My SO is the breadwinner. Married. 'Old'. We divide things something like this:
her:
mortgage
investment schemes in anticipation of education (children)
Me:
utilities
council tax
mobile phones
TV (netflix, amazon, cable)
broadband
phone
food
school trips, lunch money... (not fees, the state requires qualified teachers)
we have individual current accounts and no joint account.
We have transparency over spending (oh, how hard it is to say 'hey, I 'might' have bought a coat in the Alpkit sale while I was away the other week').
Our regular monthly budget is clear. And for now we're in a reasonable position. Aside from the mortgage, we have no debt that is not easily covered by other assets.
Now, just to figure out what job to do after my current one disappears with redundancy.
Up until a year ago we had an IF.com 'plan' that made viewing each other's current account status and transactions easy (you can imagine who might have needed the occasional question of 'what's this'? :oops:)
The idea of a joint account is not one that has appealed to either of us when we've brought it up.
So for the allowance people how does it work. Say for example a new bike. Do you save up the money and then buy a bike saying hey look wife/husband I've bought a new bike?
this is something that has required preparation, 'seeding' of the idea, a proposal of where the money will come from (share sales, bonus, weirdly there is never any 'spare' cash), and an indication of why it is necessary. 🙂
not fees, the state requires qualified teachers
Not in academies and free schools, which is the vast majority of secondaries... its the brightest and best/cheapest we want not the qualified!
I rock up an am like "ante up beeathches" then I take my fat roll and live the life. Like all Krystal and Taco Belle and drop top kompressors an Gucci and shit. Fo' real.
I pay all the bills, she works for herself and buys the family food. Whatever is left over gets spent on us, the kids and all the other stuff a family does. At my commission time we make big purchases/pay off mortgage chunks depending on who wants what. Happily we spend less than we earn so we seem to muddle along.
Fortunate enough to be the the sole bread winner.
So mine is ours.
Dont really buy things for myself any more ... not bothered in the least.
I pay the bills and food, misses spends her money on the kids stuff. 3 kids = no spare cash
Both working, and largely separate accounts, but more so that we can control and track our own spending rather than trust.
I pay all household bills and 95% of food shopping. Wife does holidays, petfood and extra curricular stuff for the urchins. If we eat out I tend to pay, but I earn more. Since the bills and holidays are covered, then the rest of our respective incomes is for each of us to do as we will. Works for us, but we have a modest mortgage and so don't need to count every penny with precision.
Both salaries into the same account. Everything is paid for from that. And we spend what we need to spend (). Wouldn't want a relationship with someone I couldn't trust with money, or who doesn't trust me.
Actually what I mean by "spend what we need to spend" is open to interpretation as to the precise meaning of "need". She doesn't see the new Garmin that I "need" as a household essential. But largely the system works.
Pay goes into personal accounts and 50% of that then goes into the joint to cover all shared costs. Gradual accumulation covers extra things we want. Our own money for our own expenses and whims without guilt.
We've always aimed to be able to live on one income, partly because that's how it was for quite a while as my wife's work was so variable. Now she earns a little more and works 1 less day.
Obviously, everything can be jigged if things change (which the arrival of mini miss is likely to).
All living/household bills come out of a joint account that we both pay in an equal amount to (slightly more than the monthly outgoings, just in case prices increase suddenly).
Personal commitments (mobiles, cars, hobbies etc) from the remainder of our personal accounts.
The wife earns a bit more than me but has a more expensive hobby than bikes so alls fair.
50/50 has always worked for us.....
I'm responsible for the input side of the equation. Mrs Tired does the books and manages the output side. Except bike expenditure, I seem to have a monopoly on that. She is very understanding.
We don't split the finances , any money coming into the house benefits everyone who lives here. If a bill needs paying and I have enough then I pay it and vice versa if its my wife who's flush. It's been like this since we moved on together 27 years ago , we never argue about money.
Until recently, my wife was working and was earning a reasonable salary. However, i earned approx 3 x as much. Therefore, we contributed to a joint account in proportion to salary to cover bills. I then paid accommodation at source as it's military housing. All other joint costs went on a credit card which again was paid off each month in proportion to salary. Anything she had left over she could spend on whatever she wanted/needed. Although that left me with more money in my account, I have saved the majority of that for a house deposit for us both and spent little.
Now we've got a little un and my wife's unlikely to go back to work for a few years, I'll have a rejig once her maternity pay dries up. That will probably consist of reviewing finances at the end of the month after absolutely everything has been paid and splitting the remainder three ways: 1/4 for her, 1/4 for me, 1/2 for joint savings.
Interesting.
When we were "dating" we used to have separate accounts. Bills are split according to the wage difference. This ment that i was paying for 70% plug mortgage etc. Before we got married for some reason she didnt think this was fair. We now pay into one bank account and everything comes out of that. i probably spend about £200pm on bike bits and tat. She spends about 50 quid tops.
