Question for couples with only a joint account?

[Pileonsally]

If you only have a joint account, how do you buy surprises or presents for each other?

I did when I was married, exh never checked the account anyway and I simply didn't look in detail

Neither of us go through it in such detail. It's never crossed my mind that DH might see presents on there.

Pay with paypal - linked to joint account but doesn’t give lots of details on the main statement. Or get from shops like John Lewis where harder to work out what it is.

Don't look too closely in December! I sometimes use Paypal for things that would be very obvious too.

When we had kids and pooled resources, we had no money over for presents or luxuries so it wasn't much of a consideration! No we keep saying that we should have an additional account each where we pay a set amount monthly out of our main account for precisely this purpose... but we haven't got round to it. And we don't check our bank accounts in great detail, nor are we big on surprise presents, so it's not usually a problem.

We have individual credit cards so although the bill is paid out of the joint bank account, we don’t see each other’s CC bills so it keeps some mystery!

We’ve been together too long to buy surprise presents..!

The ‘what do you want for birthday/Christmas’ conversations start about 6 weeks out

I guess we don't look at it that closely/frequently. And most purchases/stores are not specific enough to give anything away. Paypal is another option, but it's not something I really give much thought to. Yes very occasionally I've spotted something on the bank account that might make me wonder if it is connected to gift, but it doesnt come close to making me think we should change the easy way our finances are set up.

I did all the finances so DH never knew what had gone through the accounts and he was so last minute I wouldn't get statements in time. On line banking did give away a couple if surprises through. I just pretended I didn't know

We have two joint accounts. DH uses his one to pay all the bills and to use for purchases he might want to make. I am retired so he puts an allowance in the other joint account for me to use as I please so I can buy secret gifts from there. If we are buying stuff that we know about we would probably use the joint credit cards which he manages and pays.

Individual credit cards/paypal which are paid off from the joint account.

However I hate surprises anyway

We just buy them anyways.

All our direct debits come out on one day, so we check the day after that all have gone through, then on payday we check our wage is in, and that the total balance is higher than last payday. If its lower, we scan down for any large purchases or weird transactions. By this point the birthday is done