FIRE Girls Pension Diary - Aim High & Dream Big

enthusiasticsaver

As long as it works for you both then that is what matters.

 We have always used a joint account for all income and household expenditure with us both getting some personal money in our own accounts. That has ironed out the differences in income over the years as I have made more adjustments career wise to bring up our daughters. Like your husband mine was never interested in finance, saving, pension etc and left all that to me. He does now recognise the benefits of me keeping us on target as he was able to retire at 58 rather than 66 which was his company and state retirement age. 

Do you think your husband may get more interested in this journey you are on the closer you both get to retirement? I used to get frustrated with my husband when he took no interest but realise not everyone enjoys finance planning or budgeting/saving and maybe I am the more unusual one 😂 Given that our planning for the future means money first and foremost with everything else following it seems critical to me that people attach as much importance to money management as they do to any other life skill like cooking or driving. 

Firegirl

Yes your right I think he will get more interested because when he went to a pension event at work he let me help him, with my IFA, tell him what fund selection to choose and also he’s started to saving to pension rather than a cash ISA. 

Thats a good idea to iron out the diff in salary. In our younger years I earned a lot less than my husband but was fiercely independent and always paid half of everything.  We paid the same amount into the joint account.  He used to treat me to a Starbucks at the weekend and I loved that.  Then we had kids and I spent all my savings when I had my first.  By the time I had my second I was broke and I was ready to give up 50/50.  With 2 kids in private nursery and no govt help at that point I actually earned £50 a month less than the nursery fees.  As a family we were worse off.  I wanted to keep my career going and needed it for my sanity.  When kids went to primary school that’s when we moved house as fees for nursery ended.  We had always overpaid the mortgage by £50 a month but before moving we saved the extra cost of a mortgage monthly for a big house into a separate account so we knew we could afford it.  It meant when we moved we knew we would be ok and we had money saved for furniture.  I stayed PT through their primary school years.

Just as my youngest was in P7 I was made redundant.  Thats when I thought, I’ve spent years training contractors and decided it was my turn to give it a go!  I haven’t looked back and feel so fortunate as it’s been life changing.  I think when I was made redundant my husband then covered the bills account and then cause my work wasn’t stable I just started overpaying the mortgage. It all happened quite organically and without discussion, which suits my husband  perfectly. 

Now I earn more than my husband and he’s very happy with me booking holidays and fun.   . He knows I wouldn’t be spending lots on myself so I honestly don’t think he’s even thought about where the rest has gone.  He does know I overpay the mortgage and gets excited when the statements come in.  

enthusiasticsaver

Sounds like you made the right decision career and finance wise. Nice to see your money going on things like holiday, fun etc and you have a good balance with you overpaying the mortgage and saving for retirement. 

I can’t remember when we first opened a joint household account but it was prior to children and if we didn’t have one I would have insisted on my husband taking his fair share of childcare or paying for it at least and covering maternity leave. When I got pregnant we both earned the same with me probably having more earning power than my husband but whereas I hated my job and was burned out my husband loved his and would not be able to cope with staying home to look after our daughters. I made him do it on a Saturday so I could get out to earn a bit of pocket money and he struggled with that. 😂 We then moved across to the other side of the country for his career so over the years his career improved whereas mine stalled from working part time as our girls are just 18 months apart so nursery care was expensive. If you are a team it doesn’t really matter how it works as long as it does. I have seen many women on here though sacrificing their earning power to have children and their partners not stepping up to help and if finances aren’t joint it can get tricky. 

Over the years we just found a joint household account for bills, food, cars, house, children and holidays worked well with me using savings accounts as I was very debt averse. Originally we just had a nominal personal spends each month but it increased over the years allowing us both a bit of autonomy. It also reins my husband in as he is more of a spender than me and originally took a while to come round to mortgage overpayments and saving for retirement. He often jokes if he was in charge of our finances we would both have had to work until 70 rather than 58 and he appreciates it now and is much more on the same page as me with saving for stuff. 

The only mistake I made I think was we focused heavily on my husbands pension as he was an HR taxpayer  and in terms of regular index linked pension income it is our main income stream. I did overpay mine but not as much as I should have being a latecomer to pension benefits and a lower earner. I did always save and invest in ISAs etc though. I never really trusted the government not to muck about with pension dates so figured at least I was in control of when I drew on my ISAs. 

QueenJess

Interesting discussions on finances. To throw my hat into the mix, I always hated the thought of a true joint account as I want to decide what to do with my own money. So we have a joint account for mortgage, bills, holidays, everything for the kids etc and then everything else stays in our own accounts to spend, save and use on our own bills (we pay for our own cars, dentist, petrol etc).

I am completely in charge of the joint account budget and actually it’s my name on the joint credit card that comes out of the account. We do put into the joint account on a ratio in line with our salaries as DH has always earned more than me (he’s 6 years older, so further on in his career anyway) and it seemed unfair to do otherwise. When I was on maternity leave twice it meant that I had less money for personal stuff, but I was paying proportionally into the joint account for those expenses so it seemed fair.

