To think women need not disclose exact savings to partners?

[ByWorthyGreyOrca]

I think it’s reasonable for a woman to maintain some financial privacy, even in a relationship.
For example, saying you have savings feels sufficient but I’m not sure the exact amount always needs to be disclosed. For me, it’s more about independence and having a sense of security.

AIBU?

What would you call someone you have been in a relationship with for 15yrs? I can't say boyfriend as i'm in my 50's 😂

YANBU. If mortgage, bills, food etc all come out of the joint pot, then you don’t need to discuss personal savings.

However, this assumes parity in earnings.

Where one partner/spouse is a SAHP or earns significantly less, then the earning partner having all the savings and not disclosing them can be financial control.

I think YANBU. There needs to be transparency for any joint financial stuff like if you're both purchasing a home etc that you each give an indication of what's feasible for you each to contribute but that could be coming from any of your savings accounts that you're happy to contribute from and others you may want to keep solely for yourself. I have some savings that are solely mine and I wouldn't want to be giving someone an exact breakdown of them mostly cos they can fluctuate based on if I'm choosing to use some savings to pay for something I want. They're not secret but I do consider them private. Especially as a woman, I think it's important to have at least one savings account that solely an emergency fund for yourself.

My dp keeps asking me about my savings. Every month he"ll ask if I've added to my savings acc. He is and has always been a great saver. He thinks it' really important for both of us to have our own, as well as joint savings.

Every single person should have some money saved in order to get away if needed - I wouldnt tell a partner about this savings account. I will tell my son and daughter to keep a private savings account for this very reason. No one should be kept in abusive relationships due to finances and I will ensure my children never have that.

I have a very different view of finances from most of MN who see things as joint. I have never had fully joint money even when I was with my children's father. I wanted to maintain my financial freedom and I would encourage everyone else to do so. Obviously if you are married and get divorced then you'll have to disclose but no, I won't ever fully disclose my financial situation to anyone because I don't want to.

If both people in the relationship have the same opinion for it to go both ways then I don’t see a problem. If the couple then goes on to marry and still both keeping savings secret it would be more difficult because when buying a house or paying for a wedding how do you know what each other can afford to contribute?

People seem to forget that marriage is a financial contract. You don’t have to disclose anything to your “partner” but probably sensible to ensure that they can pay their half of the bills if you live together. But you’d be very naive to enter into marriage if you don’t know your future spouse’s financial situation so yes, if you intend to marry someone or are married you should absolutely disclose your finances.

I think privacy is being conflated with secrecy.
You can be honest about what you can contribute, your general financial position and your goals, without feeling obliged to disclose every exact balance in every account.

She has independence and a sense of security.

He is financially abusive

One of those verbs with irregular conjugation again

If you also think a man shouldn't disclose the amount he has in savings to his partner then absolutely fine.

If not, then why?

Imagine a man posting this…

I was going to say the same as this.

is it ok for a man to be vague about the amount of savings he has?

No secretes in my house. We don’t tell each other monthly but he knows ball park. We have financial independence. Only cause I would be resentful if he spent our joint money on football or gadgets. Same with me spending on clothes. after bills which we have a joint account for, our money is our own.

He doesn’t save as much as me, despite earning more than me. I do save. He invests a lot in pensions. I have nhs one.

I know how much he earns, will hopefully have when he retires and he knows same about me. I also know if he dies first my only inheritance from him his our house. Rest goes to his kids and vice versa.

If we separate we will be financially secure by ourselves.

Yeah it's not much of his business. But I earn slightly more which I suspect would make a difference to the transparency now women.

He doesn't need to know how much I spend on wine and Botox it would stress him.

I just don’t see how this works in practice in a long term relationship when you’re thinking about things like a new car, new house, renovating, holidays, emergency planning e.g. boiler. “I have savings” could mean £20 or £20,000 and without knowing which it is you can’t know how to plan or how secure things are. We’re married and our savings are joint as is everything else so when we needed a new car we knew what we could afford, when our boiler went we knew we didn’t have to worry because we had the money there, if we had worked off of “I have savings” those conversations would have been very different.

If we’re talking early stages relationship then yeah, have that privacy. But once you’re talking married, kids, a shared life/house/finances, “I have savings” is just making things more difficult every time something crops up.

At the start of every month I send my husband a text message with my different savings accounts amounts and he sends me one back with the total amount we have between us. Good for us to see where we are at. I would be annoyed if my husband had money he hid from me.

I think it's absolutely fine.

DH and I have been together for nearly 30 years. He doesn't know how much I have in savings. I don't know how much he has. I can have an educated guess and I suspect I have around 100-150 times the amount he has.

We have similar salaries - he earns maybe 75% of what I do. I pay slightly more in terms of bills right now and paid 50% of the cost of our current house with the profit from mine. He paid zero %. We jointly pay the remaining mortgage, although I have paid some chunks off recently and it's almost paid now. Neither of us goes without.

He already feels bad enough that I outearn him. I'm not sure that knowing how much I inherited from my parents when his parents only had a council house and a tough life with no savings is going to make him feel any better. He must have a good idea though.

The money is there if/when we need it and/or will be used to support our children. Beyond that it makes no material difference to him.

if you are not married you don’t need to give them details. When I have been pushed and pressed I have always given lower figure if I know their savings and they are lower than mine will say I have about the same. I have been burned - these days men are the gold doggers

What are you hiding from him that you don’t want him to know? Doesn’t say much about your marriage.

We’re married, all money is joint money and we both know how much is in our joint savings and individual savings and have visibility over each others accounts. Amongst other things marriage is a financial contract, if we split we each get half anyway whether it’s hidden in a secret account or not so we may as well know what we have to play with.

It's not that hard tbh, when a new boiler or car is needed you already know the ballpark of what you need to put towards it surely? I think if the savings are personal savings (which is allowed within a marriage) then their amount is irrelevant as long as you're both fairly contributing to a shared savings goal, our own personal savings goals are our own. Some months I save more than others as I like to shop whereas my partner is a constant saver and rarely buys anything, but we don't police each others personal financial choices as long as we're both pulling our weight to our joint ventures. I don't want to hear we can afford X because they know I have it in one of my savings account or have to explain to anyone if I choose to spend some of my own savings on something I want for myself that my partner wouldn't be interested in.

That's not necessarily the case with inherited money.