Joint account or separate?

We maintain our independence with separate banks accounts for our wages but we have a joint account for paying some of the household bills.

There is no my money and his money though, if something needs paying for, whoever is there with the card will get it!

We have a joint account plus our own personal accounts. It is nice to buy things without anyone seeing where and what you spent money on. I had a joint account with my ex for bills etc. until he kept going overdrawn and I was worried it would affect my credit rating so seperated our accounts.

This is exactly how we do things as well.

We have joint credit cards but not a joint account. This will probably change when we get married, but it doesn't have to as we are happy the way things are...I buy stuff, he pays for it

I can see the pros and cons of having either but OH has said he is happy to do whatever i want, he has no interest in money, as long as the bills are paid, theres food in the fridge hes happy for me to give him pocket money. i dont know if im comfortable with it even though he is!

We're finally setting up our joint account this week. Plan is we keep our wages and just put in the money we need to cover bills so that there's no 'you paid for this' 'I paid for that' going on anymore.. I've been paying all the household bills, council tax, gas, electricity, rent etc since we moved in and he pays for TV, phone and car - he's feeling a bit guilty as I've been paying more but then his car's had a few problems so it balances out in my eyes anyway

Could you have a smaller "pocketmoney" account that you both use for fun stuffs, and a separate account for bills? Would that work?

We have separate accounts where our wages and personal payments go through (phone bills/etc). We both pay a set amount into a joint account for house/shopping/joint bills/etc.

I have always sworn to keep my own bank account and literally cannot conceive of giving up my financial independence. It's worth noting that the very act of living with someone will damage your credit rating if they are naughty...but at least they can't clean you out.

We have separate bank accounts, the bills go from his account and I have a standing order to cover my half.

I asked him of we should set one up, he said there's no point- we would both then have standing orders going to a third bank account... I agree it would be silly.

Mind you, if we had kids and I wasn't working then I would change my mind!

Me and OH are still trying to find a suitable agreement on this one, but I think we'll end up pooling our cash into one account because of the nature of our relationship.

I am the main earner out of us, in that I earn more, but OHs work dictates where we are, so may mean lots of moves for me and some periods of unemployment when i'll be "living off" him.

While the concept of "my money" and "his money" doesn't fit right with me, if H2b has money in his account he will spend it friviously and not think about how he/I will live for the rest of the month, while I, don't save as such, but am always ontop of what my balance is and hence what I can spend. If i've not got it, I don't go shopping etc.

This is a very interesting subject for me as I love to hear how others manage money (I'm an accountant).

Money is such an emotive thing so you really need to do what you're going to feel comfortable with. I'd always recommend maintaining a personal account, even if all of your expenditure is joint. Any money you earn can go into your account and then you can transfer as much or as little as you want into a joint account.

Our situation is fairly complex financially so I won't bore you with the details of what we do with ours!

We have seperate accounts, but I transfer money every month to go towards bills etc and that leaves me some pocket money for lunches and other bits and bobs during the month. We have a joint mortgage though.

We have a joint account for bills, mortgage etc, and separate accounts for individual spending, works perfectly fine for us. He is always overdrawn, I'm always in credit! The joint account is always in credit also, we put a bit extra in there so it will be topped up for christmas gifts and the like.

All of our money is completely pooled. Both sets of wages go into the account. We each have a credit card and I pay them off with money from the joint account.

The only down side to this (as far as I'm concerned) is not really being able to "treat" each other, although I guess it's just a joint treat. Money for birthday and Christmas presents comes from our joint account, so it's really the gesture of giving something thoughtful that's appreciated, rather than the fact that the other one paid for it.

Another down side was that OH had to borrow money from his dad to buy my engagement ring otherwise I would have noticed a serious dent in the joint account! He paid this back from the proceeds of the sale of his bachelor pad, the rest of which went into our joint account.

We do this too. We find it's nicer and easier to buy Christmas / Brithday presents for the other without knowing how much it cost.

This was our original plan, however, it negatively affects your credit rating to have an account with a low balance, and so doesn't work for us unless we put a £500 buffer in etc, but OH would spend the buffer.

Effectively we were thinking all our money goes into our joint account (currently our savings account) and each week we take £xxx each etc leaving the rest for bills, joint meals out, holidays, cars etc - that way we both have the same disposable income for "us" and we can chose to spend/save it etc. It also negates the effect of me earning more.

I don't have a trust issue when it comes to cash and my OH having mine/ours, before we were engaged H2b was holding an ISA of £5k for me, as my allowance was full. so it's not trust for us, it practicality and not over-spending.

