How do you organise your finances with partner?

de1amo

İ feel mugged!! my wife pays for the food in the house and i pay the rest but my wife cant support her credit cards(which the food is spent on) and for half the year i pay her credit cards. i pay for the summer holidays and xmas. we are married and i accept it because she runs the house and look after our daughter--i am expected to do nothing.--we earn the same because she also runs our business. İ only spend on a hair cut and beer money for myself!--its called sharing!

cottonhead

Like you we each have seperate accounts for salaries and pay into a joint account for bills. It works OK. My husband pays in more as he earns more but that way we each have some money in our own personal accounts and dont feel guilty using it for treats.
My onloy advice is keep doing what you have and agree not to make any financial decisons without consulting each other first. I got an overdraft which defaulted and my husband got a credit card which is fell behind on. As having a mortgage makes you financially linked , anything you do will effect each others credit rating. Good luck and best of happiness with your new venture !

Dave101t

what the OP is doing sounds perfect. im married and do much the same thing. we have never had a joint account, or even joint names on bills.

zcrat41

Till you have a ring on a finger I would split it 50:50.

When married I think everything should be joint.

Gillyx

I live with my OH and we have a baby. Im on maternity money topped up with tax credits (his for working, but is paid to me) and he has his pay from work
we both have separate accounts but we act like its all one pot. He pays for some i pay for others. we both have money left in our accounts after bills and we can use that for whatever.

girl_withno_name

sulkisu wrote: »

Agreed. I also like the fact that when we buy each other presents or treats, we do so as individuals - i.e. I buy his birthday present out of my money, not our/his own money.

This I thought would be weird... especially as my OH wants to check through the transactions in case any odd direct debits show up. But then my valentine's gift last year would've quite obviously have appeared as "gliding club" - surprise ruined!

GobbledyGook

We used to pool money. He earned way more than I ever could. We had an account each and then a joint account (we set them up when we moved in together). All money went in there, all the bills came out and then a set amount was transferred into our own accounts as 'spends'. Even though we earned different amounts we took the same amount of spends. Despite me earning much less he was insistant that we had the same amount of personal cash. He never wanted me to be in the same position as the wife of colleagues of his who had everything paid for for them and who had to ask all the time for money if they needed it. He also never wanted us to be in the same boat as one couple where he wanted to go on a fancy holiday and she couldn't afford to go - so he went with a mate.

Sequeena

I'm a SAHM now so OH is the earner but when I was working too we had our separate banks but we both paid for everything. We didn't have 'his' and 'hers' money. It didn't matter who paid what as the money was both ours. We got a joint account shortly after as it was easier just to have our wages in the same place.

mildred1978

JethroUK wrote: »

I suppose it will keep working whilst ever you keep married - that system will only get messy if you decide to split

certainly wouldn't recommend it for the OP who is not married at all

bank accounts dont cost money so use that to make it easy to keep your finances sorted/seperate

This makes no sense. Why would it be messy if we split? Our money is already split!!

kevshed

As the major earner, i have always controlled the finances, and my wife contributed to a joint account as a fair proportion of her take home.... she then has her cash, and i have mine. We both have individual accounts, and xfer a fixed amount to a joint account to cover bills/mortgage etc - including a buffer for household savings and repairs etc.

We both like the Independence, and it works. She is a spender, i'm a saver, so when her money is gone, its gone. Neither of us have any credit cards... and as its known i have more cash, i tend to pay for the 'couples' activities - almost as if we are dating (been together 20 years, and married 8... now with 2 kids) - working well for us. I also save for the kids (CTF/JISA and both have pensions).