Married Finances – Separate accounts or fully shared?

Asking around a few mates and the variety of set ups is baffling me. There doesn’t seem to be any ideal way.
Any thoughts?

I’ve never understood the separate accounts thing.

We have separate accounts. It’s worked for 26 years!

We each had accounts that were joint. It seemed to make sense.

Joint account for running the house, shopping etc, separate accounts for rest. Obviously she just takes tenners out of my wallet if she wants cash 🙁

Seperate here. Both pay into the joint account that’s for mortgage, food and bills. Everything else is done separately.
Works for us.

It’s so much hassle these days to open / close accounts and set up direct debits etc that I’d go for what ever is the most painless option. As you say there is no right answer as everyone’s circumstances are different.

We have mix. Can’t see how it could realistically be fully shared. Joint account for all bills, mortgage, etc. Individual accounts for businesses (both self employed) and pension

2/3rds of income goes into joint account leaving 1/3rd to be spent by the individuals thats how we roll in this house!

Rich

Seperate accounts, married isnt actually a thing you know.

Done the fully joint thing previously in a past relationship it was terrible, felt guilty spending my own money and then ex would want to spend the same. Now separate works well for us, the mortgage and related costs is paid on the ratio of our salaries, whats left over is ours to do as we please, i.e. no asking permission to buy a new bike. I wouldn’t do it any other way, might be diff if you have kids and one half isn’t working though.

Similar to above. Joint account that we both pay into – covers mortgage, bills, food, housekeeping, etc. What’s left in the individual accounts is saved/spent as ones wishes. Works ok for us.
Amount paid into the joint account depends on our wages. Do as my wife is currently just starting out as self-employed I’m paying in the lion’s share. But in the past it’s been the other way round.

My parents have been married for 61 years. My partner once asked my mum what was their secret to happy married life for so long. Her answer was ‘ have seperate bank accounts and never have breakfast together’

seriously though, it workd for them as they both had a similar income after my mum went back to work when I was 5, and they divided elements of expence (mum paid for food, our clothing and holidays amongst other things, dad the mortgage and the cars, utilities etc.) and then helped each other out if a big expense came in.

It has certainly worked for them.

The same as most on here. Joint account for house bills / mortgage and food etc. Separate accounts to get salaries into and spend each what we have left. Not that I don’t trust wifey, but I work for a bank and I’ve seen a lot of messed up joint accounts when people split up etc. She actually earned more than me until recently so she didn’t ever really understand it, but it’s just me.

Till recently we had separate accounts and paid a certain amount into a joint acc for household stuff, bills, food, mortgage etc. With a kid on the way we’ve reversed it and put both our salaries into joint and then direct debit the same amount of spending money into our individual accounts. Seeing as we’ll be spending most of our money on the infant seemed to make sense that way!

Both. We pay varying amounts into the joint household running account and savings from our own current accounts. In effect all income is pooled, though either of us can/will spend what we want from the pool within reason. Works for us as we both have a reasonable/similar approach to spending, except bike spending 😳

Not married but together 11 years, no kids – all finances pooled into one pot and she looks after it as I’m useless with money and we’d be broke in a week if I were in charge of it!

she looks after it

Same. Saves me a load of stress, and means we have food not just toys 😳

Separate accounts here. Been that way for 35 years. The only bill she pays is the cable TV bill, and that’s only because I’d left my cheque book at work the evening the cable guy came round to sign us up and didn’t have my sort code and account number to hand.

My money’s ours and hers is her own it seems, but then she only works part time and didn’t work at all until the children left school.

One account and we compete to spend it quickest.

We have joint account for household bills, mortgage etc, we pay a set amount into that each month.
Have our own accounts to do with as we please, been that way 20 years and works well for us.

We have a joint and separate

Good grief. Do you lot not trust your spouses or something? What happened to ‘what’s mine is yours’ ?

