Women who have married rich men and don't work, how do their finances work?

[StationeryAddiction]

Let's say a woman who marries an investment banker whose salary is triple figures and their bonus is triple figures (not sure how realistic these figures are). Does the wife get given some kind of allowance? Are budgets set for things?

I ask because I see someone on Instagram who appears to be married to this type of man. She seems like an extremely pleasant, down to earth woman and very family orientated. Most months the family goes on holiday be it abroad or the nicest staycations in the UK. She has many Hermes sandals, Chanel bags etc but she does shop at the high street too. She is definitely a lady who lunches, often at the likes of The Ivy etc. I'm not sure that an investment bankers salary can even fund all this, let alone taking savings and investments into consideration but let's assume it does. I'm just really curious as to how the finances work in these kinds of situations? Does she have to ask if she wants a new bag? Does she get given x amount a month? Does he tell her she can book a each holiday for no more than £15k? Does she have access to the bulk of the money? I'm well aware it's none of my business and I'm not jealous. Just intrigued.

Gives you an allowance? So old fashioned

My SIL and BIL.

They pool their money.

She is a trusted part of their team. He couldn't operate without her. Their kids are amazing because of the time she's put into them.

My dh is a fairly high earner - mid 6 figures. We didn’t have much money when we were younger, we both grew up without much and we’ve been together since early 20’s. I don’t really work - I’ve dabbled in interests and made small amounts here and there, but have mainly been a SAHM. We’ve recently been discussing me giving up the few hours I’ve been doing recently to be at home full time again as our dd has been struggling with her mh. All money goes into a joint account and I have full access - all our savings are in my name. However, I am likely to inherit twice (depending on care needs of my mum and grandmother) and this money will also be joint. He will inherit nothing/very little.

The kids are amazing because of her work. What a load of crap. Kids aren't a project. Plenty of sahm parents have kids that are problem kids

From my observations most couples in this situation will have joint accounts and joint credit cards from which the spending comes out of. The wives are trusted with the finances and wouldn't need to consult their husbands for bags and spas and other day to day expenses. Discussions are for purchases of properties, yachts, another dog, etc.

DH has two mates who are bankers. One gave his partner a credit card for fun money and she was allowed 3k a month, he paid all household expenses. This was about 20 years ago.

My friend married a very rich solicitor, Head of his own company, he was absolutely loaded, they had a massive house with a swimming pool, the cars, a nanny. But money wasn't enough to keep them together, she divorced him, got a massive settlement & is now living with someone else.

Even if people have separate accounts it doesn't have to be some kind of "allowance" situation.

When I wasn't working we had one account for a while which was necessary because my husband was away a lot. But it wasn't great in terms of managing spending, especially for me. So once it wasn't necessary we separated them and arranged things so we each had the right amount for the household spending we managed plus about the same spending money.

I could still access the main account but generally didn't because it might leave my dh short. If one of us needed to buy something that would go over what we had we had to discuss it.

But even people I know who are very well off and can more or less buy what they want tend to do something similar - if they want to spend enough that it will leave them short later they discuss it.

My husband earns a very high wage. We live in the country and I’ve found it very hard to get work (I had a niche, big city type career), so I earn only a small amount of self employment. We have a severely disabled child who I am the full-time carer for and take a huge amount.

My husband is very happy that I provide such good care for our child, however he is very stingy with money. I’m quite proud and used to being self sufficient so even though I’ve asked for more access to funds, he controls it all. I have a credit card that he has to OK every purchase, and a bank card which goes on shopping and I do take our child on holiday, mostly through my earnings, but he questions every single thing, and is visibly stressed if I order stuff online even if it’s dishes for the house.

So people looking in probably assumed and judge that I’m

• lazy


• living a life of Riley having lunches


• able to afford nice clothes and hair etc (I go to the hairdressers twice a year)


• really able to work but just choose not to


• I live in a nice big house, but it’s all surface, in reality the mattress loads of repairs need doing, all the things are old, we have hardly anything in the fridge and I don’t have a car and take the bus everywhere.

It’s really opened my eyes to assumptions about women’s role, and how other women can be quite mean and unsupportive towards those who don’t work and whose husband’s earn a bit. I’d say quite a few, like mine, are actually quite controlling and like me, we can’t wait to get out of there!

You're sort of missing something. We wouldn't just spend the full whack of the salary. It's invested (by me - classed as a SAHM but this involves an asset management role really). So you spend the return on investment rather than just the salary that comes in. I just made £250k profit on a property deal and took a 'bonus' to invest in some personal items. I did not need permission, I just mentioned it. I'll invest/save the rest. Probably people thought my husband bought me the items because that's what they do. I haven't told anyone about this income/deal so they don't know I did it. My husband doesn't care as he knows I'm the financially sensible one and he doesn't have time to run the house/kids/finances. He is terrible with money despite being great at earning it. I earned about £100k pa before we met (way less than him) but invested well and paid off a modest mortgage at age 35 and gained assets which paid all my bills etc. DH earns way more than I did but had barely any assets when we met. I know my family think I do nothing, but the reality is that running our home/property/staff/family is a full time job twice over. We don't earn enough to outsource all my roles - but I'm working on it. I'm too busy earning money to get a 'job'.

