Should I split the bills by proportion?

[Pudney]

Marriage is about openness and trust, why would you need to keep your finances private from your wife?

Because there are times when I would want to surprise her and I wouldn't want to risk alerting her to the situation.

Why would it cause tension?

Because we have different attitudes to money, we both spend on a whim but I have defined limits to which I spend within whilst she doesn't. Amalgamating the two would just mean her money would be in the realms of my OCD tendencies as well

 

[EdGey]

50/50

 

[J-FRO]

Keep it 50:50 but spoil her a bit.

That was she's still your equal, but you're showing you care about her enough to give her beautiful presents.....or sexy underwear

 

[stockhausen]

INCREDIBLE!

I am in a relationship and living with someone, rather than asking her advice on finances, I will ask a bunch of random individuals on the Internetz

Why don't you just nip down to Tescos and ask strangers face-to-face - not all of them will give you a slap

 

[LiE]

Joint account, all money paid into this account and paid out of this account. I'd not like to be in the situation where I have £1k disposable cash and my wife has only £300 for a month. £1,300 between both of us is fine.

 

[Castiel]

So it's some kind of status/trust/insecurity issue then? I really don't see any practical reason for having one account for both of you and one account only.

Eh?

Married people live together, eat together, holiday together, have children together, do pretty much everything together.

Why would you then not pay for everything together?

Seems that some people do not trust their partners with their money.

We have a joint current account, a joint savings account, a trust for our Son and our money jointly gets distributed as required between those accounts.

As my wife is an accountant, I have little to do with the day to day running of our finances, if I want something I buy it, I consult the wife if it is expensive and vice versa.


We have some friends who have separate accounts and incomes, recently the wife has had to leave her job to look after their three children after the birth of the third. She has no income other than the CHB that she receives and is currently paying her half of the bills as required by their arrangement from her savings. This is absolutely ridiculous, and that is not a marriage, it is a business arrangement, an unfair one at that.

People are free to live as they choose, I, and my wife cannot understand however how as a family unit some people still live as if they are single. It seems that marriage is a business arrangement to buy a house rather than a bond between two people to share everything in life.

I am obviously old fashioned.

 

[Castiel]

Because there are times when I would want to surprise her and I wouldn't want to risk alerting her to the situation.

You do not own a credit card or charge card then?

Because we have different attitudes to money, we both spend on a whim but I have defined limits to which I spend within whilst she doesn't. Amalgamating the two would just mean her money would be in the realms of my OCD tendencies as well

The same here, I will spend money like it is water to be honest, I have little or no value of money. My wife however has a great deal of nous when it comes to finances so she deals with that.

Each to their own, but I suspect that when kids and such come along it will begin to get very complicated for you.

 

[Pudney]

I am obviously old fashioned.

No, people are different. I was brought up with my family who had seperate accounts, both my parents and my grandparents. Either are fine, and I certainly wouldn't judge someone who does it differently.

It suggest more that your view of marriage is more narrowminded if you think having seperate accounts must be indicative of a business arrangement than marriage. To me, marriage is the joining of two individuals in union. That doesn't negate the ability to have a distinction in assets or actions.

A marriage shouldn't turn two people into one, it's a celebration of two peoples individuality and the harmony they bring to each other.

 

[Wicksta]

So Castiel you still haven't said one practical example of why it's a good idea apart from 'it's the done thing because I say so'. I'll give you some examples of why separate accounts are more practical:

- If your card gets cloned you are not stuck without access to money
- If you are buying presents you don't have to worry about them seeing the price
- You get a much better idea on what your outgoing bills are because they are the only thing coming out of your joint account.

Maybe you are old fashioned, maybe your wife being an accountant is quite 'strict' when it comes to your money, maybe it's being a bit insecure. Either way it works for you, why are you so against what works well for other people though? Get off your high horse.

 

[Castiel]

No, people are different. I was brought up with my family who had seperate accounts, both my parents and my grandparents. Either are fine, and I certainly wouldn't judge someone who does it differently.

It suggest more that your view of marriage is more narrowminded if you think having seperate accounts must be indicative of a business arrangement than marriage. To me, marriage is the joining of two individuals in union. That doesn't negate the ability to have a distinction in assets or actions.

A marriage shouldn't turn two people into one, it's a celebration of two peoples individuality and the harmony they bring to each other.

Hmmm, wait until one of you has no income due to children or other unforeseen circumstances.

