Don't understand 100% joint finances

100% separate. Husband is a high earner and transfers his entire pay check to me. This covers all our bills - which come out of my account - and both our spending money allowance. My salary goes into savings and isn’t touched. He prefers it this way as he’s terrible with money and would just spend joint money on guitars and games.

Or merely irresponsible. My ex husband was awful with money. If everything had been joint then I'd have had no money to pay my bills or feed my kids as he'd have blown the lot as soon as he got paid

I should say we do have separate saving and ISAs for tax purposes, although obviously if we were divorce they’d all go into one pot anyway to be split and we still see it as family money. I have access to plenty of money in own name if it was ever needed though.

DH and I take very literally “all that I have I share with you” - we regard all money and financial obligations as joint. Having similar attitudes to money, similar financial priorities etc was part of what we considered prior to marriage. We both have full access to all money (despite only one of us currently being in employment) and neither of us nitpicks each other’s spending. Works brilliantly for us and we’re very happy.

You do you.

How would you get £1k worth of clothes into your house without him noticing?! Even if I paid individually for something I wouldn’t hide it from him, because there’s no need to.
I wouldn’t spend £1k on clothes, no, because we don’t have that sort of spare, unallocated cash. I wouldn’t have that sort of spare, unallocated cash if we had individual accounts, either.
He has never once asked me, in 16 years, why I’ve spent money on x, y or z, and I’ve never asked him either. We’re both sensible people, we don’t spend more than we can afford to spend so there’s no issue. If we had £1000 left at the end of the month after bills were paid I wouldn’t spend the whole £1000 on myself as that wouldn’t be fair, and neither would he. Equally if we had seperate accounts, I’d only have £500 left at the end of that month so the result is the same really.
We’re both sensible with money, and would rather invest than splurging large amounts on clothing etc. We spend a fair amount on family holidays but obviously discuss them before booking, as we would do regardless of how our finances were organised.

Joint family money here which works for us, together 28 years. We have a similar outlook on money and don’t monitor each others discretionary spending but would check with each other that individual spending wouldn’t stop us doing something we both wanted.

With my ex DP we had a joint account that we both put a certain percentage in and savings account for the same thing.
what was left was our individual money to do what we wished with. never Ever regretted when things went south pretty much out of no where after a decade I was able to get me and my kids out easily with my savings. He died shortly after I left and it turned out despite a very good income he had no savings.
With my current DP we have completely seperate finances and I am not willing to change that.

My parents created a joint account back in the 90s. They didn’t have separate accounts for near on 30 years until they switched to Lloyds, who required them to have separate accounts to make a joint account.

Separate accounts here. We don’t even have a joint account for bills. All bills, food and the mortgage get paid out of an account in my name, DH puts 50% of the value in there every month and everything that’s left of our salaries stays in our own accounts. We have roughly the same left over to spend or save as we see fit.
this has worked for us for 20 years. Neither one of us could abide having the other having an opinion on what we spend.

We aren’t worried about our monthly expenses. We are focused on our long term financial goals. Those are best managed with joint finances.

we want to pay for DD’s university and help her a house down payment. We want to retire comfortably. We like to treat our family to the occasional amazing experience.

Neither of us really cares about day to day spending money. We have a general amount over which we talk before we buy something. That amount varies with our financial situation. Otherwise, we just get on with our lives and spend from the joint account. There is no micromanaging.

Financial abuse can happen with joint finances or separate finances. It’s about the people, not where the money is actually held.

"It's no different to having separate accounts"

But it is, because there must be an amount of money you spend on yourself that your DP would notice or comment on - a grand? Five grand? Twenty grand?

With separate personal accounts you can literally spend whatever you want, and whatever you want out of savings, and your partner wouldn't even know to comment on it. It does give you more financial freedom imo

It’s worked for us for 49 years.

You don’t seem to understand a lot do you? It’s quite simple, different couples like to do things in different ways for myriad reasons. What you really mean is you think you’re in the right and people who do things differently must therefore be in the wrong.

25 years of joint finances has never been problematic in our household.

We do completely joint finances but we keep it in separate, multiple accounts. But we view it as one big pot and we can spend on whatever we please, with no comments about spending choices. We don't check with each other before spending any amount, and we don't have to negotiate paying halves on anything or have to take turns paying for something. Things just get paid for and it doesn't matter which account it came from because it's all family money. Most stuff gets put on a credit card and is cleared in full every month. We dont have an actual joint account as it would complicate our tax admin.

Together for 33 years, married for 30. Never had a joint account. Never argued about money. We each have our things we pay for and it works for us. I like to be in control of my own finances.

I don’t understand the financial independence aspect. DH and I have always shared accounts and have a shared credit card. But I consider we are completely financially independent of each other.

We both spend whatever we want. We don’t ask each other to spend money. We don’t monitor each others spending. It’s no different to having separate accounts except we don’t have the faff of having to work out what would be ‘joint expenses’ and put money into somewhere combined.

100% work jointly for us. We pool our resources together because we
are a family.

We don’t do his and her money. We have our money.

it’s fine if you don’t want to do that or cant understand that - but to jump to accusations of financial abuse is absurd.

Not joint here. Nobody gets to tell me what I spend my own leftover money on, ever! He sometimes takes the micky tho, fair enough 😀 I probably do spend more on 'things' than he does, he's far more sensible.

We have savings but also both have money in bonds in case something happened to one of us, it's enough to live on for a year while sorting out all the paperwork.

Yes but could you spend, I dunno, a grand on clothes out of savings just because you felt like it? Or would your DP go "why did you spend THAT?" if you have your own personal account with the bulk of your money, and your own savings, you can literally spend whatever you want without someone else even knowing. My DP is lovely and not controlling, but I wouldn't want that sort of surveillance on my spending

Absolutely, we just have a joint account, and don't scrutinise each other - its our money, jointly, as is everything.

It’s only controlling if they actively check what you spend money on and feel like they have some control over it (and vice versa). DH couldn’t care less what I spend. He doesn’t go through our statements checking transactions. I also couldn’t care less what he spends. Neither of us are controlling the other.

Ours are completely joint & transparent.

All income goes into the joint current account and all bills & spending go out of it. We have a joint CC but again, that is paid off by DD out of the joint current account.
Savings are split between the two of us equally, we would add to PB's & ISA's to ensure both of us used our annual allowances. When my OH received an inheritance, it went into the pot and was put away & invested across both our names.

All our money is in joint accounts. I wouldn’t want to organise our finances any other way. I couldn’t imagine thinking of “my” money and “his” money. If one of us wants to buy something, we buy it. No need for a discussion unless it’s a big purchase (a car or something like that). But we’re both careful about spending and neither of us has extravagant tastes. I suppose if one partner spent recklessly and the other saved every penny, there could be an imbalance leading to resentment. Fortunately, that has never been an issue for us.

We've always had joint finances, works perfectly for us. No one checking what each other spends and just discuss bigger purchases. Easy.