How much to give OH for rent bills etc?

floss2

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Maybe it's just better to say that different things work for different people. I wouldn't want to be anything but totally open with my OH.....

We are totally open - in our relationship having separate banking arangements doesn't mean that we have secrets. He knows why I can't afford to do some things, same as I know how much he spends on LFC tickets for example

Lotus-eater

floss2 wrote: »

We are totally open - in our relationship having separate banking arangements doesn't mean that we have secrets. He knows why I can't afford to do some things, same as I know how much he spends on LFC tickets for example

Totally open, as we have full access to each other's accounts, internet codes et al, we could move out all the money and run off if we so wished.

I can understand if you are undecided whether this one, is the one, to wait until combining "or giving access to them" finances, but after that?
If anyone has given me a hard time for not getting married before on here and then turns round and admits to having separate finances, I think I'm going to laugh myself sick.

seven-day-weekend

floss2 wrote: »

it is not a "contingency plan" - I was on my own for over 7 years before moving in with OH, as was he, and we both had our own independent finances already set up. Another factor is that my credit rating is very slowly improving from being absolutely rock-bottom, whereas OH's is very good, and we did not want to jeopardise that by pooling our money into a joint account and bringing his rating down as we have plans for our future which involve borrowing.

I have also been in the situation, as other posters have, of having a joint account that was emptied after payday when my ex left after 15 years of marriage, leaving me & 2 kids with £3.76 to live on for a month - he even took their family allowance!!

Finally, if you take the value of my 5 week-old car paid in cash by OH, the balance of my ISA and the balance of my wedding savings account (see earlier post!), I probably have a reasonable 65% share of our available funds.....so why fret over not having a joint account?!

Fair enough. Some people did say however, that the reason they had separate accounts was in case they split up.

I was a very young 21 when I got married and hadn't lived away from home. I suppose if I was in my 30s, with a career, bank balance and maybe a bad marriage and a couple of children behind me I might feel differently.

Person_one

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Agree, ONW. I fear for any relationship where the partners make contingency plans 'in case' they split up.

Because marriages never break up do they? Seemingly wonderful partners are always exactly who you think they are. I wonder how many people you can find on this board who have been totally shocked when a partner they trusted turns out to be a completely different person or betrays that trust horribly.

I don't think there's anything wrong with being a realist and hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. I want to be with my OH because I WANT to be with him. Not because we're financially trapped together. If we both keep the option of walking away at any time then we both know that we're together because we truly want to be.

floss2

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

...I was a very young 21 when I got married and hadn't lived away from home. I suppose if I was in my 30s, with a career, bank balance and maybe a bad marriage and a couple of children behind me I might feel differently.

Snap - married when 20, DS1 at 22, DS2 at 24, divorced at 37
Engaged at 42, due to marry again at 46

kr15snw

I'm very lucky as OH pays all the bills including the mortgage. As I was a student when I moved in I used to pay for the weekly shop (about £200 a month) as my input.

Now that I'm working I buy all the fun things. So if we go out for dinner I pay, weekends away I pay etc etc.

BUT we are now saving like nuts to go to Australia for Christmas, which I reckon will be 90% of his money as I just can't afford much more (he earns about 24k a year after tax, I earn about 16k before tax - plus I'm newly self employed so don't know where the next wage is coming from etc). My main saving grace for this is I have 10k in savings, which we will probably use towards the holiday, meaning we only have about 6k more to save!

euronorris

I am curious as to why having a joint account is such a positive thing.

What positives do you gain?

As with floss2, OH and I are still totally open about our finances and everything else for that matter, without the joint account. Lotus - I understand that you have access to each other's accounts etc, but I can't see why I would need to access my OH's account, other than for convenience purposes.

Seven-Day-Weekend - It's not because I believe we will split up. It's because I know that, no matter how much I believe it will work, how much I trust him etc, I could still be proven wrong. I believed my ex was Mr Fantastic until I found out he had been sleeping with half the female population of my hometown and then refused to repay the 2k I previously lent him. And that was despite reassurances beforehand that he would definitely pay it back, even if we split up. More fool me, eh?

And, no matter how much you love someone, it doesn't mean that they will ever be any good at managing/understanding finances.

onlyroz

Re joint finances: I think each couple needs to figure out a method that works for them. We've got a joint account and separate accounts. Each month we put an amount into the joint account proportional to our income, and this account is used to pay all the direct debits. I find that having one account from which all the bills comes out of works quite well because you know how much the bills will be, and so you know exactly how much needs to go in there each month. Anything left over at the end of the month goes into a joint savings account, which is used for holidays and household purchases.

We've then got our separate accounts to spend as we please - we pay for the food out of our own accounts but I don't keep track of who paid for what - and we pay for our own car insurance and servicing out of our own accounts. Works for us, but I can see how other couples might want to do things differently...

Lotus-eater

euronorris wrote: »

Lotus - I understand that you have access to each other's accounts etc, but I can't see why I would need to access my OH's account, other than for convenience purposes.

No that's all it's for, convenience. But the trust is there for that.

euronorris wrote: »

And, no matter how much you love someone, it doesn't mean that they will ever be any good at managing/understanding finances.

I wouldn't share my finances with someone who wasn't good with them of course. But then I wouldn't want to be with someone seriously who wasn't good with managing finances.
It seems from the tv/posts on here and the general feeling, that if I was single again, the pool of single women I would have to chose from, would be perilously small. Then take away those that wouldn't fancy me, oh dear :think: good job I'm not single.

euronorris

Lotus-eater wrote: »

No that's all it's for, convenience. But the trust is there for that.

Fair enough. We've just never found it inconvenient before. Maybe things will change over time, particularly when kids enter the picture and life becomes far busier.

I wouldn't share my finances with someone who wasn't good with them of course. But then I wouldn't want to be with someone seriously who wasn't good with managing finances.
It seems from the tv/posts on here and the general feeling, that if I was single again, the pool of single women I would have to chose from, would be perilously small. Then take away those that wouldn't fancy me, oh dear :think: good job I'm not single.

It's not always easy to tell whether someone's good with finances at first, or in some cases, until you live together. By which time you're already in love and reluctant to 'give up' on the relationship.

Although, I must admit there are huge differences between my relationship with my ex and my relationship with my OH. OH and I have always talked openly about our finances, among other things. Whereas the ex was never open. In hindsight, I should've been more careful, but I was young and naive.

Unfortunately, as credit became so easy to obtain and people's general attitude to it relaxed, more and more of us (men and women) are in debt. And I still have a fair few friends who are in denial about it. ie, 'It's OK, everyone's in debt these days, it's no big deal blah blah blah'. Thankfully, I've had my LBM and am remedying the problem.