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

its a good income and 200 pcm on work related travel isnt that much

He has NO SAVINGS.

No savings at all.

If you can't afford to put any money aside, you can't afford to drive a gas guzzling car.

And when you have childcare expenses to cover, you have to deal with a drop in income from ML, you give up an extra day of work per week, you'll soon find out how tight things can be on that level of income.

The crucial thing is that your combined income is made up of two pretty low salaries. That gives you a lot less flexibility that if one of you earned £27K and the other earned nothing.

We have been together 22 years but not married. Joint accounts for everything, current, savings, all property and business in joint names. When we first got together I earned more that him. Then I had six years as a SAHM. Now he works much longer hours in our business than me.

We have always just shared our money; if someone wants/needs something and we can afford it, then they have it.

I genuinely could not be with someone who made me use my savings to be on maternity leave. It would not feel like a proper partnership, it would not feel like love.

"I genuinely could not be with someone who made me use my savings to be on maternity leave."

No, me neither.

We have one joint account only that everything goes in and out from. DH works and I'm sahm.

If you go down the route of contributing evenly to bills make sure child expenses are included or you will start buying nappies out of YOUR spending money.

And remember, there are a lot of extra expenses with a baby/child you may not even have thought of. These should not come out of your spending money e.g. dayting groups/activities for babies/toddlers, birthday presents and cards to take to parties, etc.

I remember reading one woman on here who said she had been scrimping so she could save up enough money to take maternity leave, and still contribute "her share" to the bills, etc.

The fact that she would be working making a baby, giving birth and looking after the baby, was ignored by both her and her partner. I felt so sorry for her.

We have joint current and savings accounts. We do have some investments and savings accounts in individual names, but only really for tax / admin purposes. It is very much all joint money.

I said that any costs to cover maternity pay would come from our JOINT savings, not my own. And husband actually has over £10'000 put aside in order for us to make a big cash payment off our mortgage in order to reduce our monthly costs.

I feel this thread has gone from being supportive and offering advice to instead attacking me and my husband and trying to make us feel bad that we don't earn more. I'm sorry our jobs and wages are low and unimpressive to you Joinyourplayfellows but we are happy with what we have.

So thank you to everyone who has been helpful but I don't think this thread is being very productive for me anymore. I have certainly taken all the positive comments on board and you have helped me come to a decision that I feel happy with and that I feel will work well within our marriage and financial situation.

That's a very good net (?) income for a young couple when 1 is a teacher.

Are you going back to work full time after you have had your baby? Have you factored in any decrease in your earnings?

Sorry, so sorry, I don't want you to feel bad about what you earn :(

There's nothing wrong with it, it's just not a fortune. I don't earn a fortune either.

I wasn't trying to slag you off or put you down, I was just trying to help you see how the things you think you can afford now won't seem so affordable when you have a baby to consider.

I found after my first baby came that I became very worried about financial security in a way that I hadn't ever been before. The responsibility can be quite overwhelming.

Best of luck with working it all out and with your new baby :)

We each have our own accounts,and contribute a set amount each month to a joint, some oc which pays bills, some into savings. We have a joint credit card which he pays. When I'm not working (on mat leave at the mo) he transfers some extra money to me so I have 'my own money' and puts extra in joint acc for bills etc. Works for us!

Sorry joinyourpalyfellows - maybe I'm just being over sensitive. I think it's because it is stressing me out more than I realised. And nobody likes to hear their situation is less than ideal do they, even if it is the truth

MrsMarkCarney - I currently only work 30 hours anyway. I joke about cutting that down further after the baby is born but realistically I don't think we could afford it (but is something we will look into nearer the time) and if I did go back to my 30 hours I'd be happy with that arrangement. Thankfully my maternity pay is pretty good and until the baby is 9 months our income shouldn't be affected too dramatically. I'm actually in the process of dealing with PayRoll to get a written confirmation of what my maternity pay would be so me and hubby can start making plans.

writer - my comment about maternity leave wasn't about you - sorry. It was about another thread I read on here.

writer - If you do go for a proportion split in paying into a joint pot, then factor in the day's childcare you will be providing. Basically your DP should be giving you a proportion for what it would cost to put your baby in childcare for that day.

writer i agree, very odd and unhelpful reactions on this thread. dont justify yourself.

I think it sounds a bit odd that on the one hand he is happy to pay £10K of HIS savings ( notice you said his and not 'our') to pay off some of the mortgage, but that he doesn't want to share a joint account.

Surely if you have £10K in savings you need to discuss how best to use that- as a joint decision?

If he wants to pay off a lump sum of the mortgage why wait? Sooner the better.

But if that would leave you with no savings, then that may not be a good move.

The experts say anyone should have 3-6 months savings for life's emergencies- have you factored that in?

