have reasonable pensions. DH because he is a teacher and me because I started saving into private pensions in the late 80s so have accumulated a reasonable ( though by no means generous) private pension pot . However we also want to enjoy now

We do have an adult child who is a worry for us in that I am not sure he will ever work (though we still hope he might in time) but we just don't have enough to provide for us if we need care and also for him for his lifetime. We will never have enough for that so we have to enjoy the life we have now and provide what we can as a small fund for DS after we are gone.

We absolutely save and try to allow for what we can and try to help ds become as independent as possible but all I can say is that we are both able to understand we can't control everything and neither of us are driven by accumulating wealth In the future as a security blanket. This is partly why we are not rich as well though.

I think that is just part of a personality trait. We both come from poor backgrounds but loving hardworking ones and we both feel absolutely privileged to have what we do compared to our families and it feels enough enough somehow. DS may have to manage alone down the line and that is hard to think about but it is what it is and if I spend too much time worrying about the future ,I ruin now

Wages go into our own accounts.
Mortgage, household bills and a set amount for shopping each month is split equally and we both put the same amount into a joint account to cover it. Both earn similar amounts.
Other bills like mobile phone, car costs ( we each have our own), kindle subscription etc we pay for individually from our own accounts.
Have our own spending money and can use it for whatever we like. Buy all of our own gifts for family members too. If we're going out together, we put money into one account to spend or pay each other back the next day.

All our money goes into the joint account. Before we had the kids we earned roughly the same so we just transferred money to our own accounts for personal spending each month (and we continue to do that.) Then we had an additional baby (3rd) and it would have cost us more than my monthly salary to put them all into childcare so I became a SAHM for a decade. Now I have a much lower paid job and work part time. DH earns 4 x my salary. We have never had a system of going halves or proportionate bill paying. We are a family and that's it.

All our money is our money. Both lots of wages into one account and we spend what we need/want

Always had joint account into which our earnings go. We cut our coat according to our joint means and taking note of money we need to pay for DSs uni rent. We don't police each others spending. He likes learning languages as a hobby and has private classes, I like restoration projects and sale dresses. I earn less but inherited more so have more savings in own pot. We've never gone halves or thought about it that way.

@Richesme for us it is a shared pot, doesn't matter who earns what, we chose to get married we chose to have kids, first I was the main earner, partner was a student, then weboth earned money, then I was a sahp, now we both work full time and all money just goes in the pot. It's our money.

One joint account, both salaries go in, all the bills come out. My husband, who earns double my salary, gets paid every 4 weeks. I get paid on the last working day of the month and nearly all our bills go out on the first of the month. We’ve been married for 20 years and have two teenagers. I was a SAHM for a long time and we lived on husband’s wages. My husband has never begrudged me anything and would give me his last pound (or rolo) if I asked.

Married 35 years. All money goes in our joint account, always has done. We used to be equal earners, but now dh brings home double what I do. We don't take separate money out for spending, we have never needed to. We both spend responsibly. I used to feel guilty about spending 'his' money, but dh pointed out he wouldn't have been able to earn it if I hadn't taken on the majority of the childcare for our dcs.
When we go out to dinner, we'll have a joke about who's turn it is to pay, but it all goes into and comes out of the same account, always has, always will.

Agreed re the implication.

One joint pot. What if one of you had an accident and became disabled and unable to work.

We discussed and agreed our views before we married. We've always had joint accounts and it never mattered who made what or spent what. We have similar habits - we're savers and don't make rash or expensive purchases.

We've kept an own personal accounts with emergency money, as a contingency.

I handle all the finances, but we've exchanged roles regularly to suit the bigger / family needs.

Both wages and cb go into the join account. All bills come from it and a bit of savings each . Then what’s left over we spend .
I spend more than him as a rule . He earns three times what I do

Salaries get paid into individual accounts with a proportional amount going into a joint savings account where all expenses come out of. We have joint savings (emergency fund, dc fund, holiday fund, gifts throughout year and Xmas) as well as individual savings. The amount we put in monthly is reviewed and amended every couple months as prices go up / salaries change. DH and I used to earn similarly , then I was on less on Mat leave, returned to work in June and have had a significant pay rise so I earn about £25,000 annually more and this is reflected in my contribution to the pot, and equally when I was on Mat leave I contributed less and had more care free spending than I would have done if we were splitting everything equally in that period.

Personally I enjoy having my own money - my DH is very money focussed and does all the financial planning for the household (utility bills, how much to pay into tax free childcare account etc) and I like him not seeing or worrying about how much I spend because ultimately it doesn’t effect our life, our joint bills are always paid and the rest is my money. Perhaps I would have a different outlook on all monies being pooled if my DH was more relaxed about things

Together 10 years
Married 3
Mortgage
x1 DC

Having a joint pot doesn’t necessarily help you if one of you is suddenly unable to work - whilst you both will have access to the pot there could be a significant deficit of money going in! What you need in this situation is critical illness cover or income protection.

If Ofc you have seperate finances and one of you has a huge pot of money saved in their name only that the other doesn’t have access to then It’s important to have each as other as power of attorney for finances +/- health for this reason so in the event that someone loses capacity to make decisions for themselves the other partner can access that money quickly and pay vital bills

Married, separate accounts and we pay equally to the bills and expenses account. The rest is for whatever we want to do, save/spend etc. works for us .

I do find it strange that some posters think this approach makes us less of a team. I like to have my own money, we both do. We are very much a team and happy that we both have each other’s backs. If one of us was unable to work, the other would immediately financially step in.

Married. Seperate bank accounts but also a joint bills account. Dh pays all the direct debit bills and I’ve bought the food. For the first 20 years of our marriage dh earned more as I worked part time. We earn equally now.

it tends to be me who buys stuff for the house, ie if a new washing machine is needed….but if I needed dh to buy such an item I would ask for money and he’d pay. It’s also been me who has paid for everything for Dd, ie clothes, activities.

our direct debits which dh pays are only £800 a month so it would actually be interesting to see who pays more over a year, I’ve never worked it out!

We both pay an equal amount into the bills account,and keep the rest to do with whatever with.

I have my personal account and he has his account (which is actually a joint account that I have access to, but use extremely rarely). He pays all the bills and gives me £500 towards shopping. When I start working ft we have agreed that he will stop sending me the £500 towards the food shop.

I buy a lot of the stuff needed for DD's, and pay for school trips, gifts etc. We don't argue about money despite not having much around these days.

Because we are married everything we earn goes into the joint account. If there are big purchases we discuss whether it is something we need and can afford. That’s it really. We have some savings and we are both on the mortgage. It’s been this way since we got married and had our first child. I think this is how it should be and I would feel quite strongly that he didn’t respect me if he wanted to begin splitting things and quibbling about money. Kids are expensive and we are a team. That’s why we got married.