Finances

I am interested to know how other married couples handle finances. I've been married for 11 years and we have kept finances separate. Early on I was on the only one that worked (my wife is not from HK and took her a while to find a job). So in the early days I provided a monthly allowance to her and put it into her own account and I managed all the finances. At the time I was fortunate enough to have some benefits from my company in which my housing was paid for and I also had 1 home leave trip every year to my home country (ah the good ol days). In any case about 7 years ago my wife found a job and started earning an income. At the time, I was still getting the work benefits. However about 5 years ago I lost all the benefits and all expenses were now coming directly from my salary. At the time I suggested to my wife the idea of her starting to contribute a token amount every month towards expenses (rent, grocery, holidays, bills etc). At the time she was very resistant to the idea, however she unhappily did. When I say token amount i mean that I put about 30% of my salary towards the expenses and she put about 5%. Basically I'm paying for all our holidays, rent, dinners and drinks out grocery and her contribution maybe covers a couple of the bills.


Recently I brought the subject up again. I partly brought it up because I noticed she seems to be shopping a ton. Every week I see new stuff and some high end brands. I'm no fashion person but I know this stuff is not cheap. Quite honestly I believe pretty much all $ is going towards this every month. In any case I brought the subject up one to try and get us moving towards some joint finances. My suggestion was that we add up our expenses monthly / yearly and add a bit extra to create some savings. Then we take the ratio of our salaries and contribute the same ratio towards these expenses (ie. my salary is about 4x so I would contribute 4x as much towards the expenses). This did not go over well at all and was rejected.


I didn't think this was an unreasonable suggestion, but the reaction I got certainly seemed to suggest that it was.


I am curious how others manage finances and/or what others think of my suggestion, particularly form a wife perspective.

i think your suggestion is off since you are still calculating. what you should suggest is that you both put your salaries into a joint account and everyone has full access to that account and can spend it on whatever he likes - and then start from there agreeing on some kind of limits where you would consult each other before spending

There's no prescription that will fit for all.


We've gone the shared all route and it's working well so far.

What do you folks think of a situation where the wife (local woman) works. I make much more than her but her expectation is that all household expenses, dining out, vacations, gifts (to her) and major expenses be borne by me. She retains her own salary for shopping and savings.

LMJAAZ - the approach you mentioned is common for Hong Kong local women. You need to agree on finances before you marry one. After marriage most of them will try to claim your salary for all household expenses, and keep their income as their personal spending money.