Can I ask about your financial arrangements?

[Writerwannabe83]

I hope this isn't of a too personal nature but I'm just curious as to those who live with their partner/husband manage their finances?

When I moved in with my partner a few years ago we agreed I would give him £500 a month to cover half of all the expenses a month and that was fine. We are now married and the arrangement hasn't really changed but now it just sits 'weird' with me. I have spoke to him a few times about it and that surely most married couples have a complete joint account and all finances are shared. He is happy with the idea of having a joint account but says we should sit down, work out the running cost of the house each month and only put that amount of money in the account, 50/50. He said that way, the rest of our salary is ours to spend how we like without feeling like we have to justify our expenditures to each other etc. I am now recently pregnant and so again have discussed having one joint account with all our money in it but he doesn't seem to see why it should be necessary. His parents are not too impressed with his attitude.

To be honest, I'm happy with the joint account for all 'house stuff' and we have the rest of our money to ourselves, but I'm just curious as to what others do?

When I say that most married couples have complete joint sharing of the finances my husband tells me they don't. None of us have anything solid to base this on though, we just both want to be right

Same so Revel above, and for the same reasons...can't be bothered with the faff. Everything is joint and paid into our joint account, some is then transferred to our joint savings account. DH is self employed so he has an individual account for his business (sole trader) and a bit is left in that each month for his tax bill etc. We discuss most expenditure over about £30 (on v tight budget) but we have the same kind of views on money so neither would splurge on anything, and we don't have expensive hobbies. £5 for a coffee with a friend now and again is about the height of our extravagance! BTW I used to earn loads more than him now he earns way more than me so it all evens out over time, and whoever isn't working so much at the mo' does more kids/ house duties. It all evens out over time.

I suppose if you are a SAHM you could charge him for the cost of childcare and house cleaning? After all, you are still working.

We don't have a joint account because the admin of 2 single and one joint is just too much. We divide up the spending so DH pays 2/3 and I pay 1/3 as that is the proportion of our incomes. What is left over after mortgage, council tax, food, insurances, is our own, though we are very affectionate and sensitive and treat each other a lot, and offer to buy bits for the house etc.

We have separate accounts. He pays for some stuff (food, mortgage, half of the childcare) and then can do what he likes with the rest. I pay for other stuff (insurance on a separate property I rent out, phone and internet) and the other half of the childcare.

It works for us. We have very, very different attitudes to money.

We just have one account that we use for everything. :)

Dh earns 10 times my very small salary! However now, after 20 years all money goes in together. We discuss large payments on a weekly basis, other payments as they arise (2 rental houses). School trips, fees etc are budgeted in advance. Holidays planned by me and paid from joint account. All childcare (as was), clubs fees, classes etc paid by me from joint account. All my clothes and ds paid from joint account. Basically I spend what I deem necessary for us to have a good life. Savings are agreed jointly and held in all 3 names, dh, ds and myself.
But it wasn't always that way. When we met I had debts and a house, living on the breadline. Dh to be cleared all my outstanding bills on the basis I gave him all my bills so he could see where my overspending was occurring. As times changed over the years, we went from separate houses, incomes, bills and saving, via our own accounts plus a joint to pay household bills, both paying the same % of salary, to our current situation. I'm happy I know what is in every account, I depend what I like within reason and we live in a lovely equally shared house. It works for us, but then dh is happy to check every bill and play with his spreadsheet.

Op if you pay in 50/50 that is not fair as you will have different wages and different earnings overall.

If you have bills of for example

£2000 per months and your dp earns £1000 and you earn £2000 then your dp would never have any money left after the bills and you would have a £1000 per months - this is just going to build resentment.

Even if your dp earned £1300 a months your spending money at the begining of the months is going to be way different.

It is not perfect but a fairer way is to pay a percentage of your wages into the pot to cover the bills so that you both have the same percentage left - even if that is a different amount.

