My spouse and I have realised we should probably organise/combine our finances. Just wondering how people organise theirs? I assumed the two most common options are either: a) both salaries go into a joint current account and distribute into savings accounts, utilities, petty cash etc or b) salaries go into individual accounts and then transfer a fixed amount into joint accounts to cover savings + bills, then keeping some back for day to day spending.
I’m inclined to think B just because then I can try and set some aside to then spending on birthday/Christmas/anniversary presents, whereas if it’s gone into a joint account the spontaneity of that is lost if my other half can see the statements.
For context we are both full time working in the same profession and so are on very similar salaries and (currently) no child care responsibilities.
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We do option B. But yeah, similar salaries and no kids. I imagine the approach will change when one or both of those isn’t true any more.
Everything in one pool, everything paid for from there. Both get the same amount transferred to our personal accounts as guilt-free spending money every month. Marriage makes us a unit. I earn way more than my wife and I’d hate to feel like I had a better financial position than her within a marriage.
Option B for us. Like you, similar salary, double income and no kids. Large purchases like furniture or holidays are just done by whoever thinks to buy them, and we don’t bother keeping tally of who buys what. We are ancient though, so would probably put more into joint account and make large purchases from that if we were just starting out.
We started with option B, but moved to A (with a tweak) when we bought a house together and wanted to go all-in-whats-yours-is-mine.
The way it works is our salaries go into the joint account, and there’s all sorts of budgeting for holidays and groceries and bills, but we also get ‘pocket money’ – it direct debits out into our personal accounts once a month, and that’s what we use for our personal spending, clothes, presents, whatever. That way you have your spontaneity (and your personal savings as a ‘just in case’ measure which I think everyone should have regardless of how happy the relationship is)
ETA: our salaries have varied quite a bit over the years, we started the same, then I earnt significantly more, and now my other half out earns me. It never really made a difference to how we managed the money.
Option B for us too, again both working and childfree. Joint account pays mortgage, bills food shopping and savings for incidental things for the house, everything over and above is our own to spend at our discretion.
Joint accounts for bills and estimated food costs, together with separate account for savings.
The rest of the money is then divided and forwarded to each of us. Usually we divide this again by the number of weekends in the month to work out a weekly allowance for ourselves.
We have shared accounts only.
We still have separate current accounts. My husband sends me half of the money for our regular bills and I cover them. The rest like food is just, whoever gets it buys it.
Then anything we have left at the end of the month, goes into a shared savings account so it’s all the same really.
But keeping it separate, we find, just means you keep that freedom to treat yourself without mutually scrutinising the bank statement…
Also, setting up and modifying direct debits on a joint account is a PITA as you can need both people’s permission, and I do all that stuff. So it’s easier just to come out of my account.
We both work, so we have separate current accounts, separate savings accounts and 1 joint savings account, to which we each contribute every month. We share responsibility for the bills. I feel more secure knowing that we each have our own money; it feels unwise to put everything in joint accounts.
Having separate accounts also makes it easier to move money around when my husband is away (which he frequently is, for months at a time) because I don’t need his permission for every little thing.
My husband and I have a joint account which our paychecks are both deposited into. This takes care of groceries/bills/household entertainment/clothing/household maintenance.
We also have separate savings accounts in each of our respective names, and separate business current accounts.
His separate savings account holds any extra funds he wants to save for retirement once he hits the yearly cap for his employer sponsored pension fund. Mine is for my retirement funds after I hit my employer sponsored pension fund cap. We don’t touch these unless to put money in.
Our business accounts are pretty self explanatory.
I also have a separate current account which holds funds for our son’s school activities, lunch money, and anything else he may need for the school year.
We budget out everything to the last penny so we know where the money is and how much is being spent. We go through our finances together monthly for all accounts to make sure we’re both in good financial standing.
It took us awhile to get used to this system, because it’s very detailed.
Individual accounts for us, then transfer into joint for bills and food etc. We pay an amount proportional to our salaries and what remains is then on the person to spend it save as they want
Option B the way to go
Everything goes into one account
Everything comes out of that account
We’ve had a joint account since we got married (nearly 25 years ago now). I’m a bit surprised that this isn’t normal! It’s very simple not having to worry about whose account each expense comes out of.
We do B with OH contributing more due to the higher salary.
I work full time. Wife is disabled so gets a small pension and PIP etc.
Separate accounts. I pay all the monthly bills like rent, utilities etc. She pays for day to day costs like food etc.
I’ve got Starling Spaces to save for things like Christmas and holidays and she has envelopes in one if her spare handbags for the same.
Prior to marriage, she only had a building society passbook account so is accustomed to dealing entirely in cash.
We don’t do A or B. We both work full time. I pay all the bills and every time I build up 5 or 10 grand in the current account I transfer it to her. She does all the savings and investments. It really doesn’t matter. It’s all our money. If I was short she’d send me some and visa versa.
we manage separate aspects. i pay for all house things (food, gas electric bills, phone, insurance , rates etc), he pays for all garden/car/holdliday things.
