Early-retirement wannabe

hugheskevi

It isn't the way I do things, but the end result is the same.

Personally I like lots of complexity for my own affairs, whilst keeping my wife's affairs as simple as possible. That simply reflects our interests in personal finance and willingness to deal with the relevant admin.

In practice, this means a joint current account which is my wife's main (and only) account which is limited just to her own personal affairs and I don't really touch other than sweeping money out it each month over to my accounts. I have separate (and individual) accounts which look after all the bills, investment and spending. All other savings are entirely in my name to keep admin simple (we are both higher rate taxpayers, so no advantage there - this way I can keep her out of self-assessment, at least for now).

When we purchased our house it was simplest just to put it all in my name. I keep all ISA savings in my name, again for simplicity and higher contribution limits are welcome in that regard (most savings have gone toward pensions in recent years, so only a few tens of thousands in ISAs so no need to use her annual ISA limit).

SIPPS have to be in separate names obviously, but I manage hers as if it was mine. On all financial actions which require my wife's involvement I simply move money to her account and tell her what to do.

I guess it is very much a command-and-control approach, which probably a lot of folk would find repressive, but it works well for me (and indeed, us, I think ) It mostly stems from me being far more disciplined with spending than my wife, and hence an insistence on control.

Marine_life

gadgetmind wrote: »

We've always pooled everything and I don't even have an account in just my name. Her salary will go into the same account as mine, and sums will then fly off towards savings, pensions, ISAs, etc.

As for credit cards, we always speak to each other up front about any large purchases but it's Mrs G who checks credit card and bank statements. She does the day to day money stuff, I do the longer term investing, and we both muck in when it's tax return time.

We have had a much simpler arrangement - all the savings are in joint names whereas all debts were in mine . Actually the rationale for that was that she was not working and therefore avoided any unnecessary questions.

As we have no debt anymore its become a bit of a moot point.

My wife manages most of the day to day finances. She pays all the bills and I manage the investing but what I can tell you is that I have almost no clear idea of how much money we have . I can probably work it out to within 100,000 but seriously no clue.

Given I will retire soon I probably need to work it out ;-)

mgdavid

Marine_life wrote: »

...... I have almost no clear idea of how much money we have . I can probably work it out to within 100,000 but seriously no clue..........)

are you saying you wouldn't miss the odd £100k?
Now, I've got this wonderful sponsorship opportunity.....
:rotfl:

Daniel54

mgdavid wrote: »

are you saying you wouldn't miss the odd £100k?
Now, I've got this wonderful sponsorship opportunity.....
:rotfl:

Alternatively,I came across a cracking investment opportunity today in Maurutius, on this very board ! :rotfl:

Marine_life

mgdavid wrote: »

are you saying you wouldn't miss the odd £100k?
Now, I've got this wonderful sponsorship opportunity.....
:rotfl:

Does it involve providing funds to tide you over until funds are released from your recently deceased Nigerian uncle? If so then sign me up!

More serioulsy (now I reread my post) it actually sounds quite flippant but there are certain things in our investment portfolio (like funds etc) where I only check the value every six months or so. I'm not going to take the money out so I dont need to know what's in there. In addition, we've had a number of five year deposits where we only receive interest at the end of the term.

So its not like we have lost the money :-)

mgdavid

Marine_life wrote: »

Does it involve providing funds to tide you over until funds are released from your recently deceased Nigerian uncle? If so then sign me up!

It's *much* more fun than that! We buy an early Porsche 911 race car and go historic racing round Europe in our retirement :-)

Marine_life

mgdavid wrote: »

It's *much* more fun than that! We buy an early Porsche 911 race car and go historic racing round Europe in our retirement :-)

I like the cut of your jib....let me see if I can find that 100k ;-)

atush

As long as you can navigate?

gfplux

From some recent posts about who handles the finances it has occurred to me that the posters on here are not necessarily reflecting the thinking of their partners. This may not be correct and both members have discussed the early retirement objectives and are both onside.
My retirement was not in the intense planning for very long but had been on my agenda, and came about more from being paid a large some of money by my company to get rid of me. So 17 years ago at the age of 53 I retired.
We had discussed this at length and I thought the big picture stuff was settled. However a year into my retirement my wife announced she wanted to buy a house. We were living in a 105 sq meter, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 balcony, 2 car garage apartment near to the centre of Luxembourg Town. This was planned, and agreed, to be our retirement home.
However her reasons were quite simple and difficult to dispute, in her words,
"When you were working you were never here, now you are always here"
We now live in a 250sq meter house!
How about that for both knowing and agreeing retirement plans.

Goldiegirl

gfplux wrote: »

From some recent posts about who handles the finances it has occurred to me that the posters on here are not necessarily reflecting the thinking of their partners. This may not be correct and both members have discussed the early retirement objectives and are both onside.
My retirement was not in the intense planning for very long but had been on my agenda, and came about more from being paid a large some of money by my company to get rid of me. So 17 years ago at the age of 53 I retired.
We had discussed this at length and I thought the big picture stuff was settled. However a year into my retirement my wife announced she wanted to buy a house. We were living in a 105 sq meter, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 balcony, 2 car garage apartment near to the centre of Luxembourg Town. This was planned, and agreed, to be our retirement home.
However her reasons were quite simple and difficult to dispute, in her words,
"When you were working you were never here, now you are always here"
We now live in a 250sq meter house!
How about that for both knowing and agreeing retirement plans.

I agree, from some of the comments on here it seems that the partners of the posters seem rather passive and have no involvement in the decision making.


Of course, what happens in a relationship is nobody's business except the two people in that relationship.


But if my husband attempted to 'bang my income into a SIPP' there'd be hell to pay!