How do you work out how much to put in joint account?

caroleann

My partner and I earn hugely different salaries, how and what is the fairest way of paying the bills? We have a joint account (used only for the bills), we have our own seperate accounts that our wages are paid into.
He earns £2,100 a month i work part time and earn £500. plus £200 maintenence from ex.
What woul be a fair amount for us both to pay into it?

Lunar_Eclipse

If you live together and are committed to sharing your life together, is all of it an option?

Alternatively I have only ever known people contribute to household expenses in relation to their incomes. Thus you roughly earn 25% of your OH; so would pay in 25% of whatever your household bill total is, whilst he contributes 75%. Although this then means that one person is usually left with much more disposable money than the other. And also, I'm not sure that you could cover 25% of the bills (including the mortgage/rent) on your income.

I suppose another option is that you both keep the same amount for personal spending, say £200/month. Or you choose arbitrary figures to account for the income differential, such as you keep back £200, he keeps back £400 (or whatever) and the rest goes into the joint account.

There are many ways to cut a cake. DH & I have always opted for the joint pool since we moved in together in 1994.

damanpunk

Gf takes in 1.3k a month, I take in minimum 3k, I give us both spending money, the leftover pays the bills and savings.

If we didn't have a joint account I'd almost certainly be paying 75% of the bills.

nadnad

in your situation (because of the large difference) i would say it would be fairer to make sure you both had similar disposable incomes and put the rest in a joint.

me and oh used to earn similar amounts and the way we did it was percentage basis ie he put in slightly more than me because he earned more. he was left with slightly more at the end of the month than me but that was fine i had what i wanted and needed.

some people put ALL their money in a joint account but i like a bit of separation.

CT19720

My OH earns just under double that I do per month, so I don't put in any money into our 'pot'- for 8 years I have always paid the childcare bills, leaving me about £250 per month for my spending, clothes, hair, nights out etc. OH puts in £1,000 per month and that covers our mortgage and all bills and food for the month and at bit spare. Since both of my kids are now at full time school, and I only pay £100 in childcare instead of £900, then instead of putting money in the joint account, I save my money up and pay for holidays and treats, and am also able to put £400 a month away into savings for the future. Would this arrangement work for you - your OH pays the bills and you pay for holidays and treats. Obviously depends on your outgoings per month, but ours a quite low and this works for us.

leiela

Me my husband are the same we both earn very different wages.

what we've done is worked out the bills and how much needs to go into the joint, the money in the joint account covers everything we need for the house and kids.

• Having worked that out we -
  • His take home + My take home = Total income.
  • Total income - Household money (ei the money needed for the joint) = Spending money.
  • Having worked out how much spending cash we had we divided that by 2 to get personal spends.

And each of us put enough money into the joint to leave themselves with the thier portion of the spending money.

We earn different amounts my take home is over twice what his is, but i always felt he deserved to benifit as much as i did from my higher wage.

Its a partnership we both work 36 hours a week and he supported me while i went to university and earned nothing by working a full time job to pay the bills so i feel it's only fair.

Personally if we where to put equal amounts into the joint, which would mean i would have ALOT more spending money than he does, somehow it just didn't seem fair to me, he works just as hard as i do on a daily basis i couldn't sit back buying alsorts of things and watch while he struggled paying his half of the bills.

Tbh though money's money in our house if he's short ill give him money, if im short i'll ask him if he can spare me anything. I we need to make a major purchase something the joint can't cover we work together so find a solution and whoever can afford it pays its never an issue.

Where lucky in that we are both as good/bad with money as each other so its not like one of the partnership is spending out of control.

Andyf33

Pool all the cash, pay the bills and share the rest.

I go out to work but my wife often works harder (by staying at home and looking after the kids). I bring in 7k per month and all goes into one account - the money is to pay for our life together with the kids and i dont mind sharing.

We do sometimes disagree on the big purchases - ie I tend to want to spend more on the cars whilst my wife wants more on the house - but in general we always come to a compromise - ie. i do as im told

Louisa_Jane_2

We are married, 3 children - what's his is mine, mine is his - we have one account , both salaries paid into it and share everything.

money_maker_3

Louisa_Jane wrote: »

We are married, 3 children - what's his is mine, mine is his - we have one account , both salaries paid into it and share everything.

We do the same. I HAVE A SEPARATE ACCOUNT, BUT THATS JUST CUZ i WORK FOR A BANK AND GET MY SALARY PAID IN THERE, BUT DO NOT HAVE ANY OF MY OTHER ACCOUNTS THERE INCASE THEY CHECK UP ON ME !!!!

All of our money is shared, my hubby is a stay at home dad, and needs access to money to buy things for DD house, food etc... so we just feel that one account for everything works well

bigheadxx

Keeping a house is worth thousands of pounds a year so anybody in a partnership should be getting exactly the same as the other person.

ailuro2

We put it all into one pot, and both take money as we need it, thankfully we are similar in our spedning habits, so never argue about who gets what.

I have my martial arts classes, DH has a night at the pub but rarely spends more than 15-20 quid, so it's not an issue in our house. Any clothes, haircuts or gifts come out of the main pot too, we just tell the other one not to check the statements till after their birthday.