To think separate accounts are odd?

[AntMoon]

How many married/partnered mumsnetters have separate bank accounts to their other halves?

I'm assuming that the majority of people in long-term relationships have joint accounts. I've been with DH 9 years and we've had joint bank, savings & joint credit card account for years.

It it more 'modern' to keep everything separate these days?

I am someone who doesn't like all my eggs in one basket.

The individual and joint accounts suit that very well. Our wages are paid into our individual accounts but we transfer money around into our individual and joint accounts based on what we have agreed.

I actually do the accounts and monitor them but I tell DH what I am doing if I am juggling money about. In some ways it is him that 'trusts' me in that sense. However, I am the primary card holder of our joint credit card so I have to trust him on that one, although I look at it daily as we use it for every day things and pay it off immediately that I would know if something was wrong straight away.

I wouldn't like all separate accounts just like I wouldn't like all joint. I think a mix gives DH and I the benefits of both.

Op so you're "independently wealthy"? Earn enough that a months salary could immediately cover all your & any DCs costs? Savings elsewhere to cover you until you get that pay? Have family/friends that could house you if he kicked you you out or the inheritance disputed if he died? enough to pay for one?

Then you are lucky and many aren't in that position.

Together for 8 years separate accounts and no intention of ever joining them.

@Graphista

Yes to all your points, but I'm not lucky; I've worked incredibly hard for it. I'm more or less retired at 34, as the business takes very little of my time. And I wouldn't have married anyone without the same work ethic!

Debt would be a deal breaker for me. It would show entitlement and lack of responsibility. Materialism and consumerism "oh I must have X, Y or Z" turn me off. DH is the same.

But on the money note.... Really, you can always make more money. Much loved family & friends I can't replace, at the risk of sounding twee! Money doesn't buy you happiness. I've been both sides of the coin.

A joint account for everything is more a sign of affluence.

I don’t agree with that! We are comfortable now but in the early years when I was the only earner and our mortgage payment was only about £40 less than my monthly take home, we still had a joint account! Nothing affluent about our situation back then!

We have a joint account for direct debits for household bills. We have our own accounts for our own spending

This is another thing one should not reveal on a forum

I'm not lucky; I've worked incredibly hard for it

Plenty of people work very hard and don't enjoy the same good fortune. There is always an element of good luck.

An account each that wages go into and that we some payments going out of.

And a joint account for bills, food etc.

Kind of a progression from being single with wages etc all set up to our sole accounts but sharing our money too. We happily send each other money as and when needed.

I'm not lucky; I've worked incredibly hard for it. I'm more or less retired at 34, as the business takes very little of my time. And I wouldn't have married anyone without the same work ethic!

Do you think teachers, nurses, police don’t work hard and have a lack of work ethic?

So me opening the electric bill which just happens to be addressed to my DH is disrespectful! Ok if you say so. It's ridiculous to say its lack of privacy. If I were getting passionate love letters from a lover and DH opened them maybe but not when he is opening the bank statement addressed to me its not

We don't "check" each others phones. I said if one of us gets a text and the other is nearest to the phone we will often look at it. I often leave my phone in the kitchen. If I receive a text and DH is in there if he didn't look at it I would ask him to.

We really are not so insecure that we can't deal with the other opening post or looking at our phone.

We have had a joint account for 33 years with no separate accounts and no issues. Never a cross word about money - so far! Luckily we have the same opinion on money and agree whatever we have we share.

yes to all your points, but I'm not lucky; I've worked incredibly hard for it. I'm more or less retired at 34, as the business takes very little of my time.

You can have both, luck and hard work, hard work alone doesn't get people retired in there 30s.

Be it the luck of an idea, luck of meeting someone one business related, luck of being born in a developed country with a good education system etc etc and then running with that luck and putting in thr hard work.

18.5 yrs together, married for 10.5, mortgage, 2 kids and a cat. Still have separate accounts.
I think it's called 'each to their own'

Been together 16 years, lived together 15 years, married 11, never had a joint acc 🤣. We have access to each other’s online banking tho and we run a business together so each have access to that. It’s always suited us well. I’m a spend thrift DH is tight as a nats whats it!!

Debt would be a deal breaker for me. It would show entitlement and lack of responsibility. Materialism and consumerism "oh I must have X, Y or Z" turn me off.
Also a lucky life to be in the position to think that. not all debts are down to entitlement or lack of responsibility.
If your on a low wage its hard to save, doesn't take much imagination to work out how if something goes wrong like a change in circumstance or an emergency why you might have to take out a loan. That's not entitlement, that's just life and dealing with the hand your dealt at time.

Joint.

We’ve both been married before and have assets etc but when we married we shared everything.

I earn 4x what he does (And he’s no slouch) but I can’t imagine separate. How cou,d I say well I can afford to go on £xxxx but you have to pay your share. Or I can buy x but you can only have y.

I just don’t get married couples having his and hers unless they are equally paid and it works out even anyway.

