to think if you're married you have a joint bank account and joint finances

[User100]

So my wife and I have a joint bank account and joint fiances, all our money goes into and our of joint accounts. This seems to me entirely normal; the vast majority of our expenses are shared/family/kids e.g. mortgage, household bills, days out with the kids, grocery shop, kids clothing, kids clubs etc. Obviously there are occasional personal things (clothing, nights out that only involve one of us) but relatively minor in our expenses. It seems genuinely insane to me that we would keep seperate accounts then each pay half of the joint expenses - the admin would be a pain and we're married - even if we get divorced our assets would be split not on the basis of who owns them but as splitting things we own jointly.
I genuinely can't see any other way of looking at things but there is a theme in MN (and elsewhere) that suggests others view things differently. The recent example of this was a thread where someone said "I don't know why I bother working, my income barely covers child care" and numerous people responded "doesn't your husband pay half the child care". That question makes literally no sense to me (for the reasons outlined above). Can anyone explain what I'm missing?

Brilliant xpost

Op - your post of 23.02 is rather different from your op and subsequent.
We are all arguing the same thing.
Joint finances, yes we all agree with, but how each couple chooses to divvy it up in to which account is completely up to them.

You seem very worked up about how other people organise their money. And I was wondering how long it would take for someone to say that people with separate accounts aren't as happily married

Until recently, DH was earning a lot more than me, so he paid for more things, holidays etc. Now I'm earning more than him so I pay for more. We can do that without a joint account and actually without even totting up who pays for what. We do what feels fair for both of us, without giving it much thought. We are reasonable adults.

We are perfectly happy with our set up, it works for us, always has, always will. I can honestly say that I have never expended a single moment getting worked up about anyone elses' way of managing their finances.

As soon as dh and I got engaged we opened join accounts and closed all others. We have a 'billing' account where wages go and all bills come out and then we have a 'spending' account where I transfer an amount each week for spending on whatever we want. All excess I divvy up between various savings accounts . No one needs permission to buy something with the spending money and you can easily buy presents by withdrawing money or not buying weeks in advance with card.
I don't understand the whole my money is mine and yours is yours type of finances when married. If you aren't willing to share that info and are worried about your partner running off and stealing everything then why marry them in the first place 🤔
And if one is struggling to get by on what's left of their wages while the other is loaded (like my bil and sil) - what kind of relationship is that? Why would you do that to your partner! Madness.

However if everything is shared, treated like joint money even with separate accounts and all are happy then fair enough! Do what works for you 🙂

I'd consider putting some money into a joint 'bills' account, but I would never ever have all our finances conjoined.

Perhaps I'm too nervous about being financially dependent on the success of my relationship.

My parents have never had a joint account either - I remember being at the bank with my mother as a child and the old man there being very taken aback by that!

We have separate accounts but not for any reason, probably laziness. I earn more so I pay all the direct debits and everything else is paid by whoever is there at the time I.e. Whoever fills the car up pays for the petrol. We spend most of our spare time together. We don't have a system for splitting spending money - DH has a zero hours contract so if he hasn't been paid much one month I transfer whatever he wants into his account and we tighten our belts a bit. Savings are in a joint account which we only use for holidays, big purchases etc.
It works well for us.

Just skimmed through the thread and you seem fixated on only having one account op, which I don't get.

We have several accounts. We have a joint account which is just for bills and short term savings. So literally just Direct Debits/Standing Orders etc - the surplus (about £50 a month) builds up and when it gets to a couple of hundred we transfer it to our joint savings account.

All of our spending gets done from sole accounts though. My wages go into my account, his go into his account. I get paid monthly - so my wages get mainly transferred to the joint account and I pay ALL of our bills - joint, mine and his. Dh gets paid four weekly, and that's our living money.

We share finances completely but that doesn't mean having only one account. I wouldn't want our Debit Card spending coming out of the same account that has all the money in to cover the mortgage and other big bills in case of overspend/spending money that's earmarked for other things.

Shyposter - that's a really good point, and the first reason given on this thread that has made me think maybe I should get round to opening a joint account.

Why does it matter what other couples do?

Dh and I have separate accounts. He pays mortgage, I pay bills. If one of us needs funds, we tell the other and money gets transferred across immediately. If we're planning a big expenditure we say how much we have in our accounts and share accordingly. It's all joint money. I tend to buy more for DC, DH tends to spend more when we go out. It evens out in proportion to our wages and no-one is a dick about things.

I had no inclination to change my surname and I refuse to share a bank account. Works for us.

Maybe op's wife wants a little independence, maybe she wants a break from the "joint account"

I agree - it's insane. What a waste of time and energy these people that have seperate accounts must spend working out who pays for dinner this time etc. the silliest part is that the court would probably split 50/50 anyway so you'll end up sharing in divorce even if you don't marriage!

There are practical reasons for not closing your sole current account and opening new joint accounts too.

I opened my sole account as a child account, aged 11 - so it's been going for 19 years now. That does my credit score wonders as many lenders view the average age of your accounts as a big deal. I wouldn't want to close that, and for dh to close his personal account (also running about 15 years) as you lose all of the good credit history with it and bring the average age of your accounts down hugely.

We're currently looking at mortgage deals and are very careful about our credit rating - so would definitely suggest people think of this aspect before closing long running sole accounts for no reason.

