Joint bank accounts

It's an interesting point to be made about just "Our" money into the house and joint account.
It might be worth exploring the idea more that all monies goes into the one account and all comes out of it, including spending on ourselves etc. I've just had my own account and control over my own money for far too long. But since moving to the UK this year, for some reason I am more open to the idea of joint account.

Still waiting for the misses to setup her account on Monzo. She didn't want to do it last night because "I need to do my hair before I do that stupid video to sign up on Monzo" - Told her no one is looking at the video lol

If we were to put all monies into the joint account. Then how do we manage larger purchases? For example, say I want to buy a MTB (I do) which is £950. Wouldn't be fair as then she'd not have enough funds to spend that much if she wanted to.

I think it will have to be a trial and error approach. As mentioned we are starting off with just switching all bills to the new account for now and putting some monies in there from our salary and seeing how it goes.

Then we might move our savings into there as well - but not sure if Monzo provides a separate "pot" for that in the joint account- will have to see. If they do, that'd be really helpful.
 
Priapus said:
It's an interesting point to be made about just "Our" money into the house and joint account.
It might be worth exploring the idea more that all monies goes into the one account and all comes out of it, including spending on ourselves etc. I've just had my own account and control over my own money for far too long. But since moving to the UK this year, for some reason I am more open to the idea of joint account.

Still waiting for the misses to setup her account on Monzo. She didn't want to do it last night because "I need to do my hair before I do that stupid video to sign up on Monzo" - Told her no one is looking at the video lol

If we were to put all monies into the joint account. Then how do we manage larger purchases? For example, say I want to buy a MTB (I do) which is £950. Wouldn't be fair as then she'd not have enough funds to spend that much if she wanted to.

I think it will have to be a trial and error approach. As mentioned we are starting off with just switching all bills to the new account for now and putting some monies in there from our salary and seeing how it goes.

Then we might move our savings into there as well - but not sure if Monzo provides a separate "pot" for that in the joint account- will have to see. If they do, that'd be really helpful.
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I think a good way is to not put all your salary in. Keep some back into personal account/savings. When that's built up, spend it on your MTB.

This is the way we do it. If I want to buy a new part for PC, then it comes out my savings, wife hasn't contributed to it. Similarly, when she spends 100's at the hair salon, I'm not contributing to it either.

You could argue technically we are contributing to it, since we're a family unit, but it feels like it's just personal spends.
As long as we both put enough into the joint account to cover all joint expenditure, then that works fine for us.
 
Nutty667 said:
I think a good way is to not put all your salary in. Keep some back into personal account/savings. When that's built up, spend it on your MTB.

This is the way we do it. If I want to buy a new part for PC, then it comes out my savings, wife hasn't contributed to it. Similarly, when she spends 100's at the hair salon, I'm not contributing to it either.

You could argue technically we are contributing to it, since we're a family unit, but it feels like it's just personal spends.
As long as we both put enough into the joint account to cover all joint expenditure, then that works fine for us.
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Yeah that seems sensible and the approach we will start out with. We spoke about it last night and agreed on that approach to see how it goes. She’s very indifferent to either approach though.
 
utajoker said:
never understood keeping your money seperate if you are married.
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We pay out of our own personal accounts. I used to pay the mortgage (it’s paid off now and the amount just goes into the joint savings now) and the wife pays the bills. Both put into a joint savings account for things like holidays and for things for the house (maintenance, upgrades etc). We’ve been together for 28years, it works for us and is our preference.

I don’t feel any guilt for buying things I want and don’t have to ask permission to do so and likewise for her. I know you say you both have set amounts to spend no questions asked but I went out and spent £63k on a car I wanted, how would that go down if it came from your joint account? The wife couldn’t care less.
 
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Priapus said:
It's an interesting point to be made about just "Our" money into the house and joint account.
It might be worth exploring the idea more that all monies goes into the one account and all comes out of it, including spending on ourselves etc. I've just had my own account and control over my own money for far too long. But since moving to the UK this year, for some reason I am more open to the idea of joint account.

