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 accounts due to husband being self employed it’s so much easier for him to do his accounts that way as it’s clear cut, I earn a lot less than he does. I pay for the big food shop each week, clothes for all 5 of us and any school expenses kids clubs swimming lessons and my own mobile phone bill car etc.
Husband pays the mortgage, the utilities, his own phone bill and car etc and gets top up food shops when needed midweek and if he has money spare he will transfer to help pay for any expensive birthday, Christmas presents, school trips new uniform etc. it works better for us as I still have my own money and I can budget the shopping and clothes depending on what needs buying each month.
I had a joint bank account with a long term ex 20 years ago and after we split up it took a couple of years to get my name off the account due to him being in debt (it wasn’t a bad break up either) so I think that’s put me off complicating things again even though I’ve been married for nearly 10 years. I guess what works for one couple may not work for everyone.

It is 'Our' money, we share everything and DH had the higher income but it was never about who earned what, just what needs / wants were (and he always asked if I was OK for money and I was because of our approach, but that showed his sharing attitude - just for context, we both had periods where money was very tight). We did have a joint account, but as a holding cell for big outgoings, purchases. DH also ensured my savings were equal, topped up by his inheritance too. This was my parent's model and we've never argued or felt ill done by as regards money, ever, which imo is a major issue for too many relationships. It's a partnership and money squabbles are something that can erode it if not equal.

We kept our separate bank accounts into which our respective salaries go. I don't even know how much my husband gets paid, though obviously he would tell me if I asked.

We have a joint account for household bills and joint savings account for large purchases. We both put a monthly sum into these proportionate to our incomes. I have a stable income so my portion pretty much stays the same but DH has his own business so just portion sometimes increases depending on how well he's doing.

Financial independence is incredibly important to me because of my family history. I would never have an entirely common pot. I am very financially risk averse and DH is slightly more comfortable with debt etc so it's also easier to have complete control of our own money.

This ⬆️

All in one pot. Doesn’t matter who earns what or how much, both salary’s (or single salary when either of us isn’t working ) are paid into our joint account. There is no mine or yours - it’s ours and is family money.
After bills are paid there isn’t usually much left but whoever needs something is ok to buy. Big purchases like cars and holidays we discuss. It’s worked for us for 35 years so we are sticking with it.

All our money into one pot, from our budget we know how much goes into savings, and what we can afford to each have as our own personal money each month. We both get the same amount.

We had a joint account when first married but after 15 years split into our own accounts with each having responsibility for certain things.
I so rarely used the joint account I didn’t even have a bank card for it so was totally unaware that DH had run up a massive overdraft until the bank phoned me (this was way before online banking) and told me I was jointly responsible.
From that point I said separate accounts.
As the higher wage earner I have always paid for more than DH.

We have a joint account which we got within weeks of getting married and we have been pooling our money and sharing our money ever since. 23 years in - and not one argument about money.

All into one pot and have individual fun pots too that we put a few hundred a month into from the Big One.

Everything is shared.

We have a joint account. Everything goes in there.

This is how we have always done it, ever since we bought our first house together, before we were married and before we had kids. We've been married 24 years. All the paying in proportion and shared money and individual money is just over complicated. Just share. And if you're not prepared to pool resources, it's not much of a marriage, is it?

We are very poorly organised. We still have our own accounts into which our salaries go. We also have a joint account and my husband has put some of the bills to come out of that account and transfers money into it to cover them. I was meant to do the same with the bills that were coming from my account but I've never got round to it. We are definitely not equitably split as I have the mortgage, childcare bills and council tax coming from mine. He has utilities and food. I run out of money, he doesn't. We manage this by I me saying 'pants I'm running out of money' then he'll transfer me some. It works because we actually see it all as family money that sits in different places and because we have a very similar attitude to buying things for ourselves (we are both careful with money and only buy what we need). We do need to get it sorted because I get stressed that I can't save and don't really have a good handle on our family finances as I can't see what's going on in his accounts.

Edited to add the other reason I guess it works is our salaries are within £5k of each other so we don't really have the breadwinner/homemaker dynamic.

