To have separate finances

[ilovemycatmorethanyou]

I’m beginning to realise I may be in the minority and wonder if you wise MNers can help?

DH and I have separate finances. We pool together for bills and food in a separate account but our wages are paid into our own accounts.

When we go out anywhere we usually split the bill. He has children from a previous relationship and I don’t. We’re married.

I’ve noticed that most of the couples we go out with don’t seem to have this arrangement? Are we unusual?

When we go out anywhere we usually split the bill Bizarre!

We do this. Quite a lot of my friends do too. In fact, we don't have a joint account at all. We agree each year who will pay for what and just get on with it. It's never been a problem in 42 years of marriage.

Completely normal in my world. We don’t split bills as we operate a swings and roundabouts system. We operate like Jaxhog. Works for us.

I think its different if one of you has kids and the other doesn't. We have separate finances but usually take it in rough turns to pay for things like meals out. We wouldn't split the bill. Also big purchases for the house we split. Holidays. But it's not done with a calculator or spreadsheet. 15 years and it works....

dh and me have separate accounts wouldn't share one.
my first ex h moaned because i took half of the joint account when we split up, he said i should pay it back [£4,000] because he needed to pay his legal fees and have rent for a new place. i didn't work at this point as we had 2 young dc and i could have cleaned him out but i chose not to because i like to think i'm a decent person.

There’s a trillion threads about this. To summarise, you may well be in a minority on mumsnet but it’s not a tiny one. It seems to work fine for most people who do it, exceptions are where one person is struggling financially and their partner could help but doesn’t. If it works for you don’t worry what others are doing.

@unicornbrexit why bizarre!?

Ok thanks, sorry If this has been done to death, I’m fairly new to MN.

yup, we do that too. I would hate to have a shared account or anything

ilove just ignore the 'it's been done before' comment so have many other topics on here, many are similar. you had a question to ask, if we can help we well. people do not have to respond to a thread do they spotless ?

Meh not unsimilar to us. Own money into own accounts. I pay all the bills so dh gives me a percentage of his wage that means we both can save the same amount into seperate savings and have same spending money. We do have a joint savings account for big stuff. Meals out we tend to go turn about

I think it's unusual to be quite so separate, but by no means unheard of. I think where one or both people have children from a previous relationship it makes more sense to have some separation.

I do think, though, that even where they are separate it's important to have some open-ness about them. Like, I think it's really weird if one spouse won't tell the other what they earn. To me that would be a sign of other problems like lack of trust or planning for separation or something.

And just in general, I think it's reasonable to say that you are a family unit together (whether or not you have your own children) and that your individual finances do have an impact on each other. If you're in a relationship with someone who earns less than you, do you really want them not to be able to afford to go on the same holidays as you? Or be happy that they are in an old, unreliable car while you're driving a posh new one? For mutual happiness, there needs to be some sharing of resources, imo.

We share a joint account for mortgage and bills. Have a joint credit card for kids, food, going out etc. Wages are paid to each of us separately. Works fine.

I only know one couple in real life who have shared finances. I don’t want to ever be reliant on anyone. It’s like the last few decades never happened in some relationships.

@fecketyfeck21 I meant that I have contributed to many of these threads in the past and I was basing my response (that it’s a significant minority) on that and not just on my own experience. Sorry if it read like I was being an arse, I wasn’t aiming to be.

@ilovemycatmorethanyou yep we do it exactly the same. Don't think we would ever fully combine finances, done't see why we would

We both get paid into our own accounts and have a standing order to the joint for household bills, monthly shopping etc.
We save together in a separate account and have a 'petty cash' pot in the kitchen for random expenses like takeaways and milk etc.
If we go out one of us will pay or if we ever do decide to split (rarely) it's a quick transfer on the banking app to the other person.

We've been married 3 years and have our first DC on the way and are happy that this works for us.

Wouldn't have it any other way as I like to maintain my relative independence. I have stark memories of the shared account arguments my mum and stepdad had growing up and never want to be like that.

I would think this only really works with couples who earn roughly the same though. As a pp mentioned, if there’s a disparity then it just seems mean.

FWIW, DH is a SAHP so we have one account but separate credit cards. So he can buy treats/surprises without me knowing about it as I do the budget. Even when he worked, it was one account.

In both my marriages (no kids) we had separate accounts and joined expenditure for household stuff.