So the bills are £1000 and you earn £2000 and your dp earns say £1300 so you both pay in 30% of your wages to the bills account and then you both get 60% of your wages to spend.

When working out the bills though you must include things like nursery for baby and clothes for baby, nappies hair cuts, toys at christmas and birthdays.

Or you can pool both your wages - put what you need into the bills account, put some into a savings account for both of you - either an ISA each to make use of the tax free interest or another product. Then give yourself a set amount of pocket money each at the start of the month the amount to be the same for both of you.

Before babies, we paid a set amount each into a joint account to cover all joint expenses e.g. Mortgages, bills, food, petrol and some savings.

Now im on mat leave, all except an equal amount of spending money each goes into our joint account. I don't like the idea of feeling guilty for spending 'our' money on things i want, and don't want to be pissed of with dh for spending our money on things just for him such as football tickets and after work drinks.

This works best for us.

You must have a frank chat with your DH about this as whilst it is a good idea that you keep some expenses as just your own, for example if he is using £200 of petrol going to work then its an expense for both of you, but if its going to play golf etc then its his expense, the majority of your money combined must be available to both of you once you are on mat leave and therefore have much less money coming in.

You should NEVER have to ask your partner for money as a rule. And i mean this in both directions.

"He is happy with the idea of having a joint account but says we should sit down, work out the running cost of the house each month and only put that amount of money in the account, 50/50. He said that way, the rest of our salary is ours to spend how we like without feeling like we have to justify our expenditures to each other etc"

this is exactly how it works in my house.

I am married. DH pays me half of everything straight into my account and then all the bills (Bar one) go straight from my account.

We have separate accounts, we earn about the same. Whatever is left over is ours to do what we want with.

You have to reach a compromise you are happy with but for me personally I don't want to pay my salary into an account that can be accessed by us all. We both like having the freedom of dealing with our own cash.

If you are going to have a baby it's definitely worth you sorting out how things will be split once you are no longer bringing home your full wage. my DH took on the bills and we had a mortgage break until I went back to work.

Thanks everyone for your replies, they have all been so helpful. It has given me a lot to think about and see there are various options we could take. My husband comes out with about £350 a month more than me so in the grand scheme of things our earnings are pretty much equal.

Sounds like he doesn't want to give up his expensive hobbies to help support his family to me. Or that he views money as the most important way to value things, so if you have to earn less ie on mat leave you are not putting in the same value to the family despite doing the childcare to enable him to work.

OP I think you both need to sit down to talk about money so that there's more transparency about what you each earn and spend. Once the baby comes along and your individual income decreases I think it's vital for income to be family income.

Before children, our salaries went in to personal accounts and we paid in to a joint account for all joint spending (proportional to earnings). After the children, we went the other way - all income goes in to the joint account and equal pocket money in to personal accounts.

We have completely separate finances. I tell him how much I need towards household bills & he pays all childcare & extracurricular activities direct. I shared a bank account with my first husband. He cleared it out on the day my pitiful newly qualified salary went in to buy drugs on more than one occasion so I had no money for food, petrol or the mortgage for the rest of the month. We had two young children. Never again.

A joint domestic account that you both pay into is fine but never let someone else have access to the account your salary or benefits go into.

I have my account, he has his, and we have a joint one for household expenses. All the bills come out of that one - electricity, council tax, insurance etc. We pay an equal amount each into the joint account. The money in our own accounts is ours.

I don't think it's weird - it's exactly what DH and I do. There is a separate current account which we both pay an equal amount into each month - which is in my name, but only because I already had the account from when I flat shared before and we are too lazy to set up a new one. All the joint expenses DD out of this - rent, gas, insurance. We do one big shop per month each. And everything else is ours. I work hard for my money and I do think of it as mine - I have earned it! It seems to work for us. If we had something like a holiday to pay for we'd roughly split it - maybe I'd buy the flights and he'd pay for hotel and we'd both get some spending money. The only issue we've had is when we got married and people wrote cheques to Mr and Mrs Throne which we had to ask them to re-do as my bank won't accept joint cheques paid into a single account.

