Hi

I need some advice really as im getting bit down with money worries at the minute.

My hubby earns £1500 or just under a month. Im on stat maternity pay now and get about £500 a month.

We have two seperate account. One my money gets paid into - one that his money gets paid into and a joint account in which we both pay £400 a month into to cover the household bills i.e gas electric,mortgage etc.

Our outgoing come to about £1200 (not including petrol, shopping) which leaves us with about £800 a month.

The thing is I dont know where all of our money goes!! At the end of the month we are totally skint. We do like our takeaways and have a drink on a sat night but nothing excessive.

Hubby like the freedom of bing able to have his own money but i really think its a good idea to combine all of our money into one account and for me to control the finances as he spends like theres no tomorrow.

How do u control finances in your house? Do you set a certain amount each week or just take when u need? And do u give your partner "pocket money" as such or do they have their own card and take when needed?

x

Me and OH atm have seperate accounts, I get WTC and CB paid into mine.
We are soon going to be getting a joint account just so we both know exactly how much money we have..etc.. x

I pretty much control it all. We have two accounts. Matt's account gets his wages and all the direct debit go out of there start of each month. Then what is left is used on petrol. My account is where the child benefit & tax credits go into. This is used for food shopping (i only do one big shop a month the day tax credits go in) and general things.
I don't limit Matt but he knows we should discuss when he buys big things. i guess i'm lucky in that he doesn't go out much or buy clothes, when he buys things it usually for the car he's building and he always checks with me before buying. &cause it's his account that the bills go out of he never has that much left so he knows to be careful.

Luke gets paid into his acc, i get WTC, TC AND CB. We did open a joint account in feb but we still havnt got round to changing everything, seems to much hassle! I have paypal, ebay etc from my acc and i just take his card it if i need anything Im pretty much in charge of money tho, i pay the rent etc x

My oh doesn't earn anything as he stays at home to look after Tyler.

When he was working he had his own money and I had mine. I pay all the bills all the food shopping etc so I guess I control everything because I earn it all.

I think if your struggling and getting down about it then you should take some control. You should start with writing down everything that goes in and out for a month and then see what you can cut down on from there.

would your OH give you access to his account or would he transfer all his wages into a join account for you to control?

Well i get paid 25th n he gets paid on 26th so weve said that when he gets paid he gonna give me his card n im gonna take control for at least a month n see how much i can save us. if i can save us a decent amount were gonna ask for another card for his account for me.

gonna try meal planners too n save on take aways x

that's a good idea I'm sure you'll see where the money is going and food really is expensive when you buy take a ways

i know. thing is atm cos ive got s broken wrist im not able do alot of cooking n since gav has taken total control over alfies bed time routine while im ill - its easier to pick up a phone n order!

gonna have to sort ourselves out tho. im totally stressing about xmas pressies n the car tax has jusy come through to be renewed - theres 135quid!!

x

x

Me and my OH used to argue constantly about this, so we have kind of found a truce...

We used to both get paid seperately (on matching decent wages) and put our money together for bills, then spend our own money seperately, which got totally wasted.

Now I am on a lower wage (soon to be back on mat pay), my OH pays for all household bills and I pay for food, nappies, clothes and everything to do with the car.

It actually works really well this way, as so far this year I have managed to pay to do so much to our house, including new windows, flooring and central heating, which we would never have done if we carried on how we were.

My OH is still crap with money so he has started giving me half of what he has for 'treats' each month on pay day, and then two weeks later, I give it back to him, so he doesnt run out of it all within a week.

x

we have a joint account so everything goes in (and comes out) the same account. i get paid monthly and OH gets paid fortnightly so we're never usually skint, but we do seem to spend all of it on rubbish

We have our own accounts, Matt pays all the bills out of his and I give him some money each month. We have a joint credit card that all our shopping and petrol goes on that gets paid off at the end of the month and I put my petrol on a separate card that gets cleared off monthly as I get all my business mileage back from work.

If you're not sure where it's going then make a note of what you're spending, carry a little book around in your bag and whatever you spend write it down. I did this and was amazed at how much I spent on rubbish, or work out what you can afford for treats, takeaways etc, take it out in cash and when it's gone it's gone x

we were running bothe accounts our own way and couldnt understand where all our money was going !
we figured we had no set control as we were each just spending ,,,, we are on a trial now where i control all finanaces ( we obviously discuss certain buys ) and we are much better off x

we have our own accounts and i like it that way - i would feel like i had ti explain everytime i spent like £40 in a clothes shop to him etc and it would prob encourage me to put more on cred cards etc!!
Oh pays the big bills, like mortgage council tax etc and i pay the small ones like elec gas, water, shopping etc...
x

We have our own accounts, Dan also has his business account and actually rarely uses his personal account lately.
We have never had 'my' money or 'your' money - we just use which ever account, like shopping who ever goes tends to use their card, or when a bill comes its whoever has most spare money at the time. If one of us is skint we just use the others ones account. Direct Debits go out of my account as I am the one who takes care of bills, but if I don't have enough we just transfer from his account. We both have access to each others online banking and pin numbers - so its really like having 2 joint accounts I suppose!

We have recently made our accounts joint - much easier to see it all together. Shopping is a pain as we never seem to be able to cut it down much and even when we do, still end up buying bits in the week (and feeling like there's nothing in, in the meantime!) although we always stock up on good offers - kitchen roll, toilet roll, nappies, wipes - which helps.

The only outstanding thing we want to change is sky - £40 a month at least and we only got it because there was no freeview signal when we moved in. There's never anything on anyway! Can cut by half and just keep phone&broadband, and buy a freesat box. Also - really want to take some time to look into other gas and elec suppliers - as well as changing to monthly contributions instead of big fat bills.
It's all on the to-do list, literally

GraceBean&Pip wrote:

We have recently made our accounts joint - much easier to see it all together. Shopping is a pain as we never seem to be able to cut it down much and even when we do, still end up buying bits in the week (and feeling like there's nothing in, in the meantime!) although we always stock up on good offers - kitchen roll, toilet roll, nappies, wipes - which helps.

The only outstanding thing we want to change is sky - £40 a month at least and we only got it because there was no freeview signal when we moved in. There's never anything on anyway! Can cut by half and just keep phone&broadband, and buy a freesat box. Also - really want to take some time to look into other gas and elec suppliers - as well as changing to monthly contributions instead of big fat bills.
It's all on the to-do list, literally

the gas and leccy is worth checking - we were paying scary amounts on British Gas capped rates - I was paying £40 on each DD then after a 8 months we decided to move and they sent us a final bill ... £1200 - so in a 8mths our gas and leccy had cost £1840
We are now with Eon, we don't really use any less gas or leccy, but the bills have been no where near as expensive.

It's nuts isn't it Lisa, that and water rates are always a nasty surprise through the door! I hate not knowing how much it will be - we don't use the landline much, if at all, so the sky bill is at least predictable and things like car insurance, tv license etc. are 'set' amounts. It's just something we never get round to but I'm sure we're being diddled!

We were on flat rate for water £43 a month, and I got convinced that metred would be less, but it was £190 for 3 months, so £20 a month more Hadnt even been watering the garden or washing the car

I need to ring them up and go back actually!

Now I've thought of it again, hopefully it will remind me to chase it up too.
At least I'm safe in the knowledge that next door's water bill MUST be higher than ours - the man never stops washing cars!! And they have four!! The hose-pipe ban nearly killed him