Me and dh have joint account salary's paid into . I don't think it's the norm anymore but it works for us fine we are not big spenders we just make sure enough money to pay bills and if we want to treat ourselves we do but we are not excessive with money so works great . I knew someone I worked with who had separate accounts had a child and while on maternity leave earned a lot less but her and dh didn't discuss money just carried on as before and she run a big credit card bill because he didn't give her extra money while on maternity leave . To me that's madness they are married she's not earning but no communication regarding finances.

Debt would be a deal breaker for me. It would show entitlement and lack of responsibility. Materialism and consumerism "oh I must have X, Y or Z" turn me off.

That's a painfully blinkered view. It's nice that you've had such a privileged and sheltered life and never been in a position where you didn't have a comfortable financial fallback, but many people do not have your good fortune. They don't end up in debt because they want the latest gadget but because they need to pay their rent or feed their children. Unless you think it's entitled to want to eat?

Joint everything. Been together 16 years. Went out with some people the other night who have been together as long as we have - paying each other back a fiver for the taxi each way! I simply wouldn't have the energy to be bothered about that. We trust each other. I brought a lot more money to our relationship initially but now he earns a lot more than me. Swings and roundabouts. When you have kids I can't understand how you can keep things separate.

@Alaaya

That's a painfully blinkered view. It's nice that you've had such a privileged and sheltered life and never been in a position where you didn't have a comfortable financial fallback

Oh gosh, I had an awful childhood. Nothing priviliged about abuse and neglect, and the care system I was in certainly didn't shelter me from further abuse.

Everything I've got now, I've worked for myself.

But I seem to have hit a nerve for you to respond and I certainly didn't intend that at all.

I just take huge pride in overcoming as much as I have!

"but I'm not lucky; I've worked incredibly hard for it." Oh wow!

That's a whole other level of arrogant!

http://digitalsynopsis.com/inspiration/privileged-kids-on-a-plate-pencilsword-toby-morris/

You ARE lucky!

You've been lucky enough to be born to who you were, where you were, when you were, to remain in good health throughout and so far to be married to someone who is I suspect also in good health and who hasn't been financially irresponsible or screwed you over.

At 30 I was married (I thought happily), in good health, fit, dd was seemingly healthy & fit and about to start my 2nd degree, planning a career change to a career that would fit my motherhood while also providing a decent wage and pension.

Cut to 5 years later and I was divorced, disabled (car accident), Mentally ill, pursuing a Dx for dd (also disabled), had achieved my 2nd degree but as a Lp was working a low paid job as it fit with childcare availability.

5 years later my health and dds meant I had to give up work altogether.

Yes you ARE lucky! Other people with less than you ALSO have worked hard it doesn't make you special.

"And I wouldn't have married anyone without the same work ethic!" Work ethic doesn't prevent accident or illness. I've a friend who's husband suffered an aneurism at 36, and another who's husband was left paraplegic at 40 following a car accident in which he was a passenger. LUCK!

Both these couples have also found themselves in debt due to it taking so long to get the right support in place and it takes time also for ins companies to pay out! So again LUCK!

And there's 1000's of people screwed by UC & austerity policies that have had to get into debt just to pay BASIC living costs, just to eat!

"Plenty of people work very hard and don't enjoy the same good fortune. There is always an element of good luck." Exactly

We have three joint accounts plus our own individual ones. Of the joint accounts one is used for groceries gifts and other variables during the month eg kids haircuts, clothes etc, one is a fixed bill account out of which our mortgage, gas, elec, Council tax and other such bills gets paid and the third is a short term savings account into which each of us pays an amount into each month to save up for the children’s Christmas presents. We’ve worked out how much we both need to pay into each account and we get to keep whatever is left from our salaries each month to go towards our own savings/ or any personal expenditure. It works well because we know that we have enough in our bill account to pay the mortgage and all of the bills and we’ve been paying in a bit extra in addition to what’s required so there is a buffer should anything unexpected crop up. The one thing we struggle with is our monthly expenditure on groceries which is partly down to poor planning but also I’ve noticed the cost of groceries seems to have gone up a lot over the past year and I’m absolutely dreading what it will be like once Brexit becomes a reality.

I earn 4x what he does (And he’s no slouch) but I can’t imagine separate. How cou,d I say well I can afford to go on £xxxx but you have to pay your share. Or I can buy x but you can only have y.

That's not what having separate account means for us at all. We contribute to a joint account in proportion to our incomes, and bills and other joint expenditures come from there. If we want to go on holiday we figure out what we can afford together.

A joint account doesn't quantify love.

A friend of mine had been with her boyfriend for less than a year when she announced disgust that I didn't have a joint account with my fiance when we had been together for 7 years because "we should be trusting each other by now". We lived separately, had no joint bills and had the ability to pay for meals out independently. When we bought a house together we set up a joint account.

Everyone's circumstances and decisions inside and outside of a relationship are very much their business. Someone not doing something that you do doesn't make it odd.