does anyone get "housekeeping" ?

meanmarie

A week before we married in 1970 OH said that he had one condition that I must agree to or he would not be there....he would earn the money but I must see to it that bills were paid and food bought etc etc....like an idiot I agreed and I have often felt resentful of that agreement in the years since....like your partner Lil me, OH has never wanted to know how much things have cost, and even if I told him would not remember so I have long ago given up on that one.
When we both worked, OH gave me an agreed amount of his weekly wage and I used that and my salary to see us through...which it did. Since we retired our arrangement is that, as we each have 3 pensions, his largest one goes into our joint account and he keeps the rest...but he mainly pays for treats so I am mainly left with money to save...he still never knows how much is in his bank account, I don't expect it to change now.

The division of family income should, IMHO, be an agreed thing which suits both partners, anything else is unfair to the one stretching the money.

Marie

iceicebaby

I live alone but I suppose i do allocate myself "housekeeping" as such.

I get paid monthly and all my bills are paid by DD the dat after I'm paid. From whats left I transfer some to another account for housekeeping/spending etc. The amount depends on what I know is coming up in the month etc and then the remainder gets transferred into savings account.

nesssie1702

I'm the main wage earner in our household, so it's me that pays the mortgage, council tax and bills such as fuel and phone/Internet. DH pays for the car loan, the insurances and Sky TV.

Any money we've got left over goes into our savings, but I find that if I don't transfer money when DH gets paid it would get frittered away on CDs and gadgets without a thought for anything else.

You've got to do what works for you and your circumstances

HariboJunkie

geordie_joe wrote: »

Yes but a housewife who is out working for an employer is not a housewife, she's an employee getting paid by her employer. Why should she be paid again by someone else?

I don't say to my employer "i'm not coming to work tomorrow, as someone else is going to pay me for doing another job, but can you still pay me?"

".

But it is possible to have 2 jobs isn't it? The disivion of labour in the home tends to be such that even if a woman works the same hours in employment outside the home, she still picks up more of the slack in terms of housework and childcare.

I am a full time mother/housewife. I do work part time for my OH but I make up my own hours so my work doesn't impact on the children at all as I never work when they are at home from school.
I run the household accounts (and the business ones) completely. All the monthly drawings from the company go into one joint account and all the DDs come out of that. I don't allocate myself housekeeping as such but do try to stick to a self imposed budget. I use the joint account to pay for everything and OH actually spends very little, really only petrol. He works so hard he has little time to spend money. Everything else that he needs (wine, clothes, toiletries etc) I buy for him. Big purchaes are a joint affair.

Penelope_Penguin

HariboJunkie wrote: »

I am a full time mother/housewife. I do work part time for my OH but I make up my own hours so my work doesn't impact on the children at all as I never work when they are at home from school.
I run the household accounts (and the business ones) completely. All the monthly drawings from the company go into one joint account and all the DDs come out of that. I don't allocate myself housekeeping as such but do try to stick to a self imposed budget. I use the joint account to pay for everything and OH actually spends very little, really only petrol. He works so hard he has little time to spend money. Everything else that he needs (wine, clothes, toiletries etc) I buy for him. Big purchaes are a joint affair.

Are you me That's pretty much how we do it. DH is the main earner and his money goes into the joint account. I spend from that (on a self-imposed budget) and surplus goes into savings.

DH doesn't spend much, apart from petrol, the odd small grocery shop, occasional clothing, and sometimes meals or trips out. These are all on credit card, and I pay the bills from our joint account.

I work part-time and my salary goes into a high interest (well it was when I took out the account :rolleyes: ) account. This is used to buy "treats" such as holidays, days out, and big indulgence purchases

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fletch3163

What a great thread!

I've just been having this moan over on GC. DH and I have always had a joint account. I've always been the bigger earner (sometimes only marginally) and so joint seemed fairest. We only ever had 1 account and we lived off it mainly. Problem is I've now changed my spending habits, become more frugal, and DH is hating it.

In the past 7 or so months I've been able to save almost a quarter of our income each month. Huge feat for us. Ordinarily we would just spend what we felt, when we felt. We've also been lucky to never had found ourselves in real debt (throw back from growing up totally skint I reckon).

Our spending habits/desires don't match any more and I'm seriously contemplating letting it all go to the dogs again or splitting the earnings his and hers with a DD for half each going into the middle.

carolt2

Hi there, my OH gives me a set amount per month, which i review every April ( rent and council tax always goes up then),
the amount i get from OH pays for his half of all the household bills and half towards the car payment. This also includes half of our grocery budget.
This works out well for us, OH does not need to worry about bills,food shopping etc and the rest of the money in his account covers his own direct debits plus his spending money.
We have joint savings that we both pay a set amount into per month. We use this for treats etc
We have a book where all bank tranactions are written in for both of us, so we can look at it and see exactly how much money there is and if there are any direct debits due out.
This has worked out really well for us, OH was useless with managing his money when we met and always going overdrawn/bank charges etc. This has not happened since i started filling in this book and keeping an accounts book.

Mrs_Ryan

Its the other way round in our house.

We both work full-time, and we have 2 separate bank accounts, although with the same bank. OH pays everything DD from his account - all bills, mortgage and groceries as he's dead old fashioned and believes its the man's responsibility to pay the bills....
I pay the phone bill though, I transfer the money monthly via FP into OH's account. If I have to buy something that comes under 'household expenses' OH gives me the money back. It works for us - OH still has more than enough left each month for himself, and my wages pay my bills - my DMP payments, travel costs, mobile phone top-ups etc and whats left is my own.
Its mostly quite fair as we pay for our own stuff ourselves.
However, I basically run OH's account for him but the balance of mine is always a closely guarded secret - he thinks its a major world disaster if his balance goes under £250 per week but the truth is Im lucky if mine is that for a few days a month!!!!!!!!!!

Francesanne

I've always looked after our finances and it's worked perfectly for us for almost 40 years. We've always had a joint account and when we both worked my husband received a set amount each month to spend how he liked. We've always managed to keep our heads above water and we never missed a mortgage payment in 20 years. Never had any major rows about money and it's suited us well. I do tend to worry how he'd manage if I died first but he seems sadly lacking in interest when I tell him where to find certain paperwork. He'd be fine cooking and cleaning but it's the financial side that tends to worry me.