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 our money goes into one joint account, we have a joint credit card and a savings account . Any large expenditures are discussed before they are made and everything else we just buy what we need when we need and are both careful not to spend over our budget.

We both have separate current accounts, proportionately we put money into the joint account for bills, food and daily expenses.
Holidays, kids birthdays or other big things (white goods, furniture, decorating, etc) we go exactly half each outside of the joint account.
We do both have savings and ISAs and can spend as much or little of our remaining salary as we see fit, although neither of us would be happy if the other one had no savings. I spend more on clothes and skincare, he does running gear and tech 🤣
We both buy our own cars and fund them ourselves

Married 35 years
I don't have any money to put in the pot ..I get housekeeping to buy everything I need for myself the family ,food , presents.
He pays all the bills and everything I need .
I have plenty of savings and I make the majority of decisions on what we buy ..but he always has the last say on any car we buy

We have a joint account for bills that we both pay into. But we also have separate accounts and credit cards, however we consider all of it as joint money anyway.

Married for many years. I've always been the higher earner and we both worked FT until recently.

We share all our finances, have a joint bank account as well as some separate accounts for business and tax reasons and have grown-up discussions about budgeting, although in reality DH leaves many big financial decisions to me as he's not particularly interested in it.

For the last decade we've used YNAB (You Need A Budget) and can both see all our accounts and spending at a glance on the app. Before that, I used to keep a spreadsheet.

My view is that marriage is about trust and transparency but how that plays out in practice is up to you as a couple. Just make sure there's no financial abuse going on.

we have our own buisness accounts and then joint mortgage / current account and we pay in pretty equally but if I have a good month I may pay in more - he is the same - We both have savings in own names purely for tax reasons but we are relaxed about it - he pays or I pay or we pay . We are in this together so together we sort out and pay between us

I’ve been married over 20 years. We pool all our money. Our salaries are paid into a joint account. Over the years there have been times when one earns a fair bit more than the other but we’ve never questioned pooling all our money because we’re a team. House is jointly owned and we have some joint savings. We have individual ISAs but that’s because they are only for individuals, we still count them as joint money.
Maybe helps that we earn similar amounts and have similar attitudes to saving/spending.

We pay into the joint account as a percentage of what we earn, eg he earns double so pays double to the joint account, all bills and shopping goes out from there

All in one pot. We're a team, not housemates.

I guess we’re unusual then. Salaries into our own individual accounts, we transfer the same amount into one joint account where mortgage and bills come out of.

i then pay double what he does into our joint every day spending account.

the rest of our money we keep for ourselves and have our own savings accounts but I tend to pay proportionally more for holidays etc and buy all the baby stuff.

One pot. Split across various accounts, but I'm basically in charge of the money. We don't really do it as percentages and wouldn't think to adjust amounts if one of us got a pay rise or whatever. We've always tended to discuss more expensive purchases though.

My husband earns around 600 a month more than me but everything has been joint since buying our house at 20.
I must say though i'm surprised how many people are the same. I know many people who split 50/50 regardless of income amounts.
I don't think your husband is wrong, you just have different views.

Surely if you're married then a big chunk even if your discretionary spending - stuff for the house, garden, holidays - is used/enjoyed by both of you?

I just don't get the idea that you pay the essential bills and then everything else is "individual" spending. That's not how living life together works!

I have a suspicion that what really happens with a lot of couples like this is that the wife spends her money on furniture, decorations, cooking equipment etc which the husband then benefits from, while he spends his money on videogames/golf and going to the football with his mates. So a lot of the wife's money is effectively shared whereas the husband gets to keep all his just for himself!

We have separate accounts, but contribute proportionate to our wages (I earn about 7x what he does so I pay mortgage and most bills, he pays for our vehicles and fuel as well as most of the shopping). I don’t think it’s fair to go halves if you aren’t earning equally.

One pot.

