If you stay at home (and earn no money) and your spouse works (and earns all the money) -- how do you then manage the money?
Do you have the whole paycheck deposited into a joint account that you both spend from?
Does your spouse give you an "allowance"?
Does your spouse get the paycheck and then give a portion of it to you, or put in a portion into a joint account?
etc.
Please share your money set up and what works and what doesn't. Thanks.
nak.
i sahm and have no income; dh makes all da money. it all goes direct deposit into our joint account. i pay all the bills online, do most of the shopping. he'll pick up things on his way home from work if asked. neither of us has an allowance or spending limit, but we just don't go blowing all the money in the first place.(that would be the kids!) we both have our own debit card. i'm the only one with an issue, when guilt pops up about not helping financially but dh sets me straight. he has never called it "his" money, either. it's always "our" money.
Our money gets direct deposited into our joint account.
I pay the bills.
We have only one debit card and I keep it most of the time.
DH gets an allowance in cash once a month that he can spend on whatever the hell he wants.
When we spend money on things other than bills we are usually together or one or the other knows about it.
DH calls me his accountant. He has said many a time if he were in "contol" of the money we wouldn't have any, and its probably true.
So this works for us.
We have a joint account and a budget. We both try to stick to it. DH pays the bills b/c he is on the computer more (though I have been on it more recently due to late pregnancy exhaustion and forced resting time!). Sometimes one or both of us messes up w/r/t budget. No biggie, we don't do credit cards and it is usually a small "mess up." No one guilts anyone else. We really don't fight about money. We come from almost identical financial backgrounds (upper middle class, both college educated children of college educated parents who taught us money management early and often) and that is a major, major strength in our marriage. Of course, we definitely have issues in other areas. 
Money just isn't one of them.
my dh used to do all the bills. it was a disaster! once i took over, i got and kept everything caught up. there are lapses, like the week all the kids had the flu, or a death i the family or when #4 was born...i'm not perfect! but i do a good job!
He gives me a portion of each pay cheque, I take care of the household bills and he takes care of the vehicle bills/gas and his phone. It worked better when I was doing after school care... we had a bit more money, and I had some disposable income. The way things are now is just temporary so I'm okay with it.
Right now, he's banking hours so he'll get paid over the summer whether he works or not (and we'll keep our health benefits) DH works for a school bus company, which is why he isn't guaranteed work over the summer. There are usually enough charters to keep him busy, so we probably won't use all his banked hours. We'll save banked hours for a bit of an emergency fund... he can still get a pay cheque if he's sick. I don't know exactly when he'll go from banking the maximum hours he can to banking less (sometime over the summer), but when his pay cheque goes up, so does the amount he passes on to me.
I've got the word out that I have room for after school care kids in September, I prefer to make a bit of money myself. The current plan if I do get hired, is to put what I earn straight into savings for... well, something will come up. I definitely want to add to the RESP's.
DH puts his check straight into the joint account. Currently we only have one card, but we'd like two just for convenience sake. Usually he keeps the card unless I tell him I'm going out that day. We do grocery trips and larger spending together in the evenings or on the weekends. I handle the bills each month. We both stay on top of the amount in the account. If we're going to spend money we just tell each other. It has just become routine. "Honey, I'm going to get gas for the car while I'm out." or "Honey, I filled up the tank in the car cause it was running low." This hasn't caused any problems, because we each check regularly to see how much we have in the account, so we both know if we can make purchases like that. Anything routine like picking up milk, getting gas, or a soft drink from the store is fine. If it's something out of the ordinary we talk about if we want to get it now, spend the money on something else, or wait until another paycheck clears -- it doesn't matter the amount, only that it's something not routine. Clothes, house furnishings, a toy for the kiddo, etc. would all fall under the "not routine." All the money is "ours" and we do all of the decision making regarding finances together.
DH's paycheque is put into our joint account, through direct deposit. We each have a debit card on that account, which we use as needed. We do check in with each other for large-ish purchases, just to make sure we don't overlap or mess up our budget. We also each pull a cash amount each paycheque. I usually get more than he does, because I do a lot more small purchases (grabbing an ice cream for me and the kids, picking up a small Dover colouring book on the spur of the moment - stuff like that) than he does. I'm the one who handles all the bill paying and files the taxes and all that kind of thing, so I usually have a slightly better handle on the day to day account details than dh, but we're both totally in the loop.
DH's paycheque is put into our joint account, through direct deposit. We each have a debit card on that account, which we use as needed. We do check in with each other for large-ish purchases, just to make sure we don't overlap or mess up our budget. We also each pull a cash amount each paycheque. I usually get more than he does, because I do a lot more small purchases (grabbing an ice cream for me and the kids, picking up a small Dover colouring book on the spur of the moment - stuff like that) than he does. I'm the one who handles all the bill paying and files the taxes and all that kind of thing, so I usually have a slightly better handle on the day to day account details than dh, but we're both totally in the loop.
