Don't understand 100% joint finances

[Lorendo]

I know I'll get flamed for this but I don't get it when couples only have joint finances and nothing separate.

Me and DH have a joint account to cover joint expenses (house, cars childcare) etc. We each put same in each month as earn similar.

We also have joint saving pots for certain things where we put certain amount into eg holiday, emergency fund, kids stuff.

That's it. Anything left stays in our separate personal accounts for whatever we please.

This seems like a logical way to do it. All joint obligations are sorted together but we still retain independence with what's left.

A friend of mine only does joint. She only works part time so a different situation to us but husband monitors every penny in and out. If she buys something he doesn't agree with or that she didn't clear with him first, he brings it up.

I told her my arrangement and she just said 'yes well we like to manage all the money together, as a team'. Right ok, sounds more like financial abuse than team work but hey ho

Yes but could you spend, I dunno, a grand on clothes out of savings just because you felt like it? Or would your DP go "why did you spend THAT?" if you have your own personal account with the bulk of your money, and your own savings, you can literally spend whatever you want without someone else even knowing. My DP is lovely and not controlling, but I wouldn't want that sort of surveillance on my spending

Not joint here. Nobody gets to tell me what I spend my own leftover money on, ever! He sometimes takes the micky tho, fair enough 😀 I probably do spend more on 'things' than he does, he's far more sensible.

We have savings but also both have money in bonds in case something happened to one of us, it's enough to live on for a year while sorting out all the paperwork.

100% work jointly for us. We pool our resources together because we
are a family.

We don’t do his and her money. We have our money.

it’s fine if you don’t want to do that or cant understand that - but to jump to accusations of financial abuse is absurd.

I don’t understand the financial independence aspect. DH and I have always shared accounts and have a shared credit card. But I consider we are completely financially independent of each other.

We both spend whatever we want. We don’t ask each other to spend money. We don’t monitor each others spending. It’s no different to having separate accounts except we don’t have the faff of having to work out what would be ‘joint expenses’ and put money into somewhere combined.

Together for 33 years, married for 30. Never had a joint account. Never argued about money. We each have our things we pay for and it works for us. I like to be in control of my own finances.

We do completely joint finances but we keep it in separate, multiple accounts. But we view it as one big pot and we can spend on whatever we please, with no comments about spending choices. We don't check with each other before spending any amount, and we don't have to negotiate paying halves on anything or have to take turns paying for something. Things just get paid for and it doesn't matter which account it came from because it's all family money. Most stuff gets put on a credit card and is cleared in full every month. We dont have an actual joint account as it would complicate our tax admin.

25 years of joint finances has never been problematic in our household.

You don’t seem to understand a lot do you? It’s quite simple, different couples like to do things in different ways for myriad reasons. What you really mean is you think you’re in the right and people who do things differently must therefore be in the wrong.

It’s worked for us for 49 years.

"It's no different to having separate accounts"

But it is, because there must be an amount of money you spend on yourself that your DP would notice or comment on - a grand? Five grand? Twenty grand?

With separate personal accounts you can literally spend whatever you want, and whatever you want out of savings, and your partner wouldn't even know to comment on it. It does give you more financial freedom imo

We aren’t worried about our monthly expenses. We are focused on our long term financial goals. Those are best managed with joint finances.

we want to pay for DD’s university and help her a house down payment. We want to retire comfortably. We like to treat our family to the occasional amazing experience.

Neither of us really cares about day to day spending money. We have a general amount over which we talk before we buy something. That amount varies with our financial situation. Otherwise, we just get on with our lives and spend from the joint account. There is no micromanaging.

Financial abuse can happen with joint finances or separate finances. It’s about the people, not where the money is actually held.

Separate accounts here. We don’t even have a joint account for bills. All bills, food and the mortgage get paid out of an account in my name, DH puts 50% of the value in there every month and everything that’s left of our salaries stays in our own accounts. We have roughly the same left over to spend or save as we see fit.
this has worked for us for 20 years. Neither one of us could abide having the other having an opinion on what we spend.

My parents created a joint account back in the 90s. They didn’t have separate accounts for near on 30 years until they switched to Lloyds, who required them to have separate accounts to make a joint account.

With my ex DP we had a joint account that we both put a certain percentage in and savings account for the same thing.
what was left was our individual money to do what we wished with. never Ever regretted when things went south pretty much out of no where after a decade I was able to get me and my kids out easily with my savings. He died shortly after I left and it turned out despite a very good income he had no savings.
With my current DP we have completely seperate finances and I am not willing to change that.