Still waiting for the misses to setup her account on Monzo. She didn't want to do it last night because "I need to do my hair before I do that stupid video to sign up on Monzo" - Told her no one is looking at the video lol

If we were to put all monies into the joint account. Then how do we manage larger purchases? For example, say I want to buy a MTB (I do) which is £950. Wouldn't be fair as then she'd not have enough funds to spend that much if she wanted to.

I think it will have to be a trial and error approach. As mentioned we are starting off with just switching all bills to the new account for now and putting some monies in there from our salary and seeing how it goes.

Then we might move our savings into there as well - but not sure if Monzo provides a separate "pot" for that in the joint account- will have to see. If they do, that'd be really helpful.
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So what we do is have a joint account and a separate account each. All income goes in to the joint account for bills, savings, days out, etc. Each month we'll put a set amount in to each of our own personal accounts. With that money you can do what you like because it's yours and we get the same amount each, regardless of who earns more. Want to fritter it away on small things? Go for it. Want to save up and spend £1k on a mountain bike? Go for it.
 
Everything separate, bills split fairly based on income %, and then just DD's setup on individual accounts to cover the allocated bills, or a standing order from the wife to me, mainly because i do 90% of the admin because she hates dealing with the admin side of things, and phone calls etc. Has worked for us for the last 24 years, no plans to change it now.

Savings accounts are joint where possible but again we just let each other know what we've got going on in savings from time to time just to make sure we are both aware should something terrible happen.
 
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Maundie said:
We have bills come from personal accounts but have a spreadsheet that shows each of us pay the same % of salary, we do have 2 joint savings accounts though and another joint account where the shopping comes from (we both put equal amount into the shopping account)
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Same, we track our individual salaries and personal outgoings, to work out the total after those, then our individual % share of that amount.

Then all our joint outgoings are tallied up, and those % share applied. So if I make up 60% of the post-personal outgoings pot, I pay for 60% of the total joint costs.

So we both have personal accounts, but pay into a joint account based on the above.
 
Separate personal accounts, joint one just for bills. I have a savings account that I put money away in. To those using Monzo, I would move your money out as soon as possible as they are leaving families destitute by not just stopping accounts for seemingly no good reason, but actually seizing the money within and refusing to give it back until a lengthy FO investigation. They don't have to give a reason either apparently.
 
We have our own individual accounts that we each get our salary paid into, which we have standing orders each month into the joint which takes our "main" direct debits (mortgage, council tax etc), and then remainder for food shopping. We each cover a couple of the "joint" expenses out of our own accounts but they're the exception rather than the norm. We split the payments into the joint based on the same ratio as our takehome pay.

Worryingly based on @mejinks comment, our joint is in Monzo. Luckily salaries aren't paid into it so I'd hoping switching direct debits over would be easier than losing the money in there.
 
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Priapus said:
It's an interesting point to be made about just "Our" money into the house and joint account.
It might be worth exploring the idea more that all monies goes into the one account and all comes out of it, including spending on ourselves etc. I've just had my own account and control over my own money for far too long. But since moving to the UK this year, for some reason I am more open to the idea of joint account.

Still waiting for the misses to setup her account on Monzo. She didn't want to do it last night because "I need to do my hair before I do that stupid video to sign up on Monzo" - Told her no one is looking at the video lol

If we were to put all monies into the joint account. Then how do we manage larger purchases? For example, say I want to buy a MTB (I do) which is £950. Wouldn't be fair as then she'd not have enough funds to spend that much if she wanted to.

I think it will have to be a trial and error approach. As mentioned we are starting off with just switching all bills to the new account for now and putting some monies in there from our salary and seeing how it goes.

