Joint income approach

[rosegrace93]

Hi all! Myself and DH are recently married and are talking about starting trying to conceive soon. We have always split all bills (including mortgage) 50/50 to date but have never “pooled” our income or had a joint savings / spending account etc. we are now thinking about how to approach this if we have a family, and I would take 9-12 months maternity leave. I’ve popped some of the facts below - I’m interested in a) how you currently approach this with your spouse? And b) what would you recommend in our situation? How do you handle things like personal savings? I want things to be fair but I also don’t want to be dependent financially on DH long term.

• both employed full time, salaries are almost identical - £80k each.
• we have a mortgage - currently split 50/50. Mortgage cost is £1k a month.
• all household bills currently split 50/50
• I have c. £5k of student loan left to pay off which will be paid back within the next 12 months (by me)
• we each have about £5k on credit cards to pay off (honeymoon)
• no other “big” debts
• if we are lucky enough to conceive - I will take maternity leave of between 9-12 months. Company policy is 4 months full pay, 3 months 50% pay, then statutory.

I’m aiming to go back full time ☺️

We pool everything. In and out of the same account. Keeps it simple.

if your mortgage is £1k then surely you can pay off the £5k credit card debt asap if you’re earning that much? If it’s not on 0% that would be racking up the bill. I’d get that paid next month.

We’ve had joint income since we bought our first property together.

several properties later and 2 children still the same.

sometimes he’s earned more, sometimes me. We’ve both had turns of being SAHP and being part time

we have joint savings across several different accounts.

but essentially all income onto one pot and then resources shared.

we are a family so pool and share our resources

When you get married it’s all one anyway legally. All our money goes into one account. Bills are paid out of it. We save pretty equally, never argued about money etc. If we want a big purchase we run it by each other- usually anything over £150ish would be “I’m planning on buying x” but something like a car would be a full on discussion.
We’ve been married a long time.
This approach is not recommended if one is a spender and one is a saver. In that case I would have separate accounts and a 3rd one that money for bills goes into. The same applies if you’re not married. Legally things are different then.

Also if someone doesn’t trust their spouse with their money I would be questioning why they made legal commitment to them in the first place.

Thank you! It’s definitely top of the agenda in the new year - they are both on 0% so we’ve been prioritising house reno type bills etc over paying these back first.

Defos not where I’m coming from! I’ve been financially independent for nearly 15 years - I’m just looking for opinions on what is the best approach as haven’t been in this situation before.

We do both salaries into joint account which most expenses come out of including anything related to child or home. Then a set amount as a standing order into our personal accounts each month for fun money e.g. going out, beauty, sports etc. This has been anything from £200 - £500 a month each depending on how flush we were that year. I think you'll be okay whatever you do as you're both on big salaries and low mortgage. Rude of me to ask but WHAT have you been spending your money on to have debt and hardly any savings, but taking home 160k?

Thanks that’s super helpful. Not rude at all happy to answer - We’ve only been on this level of salary for about 2 years. Mine has gone from 50k - 80k since 2023. We’ve dropped the mortgage term from 25 years to 15 & are making over payments on top of that. We’ve done 2 big holidays & a wedding in that time too, plus “finishing” our house which was a newbuild but that obvs comes with the bare minimum finish. Agree we could have saved more!

We have a joint and savings account where our wages are paid into the joint account and all bills come out of it. We set up a standing order for x amount of money to go into the joint savings and x amount of money to go into separate personal account for fun money, my DH wages is 3 x more than mine. I’m about to go on maternity leave next month, fortunately my company policy is 6 months full pay but after that I’ll be on stat mat pay until I go back to work at 9 months. Childcare cost will come out of the joint account along with everything else that’s baby related.

Current estimates for the cost of raising a child are about £250k, and realistically it’s mostly mums who take responsibility for all the transactions. So you need a joint account which is big enough to cover all that if you want to avoid all the costs falling on you. That’s why a lot of us decide it’s easiest to just throw all the money into a single joint account. You could also have separate (smaller) accounts for spending money, savings etc, but bear in mind a lot of the things you might want to save for are for the benefit of the whole family, not you individually.

Just really surprised you both have not discussed and merged finances already

Just be aware your feelings on this might change once baby is here. I was a full steam career girl but now I’ve dropped to 3 days a week as I’m prioritising family life for now. Definitely worth having this discussion with your husband before getting pregnant. Luckily mine is totally happy to support me in however much I want to work (or not) but there was a thread on here the other day from a mum who’s partner wasn’t and wanted her to return full time.

phew! That’s good!

Sorry it wasn’t meant as a personal attack more of a generalisation 🙈

Dh earns about the same as you, I earn slightly less.
our monthly salaries are paid into our personal accounts. Then I transfer the bulk of it into the joint account. He does the same. I then put the rest into our savings account (joint) leaving £280 a month as ‘fun money’ for me in my personal account. As dh earns more he is putting proportionally a bit more into the joint account and a bit more into savings.
i feel this works for us. He has suggested we just have our salaries go into the joint account but I feel quite strongly I want my money to come straight to me, even though most of it goes straight into joint use.

Dh earns about the same as you, I earn slightly less.
our monthly salaries are paid into our personal accounts. Then I transfer the bulk of it into the joint account. He does the same. I then put the rest into our savings account (joint) leaving £280 a month as ‘fun money’ for me in my personal account. As dh earns more he is putting proportionally a bit more into the joint account and a bit more into savings.
i feel this works for us. He has suggested we just have our salaries go into the joint account but I feel quite strongly I want my money to come straight to me, even though most of it goes straight into joint use.

I think if you have the same attitude to money and trust each other then pooling is the fairest and easiest way. Many women take a financial hit once children arrive and for many this is where unequal labour in childcare and domestic work usually kicks in.

If everything is pooled then changing circumstances doesn't become a big issue and you don't end up with two different lifestyles

We tended to discuss our general goals for the year - debt reduction / saving / large expenses so we weren't pulling into different directions.

We've always taken the view that all contributions are considered equal - paid or unpaid. We both pitch in and do what we can.

For years my husband earned significantly more - at times 4 times my earnings. In recent years it's shifted and my business has thrived. I will be soon selling my business and it will allow us to fully retire. I have no hesitation in sharing it with him fully and we will work out how we manage it equally.

We do argue but not over money.

All the money is pooled. Pay all the bills and childcare (after maternity) and split the leftovers 50/50.

Equal fun / spending /saving money and equal free time is the only way to do it. (I learnt this too late).

If you don't want to pool all your money, I would suggest that for the first 4 months, you pay what you've always paid, for the next 3 months you pay 50 per cent of what you previously paid and for the remainder of your maternity leave you work out what statutory pay is as a percentage of you original income and pay that percentage towards bills.

Childcare is joint expense
Mat leave is joint expense

It's easy. All income is household income into a joint account.

pool everything into joint accounts. One current and one savings with separate investments but that’s for tax purposes. All money is shared.

Make sure you agree to split childcare 50/50. Many men get used to mum being at home through mat leave and it becomes the default position

This has the biggest impact in your personal finances and why most men, post children start to out earn women.