Joint family money here which works for us, together 28 years. We have a similar outlook on money and don’t monitor each others discretionary spending but would check with each other that individual spending wouldn’t stop us doing something we both wanted.

How would you get £1k worth of clothes into your house without him noticing?! Even if I paid individually for something I wouldn’t hide it from him, because there’s no need to.
I wouldn’t spend £1k on clothes, no, because we don’t have that sort of spare, unallocated cash. I wouldn’t have that sort of spare, unallocated cash if we had individual accounts, either.
He has never once asked me, in 16 years, why I’ve spent money on x, y or z, and I’ve never asked him either. We’re both sensible people, we don’t spend more than we can afford to spend so there’s no issue. If we had £1000 left at the end of the month after bills were paid I wouldn’t spend the whole £1000 on myself as that wouldn’t be fair, and neither would he. Equally if we had seperate accounts, I’d only have £500 left at the end of that month so the result is the same really.
We’re both sensible with money, and would rather invest than splurging large amounts on clothing etc. We spend a fair amount on family holidays but obviously discuss them before booking, as we would do regardless of how our finances were organised.

DH and I take very literally “all that I have I share with you” - we regard all money and financial obligations as joint. Having similar attitudes to money, similar financial priorities etc was part of what we considered prior to marriage. We both have full access to all money (despite only one of us currently being in employment) and neither of us nitpicks each other’s spending. Works brilliantly for us and we’re very happy.

You do you.

I should say we do have separate saving and ISAs for tax purposes, although obviously if we were divorce they’d all go into one pot anyway to be split and we still see it as family money. I have access to plenty of money in own name if it was ever needed though.

Or merely irresponsible. My ex husband was awful with money. If everything had been joint then I'd have had no money to pay my bills or feed my kids as he'd have blown the lot as soon as he got paid

100% separate. Husband is a high earner and transfers his entire pay check to me. This covers all our bills - which come out of my account - and both our spending money allowance. My salary goes into savings and isn’t touched. He prefers it this way as he’s terrible with money and would just spend joint money on guitars and games.

"How would you get £1k worth of clothes into your house without him noticing?!"

See I think this speaks to the mentality of joint finances - I never try to hide my spending, however extravagant, as it's MY money (like DP's spending money is his) so it wouldn't even occur to me to try and hide it, it's nothing to do with DP what I spend.

But also you could easily buy three £300 dresses and that'd be about a grand and not actually look like much.

The point I'm making is that with 100% joint finances there's always going to be an element of surveillance on what you spend (whether what you consider a "high" is £100, £1000 or £20,000 is probably due to your income - but there will be an amount spent your partner WILL question you on). With separate finances you're just never going to have that kind of scrutiny - you each have your own money to do as you please with

No, there is literally no limit that we check with each other on. And we have never commented on the other’s spending.

It’s just about being an adult, you look at what’s in the accounts and if you can afford to spend then you do, if you can’t then you don’t.

Recent relevant examples, I spent a lot of money to pay for an extended overseas holiday. I don’t ‘agree’ that with DH. I had told him prior I was going on holiday so that he knew dates I’d be away out of courtesy (as would be weird to come home one day and find me gone for several weeks🤣), but I never discussed money with him or how much it would cost. A few months back I got a message from DH checking if I knew of any remaining work or invoices for some significant house repairs we were having. I responded ‘no, all paid, nothing further, why?’. He responded he was getting a computer (and anything like that he gets high end, top range) and looking at the account and with the huge chunk gone for repairs, was deciding whether to get it that month or the following month so wanting to know if I knew if there was any more bills to come or unpaid (as I was the one dealing with the repairs on that occasion). I didn’t ask cost of computer as it’s not my concern. Again, it’s just about being a financially responsible adult, which having joint accounts doesn’t prohibit.

We are completely joint and discuss big purchases with zero issues.

No, I like to feel financially independent plus I'm very tight fisted. We'd be making a mumsnet chicken last two weeks if I was in charge of spending.

We both pay for adhoc stuff as we go- petrol, etc but the monthly bills we share. He earns more than me so pays a bit more. My costs are higher, hair cuts etc which he takes into account.

No, DH never comments on my purchases at all. It might need some discussion to shift money around but I'd need to do that even if I were single as I don't keep very high balances in my spending accounts.