At what point did your OH and you stop having "your" money and became "our" money

EatingGlitter

Was having a conversation with a friend at work today. We're the same age. Same sort of position in our relationships (engaged and living together, though my partner and I are buying a house and they rent) and she mentioned that they pool all their money together even though he earns more than her.

My OH and I do our bills 50/50 and occasionally treat each other but we still keep back our own money from our respective salaries (once again the man earns more than the woman!). At what sort of point did you and your significant other go from having your own money to "our" money. Which did you prefer? Is it advisable?

rachbc

EatingGlitter wrote: »

Was having a conversation with a friend at work today. We're the same age. Same sort of position in our relationships (engaged and living together, though my partner and I are buying a house and they rent) and she mentioned that they pool all their money together even though he earns more than her.

My OH and I do our bills 50/50 and occasionally treat each other but we still keep back our own money from our respective salaries (once again the man earns more than the woman!). At what sort of point did you and your significant other go from having your own money to "our" money. Which did you prefer? Is it advisable?

Ah this old can of worms - you'll get some posters on any minute who proclaim that unless you share everything then you clearly don't love/ trust/ respect each other enough.

I say whatever works for you are as a team. I am paying off debt so I don't expect my hubby to contribute to those, just as I don't particular want to pay for his expensive hobby so we pay bills jointly (unequal split as I work p/t) and whats left is his/mine.

evansmummy

The day we moved in together (at 21!) we pooled our money together. Not because of the whole love, respect thing it just worked out that way. I personally don't think that it should be seperate but I'm old fashioned that way. Saying that a few years back before we had the kids I did go through a stage of wanting to squirrel some spending money away for me without having to justify it to the hubby what I was spending it on. He has never said 'no you can't buy that' or anything but he's definately more frugel than me. He has been a great influence though as we don't have any debt bar the mortgage so all is good.
I do know couples who have seperate salaries/accounts who have the most horredous rows that 'he put a full case of beer on the supermarket bill when it was my turn to pay'. Quite frankly there's more important things to think about!

keza

For me and my DH, we split our money according to how much we bring home (so me 45% and DH 55%) we have a spreadsheet with all bills, joint savings etc and we put money to cover these into a joint account. then we are left with a few hundred each for our own phone bills, going out, any personal debt (which we have none at moment) and any personal spends. this works very well for us.

That way we have our own personal savings, money to do things with etc and also our joint savings and money for bills, shopping, holidays etc

no rows, no 'im not paying this time coz its ur turn' etc. alls fair in our household. best of both worlds

HTH x

Darlyd

My money pays for electric, food, kids clothes (includes catalogues which I am paying off), toiletries etc and my car, life insurance, health insurance, mobile, credit cards and I still put some money a side in the kids account.

Hubbies money pays mortgage (in his name only), house insurances, gas, water, tv/bb/sky and council tax. (he has company mobile and car)

Hubby earns more than me, but pays out less

We really do need to sit down and chat about our finances, although he does give me some money each week, it's not enough for everything I pay for.

OAP1945

in 1962 one of our wedding presents was a cheque addressed to Mr and Mrs so we opened our joint bank account then, both our pays went into it apart from when I stopped working for 12 years to have our family. Both our pensions are now paid into the same account. BUT thats what works for us, along with a monthly chat about savings and spends.

Tropez

This is all about what works for you as a couple.

What seems to be a somewhat common problem on these forums is that some people find themselves in a situation where they keep separate accounts but are unhappy about the way that they perceive the bills to be split and I concur that if one person finds themselves paying all or most of the bills while another is contributing less but spending more on themselves rather than the relationship then that is a problem.

My partner and I have separate finances but have discussed what we consider a fair way of paying the household bills. We pay a percentage of our income into an account for paying the bills and then keep the rest separate but this doesn't mean that we never spend money on each other.

SkintGypsy

We opened a joint account when we got married, but still used our own. By the time we had our first baby everything was coming in and out of the joint account with no 'own' money. Any spare goes into joint savings and paying off a joint mortgage.

LittleMissAspie

Never. There's a joint account with joint money in but that is all for household and bills. Spending money is in our own accounts. Never had an argument about money and never will.

tanith

Never did it either, we have joint acc for mortgage and bills and our salary/pensions is paid into our own accounts to use for anything we want.. which includes items for the house or each other and saving. Never had an argument about money in 20yrs..

This method worked perfectly for us, I was a saver he was a spender but as he gradually realised that his money was gone and he really couldn't figure out where it had gone , and mine was saved and I could afford to pay for holidays, clothes , pressies etc.. he started to cut out all the 'STUFF' he did with his cash and now also saves for things and has money in ISA's etc for a rainy day and retirement.. it so would not of worked if I had nagged him about his spending but this way it was eventually obvious to him that he was a spendthrift although of course he always paid his way with the bills before 'spending' what he had left..

Jesswithwings

We opened a joint bank account when we got married (we never lived together before marriage) and we pool all our money into one big pot (well, big might be stretching the truth... one pot)

It does work because he's very good with numbers, I'm not. He's a spender but I'm not. Out of the money we get on payday we budget for this and that, and have a certain amount of spending money each - to do with as we please. He tends to buy a lot of things and play golf a lot, I tend to stockpile mine up and then buy something nice. We dont argue about money because we never go over the agreed budget, but we do just put all our money together.