Great 'financial harmony in relationships' hunt

daleigha

from reading the posts, it seems (in my opinion, which may be wrong!:D ) that some posters think that if the couple dont totally share their money then it seems petty and all about 'you have your money and i have mine' and wont share with eachother and dont trust eachother with the money.

while i can understand why it may look like that, certainly in my situation that is not the case. while we do have the joint account for bills and then our own money, OH & i discuss finances, including our personal accounts, credit card balances and savings very openly, and there are no secrets. as i previously stated, i would never see OH stuck for money when i have it, and we treat eachother to takeaways, meals out etc. if OH is going to the shop and i want a chocolate bar he wont ask me for the 50p!!

i have noticed that some of the posters who totally share finances talk about discussing things like buying new clothes when they need them. this is where i feel that my arrangement is better for me- i dont have to discuss anything about buying clothes with my OH!! my OH has more expensive tastes than me in clothes, so if he spends £100 on a jumper that is his business, whereas if that was to come out of the joint account i wouldnt be too pleased!! :eek: i prefer to do my clothes shopping maybe twice or three times a year, and i spend a lot of money. i doubt he would be too chuffed to see £500 coming from the joint account for my clothes!!

i totally trust my OH where money is concerned (and everything else!!) and having our financial arrangements is nothing to do with a lack of trust. we sold our car last year and got a brand new one that didnt need a deposit, so the money from the car sale went into his ISA to sit there until we need to make the final payment on the car. half of this money is technically 'mine' but i dont have one ounce of doubt about him keeping the money safe.

i think that everyone should do what makes them happy!! having seperate accounts doesnt mean that the relationship is any less secure or trusting - when we get married we will still be doing it this way, and when we have kids it will still be the same, although the balance of transfers to the joint account will have to change - this will be discussed in advance with OH. just do what you both feel happiest with!!

xx

nearlyrich

My biggest tip is be with someone who shares your ways with money LOL or at least come up with a way of sorting out your finances that is suitable for both people.

When we met I had two small children and an ex who didn't do maintenance, I had a job as did he, his children were all financially independent. We openend a joint account for bills and a joint savings account to save to overpay the mortgage, I paid for children's clothes etc we shared Christmas and holiday spending etc, I ran a car he had a company car now it's the other way round. Last year it was our10th wedding anniversary and we have been together 20 years this year, we have never had a row about money.

boospurgeon_2

tricky this one. i was married then divorced with 2 small kids. ex pays maintenance. then remarried to someone also with 2 small kids and we had a baby too. we had a joint account. i brought in alot of money i inherited from a parent. he brought a grand of debt. eventually agreed i would work fulltime and he was sposed to run the house and kids. well that seemed to work for a while. OH also attempted to set up a business which did not bring in very much at all. when things were hard he refused outright to get a job. i managed the money cos he wouldn't sit down and discuss with me. all was joint tho in reality i brought in virtually all the money. eventually for variety of reasons we divorced. no maintenance issues as shared child 50% each parent. tho legally that person could take 50% of the money despite not contributing 50% of money or in kind! well now have new partner who is solvent, rigorously fair, and even tho not living together , partner stays quite alot therfore contributes to food, and earns alot more than me and therefore contributes more for hols etc. if we decide to live together, and we would like to, the % idea seems good HOWEVER, i have 3 kids and partner has none. should partner therefore pay 1/5 of expenses despite earning approx 3X me, but i have all the kids! (and get maint for 2 of them) - i guess it will poss end up being 50% to balance it out. but i have been really hurt/stung previously so am wary even tho partner is most honest person have ever met - i think we have very good communication so partner knows my issues and vice versa- that poss the most importnat thing! so - no easy answers in blended families apart from talk talk talk. very useful thread i reckon!

fudgecat

This system works for us but needed a period of thunder and lightning before it did. Basically I pay for everything, mortgage, all bills, all food, savings and unforseens. I am the higher earner (2x his) and I am the one who is more switched on financially (cashback card, shop around, stardrops and vinegar, slowcooker, etc). We operated on an ad hoc basis for years before it dawned on me that someone had to take the financial reigns.
So - he pays me £800.00 per month and the rest is his (he pays for mobile phone for him and daughter and internet). I pay everything else and have put DD on an allowance. He now has more pocket money to spend as he wishes (he was a pushover for DD) and I save or spend on behalf of the family as I see need or fit and DD is learning to budget, having met the immovable object of Mum`s purse. Any leftovers is mine, but I am too tight to spend, so it is saved in my name, but for the family (have just paid for older DD wedding dress and honeymoon).
Oddly enough we have ended up with roughly the same amount of disposable spending money without really expecting to - but mine gets saved...

Spirit_2

We have always had a joint account and all income went in and all expenditure and bills came out. For 19 of our 25 years of marriage Mr Spirit has earned much more than me.........he also spent much more than me:eek: .

For the last 6 years I have been the higher earner........proportionately though his expenditure pattern did not change. When I started to tackle our debts he was not really engaged in reducing his spending:mad: . In September we negotiated :rolleyes: a new approach . We now each have £50 cash per week to spend , we each have to save for birthday/xmas presents for each other from it but otherwise we can do as we please ....save, buy lunch, a pint, out with friends, cinema.

