to refuse to allow my DH to set up his own savings account linked to our joint account

[BlueberryBelle]

My DH has just told me that he plans to set up a savings account where he will get a large sum of money at the end of the 12-month term (due to high interest rate). The account is linked to our joint account which is how he can set it up.

I have a solo account with this bank and he banks elsewhere.

He thinks I’m being unreasonable by saying we should both benefit from the account by us both putting money into the account equally, as it is linked to our joint account. His reason is that I can set up my own savings account linked to my solo account with this bank.

My view is that we previously had a savings account linked to my solo account which we equally contributed to and benefited from at the end of the 12-month term. In the meantime, he had set up a similar savings account linked to our joint account which he and his siblings contributed to and benefited from. I wasn’t aware of this until later on and objected, as I’d had no say. This is the jarring issue with me.

For information, we both put equal amounts of money into our joint account every month and joint bills are paid from it. Our personal accounts are for our own use and are not discussed.

AIBU to think he should find his own savings account and not link his personal account to our joint account (where only he benefits).

Y - you should allow him to link his personal savings account to the joint account.

N - he should find his own separate savings account.

This is it exactly. Thank you.

I put ‘us’ first.

He puts himself and his family first.

I don’t, personally, feel there’s anything petty about that.

i can't make head or tail if any of this. Is this your husband or not? Why would he need separate money to his wife?

The issue is you are living as separate entities and there is no trust. Not this account or that account. I'm sorry, but this is no marriage.

YABU - and bizarre. Essentially you just want him to lose out rather than get the benefit of the higher savings account. There is no downside to you of him using it as you have access to one with the same rate yourself.

Thank you all for your contributions - whether you’ve agreed with me or not.

Our joint savings account will now be used by both of us (and benefit our nuclear family)

I’m going to set up one linked to my solo account.

I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with being financially independent. We both contribute equally to our household and have our separate sole accounts to do with our money as we see fit. I’m happy with that arrangements.

Do you understand what is going on here? Why should one person in a parnernership profit over the other effectively taking money put of the nuclear faniliy's pocket, and not for the first time. Op have you checked your mortgage statement to make sure it is up to date and that there are no other accounts you dont know about. Financial secrecy /dishonestly combined with your current set up would indicate to me someone who would sacrifice your nuclear family in a heartbeat.

Thank you for understanding.
Yes, we’ve just remortgaged.
But… it’s made me realise I need to be more financially astute.

If you have separate finances, who pays for the kids when you're out and about? If you're out for dinner, do you split the bill? Is this not embarrassing?

Then he is being unreasonable.

You have two accounts with the same bank, your individual account and the joint one. You can only have one savings account per current account.

He has used the savings account entitlement linked to your individual account to benefit both of you, and wants to use the savings account entitlement linked to your joint account to benefit himself alone.

It should be the other way around. The savings account linked to your joint account should be for both of you and the savings account linked to your individual account should be for you alone.

Not embarrassing at all.
It comes out of our joint account. We both have cards linked to the joint account.
We also both have separate accounts which our salaries go into.
we put a set (and equal) amount of money into our joint account every month.

If you contribute equally, are your earnings also equal?

Why doesn't he just open his own account with the bank?

Why does he have to link through you.

Op anyways....have you got a stock's and shares ISA?

If not open one and get going with it.
Apologies if you are already set up but look at index funds, vanguard etc.
Leave these bank accounts behind you,they will pale into complete insignificance once you get going with it and you will feel pity for them.

This "benefit" is simply that the bank pays an enhanced interest rate on a saving account linked to your joint current account?

Usually the balance in those accounts is limited, so how can we be taking about a "large" sum?

The whole situation seems ridiculous to me. I understand keeping finances separate but this level of separation in a marriage? Why would you begrudge the man you're married to access to a decent interest rate, especially when you can do the same if you want to anyway? And why would he be wanting to do it all insecret?

As so often, I doubt this is really about the account. It's not secret savings, but where the money is to be saved that seems to be the issue.

Great advice. As I said, I need to be more financially astute. So any advice is welcome. No apologies needed 😊

OP, I think you are getting quite worked up about something which, in principle, you are completely correct about, but in practical terms, is a very small thing. To me, what you're telling us here isn't that you feel annoyed with your husband for making a very small financial gain at your expense, but because of his attitude towards money more generally.

Two things are jumping out at me here.

The first is that whilst he is happy to use your money to benefit the family, e.g. by having a joint savings account linked to your individual account to get a better savings rate, he sees his money as his money alone, which has nothing to do with you. Opening a savings account linked to your joint account for the benefit of himself and his siblings without even telling you is secretive. At best, it suggests that he doesn't think his money is any of your business, and at worst, it suggests that he actively wants to keep you in the dark about his personal finances.

The second thing is that your joint expenditure comes out of the joint account, to which you both contribute equally. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I bet your husband earns more than you - possibly substantially more than you. Not just because you're a woman, but because his attitude over this suggests to me that if you were earning more than him, he'd want you to be contributing more than 50% to the joint account, but if you're earning less than him, he's happy for it to be 50/50.

If you earn less than him, he has more disposable income than you because he is putting a lower proportion of his salary into the joint account each month, leaving him with more money for savings, investments and fun stuff just for him. It also means that, should you ever divorce, he's probably sitting on a much bigger pile of personal cash than you are, with which to pay a shit hot lawyer to get him the best possible financial settlement.

