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 don't see the issue with people saying they had to work hard to get something.

Because they are implying that they have worked harder than those without money which is quite offensive to those who slog their guts out for very little financial reward. Unfortunately, working hard does not correlate very much with whether you get more than your share of the worlds resources so it can't be used to justify having more than your share.

Dungeondragon15 you see if someone much richer than me says they worked hard to get their wealth I don't view it as a dig at me. I view it that they made some choices where one path was much harder than the other and it paid off.

Why would them working hard affect how hard or not I work. It doesn't and I don't get upset about it because when I have a choice I often think is it worth me doing a bit more or not for a potential gain.

Re the luck/work debate, it doesn't upset me or change how hard I work, it's just a bit disingenuous to say there's no luck at all involved in it, it's a combination of both rayher then just a case of oh they took a harder path then me and it paid off.

I think the implication when people say they worked hard to get what they want is they got it mainly due to hard work. While hard work may have been necessary it also involved a lot of luck and quite often selfishness to get money. I know that I have made more money than I would have done if I had made more selfless decisions with my career for example. (Most careers that really help people aren't particularly well paid).

Dungeondragon15 you see if someone much richer than me says they worked hard to get their wealth I don't view it as a dig at me. I view it that they made some choices where one path was much harder than the other and it paid off.

Obviously it's not a personal dig at you. However, they are implying that they think that the deserve to be richer than someone who isn't which is quite offensive to those that work very hard but can barely make ends meet. You probably aren't one of those people.

My parents had a joint account (married 60 years) which had originally been my mother's account. She advised me not to have a joint account.
My husband and I did want to have a joint account, but when investigating this with our own banks, we sound realised that any bank would want both sets of earnings coming into that account, which is not what we wanted, so we left it. If we had been able to set up a joint "housekeeping" account we would have done. In the end it didn't really matter.

Wouldn't it be great if the world was fair and nurses and care assistants were paid the same as bankers (gonna offend a banker now, can see it coming!), and hard work and long hours guaranteed success?

My lovely MIL is one of the hardest working, selfless people I know and her hourly wage for care work is minimum wage, despite years of experience. She's worth a million quid an hour! As is my SIL as a nurse, she's fantastic. And my SB is a social worker, the workload he has is huge and it takes a toll on him.

Success takes different forms though - all my family members above adore their jobs and wouldn't do anything else despite the money/stress.

Those that have financial success might not be as happy as someone else with a lot less money. I may be financially okay but there's a lot in my life money can't change. It doesn't buy you more time when your time is up.

It's all relative.

together 10 years, married for 4. We have a joint account for bills and we both contribute to that but we have our own separate accounts for the rest. When we go out/ book holidays etc we just use one of mine of DH credit cards then pay it from the joint account. I am more sensible than my husband but he earns more. It works for us.

I think sometimes it depends on the earnings difference too in fairness

My parents had everything joint (apart from one small savings account.) It made it much easier when one of them died.

We have separate current and savings accounts plus a joint bills account which we pay into in proportion to our salaries i.e. the higher earner contributes more. Perhaps because we got married later in life so we were both used to managing our own money, we kept everything separate for the first few years but it made sense to open a joint account for bills rather than keep transferring money between us.

@Notgoodatchoosingnames

I think sometimes it depends on the earnings difference too in fairness

Yes big different wages could make things trickier/more complicated in some cases, definitely.

We have a few joint bank accounts (business, personal, etc) and a couple of separate bank accounts as well but most of our savings are jointly owned. But everyone is different, there's no rule!

@AllTakenSoRubbishUsername you're right! So many different ways, definitely no 'norm' like I thought there might be!

Been with DH for 30 years(met when we were 18) I was always really bad with money, had a little bit of debt when we met. Had our first DD 21 years ago so bought a house together, I the only worked part time so DH took care of mortgage and most of the bills, if I needed more money I had to ask and explain/justify what it was for. Now I work full time, he pays mortgage, I pay bills and I can do what I like with what is left as we still have separate accounts. Wouldn't have it any other way, he's a bit of a penny pincher☺️

We have been together 13 years and don’t have a joint account. Finances are joint, we just transfer to each other should we need it. Works for us 🤷‍♀️

No joint account here, but money freely flows between our separate accounts and we see the money as "ours".

Been married 8 years and don’t have a joint account with dh. My parents have been married 40 years and don’t have a joint account. We do have a joint savings account we both put money into as do my parents. But we also have our own separate accounts.

Been with DH for nearly 15 years. We have always had separate accounts.

Not odd at all. It's odd you think it so.

We had joint accounts before and it's no different to us to have joint or separate and prefer separate so we can buy each other surprises etc and not to have one moan about spending more than neccessary. You do you.

I have my own bank account. It is just too risky to have small children and share all finances with your partner. We have a joint account for household/joint mortgage etc.

I say risky...I read way, way too many posts on here from women who trust their partners implicitly and are let down. Presumably the opposite is also true and men should keep their finances separate too.

We have our own accounts plus a joint account which we both put a percentage of our wages into every month. All joint costs come out of this. Works well for us

Yes totally, joint just works so well for us, just feels natural and never caused a problem.