When Max was made redundant last year, the shock and panic were immediate. But instead of rowing about money, the 31-year-old and his wife Hannah did what they have always done: sat down, looked through every expense, and cut. Gym memberships went. Sky TV was cancelled. They made sure the mortgage and bills could still be paid on Hannah’s salary of between £40,000 and £60,000.
For Max and Hannah, who married in 2022 after two years together, the principle has never wavered: everything goes 50/50. Even when Max earned £70,000 a year in tech and Hannah, who works in the charity sector, earned considerably less, their salaries have always been paid into a joint account. All household costs – mortgage, bills, food, petrol – come out of it. Each month they take the same amount for personal spending, so clothes, make-up or a trip to the pub don’t feel watched. “It means we aren’t accountable to each other for those things,” Max says.
“Couple splits money 50/50 even after redundancy forces drastic spending cuts.”
The couple came into the relationship with very different attitudes to money. Hannah’s family discuss finances openly; for Max, “money was totally taboo”. “We never spoke about money so as an adult I was left without any knowledge of things like what’s a good salary or how to negotiate my pay,” he says. Buying a home together forced honesty about earnings, deposits and hidden costs such as stamp duty and solicitor fees. “As first-time buyers, there are costs you don’t think about,” Hannah says. “It was important we both knew exactly how much money we had.”
Now they make money an everyday conversation. “Just this morning we were talking about what we can do to help improve our financial situation in the future,” Hannah says. Their approach stands in contrast to wider trends: research from wealth manager Quilter suggests almost half of couples do not share financial planning equally, with 46% acting alone in some way and more than one in 10 leaving one partner solely responsible. Relationship expert Karen Doherty has three pieces of advice for starting the conversation around financial planning.
For Hannah and Max, the system survived the greatest test – a redundancy that forced them to rely on one income and take “drastic measures”. The commitment remains the same: “We made a commitment to each other that what’s mine is yours, and vice versa.”