Money Moral Dilemma: Should I share my lockdown savings with my partner?

Jounrich

You say ‘partner’ but you are not a partnership if what’s yours is yours other than general house hold expenses.  
Have a joint bank account for all household spending, travel costs and savings,  and separate accounts  for pocket money spending putting in the same amount in those accounts regardless of who earns more.
If you feel resentment at this idea then you haven’t got a partnership.
Why not save the money that you are not spending on travel costs so that when travel is permitted you could have a holiday together, although with your mindset you’d probably want to go by yourself as it’s ‘your’ money.

crmism

Is this a real question? What part of the word "partner" don't you understand?
The mere fact that you are saving on various expenses is incidental, and any right-minded individual would share such a windfall with the "other half" and think nothing more about it. If the dilemma is still festering in your brain, perhaps you should examine your relationship and decide whether you want to break the partnership and go solo.

primrose_penguin

I see your partner normally works from home, does she contribute to your expenses when you are commuting to work? This seems a bit petty to me in a healthy relationship, I would not expect my husband to give me part of his commuting savings unless I gave him half towards his travelling costs. If you both pay an equal amount in all household costs I would keep the temporary saving to yourself after all if she works from home she is using more of the electricity/gas etc. than you are. I doubt you both earn the same wages so whoever earns more are they expected to give their partner half of their extra wages?? Sounds like a case of jealousy to me!! 

Fitzmichael

If she's that much of a problem, why not 'divorce?  I 'came of age' in 1960. My father had already told me not to get into debt, except for a mortgage. I also had the understanding (I don't remember being told) that, if I got married, I should expect to take responsibility for my wife and any children. When I married, I told my wife to keep her bank a/c, and made mine joint, paying all regular outgoings. She could pay for the shopping from it but she paid from her own, until she left work when she was 6 months pregnant.

OnionRajie

I think the key words here that contradict each other are "partner", "me", "hers" and "mine".  Doesn't seem like a partnership at all.  Do you just live together or live life together?
It seems little materialistic to me.  Spendless above hits the nail on the head!
I get paid into my bank account.  I then keep a little bit of flash money for myself for the month (like pocket money!) and transfer the rest into OUR joint bank account.  Wife also does the same.  All household bills etc come from the joint a/c along with anything else.  There is no quibble about what it gets spent on as we are both sensible.  We never spend more than what goings in and have quite a healthy bank balance.  I don't see this as half mine, half hers. It's ours.............for holidays, kids stuff, groceries, beers/gin etc.
It really is up to the OP what he thinks is right.  Is your SO really that materialistic? You may even see it as compensation for having to work at home with her!  No one elses opinion counts.........even mine!

anotheruser

thorsoak said:

Is it really a "partnership" when one doesn't share with the other?   Asking for a friend ;-)

This is sort of the answer.
You split everything anyway so you're not really in a partnership like many people.

Many people have a joint account and pay in the same amount of their pay - say £1000 a month.  This account is then used for joint things - bills, mortgage/rent, food shopping.  Any month over and above the £1000 is surely yours to keep to spend on you?  That way you both contribute to the joint things but have money to spend yourself on things for you.
If you both earn a good amount over £2500 a month, put £2000 in the joint account, £3500 means £3000 in the joint account.

Now you're saving a lot more by working from home, that's just the way your job has gone.
If your partner wants to earn more money, tell them to find a better paid job.

anotheruser

ApocalypticTortoise said:

Contributions to household expenses should be adjusted according to income. If one person is clearly earning more, regardless of the circumstances, then they should contribute a bigger portion towards expenses.

But that's not fair if one person has a very low paid job and the other a very stressful but highly paid job?
No motivation for the lower earner to get a better job or support the other person.

I know someone who worked all the hours under the sun, while their partner had a part time job.  That relationship didn't last long as they arranged their finances according to your rules.

