seperate accounts..... grief.

[PancakesAndMapleSyrup]

Ive just been reading a thread about GHDs and all that popped out to me is how many people on MN were horrified/chastizied (sp?) about why when you are married you should have joint accounts. I personally think this is mad. What on earth is wrong with having seperate accounts when you are married? Im a SAHM and there is No bloody way i would share a joint account. Ppl saying its childish etc wtf? Why Aibu?!?

Each to their own but your circumstances are quite unusual OP.

It sounds like your husband is completely dispensesble in financial terms and possibly other terms as you don't sound like you have any respect for him as you don't even use his household contribution to pay the bills.

It is much more usual for a SAHM to need access to family money than rely on a private income- surely you can see that that changes everything

We have joint accounts. We both work but he earns quite a bit more than me ( I am part time) and our large mortgage payments come out of my account so every month I have to ask him for a cheque to top up my account, which I hate doing. Mortgage will be ending soon though so things will be more equal as he pays most of the utilities bills and I buy most of the food.

Sorry the above post is meant to say we have seperate accounts !

We have an offset mortgage with a linked current and savings account, all in joint names. It is very convenient and has saved us lots of mortgage interest. I can't imagine having separate accounts, it would be weird.

Another with everything in one pot 🙂
We just both keep an eye on the balances. Dh has a cc which he uses only for presents for me and I am the only one who remembers the pin for our tiny deposit account.
It has worked for 30 years. Once we both worked, now both retired, it suits us :)

We have a joint account and our own accounts. I have my own savings accounts and my business account is in my name only. As it happens I do the online banking for all the family, because the ask me to.

I don't think it matters really. It's more important that each partner feels happy with the arrangements and that nobody feels taken advantage of.

It's a matter of practicality, how people choose to budget, manage their money, not a competition for 'my marriage is better than your marriage ' based on bank accounts.

We have been married 39 years and have tried both separate and joint.
We found separate accounts in joint names the easiest solutions. ie I have my account that my ages are paid into that I solely operate and Dh has his account at a different bank.
The reason that both our names are on our accounts is, if anything happened to either of us, accident, death etc we would be able to have access to each others funds.

We share the bills between us I pay some Dh pays others. DH is self employed and his "money" is sporadic and if anything happened to him I would have to access "his" account to pay any outstanding tax bills.

If you are together but separate think about getting LPAs in place so you can access the others funds if needed if one of you loses capacity. If you hold stuff jointly its less of an issue.

Also as others have said if you divorce its pretty much all on the table.

I agree with those who say it's the attitude to money that is more important than the type of account.

We have both. He works away a lot and often has to spend his own money and claim it back, food, rooms, petrol etc. He may also use his CC to cover something. It is fairly standard practice and he is reimbursed very quickly, none of this waiting until the end of the month malarkey. So he has his own account and CC so that he always knows he has the money and no surprise bill etc will catch him out.

So I have my own account, my salary used to go into it, I am self employed now, so I also have a business account. I have access and 3rd party mandate, for all of his accounts and I sit and shuffle money round to pay CC, bills, savings etc. I have always done this as he has always had 'out of hours' work and online banking didn't exist in the 80s. It's a habit and it works for us.

We don't have his and hers spending money. I don't understand that. We just spend if we have it and don't when we run out. Big purchases go on a card and I pay it off at the end of the month. All money is most definitely 'mine' and I put it were it needs to be, including maintaining the balance in his account experience tells me he needs. I do the same for my own, of course, but it is a lesser balance, of necessity. But that doesn't mean I have access to less.... just that I need less sitting 'on account'.

But I can hear the screams from here

Your circs are unusual OP. In a standard set up like ours, joint accounts are easiest.

Dh has always earned the bulk of the money, since kids anyway, but everything goes into one account which I manage. I do all budgeting, saving etc. I tell him what spare funds we have for xyz each month. If he wants to buy anything unusual/large he asks if there is enough in the account to cover it as he knows I check every day. We save for different events in different accounts. I'm far more spendthrift than him, but this works we for us.

What canyouforgiveher said.

We married very young before we had any assets (just student loans!) or any clue how our careers would turn out. It meant that we were able to discuss in detail what we felt was the fairest method without being aware of whether we would win/lose under it.

We have a joint account. (As did both sets of parents - still married.)

Over the years we earnt - me slightly more, me quite a lot more, him a lot more (my mat leaves), similar

The biggest advantage is that it means that we are able to make decisions about what is best for us as a family without worrying about the impact on us as individuals. We have both been willing to take small steps backwards salary wise in order to facilitate a move that lets the other one make a big leap forward.

The amount that we can spend without consulting the other has changed over the years. When we were very poor it was about £10. Now it is probably about £200.

There is no right or wrong way, of course. It does say something about how both parties think about money (for example, the relationship between earners/non-earners/relative earning capacity/poor spending habits) and its role in the family, however. I think it is only important that that is acknowledged. Other than that, totally up to the two involved.

