how do you and your partner budget?

cte1111

We have a joint account which all our income and outgoings go through. We have a spreadsheet with all the regular bills for each month and then add other bits and pieces as they come up. If there is any spare then it goes into an ISA and comes back out if and when we need it.

The only downside I've found is that I discovered in advance when my husband had bought me a sat nav for a birthday present as I saw it on the credit card bill. But this is a small price to pay for us both having complete transparency over our finances.

garcianicole

penelope, good idea to count your xmas, hols etc as a bill, do you work it out over the year and put away a percentage each month?

tixy, my husbands debts are mixture of over spending (burying his head in the sand when it came to the mounting debts) - had we worked out a proper budget, he may not have felt so frustrated and been more responsible - paying random amts of money (guilt?) into his sons bank account on top of what csa was taking, hsbc stopping his large overdraft overnight .. i really believe he wants to sort things out, he is due a large inheritance (when probate nightmare completed) and paying his debts off is his top priority - just need to start doing the ground work for debt free future

penelopedee_2

Garcianicole - yes normally but with DH out of work its been a bit hit and miss. I had to top up the MOT fund this time and after the school hols I will be throwing extra into the Christmas pot as its looking a bit grim at the moment. But the emergency fund gets a payment every month without fail, even if its just a tenner. I work on the theory you pay yourself/future before you start spending each month.

When we first got together we split everything into two, but DH was earning a lot more than me then and I was a bit scared to let him know how hard I was finding it (we were young and naive back then). I got into debt just covering my half of the bills and he felt dreadful about it for ages, especially as he could have afforded to put more into the bills account.

twistedhazel

My OH and I have a joint account for all the bills, food, housey things etc and then our own accounts for our individual spends inc. cars (and associated costs), clothes, hobbies and treats etc. We always split bills 50/50 but it just wasn't working out so now we both pay 70% of our wages into the joint account. This way we both feel like we are contributing a fair amount of our pay and we don't end up "borrowing money" from each other and having all the build up of trouble that that can cause. The other benefit is that when either of us gets a pay rise (been a while now but still .....) we just up the amount to reflect the 70%. We also have it so that bonuses are kept in our individual accounts (again been a while but I do vaguely remember what one of those looked like) after all I/he worked extra hard for that money.

We've still managed to accumlate debt between us and for the time being everything from both our wages is being thrown at the debt - which I have stopped looking at as mine and OH's and now view as being "ours", it's funny how your view of things changes as you get older and wiser.

It is the case that what works for one couple wont work for another but we've been doing it this way since we bought our house and it feels right for us. Weirdly enough it felt more grown up getting a joint account that signing the mortgage!

LillythePink

We used to have a joint account for bills contributing half of the amount per month and then keeping separate the rest in our own accounts.

However now, after clearing all of our debt and buying a house, we now have about 4 joint accounts (current and savings) and then our own - basically we have pocket money each month to do with what we like and all bills come out of one joint account, but then we have another joint account for weekly things like food/petrol with a s/o going into it each week - the rest of the money in the original joint account then stays there until payday (well mine) and then it's put into the savings.

It's awkward sometimes as he is paid weekly and me monthly - but we are getting there - we only started this within the past few months since we bought our house.

If you're worried about being tied to him with a joint account and he is in debt, then why not open up another current account in your name where only the bills come out, that way your own account can be for you with your "pocket money" but you can show him the new one and see that bills are being paid etc. Then when you're both in a better financial position (well him), make it a joint - it's easier to do this than go from a joint to a single!

tanith

We have a joint acc and our own current accounts each, we pay into the J/A every month enough to cover the bills+ (it builds up a bit over the year) then whatever we have left in our acc we use as and when we want.. we pay alternate weeks for grocery shopping and if there is a big purchase we usually go halves.. or take it in turns.. OH earns more than double my income as I am retired now so he puts in more than I do.. its worked perfectly well for 20yrs now... we each have our own hobbies so we can spend what we like of our own surplus cash , we both save as well into ISA's

Mrs_Jojo

We have my salary going into my account and almost all the bills come off that, his salary goes into the joint account and [STRIKE]I [/STRIKE]we spend it :-) Shopping and petrol go on a credit card and get paid off each month, everything else comes from the joint account.

wendz86

We worked out how much rent and all bills etc come to and then we worked out how much as a percentage OH's and mines salaries are off our total income. Then we pay that much each towards everything. It works out he pretty much pays the rent and i pay all the bills and pay a bit towards the rent. That way we both have the same percentage of our income left after.

TUS

We have a spreadsheet with ALL outgoings and incomings listed. We worked out total amounts and split it.

So my OH pays rent and tv license. I pay all other bills, buy groceries and petrol. We are both left with approx the same disposable per month (not a lot, but a bit of pocket money). Christmas, kids birthdays, holidays, etc, are all budgeted for months in advance and we each put into a separate savings account until we've met our target for whatever we need.

It's all about organisation. I cannot recommend highly enough the importance of having all the figures recorded in a clear spreadsheet.

Snowmoredebt

Hi, My partner and I have seperate but use online banking. We use OH's wages, Tax Credits and Child Benefit to pay Bills, Debts Petrol etc we then use my wages to overpay debts and the non necessary spends we dont say 50/50 its just whats needed or wanted, it works well for us.