Can I ask about your financial arrangements?

[Writerwannabe83]

I hope this isn't of a too personal nature but I'm just curious as to those who live with their partner/husband manage their finances?

When I moved in with my partner a few years ago we agreed I would give him £500 a month to cover half of all the expenses a month and that was fine. We are now married and the arrangement hasn't really changed but now it just sits 'weird' with me. I have spoke to him a few times about it and that surely most married couples have a complete joint account and all finances are shared. He is happy with the idea of having a joint account but says we should sit down, work out the running cost of the house each month and only put that amount of money in the account, 50/50. He said that way, the rest of our salary is ours to spend how we like without feeling like we have to justify our expenditures to each other etc. I am now recently pregnant and so again have discussed having one joint account with all our money in it but he doesn't seem to see why it should be necessary. His parents are not too impressed with his attitude.

To be honest, I'm happy with the joint account for all 'house stuff' and we have the rest of our money to ourselves, but I'm just curious as to what others do?

When I say that most married couples have complete joint sharing of the finances my husband tells me they don't. None of us have anything solid to base this on though, we just both want to be right

[Fairylea]

We have a joint account where everything is paid in and goes out of. We split whatever is left over between us and transfer to our own accounts so we have equal spending money. Works for us!

[Fairylea]

Oh meant to add I am sahm and dh works, so despite him in effect earning and me not we both respect the fact we are both working so we both have the same amount of spending money.

[eurochick]

We have a joint account for joint expenses (mortgage, bills, repairs, furniture). We pay into this in proportion to our salaries.

Everything else is separate, but we do discuss big purchases with one another.

If I were ever to become pregnant and be on mat leave, the funding of the joint account would change as my income went down (i.e. it would swing from me funding about 65% of it to him funding most of it).

[AcidNails]

DH and I keep our finances separate. We split bills between us proportionate to our earnings and have a joint savings accoubt.

Works for us, both very independent and private people.

[jimijack]

We have a joint bill & mortgages account.

We have separate salary accounts.

This is very important as we have different interests and this way neither of us have to explain or justify drawing money out.

We have our own money. 18 years on it still works fine.

[SoonToBeSix]

Mu dh and I share all our income , personally I find it very strange that other people don't. Once you have your dc I hope he changes his thinking.

[derektheladyhamster]

We have a joint account which all bills spending money etc comes out of. I have a sole account which my wages and CB go into (My wages are pretty low I pay for all food/birthday presents/clothes out of this account. It works for us as we never have any money spare at the end of the month and my husband rarely spends money

[Habbibu]

We have a joint account for bills, food etc, and then joint savings accounts. Money left over is evenly shared between our own personal accounts, so that we have our own spending money. Suits us well.

[derektheladyhamster]

Should of said DH's wages go into the joint account

[Faerieinatoadstool]

We have shared since we moved in together. He gets paid into his own account then money gets spread out to where it is needed and we discuss all biggish or unnecessary purchases

[peanutbutterhoney]

We have one joint account, everything goes in and gets paid from there. We trust each other to spend in a reasonable manner and discuss big purchases before we buy (big probably equals over £200).

If you are pregnant you are presumably going to be on mat leave soon. What will happen then? Will you be expected to have only your mat pay? Or will you have to ask your DH for money? I wouldn't be happy with either of those scenarios tbh. I think you need to sort this out before baby comes.

[Neitheronethingortheother]

We both work. I earn slightly more than him. He pays mortgage, I pay childcare. I pay food, Electricity and Gas and car. He pays internet and maintenance for children from previous. We go halves on treats or whoever has money left pays for them.

[RichManPoorManBeggarmanThief]

We both have our salaries paid into own accounts net of our own pension/ company share scheme arrangements. He pays the joint credit card, keeps back a bit of spends for lunch/ taxis etc and then transfers the rest into a joint account which we both have free reign on. Household bills all come out if that. I keep my salary as savings. Once a month we update one spreadsheet that lists all accounts in either of our names so we look on it as joint. It's just the admin that is a bit of a mishmash.

[rollmeover]

When we both worked - seperate accounts that our salaries were paid into. We transferred a proportionate amount to joint account to cover bills, joint spending and savings. We kept a small amount back to cover our individual spends for the month.

Now Im a sSAHM, dh pays mortgage from his account thentransfers everything elseto joint account that we both have equal access to and from there we calculate our monthly/weekly budget and all bills come out of there.

We try to have a monthly "meeting" where we track our spending (doing house renovations) and make sure savings etc on track. (Its not always this rock and roll in our house ).

