Budgeting with a joint account in the UK
Budgeting with a joint account in the UK: connect it through open banking, invite your partner to a shared space and keep your own accounts private if you wish.
A joint account is the easy part of sharing money with a partner. The harder part is everything around it: the two personal accounts, the credit card one of you uses for the shop, the savings pot for the holiday, and the question of who is meant to be watching all of it. A shared space in Era puts the joint account and whatever else you choose to share into one view that you both see.
How do you budget with a joint account in the UK?
Connect the joint account through open banking, create a shared space and invite your partner. You both see the same shared figures for the account: bills, shopping, direct debits and what is left. Then you decide, each of you, whether to add anything else, such as a savings pot or a credit card.
It works with the banks you already use, including Monzo, Starling, Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest and the building societies, because Era connects through open banking in the UK.
Can you keep some accounts private?
Yes. Each of you shares by account or by category, so a joint account and a shared groceries category can sit in the space while your own current account stays yours. A "What I share" page lists everything you have put in, and one control stops all of your sharing at once.
That makes it easier to start, because nobody has to hand over a full picture on day one.
How do you split the household bills?
Council tax, energy, broadband and the mortgage or rent can all be split inside the space, in whatever proportion suits you, such as sixty-forty when one of you earns more. Era keeps a ledger of who owes whom, you mark an amount as paid when it is settled, and you can undo it if you got ahead of yourself.
A good number of couples keep a joint account for the bills and settle everything else through the ledger, which avoids the monthly sum on the back of an envelope.
Which assistant does each of you use?
Whichever you like. One of you may prefer Claude, the other ChatGPT or Gemini, and every member's assistant can help from the same shared figures. Ask what the joint account spent on food last month and you both get the same answer, from the same numbers.
What does the household's financial health look like?
The space turns your shared figures into a view of how the household is doing: income against spending, how much is going into savings, the debts you are working down and the direction each is heading, with the numbers behind each. It is a calm place to start a conversation about money.
Advice generation, where Era suggests what to change, is coming soon.
Where to next
If you share a flat with friends rather than a partner, read splitting bills with housemates. For the dashboard side, see a household budget app for UK families, and for the wider field, the best budgeting apps for couples in the UK. To connect your bank first, how to connect AI to your bank account shows how.
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