Prior to kids I was (and still am) very independent and when we bought the house we put down a large deposit that was funded 50:50. I think in the early days the joint account was probably 50:50, but our expenses were very low then. Overpayments are made out of our personal accounts partly because DH maintained it was pointless to overpay, but I was terrified at the amount it cost every month and started overpaying immediately. Roll on 8 years and 2 kids later and DH realised a couple of years ago why I overpaid as the amount our mortgage is going up to each month as a result of the interest rate increases is nowhere near the amount we were paying in the beginning. We have way less cash with horrific nursery fees and are reaping the benefits of me overpaying in the early days (DH has now caught up with me on overpaying) to the extent that we’ve both dropped work to 4 days a week so we can have more time as a family.

I am putting quite a bit into pensions and ISA each month and usually am quite stingy and don’t leave myself quite enough to live on. In the early days I missed quite a few pension years due to my really poor employers scheme and their silly way of only being able to opt in once a year in a tiny window (that I missed). I’ve been catching up since then as my current employer has a generous scheme and so I’ve been maxing out their contributions for the last almost 9 years.

As always I am torn between paying down the mortgage, saving into ISAs (to bridge an early retirement) and pension. Usually I end up with a bit too little to live on and am making efforts this year to try and give myself more money so I can enjoy my life more. No point in scrimping and saving for retirement and then potentially find out you can’t do what you want because of health etc. I am hoping things get easier in a couple of years when nursery fees finish forever (yay!), but until then I am prioritising ISA/pension with a set saving each month that I think is reasonable and odd pennies/savings can go to the mortgage. I will reassess it all in a couple of years as the mortgage renewal will come up again, nursery fees will have gone and as I’ve just got a new job with a clear career path, I may well be in a much better position.

The only weird thing with our position is that we are overpaying 50:50, but it actually puts me at a disadvantage. I’m hoping when we get near the end of the mortgage I can negotiate with DH. I’ve raised it before in passing as something that isn’t quite fair, but he didn’t want to bite!

jimi_man

We are obviously a rarity since we have a joint account and everything goes into that. There has never been any attempt to go down the road of ‘I’ll pay for this if you pay for that’. It all comes out of the joint account and we just share everything. I’ve always earned more than my wife but it doesn’t make any difference. She buys what she wants and needs from the joint account as do I. 

Pat38493

QueenJess said:

Interesting discussions on finances. To throw my hat into the mix, I always hated the thought of a true joint account as I want to decide what to do with my own money. So we have a joint account for mortgage, bills, holidays, everything for the kids etc and then everything else stays in our own accounts to spend, save and use on our own bills (we pay for our own cars, dentist, petrol etc).

This is one of the other interesting discussions we need to have.  

We have always kept completely separate finances, but I kind of realised recently that as you get older it makes sense to have a joint account which pays the essential bills like mortgage, council tax and so on.  At the moment those bills are kind of randomly split between us for historical reasons.  Having a joint account means that when one of us dies before the other, the survivor won't be faced with angry letters about xyz bill not being paid because the account was frozen.  Now I have to convince OH.

michaels

jimi_man said:

We are obviously a rarity since we have a joint account and everything goes into that. There has never been any attempt to go down the road of ‘I’ll pay for this if you pay for that’. It all comes out of the joint account and we just share everything. I’ve always earned more than my wife but it doesn’t make any difference. She buys what she wants and needs from the joint account as do I. 

Another in the what's mine is yours camp, we split money matters 50-50, I do the earning, DW does the (discretionary) spending.  It has not worked entirely smoothly at times when DW refused to consider what amount of discretionary spending was actually affordable

QrizB

To save discussing it all here, there's a (little bit clickbait-ey) thread on joint accounts and money management for couples / househlds:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6465539/money-moral-dilemma-should-my-partner-contribute-more-to-household-bills-as-he-works-from-home

There are several approaches advocated there, which just goes to show there's no single right answer.

QrizB, still Marxist (in this respect, at least).

Cornish_mum

Hi interesting discussion, we have one joint account into which everything gets paid in and out (since we have been married), plus our own savings accounts. Any bigger family expenses we discuss but day to day personal spends we just spend & don’t feel the need to justify to each other. This means we keep a float in the account at all times - to avoid accidentally getting overdrawn. Neither of us are natural spenders; which is why this seems to work. In fact generally we have to encourage each other to spend money on ourselves. MrCM hasn’t much interest in money, and has to be “encouraged” to do any related admin, but recently he has started to really appreciate what a bit of organisation and long term planning can do. He even bought me a FIRE book for Christmas, which was a very nice thought. 

jimi_man

QrizB said:

To save discussing it all here, there's a (little bit clickbait-ey) thread on joint accounts and money management for couples / househlds:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6465539/money-moral-dilemma-should-my-partner-contribute-more-to-household-bills-as-he-works-from-home

There are several approaches advocated there, which just goes to show there's no single right answer.

QrizB, still Marxist (in this respect, at least).

Some people's financial arrangements are unbelievable reading that thread!!!