I couldnt be a SAHM and not know what money was coming in and where money was going (from a financial security point of view)

[Writerwannabe83]

I think my husband's concern is that he spends more money than me and so if we had a joint account he would feel like he was spending my money, not just his. For example, he has an expensive car that he pays quite a bit for each month, he spends FAR more money on petrol a month than I do, he is more social than me in that he has nights out with his friends, trips to the Races, Theme Parks, Stag Dos etc. He also likes going to Music concerts so has the costs of tickets and travel etc. He also likes the odd bet and a night out at the Casino

He says that as things stand, once he has put the £500 to one side (towards urge running of the house) he then has the rest of his money to himself to spend as he likes. Whereas if we had a joint account he feels he wouldn't able to continue his life as it is (which obviously I don't want) because he would feel like he'd be spending my money as well as his which wouldn't be fair.

[Trills]

joint account for all 'house stuff' and we have the rest of our money to ourselves

This, but if you have a child together then "child stuff" should be included along with "house stuff", and you should put in such that you both get equal spending money.

surely most married couples have a complete joint account and all finances are shared Not surely at all. Many do, but many don't. I wouldn't say that most do.

[JsOtherHalf]

We each keep the same amount of 'pocket' money from our salaries for things like clothes, shoes, books, haircuts etc. The rest of the money goes into joint current accounts and savings. Anything to do with DS or household expenditure, petrol, etc comes from a joint account.

[Trills]

I kind of know how your DH feels - I would not want joint spending money because I would feel bad if I bought something expensive, whereas when the money is separate I know that I have (silly example) saved enough to go to that concert because I have been spending less in the pub recently, and that in total I am spending a reasonable amount.

[Ireallymustbemad]

We share everything and all accounts are joint. I used to earn more money than DH but now work part time and earn considerably less than him.

I think your situation is fine when you're both earning with no kids, but how are you going to pay for maternity leave and things for the kids? You no doubt will have a period of earning less, may or may not go back to work, have childcare to pay for if you do.

Are you going to pay all of that cost yourself? His hobbies will probably have to be trimmed too to pay for it surely? How is that going to work? Will he up his payment to the bills account, will he give you an allowance? Personally all joint makes a lot more sense to me.

[Writerwannabe83]

Petrol is something that interests me. My DH currently spends over £200 a month on petrol, I probably spend about £75. As it stands our petrol costs come out of our own personal accounts because again, my husband doesn't think it's fair to come out the joint account when his expenditure on it is far higher than mine.

[Writerwannabe83]

Exactly ireallymustbemad - why can't he understand that?

[Crawling]

We have one account all the money goes in. Then if one of us needs something and we have the money spare we get it.

[LaRegina]

We have separate accounts where our salaries are paid to. We also have a joint account where we both transfer a proportion of our pay monthly to cover all household expenses, mortgage, bills, food shopping, etc. We're both left with roughly the same amount to spend on whatever we like. When I wasn't working when the DC were babies DH transferred half of his 'left overs' to me each month.

None of it is set in stone; if one of us needs more money to pay for something we really want the other chips in, no questions asked. For me its mainly that I like to feel I still have my own account and my own money. Plus it makes sense when buying birthday and Christmas presents for each other - I don't know how else you would keep it secret!

Having said that, I don't think it really matters how you arrange finances as long as neither party is tight not paying their fair share.

[RevelsRoulette]

We just lob everything in together. If it is brought in by either of us then it belongs to both of us. I am lazy and I really can't be arsed with all that you give me £X and I'll give you £Y and you pay the mortgage and I'll pay the gas, I buy the sofa and you get the oven and you buy the bread and I'll get the milk stuff. I'd be sick to death of it within a week. It sounds complicated. I don't want to be bothered with reminding my husband that he owes me for the electric money! Give me the easy option any day! .

I do do the budgets though (I have designed an 18 month cash flow forecast on excel. This appeals to my idleness because now it's all set up I don't have to do much of anything.) I then transfer what's needed for the bills to the bill account, transfer what we're saving this month to the savings account and leave what's left in the cash account and from that account, each of us can have what they want, when they want. We don't care who spends what because we just see it as ours.

Unless he spends the last of it and I can't buy chocolate.

If he did that, I'd leave him.

[JoinYourPlayfellows]

"if we had a joint account he would feel like he was spending my money, not just his."

He is spending your money, not just his.

You are a financial unit and soon there will be a dependant in the mix.

How on earth can he imagine that he can continue to spend so much money on himself when he's about to have a family?

What savings and investments do you have? What kind of contingency fund for emergencies?