Both working - fairest way to split the finances.

MoodyMel

Hi

I am hoping to get some perspective on splitting finances from those that already do this.

My husband and I have been together for 21 years and have never had 'our own' money, as we have never both worked full time, at the same time, in all the years we have been together. We Have been a complete mixture of full-time, part-time, unemployed & students.. all at different times, so we have just had all income from wages, benefits, student loans etc, paid into our joint account and paid all our bills from that account. There was never much left but any leftover money was just spent on whatever needed to be bought or on whoever wanted an item more iygwim.

Anyway.. we are both about to start full-time work. My husband should be starting in 2 weeks and I am starting at the end of April.

I would like us to have our own money for once. He is happy to just carry on as we are (with both wages paid into the same account and just paying bills from it then spending/saving what is left) I don't want to do this as we need to get a bit more a grip on our finances. We also have 9k of debt so this also needs to be paid off along the way. Plus I want to get a savings account started and get a holiday booked.

I am proposing we have the joint account, but also have our own single accounts, I already have one but he would need to open one. The problem I am having is trying to work out the 'best' way to action this.

Should we:
A - Have our wages paid into the joint account and transfer a set amount each week or month into our own account.
Or
B - have our wages paid into our own account and transfer the bill money weekly/monthly into the joint account.

I know it seems like it makes no difference, but it really does

Just to add. My wage will be a fixed amount each month, his wage is weekly and may vary by up to £160 per week, depending on extra days/hours worked.

Sorry it was so long. I am trying to get it clear in my head before I make the suggestion


[purplesignup][/purplesignup]

Sagz_2

Partner of 11 years and I have our own accounts and each pay half of all household bills. We also put the same amount as each other into joint savings which cover replacement of white goods, unexpected car costs, etc and holidays.

I earn about 3 times as much as him, but I pay my mortgage and all house repairs and improvements, and he lives with me (so no rent). Disposable income is roughly about the same.

Mojisola

MoodyMel wrote: »

Should we:
A - Have our wages paid into the joint account and transfer a set amount each week or month into our own account.
Or
B - have our wages paid into our own account and transfer the bill money weekly/monthly into the joint account.

Just to add. My wage will be a fixed amount each month, his wage is weekly and may vary by up to £160 per week, depending on extra days/hours worked.

As his wage is going to vary, I would go for A.

If you choose B and his wage varies, the amount left in his personal account will vary from week to week.

It may also be worth setting up another account for savings.

MoodyMel

Mojisola wrote: »

As his wage is going to vary, I would go for A.

If you choose B and his wage varies, the amount left in his personal account will vary from week to week.

It may also be worth setting up another account for savings.

Just to clarify that slightly.
Our basic take home pay will be very similar, with his slightly higher, but he may earn 80 or 160 extra per week if he has to do extra days. So he would only ever have extra, not less..

Not sure if that makes a difference to your reply I didn't explain it very well.

Mojisola

MoodyMel wrote: »

Not sure if that makes a difference to your reply

Don't think so.

If your intention is that all the bills are paid from a joint account and you both have the same amount of personal money each month, then option A will do that - you can set up a standing order.

If you chose option B, then your OH will have to transfer a different amount each month into the joint account depending on how much money he receives.

With option A, any extra that he earns will stay in the joint account.

jackieblack

You can define fair a dozen different ways and get a different answer every time.
You need to agree a way that works for the two of you - what strangers on the interface might do, or consider 'fair' is really irrelevant.

If you just want ideas/suggestions you could try doing a search, this topic has been discussed many times over, with many different opinions given and conclusions made.

Gloomendoom

As above.

Mrs G and I both earn and have separate accounts. We don't use any complex algorithms to work out who pays for what. She moved into what was my house so, historically, I pay the mortgage, home insurance and utility bills etc. She generally pays for food, petrol and any other bill that she opens before me.

If one of us gets a bit short, the the other just transfers some money across. I have absolutely no idea whether or not it balances out. It doesn't really matter to us.

mai_taylor

We have all our money go into a joint account which we use for spending and bills, we also have a couple of direct debit into savings accounts. I see no reason to complicate it by moving money into other accounts.

selement

We have our salaries go into joint accounts for bills, dd for credit cards out of these (we too are trying to get out of debt), and our own individual account. We currently get a set amount of spending money a month into these to spend/save how we want, so we can't argue over who has spent too much that month!

redmel1621

Thanks for the replies.
I want to make sure we don't argue about money.
He spends more than me on haircuts, clothes, hobbies and all its related clothing/equipment costs and often buys more prepacked food for lunches..

So I suppose it is more for my benefit that I want to do it this way as I know it will annoy me if he is spending so much and I'm not.

This way he will have to budget for new running trainers or squash racket of golf clubs etc... out of his own spends. If he hasnt got it then he'll have to wait.

clint_S

How does splitting your finances help to get a bit more of a grip on them?