Both wages go into our joint account and this then pays bills, shopping etc and we put a certain amount in savings every month (joint savings, holiday fund or single account/investments but they have equal amounts). We also send a set amount to each of our individual bank accounts for our own monthly spends on whatever we choose.

DH has predominantly been the higher wage earner. I dropped to four days when we had our child 10 years ago. All money was pooled and shared as a family.

It doesn't really matter what everyone else does OP, although him saying NO ONE pays different percentages based on earnings is just utter bollocks, plenty of people do.

Me & DH earn roughly the same so we both pay equally into a joint account to cover all family expenses, we've been together 10 years and have done that since we moved in together (before marriage), but at any time one of us is earning lower, we split it differently so one supports the other.

It sounds like tit for tat from him because you have demanded he do 50/50 of the housework when you go back to work so he has demanded 50/50 of the financial contribution, it sounds like you need mediation to be honest, you've got a toddler together and you are not working as a team on many, many levels.

He said finances 'needs to be agreed before hand' so what did you agree before you got married?

Married with young DC in nursery. Big mortgage and big nursery bills.
We have our own separate accounts which our wages get paid into. We then have a joint account which all bills come out of and we pay into this account proportionally based on our take home income. We don’t have joint savings or any ‘family money’ as such - the money in the joint account only covers bills. I am not against sharing money but DH is. He agrees I shouldn’t pay as much in bills as him because I earn less but he doesn’t think it’s all our money to share. DH massively out earns me so he does have a lot more money than me after paying bills but that’s not something I can change or control. Regarding spending for DC, e.g. new clothes etc, I tend to just pay on my credit card then ask for half back or I say that I need some money towards X and he will bank transfer me some towards it.

This exactly.
The joint account covers everything household, family, health care, gyms, petrol, joint socialising, donations etc
Personal spends is basically for presents for each other and clothing, and seperate hobby stuff, outings with separate friends etc.

Dh and I pay matched amounts into a current account that is in my name, then I pay all the household bills and mortgage from that account. I pay for all the food dh for all the petrol.

Exactly the same.
I've always earned more than my husband, currently working part time while he isn't but earnings still go in to the one pot. He does all housework, cooking etc.
Always had joint accounts. Never thought of doing it differently.
I trust him and he trusts me.

We have two joint accounts. We both get paid into one, which doesn't have debit cards attached to it. Our mortgage, taxes and regular bills go out of there.

I keep an eye on our online banking and transfer money about 1000€ at a time into our second joint account, which is for everyday family expenditure (food shopping, petrol, travelling or days out as a family, meals out together, anything for the house or kids etc).

We then each transfer ourselves some spending money, usually 500€ or so at a time, when our personal accounts are running low. I usually tell DH when I've taken some money so he can do the same.

I only use my personal account for things like clothes and haircuts for myself.

I earn significantly more than DH.

Been married 20 odd years, have separate accounts.
I transfer money over to him, he sorts out the bills. He earns significantly more than me and proportionally pays more of the bills.

It was never discussed about having a joint account and had it been, I would have been reluctant to do so.
I have a horse, he absolutely doesn't need to know how much I spend on her a month 🙈😂

When we opened a business, we made that a joint account.

We have a joint acc for bills and sole accounts where our wages are paid into.

I am the lower earner and would hate everything in one pot. We pay almost 50/50, there’s about £100 difference. It looks like I pay less into the joint acc because I pay things direct from my wages like sharesave through work.

I was recommended to ensure the cash amount I pay in each month is no less than 50% of the mortgage cost. This ensures you have a history of paying towards it in the event of a divorce.

I spent 10 years taking telephone banking calls, and a good portion of that was sorting out joint account disputes. There’s no one size fits all. You need to work out what’s best for you as a couple together.

We have been married for 40 years and for all of that time have had joint accounts with all money pooled. We have generally had similar salaries except when I was on mat leave but have never changed amounts. We have joint and individual credit cards and savings accounts but those are paid out of the joint current account every month. Works for us. I really don’t understand the completely separate money thing.