To think that it’s absolutely fine to still have your own money when you are married?

[itsgoodtobehome]

I read so many threads on here about how all money is joint money once you are married. I don’t get it! I am married. DH and I have our salaries paid into our own individual accounts. We then make a regular payment each into a joint bills account (pays all bills, mortgage etc) and a joint spends account (pays for shopping, meals out, family activities, kids stuff etc). The rest is individually ours to do what we want with. I would hate to not have my own money to be able to spend as I like - clothes, lunches out with friends, gym, fitness classes, and DH is the same with his hobby and own pursuits.

However Mumsnet seems to think this is wrong. Am I the only one that thinks like this?

MuppetShow you are deliberately misinterpreting what I am saying. And several other posters have also agreed about the joys of having financial independence, so stop trying to skew it and make out that I have a bad and controlling relationship.

Quartz2208 - what am I jealous of? I work FT and still do all the child related stuff, including PTA. I do think you are making excuses. DD starting grammar school in September and all the stuff that brings - what stuff? She'll be there 7 hours a day - what are you planning to do, stand outside the school and offer her snacks throughout the day? If you didn't want to take the job, that's fine, but don't use your daughter starting secondary school as an excuse.

@thatmuppetshow yes, for now you don’t think it’s a business arrangement - but try getting out of it and you’ll find out that’s exactly what it is. People think they are in love. But sometimes it’s just a question of one fleecing the other - and you’ll never know until you try to escape.
It’s a sort of institutional brainwashing.

BiddyPop - that sounds very similar to us, although we do have the joint accounts for bills and household/family spends. All sounds like a very sensible approach, and well said, without all this bitching about having controlling husbands and bad relationships

Each to their own, I suppose! Ours is currently unofficially shared as we don’t have a joint bank account yet but we just pass money back and forth as we need it. We’re due to get married next year and intend to sort out a joint account.

I’m the higher earner in our family and I can’t really imagine not sharing our money equally. Just because my partner earns less doesn’t mean he works any less hard than I do- household tasks and childcare are shared, so why shouldn’t our money be? We’re a team and any sort of long term savings is for shared goals anyway- buying a house, holidays, retirement are all things we’re going to do together anyway.

Yes Quartz. How dare you claim to know your own life and what works best for you! It’s an outrage. Consider yourself told off.

Having shared finances doesn’t mean you can’t spend money on yourself.

If you’t warm the same amount then the lower earner is massively disadvantaged. They might pay less into the joint account but they also have less in their own account to spend on themselves.

*don’t earn

This thread started off by the op was reasonable and sensible, I don't know why people are getting so het up.

I think what works for you is fine, it's no one else's business.

I always had my own account but was happy to share as was he. I worked except for short period after having a child.

Thinking back to my mother and my mother in law, neither of whom worked, they had their own money and savings accounts, our dads paid for everything and the mums looked after the home and children, which was harder work in those days (wouldn't have suited me, I liked going out to work and being with other adults but they felt differently). They had housekeeping money, some of that was for themselves and they saved so if they wanted something particular, they could buy it; they treated the children, bought presents - including for husband - and had some independence. I don't remember any problems, they were quite happy with the arrangement which seems very old fashioned now but I daresay some people still do that when children are young.

Problems arise when couples are really hard up or when one partner is stingy. A lot are hard up when in their first home, they have to count the pennies and go without things but it doesn't last forever.

itsgoodtobehome
stop trying to make like sharing finances means you have no financial independence, it simply isn't true.

itsgoodtobehome
stop being so goady against posters

Would it not give you a sense of pride and achievement to earn your own money?
how sad for you if you need to be defined by a job. I work, but it makes no difference to who I am, or how I feel, or how other people see me - and I am pretty senior btw.

The more you post, the worst you make your life sound, you really should stop now.

Would it not give you a sense of pride and achievement to earn your own money?

wouldnt it give you pride to raise your own children and not outsource childcare?!

Ultimately all arguments can work both ways, as long as it works for the family why be so condescending to families that choose that its best (financially or emotionally) for a parent (usually the mother) to stay at home.

I've discussed this with my partner for when we live together. I've always been and still am the higher earner in relationships but have always pooled everything. My partner is against this, agrees to joint pot for bills and expenses but then our own fun money. I'd probably even this out by putting more into the joint pot.

This thread started off by the op was reasonable and sensible, I don't know why people are getting so het up.

I think because the OP cannot bare that others might have made different choices and still have a pretty good life! Someone is trying to make themselves feel better by the sound of it.

