A couple budget template: who pays what into the joint account

01Download the template

The template is one Excel sheet. At the top you write your two names and your net incomes per month. Below, you list the costs you share, such as rent, groceries and holidays, with what each costs a month.

The sheet adds up the shared costs and shows, for each of you, the share, the amount to pay into the joint account each month, and what is left for personal spending. Cell B6 holds the split. Change it to see the other way.

The file opens in Excel, Numbers, LibreOffice and Google Sheets. The names and amounts in it are an example.

02By income or half each?

In the example, Alex earns 5,200 a month and Sam earns 3,800. Their shared costs come to 3,555.

Half each, they both pay 1,777.50. Alex keeps 3,422.50 and Sam keeps 2,022.50, which is 66% of Alex's income and 53% of Sam's.

By income, Alex pays 58% of the shared costs and Sam pays 42%: 2,054 and 1,501. Each of them then keeps 61% of their income. Many couples find that fairer when the incomes are far apart.

Both are fair if you both agree to them. Agreeing can take a whole evening, and that is normal. Pick a quiet one, with the sheet open between you. Write the choice down, and look at it again when an income changes.

03What to put in the shared costs

• Everything you both use: rent or mortgage, the household insurance, electricity and internet, groceries, the car if you share one.
• What you save for together, such as holidays. It is a shared cost too, and it is easier to keep up as a fixed monthly amount.
• Leave out what each of you spends alone. That is what the money left over is for.

04Running the shared money in Spendhog

Spendhog gives a household one shared ledger, with the same accounts, budgets and goals for both of you, and every entry shows who added it. Any account can stay private. It is made for a household that shares its money. It does not work out who owes whom.