Raven, DH is on a monthly salary too and we have two accounts - the one which his pay goes into and then a joint account and each fortnight we have a periodical payment of a set amount come out of the wage account into the joint acct and we only ever use the money in the joint acct (plus the FTB goes into the joint acct) for household stuff - groceries, incidentals, entertainment etc and that lets the money in the wage account accumulate so that when we get the phone and powerbill and other bills during the year we just pay it out of the wage account and if I buy the kids clothes etc I put it on the CC during the month and then pay it from the wage account. The money we save is so much more than what it would be if we just had everything in the one account.