In my experience, for the most part, rich couples are just like normal couples but richer. It's likely that both partners have an inherent understanding of what is affordable on their household income and what isn't and some sort of agreement re. levels of spending and savings/investments. You still have norms between you about what level of spend is sustainable. There's a huge range of "wealthy" and a huge difference between being a 250k household and a 2m household. Also most families in this situation don't wake up rich. They get there over time so it's a gradual adjustment to having a higher income.

I didn't 'marry a rich man' because we met in our mid 20s and he was getting out of the military and no money. But he somehow got a job in an investment bank and learned on his feet. By his early 30s, he was getting bonuses of hundreds of thousands. But he hated it and quickly realised he hated working for anyone so left. Since then he's been a serial entrepreneur but when one company sold, his shares were mid double figures millions. He still works as he doesn't know how to stop really, but he invests in all kinds of things and advises companies on growth strategies, funding rounds and IPOs. This kind of thing, as I understand it, but it's very varied these days, is hard to say. I've not worked since we had DC about 18 years ago. Money has always been 100% shared, but I leave investments to him and god knows what he's doing on the City Index and that type of thing. If I ask, I just end up more confused so I've tended not to bother over the years..He's always done all that. I've put a lot into the kids and their educations and also some profitable property renovations over the years. As for my spending, I'm not into designer handbag tat as I'm vegan. I feel stupid in obvious labels and that's not my thing at all. We have our main home in London and other UK properties we let out and two overseas. I have a few pieces of expensive jewellery he's bought me over the years, but otherwise, I would describe myself as low maintenance - make up from Boots; no personal trainer and just my own workouts / running.We have stayed in some nice hotels, but equally might go camping. A lot of money has home in the kids schools and we invest for their futures..He's not into 'stuff' at all, except for his bikes and he has two racing cars and he seems to be increasingly getting into competitive sports as he gets older. But mostly, we just go on walks and eat out where the kids want to go. We know a lot of people in similar circumstances and none of the wives tend to work but they are just normal really.

I hate working and living off my husbands wage would seem like a dream. However it does seem like a very unfair arrangement and if I were the man I would probably feel a bit resentful.

We have a slush fund of just over £100k that we use for any big purchases we can both spend what we like from that and a separate holiday fund.

I thought only 80k was "protected" by the bank?

@CherryBlossomAutumn My heart breaks reading this

Is there any way you could go back to that niche job? Is there a possibility of moving closer to the city so you can slowly get things ready for when you finally make your move? Or just consult a specialist to see how much you can get now etc. and use that money to move to go back to a similar job that you had previously?

Life is too short to live miserably

Dh knows that his success would not be possible without me...

Aye, right.

Dh earns 10x more than myself. We work out what we need for bills and any left over we split.

I don’t know how common the ‘trophy wife’ type scenario you were talking about is any more.

Ambitious, intelligent men want to marry ambitious, intelligent women. So yes, I stopped work for a bit (am now back because I want to be, don’t have to be) and DH out earned me by a lot at the start and now does by even more. But part of the reason he married me was that I am just as educated as he is and have the same attitude to money.

So money is shared and we spend what we want. Of course he knows about big purchases because he is my husband and I talk to him! Not because I have to ‘run it by him’ and more than he has to run big purchases by me.

We discussed all of this before getting married/having kids. I wouldn’t of had children with a man without out agreeing this stuff. The pre nup is pretty clear on this as well - I am entitled to 50% of assets accrued post the marriage date.

with regard to the previous poster questioning the £80 k threshold for the bank guarantee scheme - if it is a joint account then 160k will be covered (assuming they dont have any other accounts with that bank)

Every couple is different. Dp earns loads, I work part time non profit org, I use my money for me mostly (buy a bit of food).

When I was married we had a joint bank account, al exh's earning went in

@StationeryAddiction

Joint accounts work if neither party are financially reckless, I had one for over 20 years from low income to very comfortable over those years. Major expenses are discussed, he trusted me implicitly and despite no longer being together I'm his financial advisor, not kidding I was helping him with investing only Thursday

This was my position when we got married, straight off we had joint accounts, I never had to ask permission to spend on anything. We trusted one another to be fair with our spending.

Marriage is a partnership and if you don't trust each other money wise, I think that's a recipe for disaster, my opinion.

Definitely not married to a rich guy but I'm a SAHM and DH earns decent money so I have an allowance which literally all goes on the kids and their activities and then if I want something, he just pays for it.

OP, the random rich Instagram woman in whom you are so oddly interested has probably made a fortune on Onlyfans.