In not really understanding why some couples have mine and yours money?

[lesley33]

What I mean is couples who don't share money but instead agree a contribution each partner pays towards joint expenses. I knew a couple where the wife earned more and so could afford top, and did, go on expensive holidays that her husband couldn't afford.

Unless one of the couple is seriously terrible with money, why wouldn't you just share money to benefit the whole family? By family I mean the parents and children.

DH and I have a joint a/c - we put the same money in each month and then obv what he has left is his and mine is mine.

I like it this way - i certainly dont want to have to explain my need to buy a new pair of boots or a handbag etc, I work hard for my money and as long as all household stuff is covered its up to me what I do with it.

YABU

Of course it is up to couples what they do.

But we use our joint earnings to benefit each person equally. When we met my DH earned more than me - I was on a very low wage - but now I earn much more than DH. My DH was also very ill for about 4/5 months a number of years ago and was only getting statutory sick pay.

Neither of us would have been happy for 1 person to have much more money to treat themselves than the other person. In fact if we earned about the same, in some ways sharing money is less of an issue. When we have had very little money we spend very little on ourselves by agreement.

We never argue about what we spend as we want each other to be happy. And luckily when money has been short, we both agree to spend very little or nothing on ourselves.

I just don't understand people who don't want their OH to have the same opportunity to spend money on themselves as they have. If we had worked money on a contributiuon basis, then I would have had no or practically no money to spend on myself for the first few years we were together, while my OH would have had lots of money for new clothes, music, etc.

I don't really "care" what other people do with their money. Just something I have never really understood. And it seems to be more common amongst younger couples.

What does it matter if it works for the couple and they are both happy with the arrangements?

My husband and I have a joint account which we both pay into (equal amounts and then sometimes more) as well as having our own accounts (into which our salaries go). We also have shared investments...

Not a problem to us at all...and we totally trust each other.

So where's the problem?

We have joint current and savings account where all our money is paid in

Then we each have separate credit cards (that get paid in full by direct debit from the Joint account each month) - so we can have some privacy in our spending.

Works for us.

As I said in my original post I can understand it if one person is totally crap with money e.g. will run up big debts, spend money they don't have on hobbies. I have seen this happen in 1 couple and on those rare occasions it does make sense.

However most couples I know that do this in RL are not like that.

I couldn't live like that either.

We've always had our wages paid into our separate accounts and then everything except equal amounts of spending money is taken out into joint accounts for all bills and savings.

But that "spending money" is ours to do with what we like. I personally couldn't do something knowing my DH couldn't afford to do it.

But horses for courses and other people can do what they want.

Because I will never allow myself to be financially dependent on another person, the same reason I work full time. I love my DH but we don't agree on everything.....well on quite a lot actually and I can't imagine going through live having to "negotiate" my expenditure with him.

me and my DH do that. We both work, we both pay childcare and both pay bills. I like having my own money to spend on things for the children, relatives/ friends birthdays going out etc without feeling guilty that it is "our" money and asking if that is OK! I think financial independence is vital for all parties

PicaK What you do makes sense, because you both have the same amount of money to spend on yourself.

I guess it depends on your OH. I don't have to "negotiate" with my OH to spend money on myself. My OH wants me to be happy and is happy for me to spend money on myself if we have it. The only thing we "negotiate" is big purchases, or a quick discussion if we have less money about what we will have and where we can make savings.

So my OH is being made redundant and I am under threat of redundancy. So we sat and in 10 minutes looked at our essential expenditure and where we can make savings.

I went out with work last week - leaving do for 4 staff because of redundancy - and I spent far less than I would normally have done. We didn't "negotiate" this. I didn't have any cash so my OH on request gave me £30. However because I knew things are going to start to be tight I chose to only buy a meal (pub meal so very cheap - dearest meal was £7) and to have 2 alcoholic drinks.

However if my job ends up being fine, not sharing money would mean I would have much more money to spend on myself on OH. Just doesn't seem right.

I used to work with someone like that. She was American and was planning a trip home but there was something awkward about the arrangements which would have been solved by them staying an extra two nights, can't remember the issue. When I suggested it she said they'd thought of that and Fred could afford it but she couldn't so they weren't going to do it.

I understand separate spends after bills but not when it comes to holidays etc. That's just weird.

It seems wierd to have only joint finances to me. If you only have joint accounts presumably this impacts your credit rating as you have nothing just in your name. What if your partner leaves you and clears the accounts?

Do you really want your partner to know minutely every single thing you spend money on? Presumably you have to plan carefully ways to get around that to buy presents or surprises?

I know some people are very happy and think it is part of marriage to share everything. To me that is a bit old fashioned but ultimately you should do what suits you. The only problem I can see is if you and your partner have different attitudes to money.

For me, having been brought up by a single parent who struggled to pay the mortgage for years, money in the bank is security and independence.

