To ask - does your partner/husband know how much you earn or what you have in savings?

[MerryPinkCritic]

I’ve been thinking about how open people are with their finances in relationships. Some couples share everything, some keep things separate and some… don’t even ask.

So I’m curious, does your partner know what you earn or how much you’ve saved? Do you think it’s healthy to be totally transparent or is some financial privacy important?

Yes. We have investment meetings. Yes, I get all the reports for investments and pensions . Obviously anyone could squirrel money away and DHs ex business partner did trying to hide money from his wife (divorce was pending) but forensic accountants find it. We have a joint account and joint credit card account. Plus a credit card each for holidays. He knows I would leave no stone unturned but we’ve shared everything since 1978.

No because I have a boyfriend rather than a partner. We don’t live together or share finances. He knows how much I earn as I have told him but it’s public sector anyway so he could google it if he wanted to. I have some major outgoings for my children that I think are a good idea long term but I haven’t told him about those as I think it’s my personal family business. So as we don’t share finances I don’t want him giving me an opinion on my financial choices.

He earns a lot more than me but I don’t know how much exactly. Again, i don’t need to know as we don’t share finances.

He knows roughly what I earn but has no idea of my savings.
I'm the main earner, he is in a low paid job, so most of his earnings he keeps for himself, and after I've paid the bills I do what I want with the rest of my money. DH has no idea how many ISAs I have, nor how much I've made on the stock market...he has no real interest in it!

Yes to earnings, yes to savings.

I am sure some people make separate finances work but for us, it wouldn't work. We have quite a complex financial life; multiple properties, multiple mortgages, a couple of the properties are FHLs so that requires a bit of input. It wouldn't work if we were quibbling over which property belonged to which person, who's mortgage is who's etc so we are fully consolidated and in one 'pot'. Fortunately we are fairly similar in our propensity to spend so we do ok.

Yes to earnings but no to savings.

He has a history of addiction so I would prefer he is not aware of what money I have available

No, because we’re not married and don’t live together yet so frankly I don’t feel like he needs to know.

He knows I’m paying off a lot on my CC though and as such I’m limiting my entertainment spending.

We know how much each other earns I know he has no savings and he knows I’m a lot wealthier than him!

we put the same amount into the joint account for the house / bills

Full openness in our house. We both have access codes to each other's personal accounts but mostly we use the same joint account pot. I don't think we've ever had a dispute about money, we are both naturally frugal and talk to each other before large purchases.

We know roughly what each other earns. Savings, aside from pooled savings, not a clue either side I'd say.

Together 25 years, married. Always kept separate finances for a whole myriad of reasons and it's always worked for us.

I have never understood how couples can say ‘I don’t know or they don’t know unless it affects me’.

Every penny spent, saved or invested impacts you as a family as every penny could be used in a different way and to maybe further joint goals. Saying that, I do all the investing and financial management in our house on behalf of DH and the DC but that’s because I was investing long before I met DH. It doesn’t mean he’s locked out of decisions tho. I talk DH through it all though to ensure we are always on the same page regarding what we are trying to achieve.

I think the point about similar attitudes to money is such an important one. You could love someone dearly but if they are shit with money then you might need to keep some things separate. It's not how I would want to live but i might be entirely sensible and necessary.

all our finances are joint. Each one of us can see what is there, what’s coming g in and what out.
with my exH everything was separate and with zero transparency ( I preferred this way as he had bad money habits and I didn’t want this to affect my credit rating).

@MerryPinkCritic For me I think I couldn’t be happy in a marriage where it is all transparent. We have access to all accounts and full transparency

All shared. I’m the higher earner, happy to share. Although we don’t have much, maybe it’s easier.

Very refreshing how many women control the finances, but then that’s perhaps why you’re all answering the question! I don’t believe that’s the average. In my household we both know everything at a high level but we have joint money and personal and I don’t know the detail of what he does with his excess. And that’s fine.

DH and I have joint accounts and some joint and some separate savings (tax and ISA reasons)
He is sensible with money and fortunately now have enough left over at end of month but I am more savvy with finances but he does as ask me about how much we have in various accounts (including his own isa's) when he could perfectly easily find it out for himself 🙄

We completely share everything, all our money is just that ‘ours’. We do give ourselves some ‘pocket money’ each month into our individual accounts for little things/personal items we want/need so we can stick to our budgets but both salaries go into one account then we divvy out from there into other shared accounts for savings/bills/family spending etc.

I can’t get my head around how some couples keep money completely separate but then we have been together from around 18 before either us were properly financially independent so it all just went in one pot - I wonder if you’re used to having your own wages then you want to keep some level of independence??

Me and husband have completely joint finances (although, no join account). We are completely transparent about how much each of us have, how we are spending our money etc. we use each other debit cards if we can't find our own sometimes and we've shown each other our bank accounts on occasion if we're discussing money and have them open.

We've been together since young though, so it's not like each of us has had a separate financial past that we need to reveal to each other, we've just grown and evolved together. I can imagine it might be different if you met later in life.

Yes. We earn similar and both are financially responsible.

Financial security is hugely important to me and i dont want a relationship with money issues so debt or a lack of transparency and shared goals wouldn't work for me.

Same in our house. I earn double DH wage. We have a mad money account each. No questions asked... It's £50 a month😂 so not that mad. But everything else goes in a joint pot, savings split into various savings pots. He has absolutely no clue re bills or internet banking. When we got married, over 25 yrs ago, we knew I would be main wage earner. I do show him the household spreadsheet every few months. All he cares about is, are the bills paid. Do we have enough to continue our nice life. He knows I get palpitations about spending significant money... To be fair I'll uum & ahh over buying a new pair of shoes. We were very hard up when we got together & that feeling of having to be careful has stayed with us both. I fair near had a heart attack a few years back when we moved to a much nicer area & had to add to our mortgage. He did then look at the 'books' carefully & declared we could afford it & was right, we have barely noticed small increase. He says he trusts me implicitly.

I meant it as I can largely buy whatever I want without discussing it first unless it was something such as a weekend away and I needed him to watch DC so it would affect him. Same goes for him.

DH and I share finances completely but I can spend what I want, as can he (obviously within the limits of what we have, but that would be the same whether we shared finances or not. You can only spend what you have)

That's what it is for me. I can't imagine anything worse than 'pocket money' or having to ask if I can buy something with the money I earned just because it's over a certain amount, that just wouldn't work for me in a marriage.

I was 10+ years older than you when I first met DH though and already had my own career.

It seems quite popular to have ''pocket/fun money'' of the same amount or we can buy what we want but above say £100, we discuss it first.

That's what I'm more talking about which wouldn't work for me.

No, it wouldn’t work for me either. We’ve never done it like that