We have about 5 bank accounts each and currently 2 joint accounts!

Our wages get paid into our own accounts, then the current joint account my H pays into and I do the food shopping from it. We're just trying to change all the bills to go into the new joint account and each pay in a chunk to that. That's looking to the future so that when I go on ML then H can pay a larger chunk in each month and I can keep my money for me.

What H does with his own money after he's paid the mortgage and bills is up to him - I have no desire to know what he spends his on and he's the same with me which is why we keep our own accounts too. If there's a large bill for something (ie buildings insurance this week) then we split it.

Without becoming overly cynical, another "advantage" to having separate accounts and non-joint spending is that the possessions used freely and jointly by both you whilst together would be relatively easy to separate, should it ever come to that....I get my books back, he gets all the electronica....

At the moment we have our own accounts which our wages are paid into, and we pay a set (same) amount each month into a joint account which we use for bills and the suchlike. Once (if, *crosses fingers v hard*) we have kids though, if my salary is heavily reduced we might move to a system where we have a joint account into which we pay the majority of our salary, whatever that may be, and have a set amount we keep aside for spending on fun stuff. That's a little way off yet though, so we will have to see what happens.

@FTLOMB - does that mean that if you were looking to set up a new home for example, you would say buy the TV and MrFLTOMB would buy the Fridge etc? So that if anything should happen you know which item belongs to who?

To prove a point over MrLMs spening habits we once went through an excercise in excel to analyse our spending from the joint account to see who puts in, and leaves in the most into it. At the time the balance was something like £15k and I had put in and left in £17k while OH was at a net defecit of £2k. ?. My point it - is could be seperated if required in the direst of circumstances.

I paid for the carpets in our home so whenever Mr RB p*sses me off, I tell him that he can't walk on them because they're mine.

I paid for our flat deposit and the mortgage every month! Mr C gets reminded of this often...

I really don't think there is a right or wrong with this, gone on the days when it's assumed you'll both just share one account - that's fine if you want to, but especially when you're used to doing your own thing money wise it doesn't have to change if it's working.

We have our own accounts where our salaries get paid into, it didn't seem to make sense to change when we bought a house together or when we got married - at first I felt we 'should' and then thought why?? H also said if we only had a joint account buying surprise pressies etc would be a problem!

We also have a joint account that we bung money into sometimes for hol spending money and stuff, but don't use it much. We are very, very relaxed about our money - H pays for lots more than me but doesn't see it as 'his' and likewise I might buy loads of house stuff but it doesn't occur to me that 'I'm' paying for it. If something needs paying, one of us pays it, that's that, and it works really well.

This depends largely on whether or not you have a family (and if so, if someone has given up part or all of their wage earning) and how good your lawyer is.

Boy-oh-boy do we know how to have fun!! Don't let me ever hear you saying we're not a dynamic couple Tricks!

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@CB - that's interesting you mention it changes when you have children. I would be interested to know if that same rule could be implied to other situations. Ie: Me losing earnings and hence contributions due to a relocation with OHs job*.

*Not that I'm planning on divorce, we are yet to marry.

LM - that could have an impact but I do think the most important thing in a situation like that is to get a good lawyer!

I'm not an expert, but you generally start at 50/50 and work from there. Children changes the situation a lot.

I think childless couples generally get back what they put in.

Both. Separate in the UK, joint over here. Until we were married we never discussed a joint bank account as there didn't seem a need to do it.

We have a joint account, to which we transfer 70% of our wages each month - used to be 50% but wedding savings have increased it.

This account is used for all of the bills, wedding costs, food shopping, meals out, cinema, gym membership, etc.

We also have our own accounts that we spend on whatever we like. If we want to save our leftovers we do so, it doesn't become 'our' money, it stays as mine (or his). It works great for us, but each to their own.

We pool all of our money into one account then I move out the savings into a separate account, pay any bills that aren't on DD and the rest is ours to do as we wish.

We decided a while back that we would just have one account but it's taken us a while to get round to doing it. Works best for us so that I can keep a track of what's left and also stops any discussion over whose turn it is to pay the gas bill.

We will see how it pans out, Mr Kooks earns a little bit more than me but left to his own devices he'd spend every penny he has. I'm able to budget a bit better.

We are completely joint! Joint current account, joint savings, but have to have individual ISA's!

I think it is all personal preference Celtic Goddess and no one can answer this tricky question for you. What does your OH want to do? Does he mind either way?