Except I don't know what a Dover colouring book is.
Oh!! ETA: I work from home now, but it has only been since very recently, and my money all goes into the same account now too.
I sometimes have this problem, too. It's really weird, because with my ex, and when dh first moved in with me, I was the "breadwinner", and I never felt like that about it back then. (Okay - I lie. I sometimes did with my ex, but he was totally taking advantage of me, on all fronts. I never minded paying the bills when dh was home with ds1 at all!)
nak.
a couple of summers ago, our central air went out and we didn't have the money to fix it. i felt like such a loser, a bum, a useless slob, bc i don't work and couldn't contribute. haven't really worked in 15 years!(wow!) i cried and snotted on dh and everything. he told me he is very happy to come home everyday knowing the kids were ok, there was dinner, or at least food to eat, he doesn't have the type of wife who blows all the money, i am there for him and his family, he just said all the things he loved about me being a sahm. it made me cry more but whenever i start feeling down on myself i try to remember all that he said. this is my *job* and i am appreciated! we know alot of families with both woh parents who then send the kids to grandma's every weekend and hardly spend time as a family and he claims he is happy not being like that. i try to make life easier for him, and he does more than work, he does the driving lessons with the teenagers and softball with the preteen and diaper duty with the baby, he drops everything if there's a family emergency and i have to leave/be out of town.
ha, i just fell in love again! this got off-topic, didn't it!
This is interesting 'cause it seems that most here are doing things similarly but irl most of our friends seem to keep their money separate even when married. I do have occasional bouts of guilt over not contributing financially but dh is a lot like purplerose's.
Husband's pay check goes into our joint account. I pay all bills; I'm not sure he knows what our bills are. I do grocery shopping/shopping for the family as needed.
Neither of us have an "allowance", nor do we make purchases( over say $50.00) without talking to the other, and usually even for ammounts less than that.
We do not refer to husband's pay as "his" money.
My dh's check is deposited into a joint checking account. Whoever happens to get the bill is the one who pays it. We have a spreadsheet on our computer for our budget so when we spend anything, we put it in the budget. Within reason, we each are free to do what we want with the money. Right now, I've been picking up some maternity clothes when I find them on sale. It works for us and he's made it a point to always call it "our money".
it's odd how on here, we all seem to handle it the same, but i know so many sahm's irl who have to ask for the money to buy groceries or anthing else. i've even known one mom who bought generic groceries and, for example, emptied the ketchup into a name-brand bottle so her dh would eat it. she had to beg for money, had to buy the higher-brand food(of everything) or else sneak it, then get fussed at for spending too much. her dh was a very controlling person :(
Dh's pay is direct deposited into our chequing account. I take care of all the bill paying and transferring of money to savings accounts, line of credit, etc... We both have a debit card and both have a credit card. While I take care of almost all the financial stuff we regularly sit down and make sure we're on the same page with our goals and take an overall look at the financial picture. We recently sat down and did a whole re-work of our budget so we're a little financial talked out . Big purchases are always discussed. The money is always considered "our" money.
it's odd how on here, we all seem to handle it the same, but i know so many sahm's irl who have to ask for the money to buy groceries or anthing else. i've even known one mom who bought generic groceries and, for example, emptied the ketchup into a name-brand bottle so her dh would eat it. she had to beg for money, had to buy the higher-brand food(of everything) or else sneak it, then get fussed at for spending too much. her dh was a very controlling person :(
Yuck. It's really that common? To me, that is abusive. My cousin goes through this - no money to herself whatsoever. She has to account to her DH if she buys a cup of coffee. No thanks. I couldn't be in a marriage where I was controlled like that.
We do it a little differently, and it works for us. DH's paycheck goes into his account. He pays the bills -- rent, bills (phone, utilties, internet, etc.) - from that amount. Then he puts an agreed upon amount into our family savings account (we don't spend this). He gives me a certain amount of cash from his paycheck every month which is my money - I can save it or spend it etc. Then he puts an agreed upon amount into our joint checking which we both have debit cards for -- this account we both spend from for eating out, groceries, gas, toys, clothes etc. If this amount runs out, we just wait till next month. It's our way of staying on budget and not spending his whole paycheck directly.
Whatever is left over of his paycheck stays in his checking account (ends up being about the same amount of the cash he gives me).
I am a SAHM but earn a little money here and there (babysitting, online surveys, occasional weekend jobs) but I am not expected to contribute any of this to family expenses. I usually just keep it in my savings account or spend it on things for me and the kids, or gifts for DH.
If big expenses come up, my husband pays them from our savings/his checking account/our investments.
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