Then we might move our savings into there as well - but not sure if Monzo provides a separate "pot" for that in the joint account- will have to see. If they do, that'd be really helpful.
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That's exactly why we have what we have.
I wouldn't want to take 5k out for a new electric full sus MTB. And then leave her with nothing.
Or her to take 5k out for a wildlife holiday and be left with nothing. We'd then have to have conversations about how much each of us could spend and it would just be adding admin and at that point it would be easier to have our personal money separate.

I get it more if you have kids and/or don't spend much individually. But our big purchases tend to be solo. And I make more of those.

I'd say (guessing) full joint accounts are an older thing? And younger people keep more separate?
I may be wrong there.


Bills from joint account definitely makes sense. Each of us can see what's being spent On what. So if something goes wrong either of us (likely me) can spot it.
 
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Priapus said:
Anyone have a joint account with their partner?

Trying to figure out if, it would be better than running the house on two separate bank accounts between my misses and I. And we split bills by % of salary - like we've done for a long time now. However with the recent changes and the move etc, we are now wondering if a joint account would make things easier.

How do you split up the finances and do you still keep a solo account? And who is your joint account with if you have one.
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we have a joint as well as solo accounts... all bills come out of the joint and we add to it each month.

the beauty of it is for 1 monthly fee - which is the same cost as for a solo account - we get travel insurance for both of us and RAC cover for both of our cars for each of us.

in my 1st marriage we only had a joint account and didnt have solo ones and i did not like that at all....... my ex at the time spent far more than me on a week per week basis on fluff - which i was fine with - but when i chose to buy something it would inevitably be something big - like a gpu or something.

even tho over the course of a year i would spend less on trivialities than my ex, i would feel incredibly guilty when i bought stuff, reinforced by the fact that i got in the dog house over wasting so much money.

it is convenient having a joint account however so i feel our way works perfectly for me now, we each put £750 - £1000 a month into the joint account which covers out outgoings and then all the rest is ours to do with what we want.

we then top it up for big things like holidays or a new car etc
 
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Keep your own separate accounts for your salaries and own spending to go into/ out of and set up a joint account for the shared bills with an agreed sum being paid in per month sufficient between the pair of you to cover the bills with a bit extra to build up a contingency fund for emergencies.
 
Bear said:
We pay out of our own personal accounts. I used to pay the mortgage (it’s paid off now and the amount just goes into the joint savings now) and the wife pays the bills. Both put into a joint savings account for things like holidays and for things for the house (maintenance, upgrades etc). We’ve been together for 28years, it works for us and is our preference.

I don’t feel any guilt for buying things I want and don’t have to ask permission to do so and likewise for her. I know you say you both have set amounts to spend no questions asked but I went out and spent £63k on a car I wanted, how would that go down if it came from your joint account? The wife couldn’t care less.
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you prob earn a lot more than me and dont need to be as careful with money.
 
utajoker said:
you prob earn a lot more than me and dont need to be as careful with money.
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Not at the moment. I'm a contractor and have been contracting for about 14 years. My last contract ended at the beginning of June and I decided to take a break from work and am taking the rest of the year off.
 
We have both have our own bank accounts, salary gets paid into them and then we transfer set amount each month into a shared joint account which pays for all of the household bills.
 
1 account for all imo. Makes it easier, we have joint credit cards too, although they are setup to clear in full every month. Makes far more sense imo rather than trying to do percentages of stuff. It does make presents less of a surprise for me as I tend to check the balance.
 
Bear said:
Not at the moment. I'm a contractor and have been contracting for about 14 years. My last contract ended at the beginning of June and I decided to take a break from work and am taking the rest of the year off.
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but the point is presumably you only have the luxury of being able to do that because you are (relatively) loaded.
I would say i am more fortunate than many but the notion of being able to take a prolonged break is but a pipe dream......... (I still have not given up the goal of retiring at 60 however)
 
If I pull up at the house with a new car the (future) wife is going to ask how much was that, regardless which account it came out of tbf.
 
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