We are planning on ttc next year and I realise that I might have to give up this financial independence after that, but til then, it seems to work ok.

It doesn't help that we are still paying off our wedding which is £300. We also have loads to do around the house that we want/need to get done before the baby comes. It just seems like there isn't enough money in the world to do what needs doing - but I guess everyone feels the strain at some point. Ideally we wanted the wedding paid off before having a baby (we have another 10 months worth of payments) but as Sods Law would have it we fell pregnant on our first month of no contraception despite the doctors opinion that it would likely take at least 6 months....

I definitely want to have a complete joint account - I'm far more responsible with money than hubby is. I think I'm going to get myself a pen and come paper, read back over all the threads and wrote down all the really good points that have been made. I'm going to give him a point of view that he can't argue with

I work PT, P works FT.
The house, bills etc are all in my name.
We have separate accounts, he gives me half towards the bills, i buy the day to day bits and bobs but when the dc/house need big things he pays for those.
It works for us as

We have separate accounts though I'd prefer we had a joint one.

I've pretty much always seen our money as joint, from when I was earning more than DP/H, through having the DCs with me not earning for a time, through to now where normal situation is I work P/T and he earns more working F/T.

As I have more time and more responsibility for the DC I often spend at least as much as he does, though he does some grocery shopping and pays bills.
He transfers some money from his account to mine, but not enough, so our system doesn't work very efficiently! Will be better when I'm earning again as currently between jobs.

Will be interested if anyone chimes with my experience here!

We ought to talk about finances more, but as it's tended to be stressful we both avoid it.

Salaries get paid into individual accounts, savings/pensions disappear and then same amount gets kept back (eg. 1k) for personal use all the rest goes into joint account out of which we pay housing/schooling/car/nanny/food etc.

The distinction between surplus in joint account and personal spends is fairly fluid and we don't really have struck rules although I'd probably check with DH for an expense over a few hundred.

This arrangement was very easy when we were both working but has equally worked very well when I was a SAHM and now he is a SAHD (just means whoever is earning more transfers into the others personal account)

I have been with DH for 23 years.
Over the years our income has been up and down. At the moment I am on a good wage and he earns 3x my salary.
Anyway, we have always done this.

We have a joint account
He has a buisness account
I have several savings accounts and he has as well.

Each month I put £1,200 into my savings account and I put the rest of my salary into the joint account.

DH puts £300 a week into the joint account, a lump into his savings and keeps a bit of cash about him.

When I want cash I ask him to leave me some out, No one is keeping tabs.
If I go out DH will say ' have you got enough money' and will always make sure I have at least £20 more than I anticiapate on spending ( just in case!)

I use my credit card a lot and DH pays all the bills including that at the end of the month.
DH pays £20 a week to DS2 for pocket money and pays for DS1's driving lessons and car.

The only thing that could make things better was if DH spent more money on himself.

I work very part time and my husband earns over 5 times my salary but that's irrelevant because everything we do is as a unit and a family and working towards the same goal that is a happy family unit so no his/hers its all family money. Infact as DH puts it he earns most of it and I spend all of it on the family needs; shopping, clothes, after school activities, nursery etc and even the odd night out for us my DH spends very little on himself like gadgets etc all our money is for Family. We never argue about money or really talk about it. We both know how (the usual) little or (very rarely) lot we have month to month.

We have no joint account. My parents never had a joint account. I don't think having a joint account is 'normal'. I am financially independent, he contributes. Have been together 20 years, have two children. We prob have approx same 'miscellaneous' every month but have different priorities for this.

Will be interested if anyone chimes with my experience here! No, it really doesn't Juggling, I would hate to have money given to me by my partner like that, especially if I felt it wasn't enough!

OP what do you mean you are paying for your wedding £300 per month?