 

[LiE]

I'm with Castiel on this. I can't see it working too well having separate money if one earns much more than the other. I'd feel like a nob driving around in a flash car if all my wife could afford was a cheap banger.

 

[Wicksta]

Hmmm, wait until one of you has no income due to children or other unforeseen circumstances.

Both have happened to me, with my other half being made redundant and then later on being off her next job for 13 months on maternity leave. We coped fine because we adapted, I paid all the bills and there was extra in our joint account for her to use on a daily basis.

 

[Pudney]

You do not own a credit card or charge card then?

I (and we) do, but again that would just raise the query about what's on the card

The same here, I will spend money like it is water to be honest, I have little or no value of money. My wife however has a great deal of nous when it comes to finances so she deals with that.

Each to their own, but I suspect that when kids and such come along it will begin to get very complicated for you.

I don't think so, ultimately the disposable income of each is a bonus after all our joint expenditure. It may turn out that eventually it will all go into one account with a potion of the left over transferred out into individual accounts. There's always a solution to these things.

Oh, and I think our issue stems from me being an accountant as well. You don't happen to work in HR do you?

 

[Wicksta]

I'm with Castiel on this. I can't see it working too well having separate money if one earns much more than the other. I'd feel like a nob driving around in a flash car if all my wife could afford was a cheap banger.

That's a completely different situation, Castiel is talking about not having seperate accounts under *any* circumstances. It works well for us and we earn around the same.

 

[Castiel]

So Castiel you still haven't said one practical example of why it's a good idea apart from 'it's the done thing because I say so'. I'll give you some examples of why separate accounts are more practical:

- If your card gets cloned you are not stuck without access to money

We have more than one account so why would we be stuck without money?

- If you are buying presents you don't have to worry about them seeing the price

Use a chargecard or creditcard, then the individual price of the item is not known to your wife.

- You get a much better idea on what your outgoing bills are because they are the only thing coming out of your joint account.

Why would that give you a better idea of you outgoings over having a joint account anyway. Surely you know what you bills are?

Maybe you are old fashioned, maybe your wife being an accountant is quite 'strict' when it comes to your money, maybe it's being a bit insecure. Either way it works for you, why are you so against what works well for other people though? Get off your high horse.

My wife is not strict, neither does she control what I spend. We simply share everything, that includes our joint income.

I would think the insecurity is not trusting your money in the hands of your partner, rather than having equal trust in each others ability to discuss and plan within a joint relationship in all things.

I'm not against it exactly, I simply don't really understand it.

 

[Pudney]

Hmmm, wait until one of you has no income due to children or other unforeseen circumstances.

In those circumstances I'd expect one of us to cover all the costs then split the remainder. I wouldn't want either of us thinking we couldn't spend anything because it wasn't our money!

 

[Basher]

So Castiel you still haven't said one practical example of why it's a good idea apart from 'it's the done thing because I say so'. I'll give you some examples of why separate accounts are more practical:

- If your card gets cloned you are not stuck without access to money
- If you are buying presents you don't have to worry about them seeing the price
- You get a much better idea on what your outgoing bills are because they are the only thing coming out of your joint account.

We operate a shared pool of money and non of those things are an issue. Mainly because we have credit cards (same account but separate bills) and I can filter account activity based accordingly.

 

[Castiel]

Both have happened to me, with my other half being made redundant and then later on being off her next job for 13 months on maternity leave. We coped fine because we adapted, I paid all the bills and there was extra in our joint account for her to use on a daily basis.

So you simply used the same financial arrangement that my wife and I have used since we were married.

 

[duvet77]

My partner and I both put an agreed percentage of our salary into a joint account. All "joint" bills (gas/elec/water/shopping/etc) are paid for from this account. Any individual costs (her travel card/my car expenses/etc) are paid for out of our individual accounts.

In my opinion this is pretty fair. Dealing with the percentages means that if one person earns less than they pay less into the joint account, but then they still have less money left in their joint account to go "treating" themselves with. If it worked out that one person was paying less yet still going out spending more on themselves it would not work (or be fair) but as it is, everything seems to sit nicely.

This is what me and my wife used to do until we had a kid. Now I pay everything.

 

[Greebo]

As said by others it just keeps it simple having both a joint account and seperate individual account.

All our bills, meals out, joint expenditure is from the joint account. That means if I want a new graphics card then that's up to me to save it from my income. Equally, I had no problem with the gf spending £28k on a custom built horsebox last year.

I think if all our money went into one big pot then there could be friction/issues if she felt I was spending too much perhaps? As it is, everything is fine.