YOURS, MINE, OURS

Money can be a touchy subject, especially if you and your partner are not on the same page when it comes to your spending habits. We asked three couples to tell us how they handle their finances: who pays for what, how much is pooled and who is in charge?

Three couples on how they manage their finances

SARAH (55) & STEVEN (56)

Married out of community of property, with accrual. They have two teenage children.

‘We got married in our thirties,

so we had accrued some wealth and property and thought it would be cleaner and easier to leave it like that,’ says Sarah. ‘Also, my dad was a lawyer and insisted that we didn’t marry in community of property. But our view was that after our marriage, and specifically after having children, all decisions, including financial, would be taken for the combined good of our family.

‘I’m not sure if inheritance is excluded from the accrual bit (neither of us inherited anything, which made it easier), but if it is, then perhaps that should also be taken into account: I wouldn’t expect 50% of anything my husband inherited and I’m sure he wouldn’t expect that from me either. I’d view any inheritance as what he came into the marriage with, so in my eyes it would remain his alone.

‘We keep separate accounts. My husband is self-employed so his take-home pay varies from month to month, but we probably earn about the same in the end. We divide the expenses, but the strokes are broad: I pay for groceries, for example, but if he does a shop, he’d never ask me for the money. It’s more about who’s around at the time. Similarly, he usually pays for things like electricity, rates, water, home maintenance or building or gardening costs, but if I’m around, I pay whatever bill it is.

‘While we were paying off our house (which is in both of our names), we split the bond down the middle and were each responsible for our share. It was an access bond. That’s the most we’ve ever shared in terms of one “account”.

‘Both of us put money toward holidays, also not along strict lines: I might pay accommodation and he’ll pay for flights, then wherever we are we’ll share the day-to-day living costs. But every so often I’ve dragged the family off on overseas trips which he’s always against (in

terms of time: he feels he can’t be out of the office for three weeks as a sole operator) – until we get there; then he loves it. In those cases I pay for everything upfront so we’re committed and have to go!

‘I have my own investments and we have shared investments. He has his own share portfolio, and I’m part of an investment club (three women); we invest every month. He knows all about it and occasionally we’ll discuss an investment or a share, but I doubt he knows how much is in there and he wouldn’t think he had a stake in it. I’ve also bought some art over the years that has turned out to be quite valuable.

‘Neither of us has any debt. We each have a property of our own other than our house, which we both own: I own a flat which he runs as an Airbnb, and we share the income from that; he owns a commercial property that I have nothing to do with.

‘I don’t know exactly what he earns. But it’s not a taboo subject – I wouldn’t have a problem asking if I needed to and he’d tell me. He knows more or less how much I earn but I’m sure he wouldn’t be able to tell you exactly what it was.

‘We don’t have a set monthly budget. I wouldn’t cope well with that: I hate having to ask someone else before I buy something. He’s the same. But we each honour our side of the commitment. It would be different if one of us were reneging on our responsibilities, then the other one would feel justified in asking where the money was.

‘Every so often – maybe once every two years – we look at things and see if they’re still working as our circumstances change (school fees become varsity fees; he has less or more work). And we may tweak the broad strokes within which we operate. At the moment our biggest expenses are probably food and school/university fees, now that we don’t have a bond.

‘When it comes to the kids, I pay fees. He pays allowances, medical aid, gym memberships and all that. We’ll pay for their studies as far as they want to go, but after that they’re on their own.

‘I’d say we’re about the same when it comes to money, neither profligate nor parsimonious. We both regard it as a tool, not an end in itself, which makes it easier.

‘Sometimes, if there have been extra expenses in a month and we’re feeling quite skint I may question whether I’ve spent money unnecessarily, but I’m generally not a big spender on things like clothes or cars. My biggest ticket items are generally for the family rather than for me personally. He’d never tell me what to do with my money – unless it was affecting the family. And I’d never dream of telling him what to do with his.

‘I don’t have an emergency fund, but I do have investments that I can cash in quickly if I needed to. And I have a retirement fund.

‘In case of emergency, I wouldn’t be able to access his accounts. That’s a good point! I suppose we could each access the access bond, which is still operational. And we have insurance that would kick in. We might have to look into that…’

HANNAH (36) & JACK (38)

Married out of community of property, with accrual. They have two small children. ‘Our money is separate,

but we have a combined home loan with flexi facility,’ says Jack. ‘So we can both access the home loan account. We want to pay off the house as quickly as we can, but we also use it as an emergency fund and a savings account of sorts – if the car needs new tyres or if we go on holiday, the money comes from there.

