Real life MMD: My hubby earns more. Should he pay more of joint bills?

BNT

Barry1971a wrote: »

...to having separate accounts when married? If that is the way that the couple want to manage their finances it should not concern anyone else.

I for one have been happily married for a few months short of 10 years. We have separate current accounts which our salaries go into. I pay the mortgage & my wife pays the utilities. Only fair as I earn more & so pay the biggest bill.

We do have a joint savings account where our child benefit goes into & that pays for any children related purchase.

It would be a boring place if we were all the same!

I think the aversion was to the idea (perceived more than real) that people considered money in individual acccounts to be their own personal spending money. You're right: the money can be in one, two or 22 accounts, but it is still the same money, belongs to the same people and you can still buy the same things with it.

Mojisola

Barry1971a wrote: »

...to having separate accounts when married? If that is the way that the couple want to manage their finances it should not concern anyone else.

For me, if having separate accounts is what suits them, that's their choice.

I find it hard to understand the couples who have different incomes, share the bills 50/50 and then have very different amounts of disposable income. It doesn't matter what kind of accounts the money is kept in.

The promises made during the wedding ceremony are usually along the lines of "sharing everything". If you carry on behaving like two singles sharing a house, why get married?

lil_miss_insanity

Wow - I'm almost scared to share now with some people's strongly held views!

My situation is that my OH and I have a joint bills account (for 'essentials' - rent, council tax, water and fuel) and, on an average month pay equally into it. The rest of our money is our own.

I earn a fair bit more than my OH and have a permanent job, whereas OH's job is seasonal, and some months he isn't able to earn anything. Months where he isn't in work, I cover the whole bills. I also cover all 'luxury' bills (tv, phone, internet, tv licence etc.) out of my own account. I pay the lions share of holidays etc too. In return, he does a greater share of housework than me, which I am very grateful for!

I also do pretty much all of our saving - saving about 50% of my pay packet on months where I get a bills contribution - to make sure our future is protected.

I wish we were in a position where we could simply do a 'one pot and dish out 'spending money' approach', but I need to be in control of the money or we wouldn't have any. OH is simply not able to control finances, however hard I've tried to teach him. If we pooled it, I'd have to give him "pocket money' which would be humiliating for him. At least this way, we get our bills paid, get some savings (which I do see as ours, not mine) and he still has some control over his own money. Works for us.

Mojisola

lil_miss_insanity wrote: »

Wow - I'm almost scared to share now with some people's strongly held views!

Just because others don't do it your way or don't understand how it can suit you, doesn't mean it isn't right for you.

If both of you are happy with your system, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.

If one partner isn't happy, then the couple have a problem.

Bodincus

So many of you missing the point here: almost ALL bills are to the household, or for the upkeep of the house.

Food, electricity, gas, council tax, water & sewage, home insurance, TV, phone, internet, all expenses to buy or maintain household items and too many more to enumerate here, relate to things that are either intangible, impossible or irrational to partition - if you are not a control freak, that is.

So, for all this household expenses, the occupier(s) of the dwelling must pay an equal share, no matter what is their income, because they consume an equal share.

When one or more of the occupiers doesn't have a job, and therefore no income, it's customary to pay back in "unpaid labour" for the upkeep of the household.

Whatever else, any other solution, can belong to other arrangements; but outside of this canonic system you are not living in a household.

It's a joint venture, a financial arrangement, it's bunking up. But there is NO household. Probably because there is no Family.

If you have to manage your family finances like in a business partnership, the basis you build your future upon are rather flimsy, and very sad indeed.

Emorp

We put a fixed amount in for bills each month to a household account. As my wages started to substantially exceed my partner's, I just upped the amount i put in and i pay for most of the larger house improvement type stuff.
Seems to work fine, but I guess if I hadn't just done it, there might have been cause to discuss fairness. We're also fortunate to have modest needs, so neither of us covets items that we'd need the other to subsidise. I can appreciate that this is would be more of an issue when one partner is on really low wages.
I don't think either of us would be happy with an all in together account, but that's just us.

Cuidadosa

Bodincus wrote: »

Whatever else, any other solution, can belong to other arrangements; but outside of this canonic system you are not living in a household.

It's a joint venture, a financial arrangement, it's bunking up. But there is NO household. Probably because there is no Family.

If you have to manage your family finances like in a business partnership, the basis you build your future upon are rather flimsy, and very sad indeed.

Actually, most of the ones here who say that the "splitting" system works for them, are also saying that for all those bills, there is "sharing" of the burden.

Most of the discussion is about "the rest of the money" and different spending patterns.

What I've seen throughout this thread is that I've seen many many judgmental comments from those saying "this is marriage: share EVERYTHING or you cannot call it so" and I think that only one mildly judgmental one from those saying "splitting works for us". All of us "splitters" are happy that it works for you "poolers". I'm only saying.

Traveller1981

That is exactly right. The "splitters" aren't judging the "poolers" but the "poolers" feel like they have to pass judgement on us "splitters" because we don't follow the way they do things.
There is no question of how good a relationship is by how you sort your finances.

BNT

Traveller1981 wrote: »

That is exactly right. The "splitters" aren't judging the "poolers" but the "poolers" feel like they have to pass judgement on us "splitters" because we don't follow the way they do things.
There is no question of how good a relationship is by how you sort your finances.

I don't agree with that assessment. I don't think many poolers were passing judgment because the splitters are doing something different. I think what initially came across was that splitters would treat money in an individual account as personal money that they have individual say over how to spend. Whether the money is in joint or individual accounts is not particularly relevant.

Cuidadosa

BNT wrote: »

I don't agree with that assessment. I don't think many poolers were passing judgment because the splitters are doing something different. I think what initially came across was that splitters would treat money in an individual account as personal money that they have individual say over how to spend. Whether the money is in joint or individual accounts is not particularly relevant.

So what's a comment of the type "if you are married the only way to do it is everything belongs to both of you and that's the only way it should be, otherwise that's not a marriage"?

Your view, BNT, has nothing to do with the view of those that I'm referring to. You are not passing judgement, you only explain your way and you also explain that you wouldn't do it the splitters way. But go back and look at some comments and you'll see what I meant.