Types of Budget

The synchronised budget, the four-account system and the "drawer" — three working models of a shared family budget, and the one my wife and I use.

Why do Nastya and I keep a shared budget, and how do we run it?

There are several models for running a family budget.

1. The synchronised budget.

The husband’s and the wife’s money counts as joint, but you agree on a threshold for unplanned spending. Below that limit you are completely autonomous. For example, you agree that any purchase above 1,000 or 3,000 hryvnia (Ukraine’s currency) gets discussed in advance. In this model it doesn’t much matter which spouse is holding how much in their accounts.

That’s the budget Nastya and I have: all the money goes into the shared family budget. We each have pocket money (plus money for household needs), but when an unplanned purchase goes above our limit, we “sync” with each other and get the other’s agreement.

2. Four accounts. (This model is used more often in the West.)

Say a man and a woman each earn 20,000 hryvnia, so the family budget is 40,000.

That money can be split like this. The first account is for living: 20,000, say. Food, utilities, clothes and so on.

The second account is “for the future”: a child’s university education, a new flat or a car. Say 10,000 a month goes there.

The third and fourth accounts are the husband’s and the wife’s personal cards. Whatever is left goes there, split 50/50.

So it works out like this: out of 40,000 a month, 20,000 goes to living costs first, 10,000 goes to the future and to improving quality of life, and the remaining 10,000 splits into 5,000 each for the husband’s and the wife’s accounts.

3. The “drawer”.

All the money is kept either in one account or in one physical place. Husband and wife take from it as needed. This kind of budget often creates chaos and misunderstandings, but it is still a shared one.

Some people don’t want to let the person they love into their finances and try to negotiate every case separately: who pays the utilities, who chips in how much for the child’s kindergarten.

Naturally, with separate family budgets there can be no talk of unity.

If we’ve already entrusted our life to this person and are investing our time in the relationship, then it’s only logical to do it 100%.

You can’t jump 99% of the way across a pit, or be a little bit pregnant. Either we trust or we don’t.

So when we’re in a relationship, it’s worth betting on it and leaving no dark corners in our marriage.