‘Hannah pays for the groceries, her petrol, phone, gym membership, income protection, her tithe, life insurance and life annuities. She’s never had a pension, so it’s a small annuity. I pay a set amount into her account every month to cover the kids’ clothing, nappies, toiletries, entertainment and other miscellaneous expenses. She needs that, just to cover everything. We’re testing it to see if it’s enough.’ (‘I spend my entire salary every month,’ says Hannah.)

‘I pay for everything else,’ says Jack. ‘I pay the bond, medical aid and whatever it doesn’t cover, insurance, my retirement annuity, DStv, my tithe, the nanny, school fees, maintenance on the house, electricity, water, the gardener, municipal costs, car services and maintenance, investments… Also holidays and anything else that comes up. My life insurance comes to quite a bit, but that’s because I want to make sure that if something happens to me, Hannah and the kids will be taken care of. She’ll have enough money to maintain her lifestyle, it will cover the kids’ school and university costs,

‘We don’t have a set monthly budget. I wouldn’t cope well with that: I hate having to ask someone else before I buy something. He’s the same.’

and the house will be paid off.

‘Hannah inherited a house, which we sold to buy this house. It’s in both our names. We have investments – some Satrix shares and another investment. They’re our investments, though, not mine. She doesn’t have money to invest.

‘We don’t have car payments and we don’t have clothing accounts or anything like that. We each have one credit card, and we both go into the red every month. But that’s calculated – I’d rather keep that money in the home loan. You can be in the red for 60 days on a credit card without having to pay any interest on that. So when the new month starts, I pay it all off so we’re back in the black.

‘I budget for certain things every month that I don’t necessarily spend on – I put away money for holidays and home maintenance every month, for example.’ ‘Jack has a running list of things that need to happen around the house,’ says Hannah. ‘The nice-to-haves are at the bottom and the more pressing, (boring) things are at the top. If we have money, we do whatever’s on top of the list. A lot of our money goes into home maintenance.’

‘We have a financial advisor who looked at both our incomes and accounts and made a plan for us,’ says Jack. ‘Hannah doesn’t have access to my accounts, but she is able to access the bond account.

‘I pretty much decided on the budget but we did discuss it. I’m better with money. (‘No arguments there,’ says Hannah.) I want her to have some freedom, and a bit of extra money that she can spend on herself. I know exactly what she earns; she knows more or less what I earn. But that’s not because I’m keeping it from her – she’s just not that into the numbers. She has a ballpark; I have a spreadsheet!

‘Hannah earns very little for a professional person with a degree. I earn pretty well by Cape Town standards. But we don’t live in luxury. We live in a nice area, in a nice house. We’re comfortable, but we don’t drive fancy cars and we don’t go on overseas holidays.’ ‘Jack is also big on saving and investing, so we have a lot less to spend,’ adds Hannah.

‘I don’t buy unnecessary things,’ says Jack. ‘Some of my colleagues buy themselves lunch every day, and coffee. It’s such a waste of money. And I don’t buy big things without a lot of research. You should see our TV – no one has a big, old TV like ours anymore. I can’t buy a new one if that one still works. When we lived in Joburg, I kept it plugged in during thunderstorms in the hope that it might get knocked out by lightning, but no such luck.’

‘I won’t ask if I want to buy myself something a bit more expensive, but I’ll show him what I bought,’ says Hannah. ‘Then I often feel guilty. But he’d never say no to me. Sometimes I’ll get takeaways if I didn’t get around to packing lunch. And I don’t feel I have to justify that. But I’m not going to buy diamond earrings. I inherited some money from my gran this year; that also went into the home loan. But it’s there if I really wanted to buy myself something. It’s still my money.’

‘We have small children so we don’t spend much on entertainment. We might get takeout or go out for dinner, but that’s about it. Or we have people over.’

‘I sometimes think Hannah spends too much on food,’ says Jack. ‘But we’re not extravagant. We shop at Pick n Pay, and don’t buy anything fancy. It just ends up being a massive amount.’

‘Before we had kids, I had a lot more freedom with my money,’ says Hannah. ‘I could buy niceto-haves – a top here or a special foodie thing there – because I knew it would be fine. My money was my money and I could do what I wanted with it. And I only had to feed the two of us. But now it’s more important to keep a closer eye on it. Even though my salary is better than it was four years ago, I have less to spend.’

‘Besides our investments, some of which will go towards their education, we don’t specifically put money aside for the kids,’ says Jack. ‘But if they get some money from their gran for their birthday or whatever, I put it into their Satrix accounts. Hopefully it will be worth something someday; maybe they can use it towards university. There’s no point putting it in a bank account – the interest they’ll get will be less than inflation, so it won’t be worth much in the long-term.’

