How joint are your finances?

[SarahH12]

I understand having DC that aren't joint can make finances that little bit more difficult.

I was just wondering what others do in terms of finances if you live together? Are they completely separate / completely joint or somewhere in the middle?

We both have separate accounts we pay any earnings in to then transfer a set amount into a joint account to pay mortgage, bills, food, nursery fees for joint DS and any meals/days out etc.

DH pays maintenance out of his own account but food and other costs for DSS whilst he is here come from joint. In theory this gives DH less disposable income but I have other costs from my account that he doesn't e.g. He walks to work whereas i have car repayment/petrol/parking costs.

We currently put in the same amount to the joint but when I was earning more I put in proportionately more and when I was on mat leave I didn't put in anything (we took a mortgage holiday & his contribution just covered all the bills & other expenses).

Everything here is joint.

My OH and I have separate accounts which our salaries are paid into. We then pay into a joint.

We’ve calculated our living expenses and we pay into a joint account a % based on our net earnings.

I pay 9% more into our joint account (as I earn more). Consequently my OH takes me out to dinner now and again and throws an extra bit into our joint now and again to corner the outgoings (food, meals out etc) that we incur when the skids visit.

All 50/50 here. We have 50/50 custody so no maintenance. Dsds and ds expenses we both pay for.
Except Christmas which I pay for using my bonus. It works for us!

I should add I don’t pay towards any of my OH’s child maintenance. My OH pays for the skids to go on holiday and then we pay 50:50 for the 4 of us when they are away.

What if you earn considerably more than your partner but have no children together?
My DP and I both have 2 each but none together. My DD is NC with her father so would be living with us full time and my DS would be with us 5 nights a week. DP’s DDs will likely come and go as they please as they’re a bit older.
I earn a lot more than DP so I would effectively be buying the house. I would be putting down the majority of the deposit and he wouldn’t be eligible for a mortgage without me as my wage is higher and he has a bad credit score.
How would you split this? I want to split it 50/50 on household bills as I don’t think I should be paying proportionally more just because I earn more. We both have 2 dependant DCs and I think their costs should be picked up by their own parents i.e. I’ll pay for mine, he pays for his.
Would that be a fair set up?

Meme it's fair if you and your DP think it's fair. What's his take on it?

We used to pay an amount proportionate to our income to cover bills and generally had enough left over to pay for things for DSD when she was with us. DP earns significantly more than me so he put in a lot more.

Now we have our salary paid into our joint account, put £200 each into our help to buy isas and a little bit and the same amount each into our current account to cover things like presents for one another (so they don't appear on our joint bank accounts!) and some other small spends. Maintenance now comes out of the joint but as DP earns significantly more than me anyway it doesn't really matter. If we'd split bills (including rent) 50:50 originally I'd have been financially crippled. I would've done it if that's what DP wanted but in hindsight I'm so glad he suggested and wanted proportionate amounts.

I moved in with my DP and 3DC’s. All finances are separate. DP is a high earner and won’t take anything off me for bills and always insists on paying for everything. Apart from the weekly shop which I’ve insisted on paying for. When I have the children I obviously pay for everything and I’m the one that buys them the make up, clothes and spending money when their Dad says no

I have worked very hard recently to obtain some higher education qualifications at my own expense with no financial support from my DP so I would sort of begrudge paying the majority of bills now I earn more because I worked so hard to get it, if that makes sense.
And as horrible as it may sound his bills will not go up at all living with us, in fact they will be less as his mortgage contribution will be a lot less than the rent he is paying now.
I also don’t want to be suppprtubg his children financially either, they have two parents to do that for them where as mine are financially dependent on me. I think we should just pay for our own? Obviously birthdays, Christmas, holidays and treats etc I’m more than happy to buy or contribute to but I don’t think I should have to pay for their day to day living costs and maintenance.
I want to agree a set amount that we transfer into a joint account to cover our bills but retain our private accounts and if I have more in that due to my increased wage then that’s just how it is 🤷🏼‍♀️
I earn more because I work damn hard to get it on my own, he will already be better off living with me anyway

Meme have you broached this with DP? It's a bit naff he didn't support you in your education. Were you living together at the time?

Wrt paying daily expenses for the DC out of your own account, what about food and things? How would you divvy up who pays for the food when all of you are eating it? Please don't think I'm criticising you, I'm not. I'm just trying to think about the logistics .

DH earns much more than me and I moved into his house with my DS. He pays the mortgage and all the bills, and transfers money to me for other expenses. He's supporting my DS as we don't get maintenance and I lost tax credits, child benefit etc when I moved in with him. We don't have a joint bank account as my credit rating is poor so it's better not to be financially linked on paper. But we don't split any expenses and we view our finances as joint, i.e. we don't owe each other money and don't divide up costs in any way.

Meme how would you pay household bills 50/50 without him paying for your kids. If you think you should each be responsible for own kids then he should be paying less than 50 percent I would think.