Option C – never got round to making a joint account, we agree who is paying what bills, and with internet banking we just wang each other money as needed. So when one or the other was unemployed we’d create a standing order to cover bills plus a bit more – easier than changing payments.
25 years and never needed a joint account. But we do have lasting powers of attorney registered in case of need.
We both have our own accounts, a joint and a savings.
We get paid, we put in the agreed amount into the joint current and joint savings which covers our expenses.
Then what’s left is for us, we earn about the same, if I was to earn more I’d just put more into the savings etc.
I think it’s very important for you each to have your own money, even if it’s just a bit to go and Do what you want with, if my partner is buying another framed photo of our dog I don’t want to know as long as she’s happy and the bills are paid.
We used to do B, but recently changed to A because we’re planning a family and wanted the children expenses to be easier. We do have our own current accounts too, and get an “allowance” each month for our own purchases, secrets etc. B worked very well for 8+ years, just had to keep on top of making sure there was the right amount in there when bills changed or big lump sums came out.
We’ve done B for about 10 years. No issues really and seems to work well. Recently had a kid and we just changed the percentages as wife’s income has gone down so I put more in to cover that. If I had much spare I’d just use it for work on the house or bigger purchases etc.
Option B for us. Been together 6.5 years, married for 2.5. I earn a little bit more but cover our car costs and have a few more outgoings than him. Salaries come into sole accounts and all bills are split 50/50 from a joint account and we have joint savings pots. Everything else is our own spending/saving but we tend to talk about what we have individually anyway. Works well for us because I have a bit of a complex about staying independent lol and my husband is happy going along with whatever I decide. We both work in finance so I tend to review our finances regularly and just give him the highlights 🤣
Option C.
Everything goes into one account like option A, but we each also have an account into which a set amount of ‘pocket money’ gets transferred, used for frittering and treats and presents etc. Pocket money is our own for spending without having to be accountable to the other.
All money is shared for us. We tally up every month to see where we’re at and make adjustments for the month if necessary.
My partner does nothing at all, not even exercises, just waits for me to sort out issues and problems and pretends they don’t exist/won’t happen, so I hard carry, once the issues are resolved, my partner wonders why I do not have the mental energy to deal with them, as they are unattractive, physically unfit and have nothing going on other than asking me what I am doing when I try to indulge myself in a video game to distract myself from life, or I spend extra long away from them, so I am mentally prepared to deal with them.
Receieved the same treatment from my bio family, sib/mother so meh, used to it now.
I will get a lot of hate for posting this IG but IDGAF.
Salaries go into a joint account which is for almost all expenses and general savings. We both get the same amount of ‘pocket money’ transferred to our personal accounts each month for our hobbies and clothes. Having the personal accounts means we can spend a certain amount without having to worry about the effect on home finances. My husband spends all of his each month with no clear idea of how he has got through all that money but that’s ok, it’s his and the pot for house and children is intact. I don’t tend to spend it all so every couple of years I have enough saved for a family holiday for us.
Our salaries come into our individual accounts, and then a fixed-ish portion goes into a joint account for bills, mortgage payments etc
We make similar-ish contributions into investments, SIPP, etc every month. And then put away a little bit into junior S&S ISA for the child.
But the biggest thing – the money isn’t hers or mine – just belongs to us as a family. It helps that we have been together since University which is now getting scarily close to 20 years ago, and our salaries have always been within 5-10% of each other.
So what this means is we will freely transfer money between each other to max out ISA and such, knowing that at the end of day, it’s 100% both of our money.
1 account, 1 set of finances. on the budget we each have ‘pocket money’ where we can use our own without consulting each other (I tend to go out for coffee more often, husband tends to buy video games periodically). If it’s a birthday or whatever we tend to have an agreed limit we spend, and just tell each other not to check the account for a few weeks.
But also, only my husband works and I am a SAHM. This is how we have decided to do family. Separate finances would be impossible and stupid for us.
We each have our own accounts with traditional banks where our salary goes in. We also both have Monzo accounts which we use for day to day spending.
All joint expenses come out of our joint RBS account and we split everything proportional to income. We’ve also got a joint Monzo which was for joint fun money (although now its for food and baby expenses).
We just pay certain bills ourselves. I pay all the big bills and my husband sends me some money to cover them. We split the bills 60/40 as I earn more than him.
My partner and I have done option B since about year 2 of our relationship (we’re in year 11 now and recently married). The joint account pays all the regular bills and most of the joint expenses. We each transfer a proportional percentage of our salary into the joint account each month. But there is stuff that is joint that will come from our own accounts, particularly larger purchases that go on credit card for the protection. The money is all considered joint and we shuffle money around as and when to balance things out a bit.
The benefits of having separate current accounts is we can take advantage of things like switching offers and exclusive cashback by being with different banks. This also necessitates a bit of moving money around to ensure we’re optimizing any interest.
It also means we have a degree of “privacy” around our own accounts and our spending, so we’re not scrutinizing my bubble tea habit or his spend on running shoes. We discuss basically all our purchases anyway so nothing’s a secret per se but I guess having our own accounts does feel a bit more private.