are we the only ones who do this..?

oldtractor

Siverbells, me and DH are like you. We have no secrets, we are married and are therefore "one". Small purchases are made without consultation but medium and large ones always only after discussion and often involving our sons too. I just cannot imagin living with someone who ha his or her money. Our money is "ours", it always has been, even when one earns far more than the other. Its what marriage is all about,being as one,not as two separate halves.

System

I don't see the problem. We have had a joint account since we were married 34 years ago. The only single accounts that we have are ISAs & on-line savings.

As with silverbells we each know each others passwords so there is total financial transparency..

I know it is an alien concept these days but we trust each other in situations like this, otherwise our marriage would not and could not have survived for 30+ years. Maybe that is the reason that marriages/relationships do not last these days - people are unwilling to allow the level of trust that is needed to make a marriage/relationship successful

LilacPixie

My husband has no interest in what i spend or what on. The discussion we have about money goes like this
him: need diesel, what account will i use?
Me: use HBOS.
him ok

discussion over. We have 2 joint accounts, HBOS has the 'budgetted spends' and TSB gets the spares for just in case for the month just incase which then goes to savings/mortgage pot.

FBaby

Having separate accounts doesn't mean systematically a lack of trust in a relationship, but simply a preference for independence. My partner has given me his passwords, not officially, just told me that he only uses three different ones for all his account that are quite obvious for me to guess , I know his main card secret code, I have access to his emails if I want to, it is just that we feel we are entitled to do what we want with our disposable income after all the bills have been paid. We have both agreed we would try to save towards a holiday, it is clear to both of us that he will have to put forward than me, that's not an issue at all for him.

oopsadaisydoddle

I don't think OP was trying to imply she was better or special doing things her way - just that she thought she might be 'the odd one 'out'' because a lot of people she knows does things differently from the way she does and that is why she asked the question.

Also re the trust thing - I didn't imply a lack of trust if you don't have joint finances, merely that if you are to have joint finances then trust is must and can be a bad idea IF there is no trust.

Personally it seems completely alien to me why people have separate finances and just because ours are joint doesn't mean we aren't independent - but like I said before, that's jus because the way we do things work for us and I can't imagine it any other way.

oliviarosejackson

We have the exactly the same sort of relationship.

It is 'our' money. Our wages are paid into separate accounts, but it's all of our money.

I have control of all of the finances, as OH isn't the best with money. I have his bank cards, but that is because he spends the money on crap, lol. In doing this I have paid of the £800 OD on his account which he had since he was a student

I have access to his online banking. He doesn't to mine, that is because he doesn't bother with online banking.

Our finances have been much better since I took control of them.

kitschkitty

I agree that whatever works for each individual couple is great. Joint, or separate accounts, both in control or just one person.

I can also understand the different ways of doing things (and view points) various people have expressed. I think you also have to take into account, if people are financially minded (or not), if they are organised, if they have to watch every penny, or if they are in a stable financial position. It all affects how couples choose to manage their money and accounts.

The only time I see problems is when one person in the relationship is controlling (spending, saving, dictating housekeeping etc.) money to the detriment of their partner (and even the family/children).

seriousDFW

Your financial philosophy is the same as ours - all the money we earn belongs to both of us jointly, regardless of who earns more etc. But your method seems strange to me (not judging, just answering your question!) because we do everything from our joint account, which makes it much easier for us to manage. We do have individual current accounts where we have some money for us to spend on what we like, but this is for really small items that my OH would not be interested in!

seriousDFW

!!!!!! wrote: »

I don't see the problem. We have had a joint account since we were married 34 years ago. The only single accounts that we have are ISAs & on-line savings.

As with silverbells we each know each others passwords so there is total financial transparency..

I know it is an alien concept these days but we trust each other in situations like this, otherwise our marriage would not and could not have survived for 30+ years. Maybe that is the reason that marriages/relationships do not last these days - people are unwilling to allow the level of trust that is needed to make a marriage/relationship successful

This is great and we are the same, despite being in our 20s and married recently. Just be careful about making generalisations - lots of people today live their lives (or aspects of them, such as finance) in a very traditional way.

Fiddlestick

MessyMare wrote: »

We don't. OH manages his money and I manage mine. We both have our debts and we pay them off by ourselves. I think he'd be offended if I expected to know what he'd spent on what.

Sounds about the same for me and my partner, except we are a little bit more open than that about what we spend money on in that I tell her most of what I buy so that she has realistic expectations about how much money I have at any given time (it helps when it comes to planning holidays, nights out, visiting friends etc).

I don't feel the need to run purchases past her but I would probably let her know if I'd spent more than £50 on any one item and I'd probably let her know beforehand if I was planning on spending more than £100 on something.

She sometimes gripes and moans, but knows that I ALWAYS put money aside to cover rent, bills, living expenses and debt payments/overpayments first before I spend anything on myself.

That aside, there is always the excuse of "I earn it, I can spend it" although I've not needed to use that other than in jest