Finances as a couple

Gloomendoom

We have a joint account that we set up when we got married but has ended up being used just for paying our travel insurance. Everything else come out of our personal bank accounts. We've never sat down and worked out who should pay what from where. All money, regardless of where it resides, is regarded as "our' money so there are never any arguments who is paying for what.

The concept of "spends" is alien to us as we each just spend what is necessary out of our money.

missbiggles1

Gloomendoom wrote: »

We have a joint account that we set up when we got married but has ended up being used just for paying our travel insurance. Everything else come out of our personal bank accounts. We've never sat down and worked out who should pay what from where. All money, regardless of where it resides, is regarded as "our' money so there are never any arguments who is paying for what.

The concept of "spends" is alien to us as we each just spend what is necessary out of our money.

That's the way my late husband and I managed things, because we trusted each other and knew neither of us would abuse the system or take advantage.

My ex husband (a decent enough bloke), on the other hand, would have spent most of our money on himself, justifying it on the basis of things like needing really good suits for work, working harder than I did (true:o) and because buying "stuff" was important to him but not to me.

Best to have rules or guidelines at the start and see how things go, as you did.

Georgiegirl256

Gloomendoom wrote: »

We have a joint account that we set up when we got married but has ended up being used just for paying our travel insurance. Everything else come out of our personal bank accounts. We've never sat down and worked out who should pay what from where. All money, regardless of where it resides, is regarded as "our' money so there are never any arguments who is paying for what.

The concept of "spends" is alien to us as we each just spend what is necessary out of our money.

Exactly how we do it too.

People working out "but I pay more for hair care", well, being a woman, you probably will. Then people saying things like "why should I subsidise my partners expensive tastes/hobbies?" Surely if you're a married couple then the household money is both your money to do with as you please?

If my husband monitored everything I spent and vice versa, I would find that very weird indeed. I use his account, he uses mine and any money lying about the house is whoever needs it at any given time.

theoretica

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Spending a lot on clothes is just a choice (and nothing wrong with it) and not something your partner should have to subsidise (except for presents).

I don't think she was saying that it was something her partner had to subsidise. Rather, that it was something her partner was happy to subsidise. Some partnerships are more financially merged than others. I suspect that fully merging financially is easier where neither partner is particularly spendthrift and both people have similar attitudes to what spending is worthwhile.

ThinkPink

We both pay a set amount into a joint account from our personal accounts which our wages go into.

The joint account covers:
Mortgage
Bills (gas electric water council tax life insurance)
Some of the food shopping
Sky
Car- tax, mot, insurance, repairs (oh now has a company car so all this is for my car but it still comes out the joint account)

Out of our own personal accounts:
Mobile contract
Money into a savings account
Fuel
The rest is for us to spend or save as we wish so things such as clothes, treats, hobbies etc.

This works for me and oh as we have different approaches to money, I'm very much a spender whilst he is a saver and by keeping our spending money seperate in personal accounts it saves on disagreements!! This has worked well for us for quite a few years now. I'm now on maternity leave so we have to see how this arrangement works out when I'm taking home a lot less money!!

Money_saving_maniac

We both pay a set amount into my account (I'm best with money) to cover


Mortgage
Bills (gas electric water council tax etc)
Food shopping
Cable
Car- tax, mot, insurance, repairs for two cars
Dog food
Savings

Out of our own personal accounts:
Mobile contract
Fuel
hair cuts
clothes
any other spending or saving (saving in my case, spending in his!)

But the amounts we pay into the bills and saving account is weighted so that we pay the same proportion of our after tax wages, hope that makes sense.

I'm considering moving us to a 'same pocket money' situation instead for the future, which will increase our savings.

glentoran99

missbiggles1 wrote: »

We did that but the drawback comes when you buy each other a present.

I don't see the drawback? We still get presents for each other

alipops1986

We both pay half into the joint account to cover:

All household bills inc food
Mortgage
Car Payments

Then, we both allow ourselves the same per month for "spends" - car insurance, petrol, going out etc.

Any remaining money goes into the savings.

I earn a fair chunk more than my husband, but we even everything out so we input the same into the joint account AND have exactly the same amount of "spends" - what we choose to do with that is up to the individual, but once it's gone, it's gone for the month. If we go out as a couple, one of us will pay or if we have some spare in joint account we'll use that.

FBaby

Joint what needs to be paid, end of. What is personal is what we can decide whether to pay or not and if we don't, nothing bad happens.

Really, what matters is to start at a position where both have a similar disposable income. After that, you can decide that one can have more because they have more expensive hobby, or more family members to buy presents for, or just spends more and the other doesn't mind. The reality is that is much easier to be flexible the more money you have anyway.

FreddieFrugal

All our pay goes into one main joint current account.

I always make sure that there's enough in the current account to cover monthly bills with a enough extra to cover something additional like car insurance or a December credit card bill.

Anything extra on top of that amount is moved into our individual and/or joint current accounts/monthly saver accounts. We have lots of them in order to get decent interest.


Everything comes out of our shared money pool.