Best off keeping things equal but fair - pay the same amount into a joint account that allows some "personal funds".
Clearly though, if one person is on £500,000 a year and the other £15,000, that's quite different but I find those sorts of massive splits...  well, the higher earner should know what they're getting into and expect a lot more money of theirs to be spent (or not!).  But if you're both earning within £20,000 of each other, just pay the same into an account.

LameWolf

denf said:

I was with my ex wife for 23 years and married for 19. I always had a joint bank account and shared everything and thought it was normal, even though she spent most of the money on herself. She went on to have an affair with a work colleague. It cost me over £140,000 for divorce settlement. Would I share my income again with my partner?? NO WAY 

Precisely. Both my husband and I were financially screwed over by our respective exes, and we both feel more comfortable having separate accounts. We don't count every single penny, though. I was happy to use my pension,disability and sickness benefits to help support him when he was out of work for 11 months and only got £55 pw JSA; now he's retired, and gets more in pensions than I get, so he pays the Direct Debits (council tax, electric, water etc) and I buy the groceries etc. We both buy our own clothing and personal items.

As he's been going for groceries on his own during lockdown (easier than lumping me along in my wheelchair) I told him to use my credit card that he's an authorised user on.

Given the OP's situation, neither of us would expect the other to share any savings accrued in this way.

Jake_027

It does make me laugh when people say that you're not a proper couple if you don't have a joint account for everything.  We have a joint account for bills which is paid 50/50 and then the rest goes into our personal accounts for us to spend as we see fit.  But while that's my bit of money to spend, if my partner asked for an extra £200 or whatever because he was short one month, I wouldn't have any consideration in sending it over and vice versa with no strings attached.  I could understand having joint accounts long ago for everything but in the days of faster payments it's far less of a necessity.  Indeed we use it to maximise benefits, our joint account for the bills pays rewards, my partners current account gets us a preferential rate on the mortgage, my current account gets us a 0% fee for spending abroad credit card, plus travel insurance and interest.   It also means if a banks systems go down for a day (as happens now and then), we haven't got all our eggs in one basket.  I do his finances for him to maximise gains since he hates the admin side, he's also free to look at mine but never does as he hates it, but the transparency is there if he really wants it.  Also how do you buy surprise gifts when both of you can so easily see what the other is spending?

I used to earn more but now he does, but we've always put in 50/50 as it's comfortably affordable for both of us.  My income also varies each month based on overtime so if we did percentage based I'd constantly be having to adjust the figures.  I don't understand how couples with a joint account manage to budget effectively, once I've paid the bills I know then that what I've got left is mine to spend or save, sometimes I'll be putting aside for something big and if it was a joint account I could regulate my spending and then find randomly another transaction I didn't make in the middle of it which would throw plans out of the window.  It also avoids disagreements over what is necessary spending, our interests are different so a good purchase for him might seem like a waste of money for me and vice versa, with having our own pots of spending money there's no need to worry about that.  I don't think it should be a benchmark for a "healthy" relationship, as long as both parties are in understanding and agreement to me it's absolutely no problem.

To come back to OPs point though, I think they need to sit down and find out what the money saved is wanting to be used for.  If for example the partners suggestion is to overpay a mortgage or clear a debt, I think that's a good use.  But if it's just to spend frivolously, then I wouldn't be in such agreement.  OP might be putting aside with the intention of buying something once lockdown is lifted (I'm saving towards some extra home improvements for example), or as a build up of an emergency fund if their job goes, but if the partner is already asking to split the extra money then I would imagine they have a use in mind.  As with many of these MMD's, the answer seems to be for OP to have an honest and frank discussion with the person involved explaining their views and reasons.

Pollycat

Jake_027 said:

It does make me laugh when people say that you're not a proper couple if you don't have a joint account for everything. 

I wouldn't laugh at anyone for arranging their finances to suit them.

Over the 35 years we've been together, we started with separate finances but pooled when offset mortgages became popular - over 25 years ago.

Over the years, we've both been the highest earner at different times. That made no difference to our arrangements.

We've been on the same page about our future in retirement, houses, holidays and other major spends for many years.

It works for us and I don't care one jot if anyone else disagrees.