Haircuts. clothes, fees for Hobbies and holidays come out of our household budget so there is no call for either of us to ‘claim’ any thing from the bank account. It has been fool proof for the last 4 months. Long may it continue :j

Seeking_the_Sun

It is important to get things agreed before you move in together, my OH moved into (my) house in 2002, never contributed a penny towards anything for 4 years, never offered, and I was too stupid and proud to ask. He used all his (good) income to line his wardrobe with expensive clothing, boots, and fit out a "gadget" room (which I paid to be built for him) with every kind of electronic gadget, guitars x 3, guns, amp, Mac PC's laptops, etc he could find, every new model released, he had to have it, every new toy, ipod, sat nav etc he had to have it.

Well as you can imagine this slightly grated after a while, and I finally asked him to start to contribute, we agreed a (low) monthly figure of £400 FULLY Inc! but he very rarely paid it, was always complaining he was broke.

I even paid £6000 towards his car, I paid for every holiday, social event, meal, entertainment, hospitality for his family etc etc. he was always supposed to pay me back for the car and holidays and I kept a running total of his outstanding debt.

We had lots of rows about this and I tried everything I could think of to make him see that we couldn’t continue like this, but although he always agreed, he continued to be the same, it got worse cos he then started to hide things and lie about how much he paid and when he bought them etc. He was also in debt with the bank to around £17,000, and had blown nearly £40,000 he got for his share of his former matrimonial home.
I even tried to get his parents to help me talk to him, but they refused to talk to me!!
Eventually after 6 years together, I could not stand it any longer and asked him to leave, the feeling of being used and sponged off of became to much to bear. This has been very traumatic, as, believe it or not, idiot that I am, I did love the guy!

He now owes me £12,000 and although he initially promised to pay it and was paying me £20pm!!??? he now refuses to pay anymore and I have had to resort to court action.
Not a pleasant experience, and I will be very wary of ever allowing anyone to move in with me again, it is SO difficult to work out a fair system to both parties, especially if one of you own the property as I do. I am also a very independent person and don’t like others paying for me at all, but this was taking it to the ridiculous!! I feel totally used!

twirlypinky

Having had my fingers well and truely burnt in my last relationship, I would never have a joint account again.

weezl74

Hi,

It's good to read all the stories on here.

When I first started thinking more seriously about living frugally to reduce our mortgage debt, I embarked on quite a tough regime. I did try to find out if DH was on board, and at the time, he felt ok with what was being suggested. This is pretty typical for me, when I do something, I do it 120%. In a hare and tortoise race, I am the hare and my DH is a tortoise. (He wins!:o)

But for my DH there's a difference between looking at something on a spreadsheet and doing it in real life!:eek:

My DH also finds it hard to think of numbers and how they relate to a real life setting, unless he's in it. The sentence 'do you think £5 a week 'pocket money' each seems fair?' would at the time feel fine, but in real life would then feel restrictive.

This lead to a few painful months of him feeling that our new lifestyle was 'austere' and had had 'all the fun sucked out of it'. These words felt painful as I'd tried to run it all past him carefully.

We've been realising since that this is because when someone seems to say 'no' to you having what you want, this can evoke all sorts of memories from the past, often coming from our parents.

I feel now that we have achieved a better balance, I understand that the way I respond about money is likely to feel more significant to my DH, as though we are talking about how much I value him, rather than just if there's enough 'fun money' to go to the cinema!:D

For us, what works quite well is for me to say: 'I want us to go out and have fun, but I'm aware we already did x this week, so....' which is a bit easier to take!;)

Now our first baby is a month away from coming, I find I'm much more focussed on having a 'ready' house, at whatever cost. After 2 years on the MSE bandwagon, the faithful tortoise DH is the one haggling £100 off our new carpet at Allied Carpets.:rotfl:

The summary of my tale: Sometimes I think people arrive at their money saving stances at different paces, and that's ok. Sometimes frugal people need to express themselves more gently to their generous other halves!

Hope my rambling thoughts are of use to someone.

What a great thread!

Weezl x

monkeysavingeggspurt

This is relatively easy... we each pay 400 quid a month (reviewed as necessary) into a joint account (by direct debit from our separate current accounts) this we laughingly refer to as "the company account". All bills are paid from here via DD and other joint spending such as weekly food shopping, TV licence, insurance premiums etc. etc. All other personal spending is from our own private accounts...savings are also independent. Using online banking makes it easy to monitor so no problems, no arguments...just a shared anguish in the current climate that our money will retain some of its value for the future!!

kettlefish

My fiance and I are moving in together at the end of April :T I always said I didn't want to live with him before we were engaged with wedding plans in place, partly for this reason!
I am a student nurse so bring home around £550 pcm, he brings home around £1200 pcm as he has a "proper" job! We plan to continue getting my wages paid into my student account so we can get the benefits (free railcard and interest free overdraft) but this will then be put into a joint long-term savings account. The house will be in both names and we won't have a mortgage as such due to an inheritance on his side, but we don't want to get used to having all our money just as "spends"!! His wages will be paid into a joint current account for bills, clothes, food etc, and whatever is left over at the end of each month will be put into a short-term account for holidays and treats. However, the savings we both currently have will stay in our own names.
I am confident this will work for us- we have pretty similar attitudes to money and have always been relaxed so if I lend him £30 or pick up some bits for his house along with my own weekly shop I won't go asking for it back, and he pays for holidays, meals out etc.
I know this wouldn't work for everyone but I feel that what's mine is his and vice versa, we may have 5 months when we're living together and not married but the commitment is there, it's just a case of coinciding our annual leave! The tables will turn when I qualify as I will be in full-time work and he will be going to Uni alongside a part-time job, we're both prepared for this and are honest and open enough to chat about it if any problems arise.