Me and DH both work full time (although I earn about £6k more a year than he does). We have separate accounts which our wages are paid into, and then we both transfer an equal amount of money into our joint account which we use for bills. However I cover the cost of pretty much all of our groceries due to me earning more. A lot of the reason for our financial set-up was just convenience. We already had our own accounts when we met with direct debits etc set up from, and it was just easier when we moved in together (before we married) to just set up an additional separate joint account for our joint household bills rather than move all of our existing direct debits etc to a new account.

The arrangement continues to suit us as DH has slightly more expensive tastes in certain things than I do (likes nice clothes, has pricy mobile phone contracts and nice phones etc) and whilst I'm happy for him to do that, I don't particularly feel that I want to pay half for those things when my expenses for these things are a lot less. Also DH has a worse credit rating than me (due to some credit cards debt and a personal loan for his car) and I don't want my own credit rating to get dragged down. However I have given him money (a 4 figure sum) towards his car loan so it's not like I haven't contributed towards this.

I don't work but DH and I have separate accounts, it is better for us for various reasons including getting better mortgage rates, savings rates and easier tax/admin. We don't do his/her spending money, don't pay each other back for things, and don't have to check before spending any amount. DH pays bills from his salary which goes into his account, and he transfers some to me on an irregular basis - I never have to ask him for more as it's a large amount each time. We can both can buy whatever we want whenever we want and we never argue about money, or anything else really.

We consider it to be a joint pot, just spread over several accounts, some in his name and some in my name.

You do see it a lot on MN, the idea, that all money is family money, and should all be in one pot, and outrage when someone suggests they do things differently. I think people who have that set up have to share a very similar attitude to money.

DH and I have a joint account, and our own accounts. Joint expenses are dealt with through the joint account, and we both have whats left to do with as we please. All money being shared would be a disaster for us, as we have very different attitudes to money. As it is we have a set up that works for us, and a very happy marriage. I can easily see how for some people, all finances being joint makes sense, especially when one partner is a SAHM, and the other earns, but that doesn't mean it is for everyone.

Separate accounts here, simply the things I had set up before I got into the relationship and see no need to dissolve. I buy the household stuff on a credit card which he pays off (I'm a SAHM, he's the earner) and my account is, well, mine. My emergency fund, if necessary, mine, my own. My independence, if it's needed.

I think we've all seen far too many stories of spouses who clean out the joint account and leave their spouse penniless. I came into this relationship with my nest egg, my share portfolio and my ISA and I'll leave with them too.

However this only works because we still see the earned income as our family money, not 'his'. We never argue about money, it doesn't even occur to us, but then neither of us are big spenders. We spend as we wish and he understands and encourages me that I keep my own savings and products for my own peace of mind.

The whole legal basis of marriage is that all assets are shared.

This or similar is frequently posted here, it's untrue. It will probably become true on divorce, but it's the legal process of divorce, not marriage, that triggers forced sharing. While married you can keep all your assets in your sole name and dispose of them how you like.

From citizen's advice:-

You are entitled to acquire and to hold any land, property, savings or investments in your own right during marriage. The same is true for your partner. Any property you owned prior to the marriage will usually continue to be regarded as yours. However, if the marriage breaks down, any property owned by you or your partner will be taken into account when arriving at a financial settlement on divorce.

Also, if all money were family money, the following would not be true:-

You are liable for any debts which are in your own name only, but not for any debts which are just in your partner's name.

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/relationships/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/#h-money-and-possessions

Seperate accounts, and joint account here. Same set ammount to cover mortgage, bills, and grocery shopping transferred over from personal account to joint account every month. I earn between 2 to 2.5 times more than my partner each month. Works here, there is no "our money" and neither one of us thinks we have a claim to each others earnings.

We have joint accounts only. We also have a spreadsheet of bills, a certain amount in savings and then have "fun money". Neither of us are big spenders but if we are going out or spending quite a bit we just let the other know. I manage the spreadsheet so will just say "getting a bit low on money now so be careful" and he is. Works perfectly well for us. We both earn a similar amount and if we broke up, it's not like either of us would stand to lose a lot.
There are some excellent reasons to have separate accounts. If one person finds money tricky/if one earns substantially more. It doesn't matter, as long as it works for them.

We have separate accounts, mostly because the CTC go into my account. It's not our money, it's the kids' money and gets spent on them.

Equal ammounts transferred to joint account I should add, even though I earn more.

We have two separate joint accounts. I pay most of the bills but DH transfers a set amount every month to cover his proportion. We also have a savings account which is in my name but which he also puts any lump sums in which we use for joint big purchases. We do this as i am good with money and he is terrible with money and it would be too stressful for me otherwise! There is a limit as to how overdrawn he can get on his own current account (which is a manageable amount) and I can remain in blissful ignorance! Thinking of starting up a separate joint savings account out of fairness, although to be honest DH is not bothered either way.

We have separate accounts and a joint account.

All our joint bills come out of the joint account and we pay into this a % of our wages. I work part time so earn approximately 40%less than he does. CB goes into this which covers DDs nappies and clothes etc.
Our personal accounts have our phone bills, his Spotify and Netflix, my contact lenses etc and our own money.

We are quite happy with our arrangements. If either of us needs more money than we have or an emergency comes up we discuss this and manage our finances accordingly.