joint bank account?

[js934]

Been wth my partner over 4 years, buying a house together soon. We’ve got all our savings in both names in a savings account,
But when do we get a joint account together, where both of our wages go into it etc?
Have you got one for your own, and one with your partner? Or just one account for everything?
Thanks

It very much depends on the couple. Have you discussed how you'll manage the mortgage, other household bills & joint expenses when you move in together? Do you earn similar amounts? Are you both putting the same deposit down on the joint house? Will it be in both names?

One suggestion is to go 50-50 on all joint expenses and put same amount in a joint account each month to cover mortgage, bills & other joint stuff. Or you may agree to pay in proportionally depending on both of your take home pay.

But, I would recommend you have a proactive discussion on this before you buy the house.

My advice would be separate accounts your wages go into and transfer your shares of the bills and mortgage into a joint account (with no overdraft facility) where bills are direct debited.
Are you both putting same deposit into mortgage and both named on it and deeds? If not you need a written agreement about shares etc should the worst happen and you have to sell. This is a financial investment and should not be left to love and optimism.

I always had my own bank account.
Never had a joint one.

I think the best way to do it is to keep your account with monies going in there.
Open a joint account. Agree on how much goes in to cover all bills.
Then maybe have a joint savings account and agree how much goes in there each month. Then split the remainder 50:50.

How close to your means do you expect to live? If you expect to always be on your last few pounds right before pay day you need separate accounts so you don’t need to check with each other before you spend money towards the end of the month. It is less of an issue if you are more solvent.

I've got my own account where my wages go into and we both transfer the same amount into our joint account on pay day, anything left is our own to spend :)

It's entirely up to the two of you but you need to talk it through and agree everything before buying the house together. Reading some of the stories on this Relationships board, it's clear that things go wrong so much more often than you would think so it's sensible to protect yourself as much as you can.

Having said that, of course the many people who don't have relationship problems don't need to post here, so it's not exactly a balanced view.

Both me and my husband have separate accounts.

Totally your own choice really. Myself and my DH have a joint account for bills but we each have our own accounts too, it works for us as we both work ft and earn a similar amount and both like to have our own accounts. It would be different if one of you wasn't working though or had massive differences in pay

My DP and I have our own accounts that our pays go into and a joint account that we both contribute into that the mortgage, bills etc all come out of on direct debit. We have individual and joint savings and our own money to spend as we want through the month.
Talk to your DP and discuss how you would both want it to work, what you would each contribute and how you want to manage paying outgoings and putting money into savings. At the end of the day it comes down to what will work for you.

I refuse to have a joint account. We have individual current accounts and both have our share of bills we are responsible for.

We budget to ensure we both have equal disposable income and then it’s up to us if we spend or save from our own accounts.

No arguments about money that way and no need to check if we want to spend on larger items.

I’ve seen too many times on mumsnet where one person decides they deserve all the money in the joint account when a couple splits. I personally would never have one.

You sound like you have some default expectation that you ought to have one - rather than an active decision because you need one. I don’t want one, don’t need one, don’t have one.

Joint account for joint expenses - mortgage, bills, food

Sort out how much you need and who pays in what proportion of salary

Keep your own current account for wages, personal spends etc

Keep your own credit cards

Open your own savings (ISAs can only be opened individually)

Me and DH (together 23 years) who I would have described as one of the most decent men on the planet, had a joint account only. We pooled everything and I thought separate accounts was nonsense when you were married. Fast forward to a couple of months ago and we have split up. Faults on both sides but he also has OW. DC are 18 and 21 so he doesn't need to pay anything for them. And the most decent man in the world is shafting me/us. Please keep your own account. I was just saying to my friend that I am going to have a conversation with my DD about this very thing. He is now going to be financially so much better off than me and there's not a thing I can do about it.

DH and I didn’t get around to sorting out our joint account until just after we got married a couple of months ago, even though we’ve owned a house together since December and have been living together for about two years. It was as quite easy just to work out who was paying what and roughly divide it up to be fair. The plan for the joint account was to put a set proportion of our earnings each month into the account for bills, mortgage, food etc. And any leftover would be savings. As I’m about to go on mat leave, we’ve actually ended up just putting a set amount in for the last couple of months and we’ll re-evaluate once they’ve finally sent me the breakdown for my maternity pay (the NHS are bloody useless). DH will likely would end up upping his contributions by a couple of hundred pounds in order to leave me with a little bit left over from my mat pay for general day to day costs like the odd coffee, baby groups, clothes for me etc.

We worked out monthly expenses - including an average amount for bills - added a buffer amount for unexpected costs, set up a joint account and each transfer money monthly. All household direct debits such as wi-fi, insurance go through that account too. The joint account has a fixed, low overdraft limit, and is with a different bank from our personal accounts so there's no possibility of administrative error.

It works well and it means that we're not monitoring each other's personal spending. Also I know far too many people who have had huge arguments over money and having a separate account that contains what's needed for running the household reduces that possibility.

As with other posters would never have a joint account as the sole account, would feel too much like having a 'parent' monitoring my spending and vice-versa.

Before kids, we earned roughly the same so had separate personal accounts and a house joint account that we tfr'd money into for all bills and a bit extra for unexpected costs.

After kids I went part time so we made the joint account where both our salaries go to cover all expenses and we each get an equal amount of spends into our personal accounts.

You get one when you want one. My dh and I have been together 10 years and we’ve never had a joint account. We each keep our own personal accounts (and he has a business account) and we share expenses proportionately. One day we will get one as our expenses and income will change a bit soon and it will make it easier that way. But we would just pay our share in and pay expenses out of that and keep our personal accounts for all the day to day personal expenses. I can’t imagine having just one shared account. I’ve lived too long having my own money and managing it my way.

We have always had a joint account. I earn double that of my DH, always have. We discuss all big purchases. In the first 10 years we had no spare money, everything went in bills. Now we have much more spare cash but still have a joint account.
Both my DDs have seperate accounts from their .DPs. Each couple earns a similar amount and they put the same amount into a joint household account. One of my DDs will get bigsalary increases each year as she progresses with her job Andy they have decided that she will put in a bigger percentage of her income than him when she does.

I'm single now but if I ever get married again in the future i plan on having separate accounts and one joint account to which we'll each transfer a percentage of our money for the bills.

After a divorce in which my exDP took all the money and hid it i'd advise everyone not to trust anyone completely. I trusted her entirely and thought we'd both have a calm and fair divorce but that was not what happened. I didn't even had money for foos and had my water cut for 15 days.

foos = food

When I first took out a mortgage with my partner, we got a joint account when we were paying solicitor fees etc. The plan was to later use the joint bank acc to pay money in from our personal bank accounts for bills.

Within a few months of getting the place I learnt the hard way that my partner was brought up differently with regards to finances. Once he'd spent all the money in his personal account, he would then work on spending money in the bills account because it was 50% his money in there and the next bill wasnt due for a few days.
I lost count of the times I used my savings to pay a bill/fine because we had gone over our overdraft.
Needless to say - we dont have a joint account anymore!