We do the second way. I pay the mortgage payment out of my bank (yes we still have seperate bank accounts! It just works better for us) and my car loan and a monthly payment of our insurance - all direct debit and anything thats left in there will just accumulate into some form of savings (not much now days!) and DH pays all the bills out of his pay - so we pay all that are due in the f/n in full - and then pay a bit off any larger bills that we have (like the electricity bill thats like $600 ever 3 months!!) the any thats left is spent on stuff (eg clothes for us and kids, some takeaways, DH's peterol ect) DH transfers the groccery money to me as soon as his pay goes in and I get a f/n's worth of food.

Does any of that make sense???

HTH
Kate xox