What to do about money?

[bunburyscucumbersandwich]

Now I always thought that if you were married/living with someone then all money gets paid into the same account and bills and everything comes out of that joint account. That's how my parents did it and it worked for them.

But! I did that with my ex and didn't realise that I was paying in all my money, but he wasn't, and to make things worse he was spending joint money on gambling sites.

So, hopefully moving in with my new partner soon. Looking at mortgages etc. Would it be best to have a joint family account and both pay in a certain amount? How do you do things?

Joint account for utilities, food and mortgage/rent so you have a paper trail of equal contributions if you are purchasing assets such as house. Own accounts for personal spending and savings whilst single. If you get married allocate shared income accordingly.

Separate personnel accounts, one joint account for bills and shopping where we put in fairly. Ie a fair proportion of salary if you both earn differently plus a bit extra.
Money left over in the joint account goes into days out, take away and savings.

I was like you, OP. My parents paid both of their salaries into a joint account. They didn't have any individual accounts. My Dad didn't like managing the money (no particular reason, it just made him nervous) so left that largely to my Mum and he rarely said anything. It worked for them.

That was all I had known until I met DH and I was amazed that his parents only had their individual accounts, nothing joint. I had thought that my parents' way of doing things was the way it was done, naively.

When we got married I tried to set things up the way my parents had done it and pretty quickly found out the downside of joint accounts. They open you up to scrutiny from the other person, even though our account was only used for food shopping and bills.

We soon went back to having our salaries paid into our separate accounts after too much quizzing about the food and other bills by DH, who has always been by far the biggest spender of either of us. I had to tell him to bugger off too many times so I decided I was no longer a fan of joint accounts. I didn't want to continue laying myself open to that kind of twattery so put my foot down. Thankfully, we hadn't closed our individual accounts. We went back to them and have never looked back.

Joint accounts suit some people but not others.

It's so complicated isn't it!

I mean, my mum used to give my dad "pocket money" each week that he could buy his cigarettes and anything he wanted from. That was before bank cards and it stopped him from spending too much as he can be a bit too generous with money!

I'm not keen on getting married again as been stung last time! I know it offers financial protection but I lost a hell of a lot of money last time. Because I had put so much more into the house than my ex did. He also ran up debt in my name, which is now sorted.

It's interesting that many of you pay in a % of your earnings. My partner earns considerably more than me, so it would work in my favour if he paid more!

Unless I was married I wouldn’t have a joint account with someone for everything . With my ex with had an account that was joint but neither of us could withdraw from. We both put money in it each month for the bills and the rest of our money was ours to spend.