Very cool, if true

My partner and I use a slight variant on the suggestion in this article, and it has worked extremely well for 25 years. We still need plenty of discussions about what should and should not count as the "fun money", and indeed how much the monthly allocation of fun money should be. What will seem fair changes over time, and is quite personal.

This can be particularly challenging to do fairly for couples who present as different genders, since some expenses are very variable by gender. Haircuts are a great example. Someone presenting as a traditional man can just walk in to the barber every two months and spend a little over a tenner and look fine; someone presenting as a traditional woman will need to make an appointment and will be lucky to get a haircut for five times that, and will typically need to go at least monthly to look acceptable. Clothes work similarly. There are almost no professional jobs where men are expected to wear a different outfit every day, but there are many where women are.

I think the main requirement for a couple's finance system is that they're both happy with it. Any system will fail if there is a breakdown of trust and communication, but how to maintain that is often particular to the relationship in question.