We have mine and yours money because I am shit with money and we would be bankrupt in a week :)

We have our money & my money

I can understand the separate bank accounts because that's how everyone must start out and it takes a positive effort iykwim to go and open a joint account, so I imagine a lot of people don't bother until it comes to a 'significant moment' which could be getting married, buying a house together, having kids, one partner staying at home. The part on mn I never understand is when one partner (the woman) stays at home and has to sub that with her mat pay and savings and eventually just with the child benefit while the other partner keeps working and doesn't share the salary.

We share both salaries in one pot and I organise all the finances. It's the same as my mum and dad and both their parents so it's quite an 'old fashioned' way of doing things, perhaps going back to the days of one main earner/housewife. I also hate surprise presents, in fact presents of most description, so maybe that's why I've never been bothered about the 'buying presents for each other' aspect of sharing a bank account - far rather buy my own stuff

"However most couples I know that do this in RL are not like that."

You have no way whatsoever of knowing who in RL is crap with money or not or what other experience they may have had that leads them to take one approach over another. What goes on behind closed doors might surprise you.

There was a time, not all that long ago, when a woman's posessions and income immediately became her husband's property on marriage. We were treated as 'assets' for tax purposes. What was ours was theirs ... but not the other way around, of course. Like vj32 I think money in the bank represents security and independence and, if you give it all over to someone else, you have to understand the risks.

lesley I agree it wouldn't be fair if two people earning vastly different wages paid an equal amount towards 'household stuff', which is why we don't do that. DH earns loads more than me, so he pays a lot more to the joint account. We are both left with roughly the same amount of 'spending money'.

What do you do when you want to buy your H Christmas/birthday presents or organise some kind of surprise? How can you stop him finding out exactly what and how much you've spent on him?

Our salaries go into a joint account, we have joint savings and separate savings, and individual ISAs. Having something separate in your name is good for credit rating.

We have utter transparency ivo money. I buy what I need to/want, he does the same. Big stuff we'll discuss first, otherwise we just responsibly handle our account. We are answerable to one another, but don't answer to one another (if that makes sense/)

There's none of this yours or mine stuff. everything is ours :)

It's worked for us for 11 years.

But Lesley all you're saying is that your situation works for you and that the power relationships in your marriage are not related to money. You don't need to read many of the threads on this site (and not just on the relationships board) to know that control and power can be a big issue in many relationships, even in relatively successful ones. My DH is not a nasty man but he does have his mother's tight streak (along with a serious lack of organisation) and I have little doubt that most expenditure would become a battle if we shared finances and would put much greater pressure on our marriage than is wise.

None of this says that we don't help the other out when necessary - we have both had periods out of work and have not paid into "the pot" during those times but the point is that is the other person helping out in exceptional circumstances rather than the norm. I'm just surprised that this situation seems odd. Each to his own and all that.

If you'd ever been divorced you'd understand.
It took DH and about 5 years and three kids before we stopped view what's mine is mine due to getting taken to the cleaners by previous partners.

I'm going to sound terribly strange here when I describe our arrangment, but bear in mind I'm part Dutch and this is normal in The Netherlands.

DP pays all the bills, inc mortgage and I have slightly more income but pay for most of the "nice things". However it is recognised that I have to have a nice life and also more free time to go on holiday, which I often have to on my own or with friends because DP doesn't get enough annual leave always to come with me (I recently spent a month in Marbella to get away from the winter weather). Thats how it works for us. In previous times, I paid the mortgage and bills and DP lived free of charge, because his salary was being used to fund property investments, as mine is partly now.

DH is rubbish with money. So whats his is mine and whats mine is mine ha ha.

When we had separate accounts I had to look after his account and mine, so it made my life easier to go to a joint account.

We either have the cash or we dont but we mainly spend on family stuff really so it doesnt matter who earned it for us.

I used to be the high earner, and now I am part time he is the high earner, but neither of us really cares where the money comes from.

I just prefer having my own money so I can make my own decisions about what I want to buy and be frivalous with - with the knowledge that the bills are paid from the joint account that we both put into. I hate the thought of having to check what my hubby has spent before buying something with money that I have worked hard to earn as does he, so it works for us. Also if we were both very careful with money it would be okay but to be honest we are not and I would be concerned if my spending patterns affected the family finances.

Hmm, we do exactly this and it works well. We pay the same % of our income into the joint acct for bills/mortgage etc. We have some joint savings (saving acct and a bond), plus our own ISAs and savings accounts. These are hidden from each other, although I will admit that I don't know the exact amount in all of DHs - and I doubt he does in mine.

We discuss big purchases - car/holidays/big mortgage overpayment and then move money from various savings accounts to cover them. DH usually pays more because he earns more at the moment.

If I ever did run out of money then DH would make sure I was fine. I have a pretty good income tbh, so this hasn't happened. I probably spend more of my disposable income than he does his, but I do make AVCs into my pension/have various savings plans running.

Works well for us.

These are NOT hidden from each other.