How do you sort out finances with your partner?

[gina1929]

Do you combine all money into one joint account? Or do you have a joint account and a separate account for personal spending?
The latter seems more fair especially if one earns a lot more

Married, together for 15 years, 3 kids.

No joint account. We each pay different bills. He currently earns more (I’m on mat leave) so pays for more.

Ultimately, we both view our money as joint money as we are a team, and have similar approaches to spending and saving.

We only have one bank account. DH never spends any money. We earn similar amounts but neither of us could earn what we do without the other, we equally share running the kids around etc. So even if one of us out-earned the other significantly it wouldn't happen in a vacuum, it would be facilitated by the lower earner.

Our DC are grown up now, but when they were little sometimes him, sometimes me. I used to work term time, so he used to pay some £ into my current account to cover the cost of extra days out etc in the school hols.

Joint account that our salaries are paid into and bills come out of. We have a credit card each which we use for petrol, food shops, general spending that gets paid from the joint account. All money is joint and we are both happy with that arrangement.

We earn roughly the same now but that hasn’t always been the case.

Yep. This.

Salaries paid into personal accounts but on payday we both transfer it all over to joint bills acc and joint spending acc. All our direct debits and bills out of the bills and joint spending is for everything else. I work part time now as 2 DC but if we were both full time we’d earn similar ish.

We don’t have any joint account and never have. We each pay for some things and just decide who pays based on what feels right at the time. If one of us is feeling a bit strapped we tell the other then they transfer some money.

It’s crazy really written down but has worked perfectly for nearly 20 years. We never argue about money. I think it helps that we’re both savers by nature and have similar priorities. (And enough money to cover what we need which I’m sure helps.)

But we both do definitely view all money as ours jointly. It just so happens to sit in different accounts.

You set the budget for everything separately. This is ours. This is basic wage with no overtime, any overtime earned goes to personal accounts.
Me 3100
DH 4100
CB 280
Total 7480

Housing
Mortgage: 1900.
Insurances(life, house): 150
Property tax: 50
Total Housing: 2100
Utilities
Electricity 150
Waste collection: 25
Broadband & TV: 70
Mobile phones x3: 60
Total Utilities: 305
Food & Groceries
Groceries & household food: 500
Dining out / takeaways: 200
Total Food: 700
Transportation
Fuel: 150
Car insurance & tax: 150
Maintenance & NCT: 100
Public transport / Parking: 20
Total Transport: 420
Education & Kids
School books, uniforms, fees: 50
Activities, sports, clubs: 55
Pocket money/treats: 60
Total Kids & Education: 165
Entertainment & Lifestyle
Family outings, hobbies, gifts: 250
Subscriptions: 20
Miscellaneous expenses (haircuts etc): 60
Personal spends:250x 2 = 500
Total Entertainment: 830
Savings & Miscellaneous
Emergency fund / Savings: 2,000
Holidays (monthly allocation): 500
Clothing: 200
Miscellaneous buffer: 300
Total Savings & Misc.: 3,000
TOTAL MONTHLY SPENDING: 7,480

We pay proportionately (to our net income) into a joint account for all household expenses, food, and a couple of holidays a year. We generally review the amounts each April, but also if one of us has had a major income change.

We pay for our own cars, hobbies and leisure activities. If we go out to eat or to the cinema or theatre or such together, we’re a bit adhoc about who pays, but we keep half an eye on it so it roughly evens out.

We save separately, because it’s the most tax efficient for us but we aren’t secretive about how much we each have.

Do you treat other people occasionally like parents and other relatives?

Just randomly for no reason? No not really, why? but as tomorrow is Mother’s Day I spent 100 from my personal on my mum, dh spent some from his personal on his mum.

All money is family money in our house.

Been together 20 years. He was married before, kids and an ex wife who he still ends up paying for if we go all go out for dinner…there’s been a lot of money ‘borrowed “ by her over the years. Partly as a result of that we had totally separate finances till about 6 years ago. We are both high earners but he earns more. Up till the joint account we just sort of split out joint expenses.
we now have a joint account where the mortgage and bills come out of. He pays a bit more for holidays and house expenses.

I have friends who’ve been together years and will argue on nights out about whether the joint or sole credit card is used for the bill on a night out…I couldn’t be bothered with that…

We have always had separate accounts.
We have been married 20 years
Husband Ex military retired, He see his pension as both of ours as my career stopped to follow and support his career and raise our kids *though i worked as a child minder on base.
His pension pays for mortgage and bills
I pay for food shop. I pay for Holidays, he supplies spending money. If we go out we generally take turns. Or whoever invites each other pays *the offer infers the treat
Side note: he works 26hrs a week I work 30 and am doing a degree as well. He does 75% of tge household chores I do the shop and cook.

Joint account that both salaries go in to and regular bills are paid from.

Separate joint account with several pots for; shopping/fuel/savings/family days out/cars/Christmas/DIY projects/house stuff

Personal account each for same amount of personal spending

Anything leftover after normal savings/holiday savings etc., at the end of the month, gets shared between savings and holiday pot.

Joint account for all bills and we transfer money to our solo accounts for anything we want to spend it on. Cinema, dinners out, holidays, xmas and birthday presents etc, all come out of the joint account.

We’ve always had separate accounts but both view them as one pot. We both have equal access and don’t keep track of who pays for what. We’ve been together 25 years and married for 20 and it’s worked well for us.

We have another pot that we put £75 a month in for 'gifts'. Which we use for presents for family and friends.

Some months it's nobody's bday and some months it's lots, but it works.

Salaries get paid into our personal accounts. We have a joint account that we pay into equally (earn roughly the same), it’s used for all shared household expenses. We each pay our own car and phone from personal. Meals out and holidays come from the joint account, same for anything we’ve agreed to treat ourselves too but there are exceptions when it’s a gift. DP paid for my birthday meal, I took him out for his.

It works for us, we’re a team but also maintain financial independence which I feel is important.

For Mother’s Day, I bought the cards and vouchers for both from the joint account. It’s also my DB birthday next week, I bought his gift from us from my account, last year DP saw something that was perfect for him and bought it, we don’t usually keep tabs on that though!

I’m a SAHM currently. We have a joint account which DP transfers his salary into each month. I then pay the bills, etc and what is left over is split 50/50 into savings accounts in our individual names. We both keep a bit of money in individual bank accounts too for day to day spending. It wasn’t like this before we had DC/ I gave up work though.

We have a joint account, a joint savings account and then a bank account each.

We have a joint account which both our salaries get paid into. This account covers everything related to the house, cars, children etc.

Out of that account we each take £400 and transfer it into our personal account which we can then spend on whatever we like.

One pot. It was easy as we were young and both penniless when we met so if one of us had money then we both had money, and it's always been that way. At time he massively outearned me, these days I significantly outearn him. One thing we have never fought about is money, unless you count an argument over how we would spend a euromillions win.

Everything together. Separate pensions of course & separate ISAs although paid into in the same proportions (ditto pensions).
I can't see what else makes sense when you have a family together?

One pot. It all goes in, it all goes out - or as I like to say, he earns it I spend it (he earns more but buys almost nothing, I do all the family shopping). OP you seems to suggest that I should have a small budget because I earn less (because I stopped any sort of career progression when he got jobs overseas, then looked after the children because he was away half the time) but he wouldn’t have been able to earn what he did if I hadn’t been at home