Avoid guilt on spending money by agreeing a budget. We have spending money paid into separate accounts, but only to make budgeting easier.

She earns nothing, but she spends an equal share.

My recommendation would be a joint account for joint things, household bills, mortgage, holiday etc. Seperate accounts into which salaries paid and personal expenses.

Joint account for joint things – decide between you what they are.

Each pays in to that based on their earnings. So if joint costs are £1500 a month and he earns twice as much, he puts in £1000 and she puts in £500.

Whatever they have left over is “their own” money.

Just a joint account is a nightmare. Arguments about who can spend how much on what, no chance to even treat each other to surprises. It’s also a perfect recipe for financial abuse and control within a relationship, when it becomes very, very damaging.

Joint for bills, mortgage and nursery fees.
Separate for the remainder.
I earn a little bit more so put in a couple of hundred quid extra as it evens it out more then.
Works well for us and if we need anything extra just transfer some more across

Both earn similar amounts plus have a rental property, all of the rent & 2/3 of our money goes into the joint account. That pays for all the boring stuff. I waste the rest of mine on bike stuff and beer, she buys coats and lots of tea & cake meetings with her friends. Every now any again if either of us has a reasonable surplus in our acc we stick it in the joint one, the surplus if that regularly gets used to overpay the mortgage. Has worked for 15 years.

Voice of experience here

Separate but with a joint account purely for bills that neither of you has a or at least uses a debit card for. I made the mistake of paying both salaries into the one account with an ex wife that re-enacted Brewster’s Millions every month 🙁

Both our incomes go into a joint bank account. That account dumps a bit each month into a joint saving account. It also puts the same amount each into individual bank accounts. Those accounts pay for our personal spending. It means there is never a cross word about money spent on handbags or bike shizzle.

I seems to have more expensive tastes and spend most of mine, she squirrels quite a chunk away ‘for a rainy day’ – she must have thousands stashed…or a secret coke and hookers habit.

Always shared every account, penny and debt. I dont get why you wouldn’t.

Joint account for all bills. Then we have our own each for spending/individual savings. The joint covers bills plus 20% which we can save or splurge on holidays. All good and both v happy with it.

Joint here. All in for the ride.

I dont get why you wouldn’t

My ex spent ~£20k in 3 months from the joint account, unbeknown to me…

Joint and all shared from day one, never had a problem with it.

Separate.

We both pay a fixed amount in to cover the bills & we do whatever else we please with the rest.

Accordingly to some, this is an issue apparently.

Before/no kids – joint account that you both pay into for household bills and other shared expenses worked fine for us. Bigger things like holidays we’d just both top it up for that month.

After kids, it made more sense to make the joint account the primary one, pay salary into there, effectively anything necessary for day-to-day stuff goes out of that, for us or kids. Set up a budget and syphon off a set amount into each of our personal accounts each month for “fun money”. It varies depending on how tight things are that particular month.

I can see the case for getting to the latter one sooner but until my wife was on maternity leave there didn’t seem like a pressing need to make the joint account the primary one. But then we didn’t feel the need to budget until then either, we were fortunate enough to both be earning decent money and not need to think about it too much. Plus we lived together for years before marrying, so it wasn’t like we were changing our lives that much in one go. In hindsight it would have made sense to do it earlier, it does make a lot of stuff much simpler.

YNAB have plenty of good stuff about combining finances. https://www.youneedabudget.com/learn/guide/join-forces

joebristol – Member
Not that I don’t trust wifey, but

Is that like “It’s not that I’m a racist, but”?

Joint. Only my income coming in, from me, as the wife is a ‘housewife’ (or whatever the PC term is these days) so no need for separate accounts. Even when she worked it was one pot and when it’s gone, it’s gone.

Joint account only from the moment we got married. 21 years ago. Never, ever had a problem. We share everything, riches and debt.

Joint account from before we were married and bought our first place – 22yrs ago. Never a problem.