Question to the married people in our community, especially in case where both partners have an earning: How do you plan your budget and expenses, especially big expenses of life? Children's education, building a home, trips, buying a car, a flat, or home's monthly ration? Do you expect/communicate with your partner to split this between the two, or is there a norm? Traditionally, in orthodox settings, the male partner has been expected to deliver these, but I am curious what happens when both partners earn? Even if this means exiting out of an investment, whose investments do you rely upon?

Monthly expenses: we equally share the expense, we have a number that we are both supposed to put in shared account. If the account gets overdrawn we put monthly contribution early. If it is underdrawn we put less in upcoming month. This also helps us in understanding if we are overspending somewhere. Long investments/expenses: For large investments, we have kept things under control so that one income can handle things. So we both put half here as well, but if there is windfall (mostly as bonus) then we decide together what amount makes sense to put towards expense. We are also not 100% rigid, we treat it as guideline and not rule. My spouse, for example sometimes covers petrol expense through her card (when she doesn't have shared card with her). But we make sure we are not having any egregious expense that doesn't get accounted for.

Wow, I really liked the idea of having a shared-account.

EMI: We pay house EMI together where wife pays her 30% share. (SBI Max-gain) Children Education: I take care of it. Household maids: Wife takes care of it. Petrol, Electricity, Society maintenance, Internet or any other service and grocery: I take care of it. Outing: I take care of it. Children’s toys, clothes and stationery: Wife takes care of it. We both manage our finance separately including SIP. In emergency, we do not wait for each other to pay. For personal things, both spend own money. Importantly, we do not keep check on each others money. We both know that it belongs to both of us or mine belongs to wife 😄

How do you plan your budget and expenses, especially big expenses of life? Children’s education, building a home, trips, buying a car, a flat, or home’s monthly ration?

It is a personal decision, I can only share my experience. We do not split an expenses. Whoever is making the payment - does so from their account. generally all day to day expenses are borne by me, which includes education, groceries etc. All my personal expenses are mine too (car, etc) All major expenses - home loan/Trips ( and his personal expense) are by my spouse. Whenever one is need the other transfers what is needed. We do not try to split, or keep track of who spent how much. Nor do we track each others balance 🙂

We used to have a shared account for large things - like home loans. (closed now) - Right now, we don't have a strong rule of splitting certain things -- but over a period of time, it has come to pass like I am responsible for certain things and she is responsible for certain things, etc. A lot is also dictated by our CAs (we both consult and have our own businesses) - so whatever makes sense and can be shown as businesses expenses. But it helps to have common shared goals. Like when we had a home loan, we were very keen to get it over with ASAP - so we would make tonnes of pre-payments, etc. It is fulfilling and gives you a goal to work against. Otherwise, if you make decent money and can save most of it, this should mostly never be an issue.

I've been using YNAB heavily since a good 8 years or so, and that helps. All income gets pooled into a single income category, and then gets distributed to monthly expenses. Apart from this, both of us get own share of "fun money" as we call it, for spending however we deem it fit. For times when we were separated (for about 2.5 years when I was in Romania and my wife couldn't move due to covid related shutdown), we had separate budgets, and as such I took care of Romania expenses + our house loan while she took care of her expenses in India For the house loan, we used to contribute equally, then with covid & covid-related slowdowns, I liquidated most of my RSUs and cleared off the loan for peace of mind.

We don't name income separately, i.e. all income is shared, anyone can spend anywhere (We have equal access to earning which “we” earn). We discuss before buying big things which generally cost beyond 15-20K, not to determine who will pay but to determine that it will be good value add, neediness and fitting in our earnings/savings. We don't buy things on EMI until it's absolute necessary or add substantial value to our lives. We don't keep track of spending too, we think before spend, not after the spend. We only keep track of important documents as proof of payment/warranty etc.