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

We pool everything. All the bills etc come out of the joint account. We divide up the disposable part so that we both have exactly the same to spend as we wish.

We have very different lifestyles and spending habits. I save monthly but am also quite impulsive and have the “treat yo’self, you work hard and only have one life mentality”. He will see something he likes and think it over for weeks before he buys it (even a small purchase of £30 or so)

I think this captures exactly why I prefer separate finances! (Aside from the general feeling of freedom/privacy/fairness.)

Overall we both have a sensible approach to money and have no complaints or worries about the other's spending habits, but I will research and overthink every single purchase whereas DH will just buy something efficiently. On the other hand he will tend to buy things based on value for money or cheapness, whereas I'll attempt to buy based on quality, even if that means paying more.

I can't say either of us are wrong or right - sometimes his cheap thing breaks in two months and I'll be like, well you should've done your research and bought the better one. And sometimes my "quality" thing isn't and he'll say, the basic thing would've done the job just as well. It all evens out but the point is it's better to have those conversations after the fact than before making any purchases.

Your comments don’t justify your statement. Joint finances is completely separate to financial abuse and controlling behaviour.
We have no joint accounts but all our money is considered family money and I manage it all. I don’t ask DH to justify his spending and he doesn’t monitor me at all. We do voluntarily discuss any significant purchases before committing.

Hilarious. I was never made to share my pay with DH, I wanted to as thought it was more sensible for us. No abuse whatsoever, and I’m very happy for the $$ to be ours vs mine. I don’t believe I’m abusing him by sharing what he earns either 🤷‍♀️.

What would give me the ick is fucking around trying to work out what payments are his, what payments are mine, using separate accounts and pots again for joint household expenses. How that would have even worked with kids I have no idea. What a logistical nightmare. I have absolutely zero capacity for such faffing.

We’ve been together over 50 years and have always had joint finances. There’ve been times when he’s had no income, times when I’ve had no income, times we’ve been well off, times we’ve really struggled, but never a question of who’s paying what or who’s putting more into the pot. Or arguments about who’s spent what either. We decide big household spends between us and in lean times we’ve both appreciated that we’ve had to rein our spending in.

Do what works for you and let others do the same. If the system you’ve chosen doesn’t work for you, then the problem lies with your relationship, not the system.

You say you wanted to have joint finances with your partner, have you ever considered that your feelings on the matter were somewhat influenced by a patriarchal society that expects us as women to share the product of our labour with other people in order to feel good about ourselves?

Ok, so in the situation I outlined below would you say that I’m financially abusing my husband?

We only have separate accounts, never had a joint account in 16 years together. We both earn roughly the same amount and all expenses are shared. We both pay bills, eg DH pays the electricity bill, I pay the car insurance. We transfer half the amount of each bill via standing order. We put all daily expenses on an app for shared spending and once a month the one who's in debt will pay the other off. We probably spend about 5 minutes a month on our finances!
It's worked well for us, we're both very thrifty and not interested in a lavish lifestyle so a joint account would probably work just as well. However, I don't really see the advantage of a joint account if both partners are working and earning enough to fund their lifestyle.

Joint here and married more than 40 years. When we got married straight out of uni, we had nothing. So it made sense to pay everything into one account as there was literally nothing extra left over - it was one big juggling act.

We do have the same attitude towards money though - we’ve been too poor and worked too hard to waste it. Hand on heart we’ve never argued over money.

When I was at home with the children for two years or went back part time, it really helped that everything just came out of the joint account.

Now we have more money we never query what the other spends - but then we never did.

How is it financial abuse? definition: someone else controlling your spending or access to cash, assets and finances

I can spend what I want, I have full insight. In fact, I manage the finances. I earn more so by contributing freely we can have a better quality of life than if we both had to live on the equivalent of his salary (in terms of house, holidays etc.).

I think it's financial abuse when men don't do joint finances, expect the woman to contribute 50:50 but then also expect them to stay home or go part time or generally don't support their career. That is controlling her access to finance.

This.

What in fuck are you on about? No, there was zero of that. Thanks for thinking I’m so stupid I’d just do whatever for no reason though, I do think things through believe it or not🙄. I just thought it was sensible for me because there was and is no way that I wanted to spend even one second trying to work things out otherwise, such as who owed what for what for the house, groceries, bills, kids, holidays. No way I was faffing about with different accounts to make all of that work. THAT was my big influence, nothing to do with whatever you are rabbiting on about.