I agree OP. I’d never marry for this reason. I also don’t see why it’s my problem that my partner might have less disposable income. If I was the higher earner I’d be happy to contribute more to joint expenses but I don’t see why it’s a necessity to have the same spending money left.

OP, It might help you to meet some women who are long-term SAHMs, or ones who work very part-time and share finances with their DH. It might give you a different perspective on relationships possibly?

I think I’m quite well placed to comment on this, having been one of THOSE women for about 16 years. Also, most of the women I know are in similar circumstances and this probably amounts to at least 100 women (if I think of friends locally, via the schools etc etc), if not more.

Here’s the crux of it -

None of us would be in this position if we felt our lifestyles or spending habits were controlled in any way.

If I can speak for myself - I can’t think of one time since we had DC that DH has asked me to account for my spending. It is simply not like that between us.

If I was in that type of relationship, I would get a job. Obviously. But to be honest, I wouldn’t be in that type of relationship in the first place, job or no job.

To use your examples, if I want to buy a bottle of champagne or shoes or whatever then I decide if that’s reasonable or not. DH has the respect for me, as his wife and mother if his 4 DC, to understand that if I think it’s reasonable, then it must be. The same works the other way round. Neither if us would have any idea who spends the most on “personal spends” or whatever you want to call it in any given month. Yes we have very different spending habits, but this is a given. I might spend more on clothes; he spends on bikes, cars, hobbies etc. We don’t add it up. As long as we’re both happy. Our priority is the DC anyway, so we don’t fuss between ourselves about who spends what. If anything, DH would encourage me to spend more on myself than I do.

None of the women I know who don’t work would put up with financial control for five minutes! Why on earth would they? They simply wouldn’t be interested in this kind of man or this kind of nonsense in the first place, job or no job.

I don't have joint finances, I just wouldn't want anyone seeing what I am spending my money on, I even disliked it when my kindle buys came off dps account so changed to mine. However me and dp earn similar amounts, and have similar amounts of disposable income, I spend mine on myself and one dc, he spends very little on himself but spends huge amounts on his dc. I just think do what is right for you, joint finances could be right for some while seperate is right for others

The crux is you all think you have the best arrangement until it unravels and then you will find out you don’t. Good luck with that, as they say.

Yep, we do this too. I guess it's more complicated if one of you is a SAHP though

cats - you are vining across a bit like the voice of doom in here
I completely get what you’re saying, but there’s many ways women can protect themselves and so many scenarios. Whether you’re working or not is simply one factor of so many, if it all “unravels”.

Of course it's fine.

We only have a joint account. We pay everything from it even personal stuff like yoga etc. We just regularly check the balance and plan ahead for bigger purchases....or not cos we're a bit crap with money...

But I know loads of couples with separate accounts.

What's not fine is one half of the couple ending up hundreds of pounds better off than the other imo. We think of ours as family money. I have been part time for 11years and never gonna earn the most but I'm not "poorer" than my dh.

My dsis "allows" her dh to keep more spending money than her. He never spends it on the kids so it's all his. I think that's just daft!

Hi everyone, just popping our heads round the door to ask for a bit of peace and love - we might have to take this down if it descends into a complete bunfight

All this percentages of this and that - who can be bothered

It's not complicated at all! XH and I used to do things the OP's way and it always worked very easily, no ongoing calculations required. Everything related to the household/children came out of the joint account, and it was a simple matter of totalling up the household costs then splitting it 50/50, paid in from our personal accounts. Only ever needed revised if a direct debit changed significantly. We always earned roughly the same, despite life and costs changing, but our personal spending was wildly different so better kept separate.

I know not everyone gets this, and probably never will - I recall a friend being astonished that I paid for my own toiletries from my own money, and asked if we bought separate toilet rolls too. This from a woman who complained she was skint for the rest of the month as her DH had blown the joint account money on a £500+ made-to-measure suit. And she still couldn't see the benefits of separate spending accounts!

My DH has to "fund my lifestyle" because he earns nearly £40k and I earn £6k. I work part time so we don't have to pay a huge amount in nursery fees. Although I'm not I. A high up job anyway so even full time I wouldn't earn anything like as much as him

itsgoodtobehome, as I said before, what you do is absolutely fine and plenty on here agree with you.

I think it is a shame that some people became a bit resentful and wound you up, there was no need. Personal finances are just that, personal, however the subject does come up often on Mumsnet, usually when one partner is not being fair to the other.

Just be glad that you have a solution that works for you and forget everyone else.