Only OH works so he gives me an uncapped stipend. Basically I ask him when I need money and he pings some to my account. If for whatever reason there is not enough cash on my debit card and he's out of reach or its a big ticket item then I have a credit card in my name but linked to him/he pays it off.

It's worked this way for 3 years.

Every couple is different...!

I can't understand why this baffles you so much.
Anyway we have almost entirely separate finances plus a bills account. DH and I both suffered at the hands of financially irresponsible partners. Separate finances were a godsend then.
DH and I do trust each other and our finances are transparent but not shared.

Not married, joint accounts

Seemed normal to us as this was the model we grew up with from our (married) parents.

We both have a similar attitude towards money having been brought up the same way so it's never something we've argued over

Friends who had separate accounts are all divorced - not sure if that was the main reason for all but seems a common factor for many from what they've said

Each to their own.

Alwaysknackered - amount of time dh and I spend working out who pays for dinner = zero. You've just made that up, nobody on here who has separate accounts has said they nit-pick.

Ps you don't need to open a special joint account either - when dh and I got married we just converted both of our sole accounts to joint accounts by adding the extra person in.

We have separate accounts. Prefer it tbh

What a waste of time and energy these people that have seperate accounts must spend working out who pays for dinner this time etc

It really would be a waste of time and energy if we did that. But we don't. Perhaps you and your spouse need a joint account to avoid such faff - that's fair enough always. Every relationship is different.

Not nitpick but honestly surely you are constantly having to have conversations about who paid for what when and what needs to be split how. When you buy your dc a coat do you go to your partner and demand half?!
Dh and I have joint accounts (several to manage different income streams as others have too). We never fight or barely even talk about money - id find it weird if we had to have a conversation about who had to pay for this weeks shopping!
We don't ask permission before we spend either - only for large items. If it's all 'joint money' keep it in one pot and be done with it. A judge will order you share anyway!

My Dad used to say similar to you OP.
He wanted joint everything when he met my Mum, my mum closed her bank account down and her and Dad created a joint account, as time passed my dad ended up with control of it, he said it would make things easier for mum as she was busy with db and I, it ended up where she had to ask him for money for almost everything, and if he didn't think it could be afforded he said no, funnily though my Dad never had to ask my Mum if anything could be afforded for himself. My mum trusted him totally and had no reason to say no to closing her own bank account. He'd also not closed his own account and had put money from the joint one into that as savings for himself.
Similar story with his second wife, he left her when she wouldn't budge on closing her account down and going joint, she had DC from previous and Dad hated not knowing when it had been paid and spent. He thought that he should get an equal say in where that went, and claimed his wife was showing she didn't trust him as she wanted her DCs money from their Dad kept seperate from their wages etc.
His third wife thought his wanting total control over banks was romantic and she would often join him in looking down on others who did it differently and thought themselves pretty smug thinking their marriage was better than others. His third wife allowed Dad to control the whole lot as she bought it showed he loved her. She was disabled and Dad took care of her, in reality he had her totally dependant on him for everything. He died suddenly after they'd been together almost 20 years and she had struggled so much with money, she didn't even know how to top her phone, had no idea what benefits she was getting already and had no idea how to change them.

People with seperate accounts don't usually do it because they don't trust their dp, you could say people insist on joint don't trust each other otherwise they wouldn't need to see everything they spend from a joint account. But that would be stupid. People just do what is right for them, it's ok to say if you trusted each it her it would be joint, everyone trusts their dps, until they don't.

A pp said only one person should have control of all money, I disagree as there would be many people ending up like my Dads third wife.

Doesn't matter that you dont understand it as what other people do n their on marriages doesn't affect yours in any way. It also doesn't make your marriage better or stronger.
Marriages of all lengths fall apart, I've seen enough threads in here to know that being with my dh 17 years doesn't mean we won't ever split. If something ever did go wrong, I can sort myself out and won't need the added stress of trying to close joint accounts and setting my own up for my income.

Just what I was going to say arethereanyleftatall. We never spend a moment working out who pays for anything - one of us just pays, it doesn't matter who.

I've name changed for this post.

GinAndsonic simular thing happened to me. I had to leave spur of moment only had a joint account he phoned the bank and told them my card was stolen so they cancelled it I only found out when I went to use it! At the time I was getting fuel so no way of giving it back and no way of paying with kids in the car.

He cut off my access to my share of the money to the children's child benefits I had non anywhere else. I was left with 3 children and no money I never saw any of my money or the child benefit. they over paid into that account even though I informed them and because it was in my name I had to payback the money even though he spent it.

I was made to feel stupid for just having a joint bank account and no other access to money I can fully understand why people don't want just a joint account with someone and all finances tied like that regardless of marriage being split 50/50. Relationships end and sometimes people don't play fair even when you fully trust them.

I would never have a joint account again where we both paid all our wages into. I am lucky the partner I'm with now fully understands, we have separate accounts and it works for us.

What a waste of time and energy these people that have seperate accounts must spend working out who pays for dinner this time

Eh. Nah. We just play rock paper scissors lizard spock to work out whose turn it is.

It has the added benefit of mortifying the kids

What a waste of time and energy these people that have seperate accounts must spend working out who pays for dinner this time etc

Nope

DH pays every time

Simples