How do you work your finances?

[mamaxbear]

I’m curious to know how couples/families work their finances. What do you do with yours and your partners wages? Do you have joint accounts? Do you keep some money to yourselves a month?

oh thank god an original question for once!

There isn't much organisation to it. The wages both go in to one account. The bills come out, we both spend from it.

Wages/child benefit into the joint account, all joint outgoings from there and then an equal amount of spending money to both personal current accounts to do with as we please (mine mostly gets frittered on coffee)

All money coming in to the house goes into our joint a/c (both salaries, child benefit when we got it), then we have a standing order the day after pay day, to each of our own a/cs for our own spending - 'pocket money' if you like.

When I've earned more than him; when he's earned more than me; when I was on maternity leave; when he was studying; when I was PT and when I was FT, we've always both had the same spending money and all the rest is for us as a couple and as a family.

All income into joint account, then all bills and living expenses and savings paid out for this account.
Equal amounts into our personal accounts for pocket money.

what the joint account pays for can vary, sometimes days out and takeaway come from joint sometimes personal accounts.
we have no dependent kids, so no spending on them from,personal accounts, but that never really happened for us.

has worked over each of us at times being the higher earner, or not having an income at all. Always the same personal spends.

Everything into joint account and everything paid from that. Discussions about big spends eg new car, appliances etc. I was the higher earner but he did loads of building work that saved us thousands, so all equals out. All savings/investments jointly held as easier to deal with in the future. This works for us because we are open about finances but might not work for everyone with different attitudes to money.

All into one account.
All out of that account.
Full access to and knowledge of savings accounts and investments.

No joint account. Both work, me part time, him full time. He pays some bills, i pay the others. Food shop done by whoever fancies it. Ditto petrol. Never had an argument about money. Together 33 years, married 23 of those.

We have similar incomes. We pay the same amount each into a joint a account for household expenses, food, holidays, and a cushion for replacing household items.

When we had different incomes, we paid in proportionately.

The rest of our individual income is our own.

Separate & joint accounts we each pay 50/50 into the joint account for bills / outgoings. We have several of our own accounts but we each run our own self employed businesses. We are very much a team and If one is falling short one month the other covers it. We’ve both helped each other financially with each others businesses.

No longer together, but completely separate finances. I owned the flat and he gave me money towards the mortgage (he has a property he rented out). All bills split 50:50 except service charge which I covered as he was already incurring this on his flat.

I could never do joint accounts / pooling money or anything of the sort. Just not for me.

And at what timescale did you do this combination? I’ve always been screwed over by going too fast too soon and them cashing in. Can never get it right 😞

If you are married:
1 joint account where the vast majority of the money goes into and out of.
We have individual accounts as well where we keep a small amount of money each.

If you're living together/ partners:
We still had a joint account for rent and bills. The amount we put was discussed and agreed.

We combined finances once we were engaged with a very clear discussion of what would happen if we split before the wedding. We had quite a short engagement though (engaged in July and married in December), I probably would've been more hesitant if we'd planned a longer engagement.

Oops, I'll tell DH we've been doing it wrong for the last 30 odd years...🙄

I think this has to depend on marriage and children and attitude towards money. Married and children here - joint accounts, we discuss big items like cars etc but other than that, no need to check in. Prior to marriage, we had joint and personal, both kept same amount back for ourselves so higher earner put in more .

There are literally hundreds of threads on this you could find!

@skippy67
There are loads of different ways of sorting out your finances but it should be equitable, transparent and agreed by both parties.

There are so many threads on here where wives are being financially abused which is heartbreaking

Agreed. Your previous post didn't say that though.

We started out with separate accounts, each adding a fixed sum to the joint account each month for joint expenses. We both had similar incomes.

Then after having a first child, barely paid maternity leave on my side and then income loss due to covid with my husband we decided to switch to all income into one account.
Each month money goes into our private savings, our joint savings and savings for our children. The rest is spending money. We spend what we have to for the family. We spend what we want to on ourselves. Larger expenses are talked about beforehand, sometimes just sending a quick text before an impulse purchase. There is mutual respect and we both want the other to have nice things and nice experiences. That's what makes it work for us. I've never felt like I had to ask permission. I just check in to make sure I haven't forgotten about an upcoming expense.

Both wages and Child Benefit goes into the joint account, all outgoings go out of the same account and we spend from that joint account.
We have done it this way since we first moved in together, before the kids and marriage.

My sister and BIL have separate accounts, move 50% of the bills each into a joint account and the rest stays with them to spend as they see fit

Married 20+ years, 4 DC, separate accounts.

We’re both spendthrifts but I’m better at managing money so it works for us. I also like to know that I can buy what I want without judgement 😊

The bills are split vaguely fairly, I pay mortgage and older two DCs rents and uni costs; he pays younger two DCs school fees and utilities.

I pay most holiday flights and advance payments on hotels (because I’m booking) he’ll pay the remainder in check out. That sort of thing.

We’re fortunate that we have enough that we don’t run out.

We have seperate accounts but see all money as shared. DH earns 10x as much as me so pays for pretty much everything. My account just accumulates until DH pays out for something big, then I pay for stuff until he gets paid again.

Together 11 years, one DS, not married:

Sole current and savings accounts. He transfers to me for 50% of bills. We have joint savings which, for ease ages ago, are in an account in my name, we each transfer the same into that each month.

For levelling up day to day family expenses we use the Splitwise app. A small amount if faff, but not really and there would definitely be an imbalance without it.

Works for us. I am the higher earner and can see the fairness in splitting bills proportionately, but my expenses are higher. We're thinking about moving to a bigger house and if we do I'll pay more of a mortgage as I own a greater share.