Personal money question re couples

[dreamadream]

For couples here, how do you work your finances? Do you pool it together or keep it separate?

Hubby and I have been together almost 20 years. We moved in together 18 years ago and that day shut our single accounts and opened a joint one, everything goes in and out of one pot. He used to earn 4 X more than me but since a career change I am starting to catch up and may even earn more than him in the next few years.

I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way as feel we are a partnership and share everything equally. I have friends who say their husbands/wives owe them money or are treating them to dinner out, to me that’s a strange set up.
It was also great when I was on mat leave years ago as I never had to worry about limited mat pay or asking for money!

Equally, it’s been said our set up is old fashioned, even my own dad told us to keep everything separate (but he had two divorces behind him so maybe jaded lol) and a few have said they would feel they have to justify money spent (thankfully I never had, firstly hubby is amazingly chilled and generous and secondly, I think he’s looked in our account maybe 10 times since we opened it... I deal with the money lol)


So how do you do yours?

[MichelleS]

We are the same as you everything goes in one pot although we have several accounts for bills ,holiday and savings.

[tylergeorgia]

We have separate accounts. DH has several expensive hobbies- car racing/motorbikes.
He’s always buying something new, so he pays for it and if he sells one the money is his.
All the bills come out of my account. We have no mortgage,but I still put the money away to pay for jobs on the house and flights to Orlando.
He gives me house keeping money every week. That pays for food every week and presents for birthdays etc. That goes into a savings pot.
I take and stash some out of that for holiday spends/park tickets.
We are happy with the way we do it, it works for us and has for the last 28 years.

[whlparkstone]

We probably go against the grain here, but we do things slightly different.

We have separate personal accounts. Hubby pays the mortgage, food shopping and some of the household bills. I pay the council tax, life insurance and other household bills. We then have a couple of joint savings accounts that are just purely for adding to, so we save together.

It has worked for us. No questions are ever asked about what each of us spend our money on, as long as the bills are paid and we are adding to the savings there is no issue.

It works for us but may not work for others.

[danisleigh]

We have a joint account and both wages and bills go in and out. We did have separate accounts when first married but when DS was born it was hard as I had to go part time and it seemed unfair that I druggies for money when being a mum was a job too. So we opened a joint acct and have done that for 17 years now, it works for us.

[Alices Aunt]

We have separate and joint accounts. All the bills come out of the joint account which we both pay into and our spending money comes out of our own. My DH is very careful with money and I would lose the plot if I had to explain my purchases to him. He is always talking about being in poverty even though his bank account is healthy.

[JessBlu]

We do exactly Same as you Op all one account and both spend from there.

Only difference is I am the one who earns 4xs more than my husband, but could not do it without him holding down the fort so we share equally.

If we divorcees as far as I see if he would get half of everything we are a team and have built our life since we were teenagers so what we have belongs to us both.

[Rac20]

We are the same as you OP. In the past, I have earned more and supported DH through a masters degree. Now we earn the same though I work less. I could not be bothered with faffing about with who’s paying for what. How do you decide whose turn it is to buy the kids shoes for example.

[DisneyBeliever]

One joint account that all money goes into and all money comes out of. Plus a joint savings account. No individual accounts whatsoever.

I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way.

[Universal VR]

Separate accounts for us. 25 years ago, my then husband left me and our three children. He cleared out the (joint) bank account and all I had was £12 in my purse. I also found out there was tens of thousands in joint credit card debt I didn’t know about. I didn’t work at the time. Over the next few months and years, I managed to sort my self out, I got a qualification, a good job and I repaid every penny. When I met OH and eventually moved in together, I was insistent that our finances remain separate. I will NEVER be in that situation again. The bills are split fairly (we both earn around the same) and larger purchases are split half and half. It works for us. For me it’s all about knowing I’m financially independent.