Because his kids are with him at least 50/50 usually more. I do my kids food shop separately online for their dinners and packed lunches etc anyway. His kids are older and will eat almost a week’s worth of my kids food in 2-3 days anyway so it works out roughly the same.
No we weren’t living together whilst i went back to uni as he made it clear he couldn’t support us financially as it would mean his DCs getting slightly less so I moved in with my mum for 18 months.
Whilst living separately our gas and electric bills were the same so he wouldn’t be paying any more with us living together, it should be roughly the sum of both our old bills together. Things like Sky Tv, Internet, mortgage, Council tax, house phone bill, etc should be 50/50.
Other than a small discrepancy with food then it really makes no difference to him financially living with us, with the exception that he’ll be a joint homeowner and his DCs will have their own bedrooms as opposed to sharing as they do at his now. Basically he’ll be a lot better off anyway

I agree with Oswin about him paying slightly less than 50%. It sounds like your DC are there almost permanently whereas like you say his come and go.

But, in reality it doesn't matter what strangers on the internet think. Everyone's situation and expectations are different. And what works me for might not work for you.

I'm assuming from your reluctance to answer the question, you haven't broached this with DP. What's your current set up or are you still in the discussing moving in stage? Were you originally living together and you moved out to study?

Sorry for all the questions!!

No not discussed yet, we’re looking to move in next year. Money is a big issue for me as he hasn’t been forthcoming with financial help when I was struggling and he was staying at mine 5 nights a week. I’ll also be putting in the majority deposit, £50k to his £5-10k. Like I said I buy the kids food separately so I don’t see why the other bills shouldn’t be split 50/50 and even doing that he’ll be around £300 a month better off. We do most of his DCs clothes washing, and DP showers several times a day due to the nature of his work so it really will be a 50/50 usage on utilities.
It is something we will discuss closer to the time

Ours are pretty much separate. We have a joint account for food shopping and bills which we both pay equally into. Everything else is separate. If we go out with DSS DP generally covers his costs, though we don't split hairs about it!

And although his kids come and go (4 nights a week at least) the cost of having them with us is considerably more as they’re older

Everything is joint. I don't work at minute (he works full time + overtime). I manage all bill payments etc.

We are married with one DC between us and one DSS. I’ve been in his life for 8 years. all ours is joint, joint account that everything goes into and everything comes out of.
It used to be that we both paid X amount of our wages into one account to cover bills etc however I found that I was always doing the food shop from mine and buying things for DSS (this was prior to having our DC)
It works for us, I do all the birthday and Xmas shopping for both children and it comes out of the joint account. All their clothes is the same etc.
I am the main earner at the moment and earn probably double what DH does but it’s all swings and roundabouts

Completely joint here, pretty much always have been. We have one DS between us, and DSS (14) lives here now, so DH is no longer paying maintenance, but even when he was all money was family money.

At this point in time I am a SAHM and DH is a high earner, but there was a period where I was working and he wasn’t - at that time I guess technically I was paying DSS’s maintenance - but it didn’t feel that way to me as we just pooled all our money.

I have 2 DSC and DP and I have 2 DC together. We've recently bought a house together (after living in mine) and have a Deed of Trust in place, defining ownership. Both salaries get paid into one account, so I'm effectively contributing towards his maintenance payments. However, he does get paid more.

There's no right or wrong answer to your query. If both sides are happy, that's all that matters.

Everything is completely joint and has been since we first got together. I know it sounds rushed and strange now but we met, moved in together and got pregnant and engaged within 3 months.

DSS both lived with us full time, but were 12 and 18 so not babies. All incomings are put into one pot and we spend it as we wish, although any big purchases are usually discussed unless it's something unavoidable like a repair for the car.

Meme, you are suggesting an arrangement that most people would shut you down if it was the other way around, ie. your OH earning more than you.

My OH and earn the same, however, he has very few outgoings (car/phone etc...) coming with his job, and he has no children, whereas I do and have many more outgoings. If the arrangement had been that I pay 50% of everything, he would have been left with much more disposable income than me. Considering I would have had to pay for 3 of us to go on holiday, I would have been left with having to go without on a lot of things whilst he was able to treat himself to everything he wanted. How is that supporting a healthy relationship?

Thankfully, he didn't see it like you and agreed immediately that the fair arrangement would be to start ensuring that we both ended up with the same disposable income. It still meant that he was better off as he didn't have to share with everyone, but at the same time, he paid 50% of the holidays.

As the years went, the arrangement flexed a bit, my income went up, his didn't, then he had to pay more tax, but I had more outgoings as kids got older etc... I think he does have more disposable income at the end of the month, but he pays everything to do with house repairs (even though we are now married so would be entitled to half), always pay when we go out so it probably works out fair. Last year I was short as we had to pay for our holiday and he paid it all.

He lost out big time financially by deciding to make his life with me and sometimes joke about it, but life is not just about money and as he's said million times, he is much happier poorer with me than he was with plenty of money on his own. Jointly, we are still doing very well.

DH and I pay all our salaries into the joint account and everything comes out of it. I have 2DC and get maintenance from XH which goes in there and he has one DS at university who we pay a top up amount to.

We both get the same amount transferred to our personal accounts each month (although DH says he thinks I should get more as I have more outgoings such as more expensive hair cut and colour etc).

Works fine for us - we earn vaguely similar amounts and there is enough to pay our needs and save money jointly as well.

Miranda what sort of things do you pay for out of your own money?