Joint budgeting

jen_fpb

Myself and my husband have been together 4 years, married 1.5 year. 

Bit of background - he moved in with me originally. My house, my mortgage (kept that way on agreement), I was divorced. Everything else other than mortgage split 50/50 (food, bills etc). Wages went into own account and we put the same amount into joint account for the bills, food etc topping up as needed.

We bought a house together and this is 50/50. Continuing with the accoints as above.

We know have a baby (11 weeks old) and are starting to review is our current method is best. I'm off work on Statutory Maternity Pay, will be going back but hopefully reduced hours. 

Thinking now we have everything go into one account. How do people manage this so you still get spending money? What if one of you already has a lot £40k plus in savings?

Interested to see how others work things and the best way to budget. We are in a lucky position of (what we consider small) mortgage £78k, 14 years and will be making over payments. Just not looking forward to remortgage at end of year as currently on 1.14% interest!

Silverbullet036

Each of you keeps your own accounts but also have a joint account for the bills/spending etc etc. You both deposit an equal 'percentage' of your net wages into the joint account to cover all your joint costs. You both keep whatever is left over from your wages (my opinion is you shouldnt fund the same amount if you arent earning the same wage). You each keep what youve already got and can decide later on how to pay for bigger expenditure like holidays/cars/house improvements

Rob5342

We just treat everything as joint money, spending it as required. We don't think about exactly how much each of us actually spends, but we each limit things to keep it roughly fair. If my wife is going out shopping at the weekend then I'll not spend much, if I want a new coat then she won't spend much that week etc. Most of our money goes on joint things, stuff for the house that benefits us both, meals or trips out together etc, there's only a relatively small amount we use for indivdidual things. Our savings are joint too, we have a general plan of what we want to use them for but agree to use them for individual things sometimes.

We find it a good balance of trust and freedom and it works really well for us. It's not for everyone though and some people will need things more tightly controlled. 

sausage_time

Joint account for salaries and bills (etc), combined savings accounts (ISAs are sole names of course, but we know the balances), but separate credit cards for "private" spend (treats, presents, etc).  So we get to see the total spend for each other (because of the monthly Direct Debit to pay off in full). Thus we can make sure we are broadly aligned and nobody is doing anything silly.  Added bonus - we both get Section 75 protection!

boingy

We have individual accounts plus a joint account and a joint credit card for all the joint expenses. All the bills come out of the joint and we each deposit a fixed amount each month. We occasionally adjust that amount to reflect increasing costs and different salaries. If one of us stopped working or significantly reduced their salary the other would put more into the joint account to cover it. The person earning the lion's share might also make regular payments into the other's individual account.

We are both open about money and completely trust each other but we've never felt the need to keep everything in joint accounts so we've just continued how we started doing it when we first got together all those years ago. Although now that I think about it I missed a bit of a trick back then because I was about 3K in debt when we first got together! 

Quite a contrast to my parents where my dad was the bread winner and mum was mostly a full-time mum, with the occasional part-time job. All of dad's salary went into the joint account which he had almost no access to - mum ran the finances and gave him weekly "pocket money". Sometimes he would request an extra fiver for petrol...

Rob5342

boingy said:

Quite a contrast to my parents where my dad was the bread winner and mum was mostly a full-time mum, with the occasional part-time job. All of dad's salary went into the joint account which he had almost no access to - mum ran the finances and gave him weekly "pocket money". Sometimes he would request an extra fiver for petrol...

My parents were just like that, Dad would ask Mum for money when he needed to buy petrol or something from the shop, even though she was a full time Mum and he had a very well paying job.

I earn far more than my wife does, and she didn't work when our children were younger. We didn't want to be in the situation where she'd be asking me for money so we thought it was fairer to keep it all where we could both manage and use it. 

boingy

Rob5342 said:

boingy said:

Quite a contrast to my parents where my dad was the bread winner and mum was mostly a full-time mum, with the occasional part-time job. All of dad's salary went into the joint account which he had almost no access to - mum ran the finances and gave him weekly "pocket money". Sometimes he would request an extra fiver for petrol...

My parents were just like that, Dad would ask Mum for money when he needed to buy petrol or something from the shop, even though she was a full time Mum and he had a very well paying job.

I earn far more than my wife does, and she didn't work when our children were younger. We didn't want to be in the situation where she'd be asking me for money so we thought it was fairer to keep it all where we could both manage and use it. 

I think it depends very much on the individual characters. If the money was coming out of the joint account my wife would feel guilty every time she bought clothes or treated herself so when she wasn't working I increased my payments to the joint but also made a standing order to her individual account each month. Call it salary, allowance, pocket money, whatever. It just made her more likely to buy stuff for herself than if I'd put all of it into the joint. Same total amount of money, different mindset.

Sarahspangles

We budget using YNAB, which I’d already used for years. It’s an ‘envelope’ budget system which encourages active maintenance of the budget. We have a joint account and separate credit cards each of which have a register (like a statement) in YNAB, we then track our separate savings in spreadsheets. I’m the analytical one and mostly I update spending against the budget on my iPad but OH is actively involved in what we budget and adjustments made during the month.

At the start of the month we fund categories equally in the ‘joint’ budget groups for regular household expenses, fun money and long term expenditure (like household maintenance), these are the first call on each of our incomes which are carried over from the previous month. What remains then goes towards personal categories. OH has retired with a pension plus savings, I earn more so more is left over, but I budget more towards saving for retirement so I can join him soon!

OH doesn’t want a granular breakdown of his own spending which is fine. Once a week he lets me know about any spend on his credit card or from cash that was for something in a joint category, then the difference between that and his cc bill is personal spending. I like to see where my money goes and track that in YNAB, but unless I scroll down that far OH doesn’t see it.

I don’t think it’s fair to split expenditure equally when a couple has chosen that one will do more childcare. What I like about the ‘rhythm’ of budgeting with YNAB is the way it prompts conversations about priorities like this. It also means it doesn’t matter where money is ‘stored’ and the balance in accounts doesn’t mislead us into thinking we have more or less than we really do.

ZeroSum

Once kids come along, you need to do something more proportional

What we do is hold back a fixed equal sum for personal spends in individual accounts. Then rest goes into joint account, which I then manage with me being an avid MSE'r and her not really being of that mindset & understanding financial management.

badger09

There is no right or wrong way. Only the way which both you & your husband are happy with. You may see posts from people who say that unless you pool everything, you’re not in a committed relationship. My reaction to that is unprintable😉
FWIW my husband & I each have a son from previous marriage & both were previously home owners. Husband was always higher earner but as I’m fiercely independent, all joint expenditure has always been funded equally through joint current & savings account. But we each also have personal current & savings accounts. I started investing earlier & have enjoyed being a bit of a rate tart, so my savings are higher. 

We own our home as Tenants in Common & each of our sons will inherit our 1/2 share, plus our savings. Mine will inherit more as stepson has been helped more over the years. 

That’s what works for us & has done for the last 30+ years
Good luck

Rob5342

Yes it's a very individual thing. We've been through various approaches that suited us at different times and changed them when they didn't suit out circumstances.

Starling and Monzo are great for this kind.of thing, you can split things into pots for various things and have direct debits set to come out of specific pots. You also get notifications when either of you spends.