seperate bank accounts when married?

GillsMan7

My wife and I have the old fashioned "joint account" - literally no segregation of money. It's been that way for the last 6 years (we're only 28 now).

It works really well for us. Although I would say that I now earn considerably more than her around 3-5x what she earns, so it's not quite as great as it once was. It works pretty well though, as I spend a lot more than her - I buy the TV and computer, and go out more than her, etc. We're on a budget drive at the moment and have given each other a monthly expenses allowance. Daughter (20 months) has £30, wifey has £80 and I have £150. I earn a lot more, work in London and am Irish so drink more, hence I have the greatest allowance. We're happy with our system and it works well mostly.

There was a bit of friction when she was out of work and I was concerned that she wasn't pulling her weight looking for a job - I was worried that as we could comfortably live on my salary alone she wasn't trying hard enough. But we resolved that issue, and I'm glad things are sorted now.

It works for us, but I'd never find people who have seperate accounts "odd" as another user has. Each to their own I say.

MGCP

I don't think any system is weird as long as it works for the two of you. My wife and I probably have something like 10 accounts between us, of which only one is a joint account used for bills, food shopping, restaurants etc (and which has a fairly small balance as it pays little interest). I don't think we could face the admin of converting them all to joint accounts!

I know what she has in hers, she knows what I have in mine (and every now and then we compare to see how our total is going!). The fact that we don't both have access to those accounts which are administered in our own names doesn't mean that we don't consider it "our money". Certainly, if we ever get around to scraping up a deposit for a house we will each be raiding several of those accounts so we can both contribute to that expense together.

JillsDaughter

Whatever works I think, we have two JA although they started off as separate a/cs and my wages get paid into one and OH's get paid into another.
This is great for us as my monthly wage covers all direct debits and bills, his weekly wage is used for weekly shopping, going out and day-to-day living.
Where it gets confusing is all the other accounts we have set up in a variety of combinations of names for different savings etc! But generally its our money, our bills, our savings and we never row about it.:j

LittleVoice

Have one joint account for household bills and another for business account - rest sole accounts. Married for over 30 years and had the joint household current account for at least the most recent 20. Business account held more about ten years but dormant now.

Utility bills (gas, electricity, water, phone) paid through household current and originally put all household spending through it to try to keep track but don't bother now. I pay Council Tax and usually pay for holidays : OH buys most of the petrol. We don't have a mortgage.. Whoever shops for groceries pays.

Will actually be closing the joint current account because it's with RBS in England and I don't want Santander to get its hands on any of my money. Not sure whether will open another joint account

AnonymousForObviousReason

Out of interest, what do people do about their Mistresses and accounts? just kidding (you pay cash)

themull1

been together 13 years, my account is for utility bills and mortgage, husbands acc is for car, food, sky tv, extras, joint acc for child benefit.

bmwboi99

some of these posts are very interesting , keep them coming

northern_at_heart

We each pay the same amount into a joint household account when we get paid (this covers rent, bills, food, occasional meals out together etc) and the rest we keep to do as we like with. His goes on beer and Amazon books; mine goes on clothes and frivolous toiletries!

But his salary has increased much faster than mine recently and he now earns twice as much as me. We've also just bought a house so things will be different for us... He is going to contribute two-thirds of the joint amount each month and me one third. I feel a bit strange about this as we graduated together and he isn't any cleverer than me or anything, he just took a more well-paid career path while I work in the arts. But ho hum, this is my problem I guess. Just don't like feeling dependent...

shebrett

We go for the joint account and both our salaries get paid into it, the only money we have separately is a small cash sum we take out each month to just spend on whatever unnecessary things we want (it's our guilt free just blow it money). The necessities, clothes, house stuff and everything else come out of the rest of the money whenever we need it. Never had any arguements over money in 7 years and because we see it as our money rather than his and mine also don't have any issues with who put in what.

I think it works because we both spend the same way, as much as we'd love to shop we would never dream of just splurging on whatever and leaving the family short of money. Same for those who have the separate accounts I would imagine. I think the problems tend to crop up when you have a saver and a spender together as they're more likely to have issues with anything joint, I can't imagine how fast OH would have to run to escape me if he blew our savings on a whim!

fiendishlyclever

Nothing unusual here. We get paid into our own sole name accounts and both transfer an equal amount into a joint account from which all household bills, mortgage etc are paid.

Having a totally separate account for bills does make sense - it means we always know there will be enough money to pay for everything.

If circumstances change in the future it takes only a few mouseclicks to change the balance of payments between us both. We are also fortunate in that neither of us struggles financially so there is no issue of one partner struggling while the other has plenty of money.

I don't think there is a right and wrong way of managing money - it's what works best for you.