JULIA (44) & MARTIN (46)

Married in community of property, with accrual. Martin has a daughter from a previous marriage. ‘Our money is completely separate,’

says Julia. ‘I’ve been thinking about getting a shared account, just for savings and maybe to cover a few everyday

‘I don’t buy unnecessary things. I would never buy myself a coffee every day. Some of my colleagues buy themselves lunch every day, and coffee. It’s such a waste of money.’

‘Our biggest expense is the bond, which Martin pays for. My thinking was that it’s his house and I won’t benefit from the sale, so I’m not paying anything towards it.’

shared expenses. But I haven’t done anything about it yet, and we’ve been married for four years.

‘Our biggest expense is the bond, which Martin pays for. My thinking was that it’s his house and I won’t benefit from the sale, so I’m not paying anything towards it. But I do pay him rent every month. It’s about the same as my bond payment on my flat in Cape Town. I’m basically paying him what I would have paid to rent my flat in Cape Town.

‘This house wouldn’t have been my choice. I don’t want to live in such a big house – it’s a four-bedroom with a cottage, a double garage and a garden. I hate every moment of having a garden. And we have a live-in domestic and a gardener – it’s so much responsibility! So he pays for all the upkeep and the gardener and everything.

‘I do the monthly grocery shopping and I claim half of it back from him. Other than that I might buy fresh veg on a weekly basis, which I’ll pay for because he’ll often buy meat. He’s loath to eat anything too green or healthy, and given that meat is so expensive and I’m half-vegetarian, I make him pay for all the protein he needs.

‘I pay half of the domestic’s salary and I contribute towards the Wi-Fi because I use it. I’m very strict: if I ain’t using it, I ain’t paying for it. I don’t pay towards electricity – that’s included in the discounted rent. My car is on his insurance because that proved to be the cheapest option, so I reimburse him for that. We split the cost of holidays 50/50. And when we go out, we take turns to pay.

‘I don’t know if he has any debt – I hope not! He might have some through his business. And in his personal capacity, he’s still paying off his car and obviously his house.

‘I have a pension fund but no other investments – not that that’s an investment. He has a pension and he owns some flats in a trust. But he makes f**k-all money from it, and he hasn’t been able to sell them either. But it’s because he’s not keeping an eye on it. If I managed those flats, he would be making money. The rent he gets barely covers the bond.

‘I’m on my own medical aid and he’s on his own plan because he has a daughter that he has to pay for. When it comes to his daughter’s expenses, he has an agreement with his ex, but it’s not very formal. It’s like everything else, not very planned or organised... flying by the seat of his pants.

‘I don’t pay for anything specific when it comes to my stepdaughter, but I’ll pay for some smaller things for her, if she needs a pair of socks or she has to do a school project.

‘Is he good with money? No. He’s not good at planning and he’s a bit wasteful. That’s one reason I’ve kept our finances separate. At the moment his business isn’t doing well, so I keep my money for myself because I don’t want to throw it into that black hole.

‘I’m very good with money. I can pinch a penny until it squeals. I know where my money goes. My husband can’t be bothered to stay on top of things. I’m sure he has subscriptions to this and that, and I get the sense that he doesn’t know how much money goes towards what. He also used to smoke – I think at least a thousand or two, three a month went into that.

‘Although I’m sure he’d never spend as much money on travelling as I do – that’s my one indulgence.

‘The only budget we have is my budget, the one I drew up for myself. Every month, I give him a breakdown. But I know he doesn’t even open those emails.

‘We never have conversations about the budget or his money. He doesn’t know what I earn. The moment he tells me exactly what he earns and what his budget is, then I’ll tell him what I earn and we can sit down and plan. And that will probably happen only when we buy a property together. I would like to have a shared property within the next five years.

‘I have spending money every month because I plan. I rarely buy myself something unnecessary because I know I’ll feel guilty. I try to have a R20k buffer stashed in the bank for emergencies. He has laughed at my poor salary over the years, but I’m financially stronger than he is at this point.

‘The company I work for sometimes gives us bonuses in the middle of the year. I never tell him about that; it has nothing to do with him. I don’t hide purchases, but I might wait a few months before I tell him how much I spent on colouring my hair or whatever.

‘This is the thing about getting married in your forties; when we got married, we each had our separate lives and separate finances. I think it’s the main reason our finances are in the state they are in. The lack of planning is hard for me to stomach. But I know that’s another thing about getting married later in life – we have two very different personality types and you can’t change your partner. I knew that this was how he operated and I had to find a way to work around it.’