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

Bennifred

We also put it all into one pot. This has worked well over the years, and through differing circumstances - I earned more while OH was training, then we were on a par, then I was a SAHM for years, now I work part-timeand OH is full-time. Because all incomes have been seen as household income rather than personal, neither of us has felt uncomfortable about who-earns-what and who-spends-what. We agreed that there are more ways of contributing than just monetary!

seven-day-weekend

Anything that comes in is ours, regardless of who earned it, anything that has to go out is ours, regardless of where the expense came from.. ..we have never had 'his' and 'mine'.

We pool the money, pay the bills and then allocate to our savings accounts however it seems best to do it at the time. (Savings are in individual names, however, that's just the name on the account, we still regard it as 'our' money and neither of us would dream of spending more than about £50 from savings without consulting the other).

We have been married nearly 38 years and although my husband has usually been the main wage earner, sometimes it has been me.

At the moment I have had no income since 2004 so if we had an arrangement whereby I was expected to put 'my' share into the pot, then we'd be waiting an awfully long time!

We're a couple, and we both 'endowed our worldly goods' to the other when we got married.

Can't imagine doing it any other way, to have 'yours' and 'mine' is to me like a business partnership, not a marriage built on mutual love, trust and respect.

Just mho.

Blue_Fairy_3

OH and I have always had seperate accounts, never bothered opening a joint one, and TBH I think there are advantages to this - wouldn't like him being able to see that I've spent x amount at x shop/website on his birthday pressie for example!

I'm in similar situation to the op, OH works fulltime and takes home about £1k pm, I work part time and take home about £500. He pays the mortage, council tax and car insurance. I pay all utility bills, eg. phone, internet, electricity etc. I used to pay for most of the food shopping but he now tends to do the shopping so pays for most of it. I nearly always pay for childcare and DS's clothes/shoes/school trips/birthday & xmas pressies. We tend to split costs for holidays and days out 50/50 or take turns paying.

We have never worked out who should pay what, we have just fallen into this arrangement naturally, and apart from the main bills which are payed by D/Debit, it sometimes changes, for example I will pay for things or give him some money if he is a bit skint one month. Although we have seperate accounts, we see all these costs as a joint responsibilty. We are both happy with this and it works fine. I don't think there is any need to have a precise formula for who pays what, but if you are keeping it quite 'seperate', obviously if one partner is earning much less, they can't, and shouldn't be expected to contribute as much to the household financially. OP in your case, as your OH earns so much more than you, I would maybe split it about 75/25? (Him paying 75% obviously!)

Toto

Our situation is both of us have seperate accounts, no joint account at all. But I do all of the banking and tend to control the money. So, I log into hubby's account and move money around as needed.

Usually I pay all of the bills from my account because the dds and payment details are all on mine, then what's left I shove into my savings account. His money tends to go into his savings with a reasonable amount left in his current account for spends.

I do all of my monthly spending on my credit card then pay the bill in full each month. So in effect most months hubby doesn't actually pay towards the bills as such but I do transfer some from his account if I need it.

But, we are in a marriage and that means it's our income, our bills and our savings. He is useless with money, he never checks his account, just trusts that he can use his card and I have it all under control.

I totally trust that he would never do a runner with his savings. Besides, one sniff of it and I would be in his account before he was out of the door

jimexbox

The Mrs and I have 2 joint accounts, a savings and current. We have had this since we were married 9 years ago and have never argued over money once. Im the only one earning a wage at the moment as the wife looks after our kids, and the money I earn is our money, its not my money.

The secret to financial happiness is really easy, its honesty. No sneaking money away, no 'this is mine' attitude, no selfish decisions. Our spending priority's are simple too, bills, children, then us. Folk who are married have to have a different mindset from when they were single.

caroleann

Thanks to all of you, its given me food for thought,

soapsudsandsalts

my hubby pays all the bills and when i can afford i pay the food bill but i am in process of moving my shop to another area so i have no money at all for the last 3 mth

Floss

Lunar_Eclipse wrote: »

....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........

OH & I do it this way - his spare disposable income covers things like saving for our future, maintenance / furniture / improvements for our home, holidays, and Tesco Wine delivery . However, I am paying support to DS2 whilst he's at uni. We each pay our own pension contributions / mobile / car insurance / life insurance, while things like RAC / dental insurance + bills / housekeeping make up the monthly total outgoings. I currently pay 27% of that total.

mwa

We're in a similar situation and we just work out what goes out of the account and then apportion a percentage of our salaries that each of us has the same amount of disposable income left after the bills. So I take home £1000 and pay £750 in (leaving me with £250) and hubby takes home £1250 and pays in £1000, leaving him with the same amount. That way we can each do what we want with the leftover money.

jackomdj

All our money is "joint" money although some accounts are in OH's name & some are in mine. OH has his own current account, useful as he is often away & spending out on food, hotels etc so he knows his approx balance - his pay goes here. The account I use is also where our bills all come out of & is a foint account - my pay goes here. We use internet banking in OH's name so we can access both accounts. Our savings account is in my name, as OH was out of the country when I opened it....it has a very healthy balance! I only work part time & pay out childcare (salary sacrifice), share save & pension so my take home pay is about 1/10th which OH takes home.

We are fortunate that we have enough money for what we want, although we are also both careful with money & we share everything we have.

Nicky