Everything goes into joint current account.
We both have PB's, ISA's & saving accounts etc but this is purely to make sure we use our maximum allocations, we neither of us consider them to be "mine" but instead they are "ours".
All bills, spends etc come out of the current account regardless of what it is or who it is for.

Joint account. I was by far the main earner but I’ve always seen it as ‘our’ money and our savings. My earnings funded ISAs for us both, but our pension savings are different because of where we each worked. But now we’re retired, it’s still ‘our’ money. I can’t see the point of me saving loads, and DH saving less. Then what? I spend my retirement travelling by myself?

Separate sole accounts, which our individual salaries go into. One joint account which we each pay in enough to cover the mortgage and other major joint expenses. One pays the utilities, the other the food bills, which are roughly the same. The higher earner of us pays the school fees out of their higher income. We are both left with roughly the same amount once the fixed outgoings are covered. It works for us.

Our wages go into our own accounts. We have standing orders from them into a joint account, roughly in proportion with our wages, to cover bills and expenses for our DC. My DH was also much more keen on private school than I was and he earns more, so we agreed that he pays school fees from his account. Other than that, our money is our own though we sometimes use them for household things e.g. we needed new windows a couple of years ago and I paid for them.

We very much approach money as a team, despite having separate current and savings accounts with only the bills paying joint account. I don’t recall ever arguing about money but I think that is a privilege which comes from being lucky enough to earn enough that while we have to be a little careful, we never have to go without.

We get paid into and operate out of our own separate accounts. However there is a notional “one pot”. So we’ve worked out everything we have coming in, then subtract everything for food, bills, savings, divide what’s left into 2 for fun money. I get paid about £1500 and out of that I pay for health insurance for the kids and I and have to pay £300 into an ISA that is for their uni expenses etc and I spend the rest, because DH is paying everything else out of his account. I am left with around £1k spending money. He transfers £1500 into a joint account for food, petrol, Sky and sundries and then pays out mortgage, savings, bills etc from his account and at the end is left with about £1k spending money. So it all evens out at the end of the month.

We set up a joint account when we got married. Both salaries went into there. I was a SAHM for a while but all money was ‘our’ money.

Now DH earns 3-4 times as much as me but it is still our money. When money was tighter we’d split any money leftover at the end of the month equally between our individual accounts. Now we both just buy what we need.

Neither of us are big spenders or have expensive hobbies so there is no spending disparity. So this way works for us.

Our wages go into our own account. We put in to a joint account a set amount each month that covers mortgage, bills and food. We used to go halves but recently DH has started putting in a bit more than me. The rest of the money in our own accounts is ours to do with as we wish.

Joint account too which everything goes into, including child benefit and DDs DLA.

We have individual accounts for our own spending money and get the same amount each month.

We earn exactly the same however I work part time and DH works a lot of overtime so earns more overall.

Everything is ours. Joint accounts. No quibbling, no questioning. We're a team, we make joint decisions.

No arguments, we have the same views and values about money. It's very easy.

We have a joint account and a joint savings account (both put some inheritance money in there).
Everything comes out of the joint account. We have separate credit cards but they get paid off each month from the joint account.
I never understand all this, ‘I pay in x and DH pays in y’. You’re a couple joined in marriage, so why not have your finances joined? Each to their own though.

Joint money for everything. Equal amount each to spend or save as we want to.

We have one savings account and one current account, everything gets paid into the current and then transferred
into the savings account and then we work out how much for bills etc and put it in the current.
We just transfer a bit out of the savings to use as spending money and shopping so we can keep that topped up but keep as much as we can in the savings.
I wouldn’t know who’s money was what as all our earnings and child benefit etc just goes in the same account (pot)

We both put the same amount of money into a joint billing account every month. Roughly earn the same .

Other than that the rest of our money is in our own personal account.

We pay for holidays jointly and big purchases.

But everyday spends etc days night out we use our money. Take it in turns to buy food and pay for meals out .

Been together 13 years no children together. Works for us.