Personally the all in one pot works better than the two separate accounts in both transparency (although theres still the secrit bike credit card) and managing money. Its enabled us to move house although we are seriously stretching ourselves now.
At the moment we each put a set amount into our joint account each month and have separate accounts for our personal things. The joint account pays mortgage, household bills, car insurances, life insurances and food. He earns about 10k more than me. I am currently pregnant and our baby unfortunately has been diagnosed with brain abnormalities. We are currently undergoing further diagnostic testing and are finally seeing a consultant today. Following that we need to decide whether we are going to gamble and continue with the pregnancy or make the heartbreaking choice no one wants to do and have a late termination for medical reasons. Our sons problem is a grey thing not a black and white thing and he could end up anywhere between normal development and severely mentally and physically disabled. They can only tell us probabilities. If we do get to have our baby then we will be switching to fully joint as I won't be able to go back to work full time even if he ends up with normal development. We both work shifts and long hours and there is no childcare options for 0430-1900. If he is disabled then possibly depending on the severity I may not be able to work at all. It needs to be me who ends up staying home as he earns significantly more and even if he didn't I am the more patient and calmer one.
Joint account - sufficient goes in to cover all our bills, plus a bit for leeway. We each pay in the same amount. Sometimes my salary is higher, sometimes hers is but it balances out.
Anything left after that stays in our own accounts for us to spend as we like, although I pay for all our cars and associated costs bar her fuel. It's likely that in future she will earn much more than I do and maybe it'll change then.
[i]Big hug to hellz85.[/i]
Makes me feel very fortunate with our family / finances...
My wife and I met as students, then moved in together after uni.
We started by paying an equal monthly sum into a joint account, to cover all food, bills, rent etc.
My wife has sporadically had paid employment in the charity sector and had 4 years 100% at home with our kids. After the most recent part-time job from 2014-16, she's now at home again. We're used to one income, so while it has an impact on us it's also something I've planned for.
One of us being at home makes a massive difference to family life - and is something I value equally to my work salary.
I now pay for everything day-to-day, via a monthly standing order to the joint account and directly from my account for savings, bills etc. If wife earns again, she will make a modest contribution to the joint account. The rest is ours to spend as we please.
I'm fairly modest when it comes to what I spend money on (including bikes), so I've not had forensic questioning about my purchases in the last 16 years.
Building bikes myself helps massively with this. As an example, she buys and later sells all the kids' clothes and toys, so understands how if you buy high quality gear in the first place you can later sell it for a good price and hence the cost of the new stuff isn't that much!! 😉
I pay for all household usual expenses (mortgage, food, bills, most of kids clubs / clothing etc.) but it's not all my income that goes in - if more is needed I'll generally pay for it.
Mrs B works part time and saves a bit for projects and holidays (which I will generally also contribute a bit too). She then also has her own pot of money.
We started this when the children came along, as we both suffer from a guilt complex if we spend on ourselves at all from a joint pot - it works better for us to have ring fenced 'pocket money'.
joint account to pay all bills. but kept separate accounts to get paid to, including keeping savings separate, but mainly to spread risks. everything discussed and agreed over about £50..she does all the weekly shop but only works 3 days a week. Our hrly rates about the same but she works 1/3 of hrs I do. all money is ours, not mine or hers.
We put all earnings into one pot and buy whatever we want. If we have a month where we spent too much the month before we just calm it down the following month. Worked this way for ten years never had a single issue this way
we have separate accounts but we both have a joint account where we put our savings in. that pays for stuff like holidays, home repairs/maintenance and any other large spends
i pay all the bills and the mortgage
wife pays for the shopping and child care although i contribute 25% of the childcare.
childcare costs will be be zero from september which will leave us with more to spend so it will mean we can both put a bit more aside into the savings too.
this arrangement has always worked for both of us.
Talk here mostly about covering bills and buying nice to haves. What about saving for the future/retirement? Luckily my wife sees the importance with that but isn't interested in the effort so she leaves this to me to look after which suits me. So she buys what she wants then I take the left overs and do something sensible with them. I cover all bills/holidays/both car costs....
Hellz85 - all the best with whatever decision to take.
What about saving for the future/retirement?
Not a chance of that anytime soon!
Realistically we'll have to sell our house to fund our retirement.
Despite both working full time in fairly good jobs the mortgage/kids suck up every penny we have every month.
I put lots in - she takes lots out
Only ever had one income, I would probably faint with excitement of a second income appeared.
We're both self-employed with separate accounts and sometimes I earn more, sometimes he earns more but we both have access to each other's accounts and what comes in is [i]ours[/i], not 'mine' or 'yours'. It works nicely and there's no 'secret' spending (FFS- we're grown-ups!) If we can afford to do or buy stuff stuff, we'll do it or buy it regardless of who's going to be doing it or using it. As long as we can pay the bills it's all good.
