To not know his wage?!

[notaniota]

A few threads on here have got me thinking, I have no idea what DH earns pm! I know his salary (give or take) but couldn’t tell you how much he gets paid and I don’t look at his pay slips ever!! Is this that odd?? Anyone else?? 😂

I now know what DH earns on a daily basis as since he's become self-employed, he tells me every day, "I earned xxx today." Being self employed certainly focuses the mind. Before, I would have known his yearly salary, but I wouldn't know if asked what he actually brought home every month - but we have a joint current account - so it's all recorded in there.

Of course, it's ok to have separate bank accounts. It's just more practical and transparent when both salaries go into one account. You would definitely see his monthly take home without even having to ask.

22 yrs living together, of those 20 yrs married. We started as we meant to go on - joint account, joint finances. I think we might have maintained our separate accounts initially but as time went by, it was too much of a hassle having multiple stray accounts here and there. We have separate ISAs and pensions but both of us have visibility to everything although I have more inclination to manage our investments actively.

Don't you need to know how much disposable income you have to put into savings/pensions/mortgage overpayments?

When our household income had increased enough to allow us to save more, we deliberately overpaid our mortgage using our offset mortgage, stashed more into our pensions and utilised our ISA allowances. It was a focused decision which included discussion on stock/fund selection. We also did this when our DC were born - open CTFs (now transferred to JISAs) and more recently, JSIPPs.

At the end of the day, horses for courses. If you're happy with the status quo and it works for you, that's all that matters.

We just don't live so far into each other's pockets. I would feel imprisoned if their was a discussion about every item I buy.

Is that new dear. Yep, glad you noticed. Is that new dear. No I've worn it for the last three years.

My mother in law used tobask how much everything cost. Thankfully after about the first 20 years she stopped dh was told to make it crystal clear it was fucking rude. How much were those trousers? Ooh £59, and Boden, ooh how extravagant. Well no actually MIL I work fulltime, it's my money and I'll spend it how I see fit just like your son does now stfu

@sansou yes we save by DD we always have and DH increased it as his salary increased etc as did I put mortgage has an offset and nearly paid off. We are good with money so I suppose it’s not an issue I don’t know exactly 🤷‍♀️

Do you not track your spending? I would get a finance tracker like You Need a Budget to jointly track income and spend.

You don't want to be one of those women who has no idea and assumes someone else manages the money.

And you don't want to be one of those women who states ' I have no idea but it works for me/us!' That phrase 'works for us' is the most overused but perilous statements on MN! It only works for you until it doesn't any more! Time to get a grip and get some oversight.

@windygallows no I don’t track it, but then again I don’t spend unnecessarily. We save and all the bills are paid. I don’t see how tracking would benefit??

Don't you want to see where your/his money is going?

windy not particularly no. We both have freedom over what we spend and more importantly we trust each other.

Don’t you want to know if you can save more into ISA’s and JISA’s - whether you’re in a position to max them out or your pension allowances, etc?

Don’t you have any financial goals?
Move to a bigger house/extend/renovate it?
Private education/fund higher education.
Travel bucket list?
Holiday home?
Retirement age?
How do determine what your holiday budget is?

I don't know my husband's wage, and I manage our joint finances. I can roughly guess his wage, but might be off by 2-4k. We each transfer a set amount every month in a joint current account, and another set amount into a joint savings account, which we primarily use in case anything in the house needs fixing/replacing. If we need to make a really big purchase (like replacing our car) or deciding where to go on holiday), we simply discuss how much we can / are willing to spend, and take it from there.

But you all must know.... surely..... you have to disclose family income for Child Benefit, or Tax Returns, or University Loans, Tax Credits etc etc

When you change jobs do you not discuss with your OH's the pay and benefits packages?

Why do you need to know, as long as he pays his half of the bills?

No sansou that's all taken as a given or done already. When we transferred ds to independent it was at the point where dh confirmed we had 5 years' fees set aside, the mortgage was almost paid down and we knew if the worst came to the worst we could sell the house, move out ten miles and fund the dc's education with the balance.

No you don't olderthan. Uni loans have a box that says do you earn less than. If you don't there are no more questions. Child benefit the same; I continued to get it and dh took the repayment hit. V imp actually for any woman who doesn't work although I did so less relevant.

Yeah what ohtheroses said

I know vaguely what his annual income is....probably to within 5/6k

And his monthly i could hazard a guess to within 1k

I could obviously sit and work it out and he doesn't hide it so I could just ask him or look at his payslip

@OlderThanAverageforMN no don’t need to disclose for child benefits and we don’t get tax credits

@sansou yes we have goals that’s why we save but as I said upthread we are not far off being mortgage free, children’s funds are sorted and we just pay for holidays as we go.

My husband knows my salary, but only because I just got a pay rise and I told him my annual pay. He would have no idea what my take home pay is. I am the higher earner (by about 2.5 times) and I organise our finances. He is pretty clueless of our outgoings as well.

+Can you explain why it's unwise to have seperate accounts? I'm not being facetious by the way, I am genuinely interested.*

I think it’s important to have transparency over bills that you’re jointly responsible for at least.

We have separate finances since he fucked the joint account up. Never again. I'm sensible with money, he's hopeless. We have separate accounts. He pays council tax, utilities and broadband. I pay water rates, insurance, TV licence, we each pay every other food shop. Cars are separate. We don't have "family money" because this is the way that suits us.

The amount we save and how is an individual decision. We paid off our mortgage in our 30s and have no immediate plans to move house. Our pension position is fine and we'll retire in 15-20 years time. We don't need a holiday home, as our families live in two of the most beautiful parts of the country. We can fund university out of the amount we pay into our joint account each month. We don't need to budget for holidays, we spend roughly the same each year on family breaks and both travel independently using our own cash. We've been together for 30 years and I would be more worried if we suddenly started quizzing each other on our finances.

If we didn’t have a joint account, I’d not know what my DH earned either.

If I buy a bottle of perfume (perfumistas anyone?) or if DH buys a new antique pen (one of his things) we just do.

DH's best impulse buy was a town house. No consultation. Well there was after his offer was accepted - if he'd thought it was way off the mark he'd never have done it. Bloody good deal though.

So you do know, roughly, if you are ticking those boxes.

@OlderThanAverageforMN child benefit is not means tested here and tax credits works differently too