How dod you and your partner set up your finances?

aa2

Hi all

I've been with my partner for 6 years and we've always been completely financially independent. Were looking to combine our money and I was wondering how everyone else does it?

We are thinking of doing this;

Joint Savings - Everything which is left over from joint account.

Joint account - all wages in, all bills including each others (mobile phones, loans etc), petrol, food, vet bills basically everything apart from;

Individual account - An allowance for going out with friends, buying CD's, lunch, coffee's basically general living!

Individual Cash Isa - An independant savings account with a set amount going in each month for when one wants to indulge themselves with a new coat or save for a rainy day... or buy the other half a surprise expensive christmas present (if your reading this!).

What are your thoughts?

SplanK

Ours issimilar....

Joint savings - never bothered with this - just each have a savings pot and Iscrape money into them as and when appropriate... (ala ISA's). The money we putinto savings each month typically goes into the ISA's (until maxed out), butour normal savings account will sit at around 3k mark. If it dips below thisvalue then we top this back up rather than the ISA. It’s a handy stash of moneyquickly available but not available to spend with just a swipe of a card. Thisstops us having to dip into the ISA if we need a lump of money suddenly.

Joint account - yep same - wages go in, bills come out. Although we tend to popmost stuff on credit card and they get paid off in full each week (tesco creditcards so spending on them generates points).

Most bills are paid off in one lump sum as well, such as insurance on bothcars, house.

Individual account - we have them but hardly use them. OH did have a 2nd jobwhich was paid into this account as we accepted that it only fair that sheshould have that money for herself. I will occasionally use mine for odds andsods, such as other income such as cash backs so I can easily keep a track ofthem as its a slower account! Most of the time £1 sits in it!

The allowance didnt really work for us, we tried it for a while but gave upshortly afterwards and we found that we are both sensible about money but onoccasions needed more than we had in the allowance. We tend to only buy stuff that’sneeded, and the occasional treat such as meal out or takeaway...

lolavix

We have a joint account which we pay into each month, we are both left with the same as 'spending money' in our own accounts, so I pay slightly more into the joint account which all bills are paid from

ailuro2

ours goes into joint account and all the bills are paid from that. it's OUR money not mine and his. He probably spends more than me going out but I spend money on hobbies that he doesn't. Both of us have enough for what we want to do, so we're both happy.

Faith177

We have one account where all the household bills come from ie gas, electric

Everything else stays in our own accounts. That is our spending money and pays for personal bills such as credit cards, phone bills

Tigsteroonie

ailuro2 wrote: »

ours goes into joint account and all the bills are paid from that. it's OUR money not mine and his.

We keep our bank accounts completely separately - but we still see it all as OUR money, not mine and his. We simply balance expenditure between the two accounts.

iwannabeonthebeach

both our wages go into one account from which all expenditure comes out. We then also have a standing order each month into our own personal accounts for spending money each. We each have an isa in our name which is attached to our joint account so contains joint money.
BIL & SIL live completely independently financially and whenever we go out they always argue about whose turn it is to pay. Personally I cant understand this and it always makes us chuckle

kittykat100

We have seperate accounts but have one pot for the bills. We have our own savings. Any other purchases we make together.
Kittyx

wifeforlife

We don't have a joint account, but OH has a separate bill account which we both pay equal amount into each month to cover household bills.

Our own money, is our own money after that, we pay our cars, mobiles and hobbies separately. We will maintain this even when married as it works for us.

themull1

First ex husband, joint savings account, separate current accounts, second ex husband, joint savings account, separate current accounts, third partner totally separate finances!.

thehappybutterfly

We have one joint account which both our salaries go into and all the bills come out of. We're in the midst of a Trust Deed so we only take £25 each pocket money a month. No savings! Apart from our little jars of cash put away each month for the annual bills.