Best way to manage household expenses?

74jax

Fireflyaway said:

 I've calculated the percentage thing and that might work. Only issue is if we go for a family meal for example who pays for that? I don't want to assume my husband would pay because he earns more but if I paid it would wipe out half my monthly spending money.  be more money free which 

My husband earns way more than me, we go out he pays, occasionally I'll pay, it's not a big issue.
We put in a % to cover bills, he does 3/4 I do 1/4 and we do what we like with the stuff that's left. 

Fireflyaway

I think a few posts have made me spot an area where maybe we are going wrong! Thank you! We have never had a category for entertainment. Up till now we have covered bills and saving and what's left is spending money for each of  us. That's ok for personal things like a new top, coffee at work or a book etc but family things like meals out, bowling or cinema usually fall to my husband to cover out of his spending money and that's probably unfair. I think we need to add in an amount for family entertainment. 

Mojisola

Fireflyaway said:

I think we need to add in an amount for family entertainment. 

Don't forget savings for holidays and for buying birthday/Christmas presents for family members.

Fireflyaway

These should be ok. We have a small family so we just use our own spending money for birthdays. Christmas we stop saving in December and use that money and holidays usually come from my husband's bonus. 

Emmia

Fireflyaway said:

Only issue is if we go for a family meal for example who pays for that? 

We have our salaries paid into our own accounts, and have a joint account with proportional contributions to which we transfer money weekly for groceries, meals out etc. We will occasionally top this up, e.g. if a big Ocado shop is being delivered! 

We also transfer money to a separate joint account that covers the mortgage and similar costs - we don't have any joint savings apart from any excess in this account. 

Apart from that, the money I earn and my savings are mine (and I can spend this as I wish), and his money and savings are his, for him to spend as he pleases - we are fortunate though to both have good incomes, and we don't have kids. 

Fireflyaway

I like the idea of having a separate account for entertainment. Part of the issue previously was money getting muddled. You suddenly realize there isn't enough money for a bill because you ate out too many times or forgot just how many coffees you bought! It's easy to set an entertainment budget but accidental spend more than that. 

Spendless

Fireflyaway said:

My husband doesnt know what to do! We have tried various ways that don't seem to work so both want to try something different. I've calculated the percentage thing and that might work. Only issue is if we go for a family meal for example who pays for that? I don't want to assume my husband would pay because he earns more but if I paid it would wipe out half my monthly spending money. The current issue is we have school fees to pay and are wanting to save quite a bit so we can move house. Once that's no longer and issue there would be more money free which would make it easier. A source of discontent has been my husband working but feeling he never had spare cash. 

Is your husband finding that school fees on top of the more expensive bills coming out of his wages a struggle?
We had school issues with my daughter that made her very ill. If it had come to light  what the problem was at an earlier stage I would have considered moving her to private school for a few years .This was something that would need to come out of my f-time wage as the costs would have been more than our mortgage. It would have taken up a uge chunk of disposible income but again would have the advantage of a bill with an 'end date' - even if in your case this is a number of years away.

Savvy_Sue

Fireflyaway said:

A source of discontent has been my husband working but feeling he never had spare cash. 

Well, the only way to resolve THAT is for your husband to look at budgets, his and yours. What are the ESSENTIAL spends, including the school fees atm. How does that compare to his salary? What comes out of his, what comes out of yours? 

What's left over?

Tedious, but necessary. 

maman

We have a different system but probably easier than yours because DH and I have similar incomes. If you're happy with sharing 50:50 or the percentage system then it could still work in the same way.

 We each have our salaries paid into our own accounts. We have shared all the household bills out equally so that each of us has an equal value in direct debits coming out of our own accounts. We put all 'cash' household expenses on our own credit cards like food or meals out or annual bills like insurance. Once a month we do the maths and split the household part of the cc bills and do the bank transfers as needed . It takes about 15 minutes, once a month and gives us the satisfaction that we're each paying our way and on top of things. I've had my own account since I was a student, like the independence and would find a joint account irksome. 

 We've got into the habit of saving individually (legacy from when ISAs were good value). When a family purchase like furniture or a holiday comes along we just put it on the credit card and split it as above. So briefly, everything left in our personal accounts is ours although it does rely on each of us being sensible with money and having the money there to pay the cc bills. This wouldn't work if either partner spent the balance in their account just because they could. 

In your situation I think you should definitely plan for savings as you want to move house. Personally I think £200 is a lot for personal spending. I suppose it depends how urgently you want to move. My DH spends on his hobbies. I have more savings than him. Generally we buy clothes, toiletries beyond the supermarket basics, meals out with our own friends, hairdressers and other personal care from our own money. Fortunately we have a good income and our children are grown up but in your situation I'd be saving as much as possible without getting miserable and giving up. 

Fireflyaway

Thanks again everyone. There is no doubt that school fees are quite an expense but it doesn't leave us short. There is 2-4 years left depending whether our child decides to stay on ( and is accepted)  at current school sixth form or switches to a state school. 
Unfortunately I don't earn enough to split the bills 50/50. 50% is more than my salary. 
Yep I do think my husband is more impulsive! He will see something he likes and buy it or even use a credit card with the intention of paying it back. I'm not really into clothes or makeup and recently started working from home which means all the takeaway coffees and lunches stopped so I really don't spend much. 
I also don't want us to be too tight with spending money that we give up saving or too generous that it takes 10 years to save a house deposit!