I'd say one of the big issues here is that you moved into HIS home when you married and he still thinks of you as a kind of lodger- contributing a certain amount, while meanwhile he holds the purse strings and does as he pleases with his own income.

I wonder if you had bought a new home when you got together if things would be different?

Grenie- don't worry, I know your comment wasn't aimed at me

I told him last night he should be paying 50% of the cost of my maternity wear! He smiled....I think he thinks I'm joking!

I really, really didn't want to, or mean to, upset you.

Your situation is pretty close to ideal - happily married, baby on the way, decent jobs. :)

But it's about to change MASSIVELY, in ways that are both exciting and terrifying.

It will still be brilliant, but it is a whole new kind of wonderful that comes with a lot of stress and hard work.

I remember talking to a cousin of mine about having children when my eldest was a baby and she said "Now I think of the time before I had children and I had so much TIME and MONEY. And just just WASTED it all!" :o

And she was joking, but I knew what she meant. When you have just yourself to worry about, your time and money are a different kind of resource.

That's all I meant about it not being a fortune - not that it isn't enough. It's very much enough.

But that things like expensive cars and extravagant weekends away become harder to justify and more onerous.

It's really great that you have so much money put by to pay off the mortgage. Although, it's a lot of money, so be really careful that paying off the mortgage (when rates are so low) is the best use of it.

Could you use some of it to pay off the credit cards? That's what I'd do first. What about the personal loan? Is it fixed term, or could you pay that off first?

If you have credit card debts and a loan with massive interest rates (I missed that!) then it is mad- totally mad- to pay off a mortgage which has lower interest rates.

Any financial advisor would tell you to clear the credit cards and loans first.

These are VERY expensive debts and ideally you should be clearing credit cards each month.

You make lots of good points MrsMarkCarney and ones I have raised myself with him. I have made a few comments about our home and because as it was his when I moved in it will always feel like it is his. He tells me I'm being silly and hates it when I say it, constantly reassures me that it is OUR home but it is less of an issue for me now we are married. I used to pass comment about us buying our home but this house is only 10 years old, in a lovely area, a very nice house and what would be considered as a lovely 'family home' so it just wouldn't have made sense to move - plus how much that would have cost too. The reason the lump mortgage sum hasn't been paid off yet is because we are letting it sit in an account and Han good interest so we can ultimately pay off more, we do need to discuss though that at what point we are just going to pay it.

we certainly don't have 3-6 months worth of savings, hence another reason Wh I think it would be a good idea to have a joint savings accounts as well as a joint household account.

I think it's hard to go from being young, free and single, having money to spend on what you want, when you want to suddenly having to realise that the time has come for a more mature and responsible approach! I think about it more than he does but I think that comments I have been making to him over the last few months are starting to sink in a little bit.

He did buy us a nice new fridge a few weeks ago because he thought we'd need a bigger one once the baby comes. He has also picked out what rocking chair he wants to buy me so I can 'breast feed in comfort'. His heart is in the right place even if he does need some direction

joinyourplayfellows - my husband's loan is about £140 a month and still has about a year left to pay. Our Wedding debt is just over £3'000 and we hope to have that paid off in about 9-10 months time. I completely see your point about perhaps paying those loans off with the £10'000, that thought hadn't even occurred to me!! I will definitely mention it to the husband and see what he thinks thanks for the tip. It may be that it just hasn't occurred to him either because we have always had a 'set purpose' for it.

We have a joint account for household bills/food/children's expenses that DH pays into as I'm a SAHM. He keeps what's left of his salary in his own current account to spend as he wants and I have child benefit paid into my own account to spend on my expenses. I personally wouldn't want completely joint finances; I think having your own bank account is important for you sense of self/independence. As I'm a SAHM though if I need something for me that I can't pay for myself, DH will transfer a bit of money into the joint account for me to use. I wouldn't want him to buy it for me with his card as it makes me feel a bit child like; so I prefer to use my joint account card.

Yes, to me it seems illogical to pay credit card fees on any debt if you have 10k on the side. These 10k won't be earning much interest anyway.

I am a bit worried about the fact he thought you were joking when you said he should contribute to maternity wear. Of course he should. It's his baby too and he's just the lucky one who doesn't have to go through nine months of discomfort and changing body shape.

Have a good long chat with him, this thread gives you plenty of food for thought.

I know I'm late to this, but I'll add something anyway.

In your situation I think I would do the following:

• all money in (wages, CB etc) into JOINT account.

From JOINT account pay:

• all current debts
• anything to do with house, food, child (incl maternity wear), cars etc
• if possible an amount each month to go in to joint savings (for washing machine breakdown, holidays etc)
• a set (equal) amount for each of you into SOLE accounts for personal spend (personal clothes, coffees, individual hobbies / night out)

Agree that there's no point in having large savings and debts. Pay off most expensive debts first (eg credit cards). But small savings for the unexpected well worth it.