Should we be sharing wages equally, or keeping them seperate??

[sunshineandfreedom]

Hello, really hoping for some practical advice here!

DP and I are getting weddinged in August. Currently, we have seperate bank accounts and each pay exactly half of every bill, leaving our 'spending money' seperate. He earns a couple of hundred more each month than I do; hopefully that will be changing very soon but that's the situation as it stands.

I have always believed that we should keep it this way until recently, but it's starting to feel silly. When I broached the idea of a joint account and pooling our wages before splitting them equally, including spending money, he seemed to feel that I was basically just asking for some free money (because I would end up better off out of this, and he worse).

BUT. And here's the but. Although part of me believes in completely seperate finances, the other part believes that in order to be completely equal in partnership what we actually need is pooled resources. From a feminist perspective, it's this:

A) Keeping finances seperate technicaly means we are 'financially independant' from each other (although not true, as neither of us could maintain our current lifestyle withoutt he other paying half of stuff).

B) Pooling our resources means we both have equal amounts of everything, which actually feels more fair in some ways.

So I'm not sure whether to push it or not. I currently feel strongly in favour of B, and think we should sort this out before we have DC in a few years. But every time I bring it up he is negative and seems to basically think I'm trying to take his money (which makes me think he's being childish and quite frankly a bit of a knob). But I am prepared to be told that's wrong.

WWYD?

(X-posting to the Money Matters board)

We've always pro-rated what each of us puts into the joint account from which joint expenses/neccessities are paid, so who earns more pays more.

In times of need, such as mat leave, redundancy etc, payments have been adjusted in a way, that the one with the vastly reduced income would not lose out on spending money completely, so it always levelled out.

Wouldn't ever want to pool all money, as I like to have some for myself which I can spend however I like, and my husband feels the same. It'd be weird to buy a birthday present (or any other surprise) for him out of the joint account, and that is also a reason to keep my own.

What we've decided is to both get paid into a joint account, then split any spending money down the middle and transfer it into our single-person accounts so we can spend it as we like.

Thanks for your input everyone, it helped me know it was the right thing to do and after talking it through with him he finally gets it as well!

xx

Glad it's sorted!

:)