If you earn less than him, why is that? Do you or have you ever worked part time to look after children? Have you ever been a stay at home parent? Have you ever had a period where you earned less than usual or nothing at all due to being on maternity leave? If so, even if he made more of a financial contribution during that time, I bet he wasn't paying your pension contributions, was he?

If you earn less than him, how do household chores get divided? Does he do an equal share of childcare? Cooking? Cleaning? Laundry? How do you divide these things up? Because if you do more of the "wife work" on the grounds that he earns more money, but he's still expecting you to contribute 50% towards your shared expenses, he is profiting from your unpaid labour.

Maybe I'm projecting here, but his attitude towards the savings accounts plus the fact that you each contribute 50% towards the joint account when it is extremely unlikely that you both earn exactly the same salary suggest to me that some of these other things are also likely to be true.

And if that's the case, you have a bigger problem than who is getting the interest on this savings account.

1).read about Jack Bogle and vanguard. Doesn't take long and explains his motives behind his vanguard company.
I would stick to vanguard or similar whilst starting out.
They are basically funds which own a little of everything eg .some tech stocks, medical stuff....car stuff ( Tesla) loads of things so if one sector takes a hit, you are ok because your invested in so many sectors and these are sold across the world.
2) choose a platform, where will you invest through. I'm with best invest which doesn't have an app and Hargreaves and landsown which does. Either will be ok to start with but have slightly higher fees than others.
I think h and l is very good for a beginner because of the app.

3. I am no expert but I'm leaning that no one is in this sector. I'm invested in a range of vanguard fund's eg the FTSE 100 which means I own a little of all the best companies in the UK. I'm also invested through vanguard in the American stock market (the best). I have a vanguard life strategy fund 100% equities eg stocks not bonds. Then I have small gamble fund's like Scottish mortgage.

Op last year's Scottish mortgage went over 100% return. My mistake was to not cream off that amazing profit! Eg 2 grand grew to 6 .

I should have taken 3 and put into a more stable vanguard fund. It soared because of heavyweight with Tesla.

For you I would start with a few hundred into a vanguard life strategy, you are young so go with 100 equity. And one or two more vanguard fund's at least one in the us stock market.

My ISA of stocks even through all the recent problems didn't go below 10% and is normally around 28 %.

As a sharper comparison my DC have two ISA.
One in cash at nationwide and one stocks and shares through the platform Hargreaves and landsown.
Nationwide paid the grand sum of about 200? 2.5 % or 3%. The ISA stock and shares is 15% ish.
You won't look back.

It's also all low at the moment and a very very good time to buy!

I agree I’ve got worked up over something that’s small. But it’s the wider picture is about our priorities. That is the key issue here.

I’ve never worked part time but was off on maternity for a year for each of our children, where he fully contributed.
At the same time, when he was made redundant, I fully contributed. So I’d say it’s been fairly equal.

In terms of earnings, it’s been fairly equal over the years. I currently earn slightly more than him but I would say I’m fairly lax when it comes to finances and let him deal with bills etc.

Brilliant advice here. Thank you!

Good and the biggest barrier to investing is "procrastination" and getting started.

Once it's open you can easily add Money so jump that hurdle!

Just link a savings account to your current account with them . You both benefit

Why should one person in a parnernership profit over the other effectively taking money put of the nuclear faniliy's pocket, and not for the first time.

But he isn't taking a single penny from joint money, or hers, as I understand it. I mean, my understanding is probably wrong, because it all makes no sense. She keeps talking about "benefit", if by "benefit" she meant money, then she would probably use the word "interest." As far as I can tell, she is pissed off because he wants to use something of theirs in a way that takes away nothing from her at all.

In my understanding of what is proposed, everyone at all times only gets interest on their own money, no-one is getting interest on anyone else's money. She simply doesn't want a tool (an account) that she sees as belonging to her to be used by someone else.

Yes I agree, it's not that he is putting joint money into sole savings (which would be wrong) but it's he gets higher interest than he'd normally get

So sort of equivalent to him using her staff discount on stuff for him/his family rather than only joint family shopping (assuming that was allowed under the staff discount scheme and there wasn't a maximum spend)

There is no logical loss to op. It's just feeling wrong to her for sone reason that we are not getting.

I have no idea how you got to this conclusion. He wants to personally profit from a jointly owned asset. So his Intension is to prevent her acess to 50% of interest no matter how small. He has done this before so knows what he is doing. He set up an account and allowed his siblings to benefit. The money is not the biggest rest flag here, hs mindset is.

What is stopping him for getting his own account with that bank? And legally, because it is a joint account, she is entitled to take all the money from it if she wishes. The money in it is jointly owned, regardless of who deposits it. He needs to go sort out his own higher-rate savings account if he doesn't want her to have any say in what he does.

And yet the joint account is also his to use, so why should he need to go and get his own account do to exactly the same thing? Clearly he doesn’t distrust the OP as he’s happy to use the joint account for his savings knowing full well she could withdraw the money at any time. They’ve also previously used an account in OPs sole name for joint savings, which he would have no direct access to. OP is the one with the trust/possession issues…

Because it's not exclusively his account. It is also her account and she would like them both to use it. Would you say the same thing if it was a family car? Or any other possession. "It belongs to us both, but you are not allowed to use it. Only my siblings and I will drive it."