I couldn’t be bothered with separating everything to cover bills. It all goes in the same account and comes out the same account. It’s whatever works best for you I guess.

I always thought it odd to buy Birthday and Christmas presents for each other out of joint finances. Not having any money of your own just seems uncomfortable to me. We did semi-joint as in joint account for bills and individual accounts for personal spending. Now we are a bit better off we are totally separate and each pay some of the bills. Whatever works for you really.

We have joint finances AND I have financial independence. I don't have to ask my OH if I can buy something, just because we have a joint account.

My husband earns 50% more than I do, I typically spend more than he does but neither of us are particularly spendy and we both know what sort of disposable budget we have (not a lot after we pay for the kids' stuff!). We prioritise together, and make any larger decisions together, but we are fortunate enough to be in the position where we don't have to check in with each other before going out for lunch or buying a pair of shoes.

This originally happened as we are immigrants and when we moved over it was a massive faff to get a bank account. I was job hunting so I was doing all the shopping to set up our flat, and he was the only one working for the first month. So we just kept it all in one account and have never changed it. We both work and can support ourselves so if either of us has a breakdown and clears the account and walks away, it isn't a massive disaster for a while and our families would be terribly embarrassed and absolutely do whatever was needed to support the kids. I know it's naive to say it would 'never' happen but we both work hard and have options if it does. It's one of the reasons I have always worked - we have a nicer life pooled together, but I can take care of myself and my kids if I need to.

I can't see how either of us is a victim of the patriarchy or in any way abusing each other. In a lot of ways, we are just too lazy to think about it too much so having one account to keep track of is the easiest option!

I think with the presents is the thought for me rather than the cost so makes no difference that the money comes from our joint acc. If I want jewellery or a handbag etc etc I could just go buy it but I appreciate it when he finds something I like. I value our life together, our team like approach and building a future together. Having a separate account so the Xmas presents come from each other seems like a lot of work - if it’s that transactional wouldn’t you both just swop a voucher for the same amount?!

We have always had joint finances. We both used to get a certain amount of fun money we could do whatever we liked with - I used to buy lots of clothes, dh used to buy tech. The rest of the money was pooled and we agreed what we spend it on. 27 years later I’m proud to say we’ve never argued over money. We don’t bother with the personal budgets anymore - neither of us takes the piss and we aren’t on the breadline but dh does monitor the spend to ensure we have enough cash available to finance our plans - if we didn’t, we’d both agree how to pull back on spending.
My parents had separate finances as did one of my friends and who paid for what was always a source of arguments. Life’s too short to argue about money, so if you have an approach that allows both of you to feel happy who cares?

YABU because different approaches work for different couples. DH and I have had joint finances for nearly 30 years, it works for us. We have a similar approach to money, I’m the bigger spender if anything but we trust each other and we live within our means.

Your friend has a controlling DH issue, that goes way beyond finances I imagine!

But he could transfer all the savings and money into his own account and leave you with nothing!

What works for one doesn't necessarily work for another.
Our money is all joint.
I work full time, DH can't work due to health reasons. His benefits barely cover the grocery bill.
So it all goes in a joint account so DH can buy something if he wants without worrying about it or having to ask me for it.

We do 100% joint and it works because we're both equally crap with money, and complete bloody pushovers.

We view our money as one big pot so although ISAs and investments are in separate names, it's all part of the household pool. For us, those are for long term saving, and so far we've only spent some on housing which is obviously a household expense, and we'll spend it on other major life expenses and retirement which we see as family expenses. We each manage our own investment choices (I have a higher risk tolerance than DH) and that doesn't affect it being part of our family's long-term savings pot.

When DH and I got married we pooled all our money and have had a joint account now for over 40 years.

Sometimes he's earned more, sometimes I've earned more. All the money has always been both of ours.

We get on, we share the same values and views on spending, money, material things, savings. Any big expenses (holidays, new cars) we talk about in advance as I suppose couples who have separate finances do.

In over 40 years it's never been a problem, we've never fallen out about it, neither of us has ever felt we didn't have total freedom to spend as we wish. Our pensions get paid into that account now.

Oh, and I'm not working and DH has a fairly good salary, that he is very firm, as he always has been, is 'our' money.