Joint Account

jamief · 1 Dec 2009 at 14:20

Surely, assuming you and your other half are rational, sensible people who discuss things, the only sensible options is one account, all monies go in, all bills come out, if you want to buy something smallish then buy it, if it is expensive then you discuss it with the other person? I've worked that way for years with my wife and it works perfectly. Assuming of course, you respect each other.

[DOD]Asprilla · 1 Dec 2009 at 14:25

If you are both rational, sensible people who discuss things, they why only have one account? I respect my wife, that's why I trust her with the money she has earned to do what she wants with it without having to consult me all the time.

As long as there is sufficient to cover bills in the joint account and we have sufficient savings for holidays and such like between us then what's the issue?

britboy4321 · 1 Dec 2009 at 14:27

[DOD]Asprilla;15434999 said:
If you are both rational, sensible people who discuss things, they why only have one account? I respect my wife, that's why I DON'T trust her with the money I have earned to do what she wants with it.

Fixed

The issue is that if she needs access to your money for something important -- and you're unavailable to give authorisation -- she PHYSICALLY CAN NOT GET THE MONEY! Which means -- you don't trust her to make that judgement call with your money until she's had to a little 'justification speech' to you -- at which point you judge her worthyness to the cash (otherwise -- why have your authority required at all? The only reason to possible have it is to physically stop her being able to get the money!!)!

[DOD]Asprilla · 1 Dec 2009 at 14:33

britboy4321 said:
Fixed

The issue is that if she needs access to your money for something important -- and you're unavailable to give authorisation -- she PHYSICALLY CAN NOT GET THE MONEY! Which means -- you don't trust her to make that judgement call with your money until she's had to a little 'justification speech' to you -- at which point you judge her worthyness to the cash (otherwise -- why have your authority required at all? The only reason to possible have it is to physically stop her being able to get the money!!)!

Hey, if you or your partner can't manage your funds sufficiently that you need someone to help then that's your issue.

Mrs Asprilla has all the disposable income she needs and I have all that i need. If one of use needs more then we discuss it and money gets moved as required. In fact, at the moment she's got a lot more money in the bank that I have.

If it were a joint account and the expenditure was that great then I would expect either of us to consult the other anyway before making a decision, regardless of where the money located. It's simply not an issue for anyone but you. I'm beginning to suspect that you are the one with trust issues, which is why you demand transparency of everything.

CrimsonAvenger · 1 Dec 2009 at 14:34

1 joint account. Both have our own accounts.

We split the bills 55% to 45% based on salaried income.

We did this before we were married and subsequently.

LiE · 1 Dec 2009 at 14:34

jamief said:
Surely, assuming you and your other half are rational, sensible people who discuss things, the only sensible options is one account, all monies go in, all bills come out, if you want to buy something smallish then buy it, if it is expensive then you discuss it with the other person? I've worked that way for years with my wife and it works perfectly. Assuming of course, you respect each other.

I find it best to keep bills and money left over in 2 separate accounts. It's a slippery slope when you spend from the same account as important bills.

britboy4321 · 1 Dec 2009 at 14:35

[DOD]Asprilla;15435032 said:
Hey, if you or your partner can't manage your funds sufficiently that you need someone to help then that's your issue.

She has all the disposable income she needs and I have all that i need. If one of use needs more then we discuss it and money gets moved as required. In fact, at the moment she's got a lot more money in the bank that I have.

You put up a legal barrier to her getting your money if you are unable to authorise it yourself for whatever reason (emergency? Bank error means her account is locked temporarily? -- Tough luck -- no she still can't have the money if I am unavailable - make her do without.). I have not.

I think that sentence alone says a lot about the amount of trust involved here ..

[DOD]Asprilla · 1 Dec 2009 at 14:38

britboy4321 said:
I think that sentence alone says a lot about the amount of trust involved here ..

Or perhaps you don't trust your partner with her money and you want to control it rather then let her spend it how she wishes. I think that says a lot about the amount of trust involved here...

Spike_UK · 1 Dec 2009 at 14:40

No joint account here.

We've got a mortgage and bills but still no need for a joint account.
Joint accounts just seem to cause "issues" from what I've seen.

We balance all the bills so that neither of us are short of cash. If one of us does end up being short one month, then we'll send money to each other to top up.

britboy4321 · 1 Dec 2009 at 14:41

[DOD]Asprilla;15435064 said:
Or perhaps you don't trust your partner with her money and you want to control it rather then let her spend it how she wishes. I think that says a lot about the amount of trust involved here...

With a joint account you both have access to the money. And we have no 'justify your expenses and I'll be judge and jury and rule on it and whether I give you the amount you need from my personal stash' discussions thank you very much!! That'd be aweful! 'I hereby judge you worthy of my charity .. well done'?!?!?! To a life partner?!?!

It's a partnership. A single unit called 'family'. If you don't understand -- you probably never will. Its not me vs her its me AND her. It's hard to explain ..

LiE · 1 Dec 2009 at 14:44

As long as both involved are happy, it's all good.

[DOD]Asprilla · 1 Dec 2009 at 14:45

britboy4321 said:
With a joint account you both have access to the money. And we have no 'justify your expenses and I'll be judge and jury and rule on it and whether I give you the amount you need from my personal stash' discussions thank you very much!! That'd be aweful! 'I hereby judge you worthy of my charity .. well done'?!?!?! To a life partner?!?!

It's a partnership. A single unit called 'family'. If you don't understand -- you probably never will. Its not me vs her its me AND her. It's hard to explain ..

We do have a joint account. It's for mortgage, bills, food shopping and such. However we also maintain our own current and savings accounts.

We get paid into our own accounts and then I top up the joint current account and Mrs Asprilla does whatever she wants with her money and I do whatever I want with what's left of mine.

We both have savings so if we want to buy something big, like a new car, we'll discuss it and then one of us will buy it from our own savings, or we may choose to buy it together by pooling our savings. Where the money comes from doesn't imply ownership, everything is 'ours'.

Oh, and we have been married for 5 years, own our own home and have a daughter and we are all very happy. We are a family, but we aren't joined at the hip and we maintain our own independence to a certain extent.

There appears to be only one person being judgmental here and that's you. In fact I've said all along that the reason we maintain our own accounts is that you don't have to justify your personal expenditure and you keep saying that we do; it's almost like you aren't actually reading my posts.

RDM · 1 Dec 2009 at 14:49

britboy4321 said:
With a joint account you both have access to the money.

Don't tell the bank but even with single accounts my wife can still access the money if she needs to. As she had to when I was in hospital and we were in the middle of buying a car...

Why are you so concerned that your way is right and any other way is wrong? A joint account for the bills and single accounts for spending cash has worked fine for my wife and I for the last 15 years. Others prefer just a joint account. Whatever works for the couple, neither is right or wrong and neither is insulting to the other person.

britboy4321 · 1 Dec 2009 at 14:54

Yes nothing is right or wrong I'm just being a big load of devil's advocate because I'm bored at work so prefer having a heated chat occassionally for the fun of it. Just thought I'd try and argue it through mainly for fun and for interesting discussion like I have down t'pub -- as in not all 'nicely nicely'.

Of course any system that works for the couple, works for the couple. I'm only having fun arguing and I got a bit heated so for that I apologise. I was kind of in a sick way enjoying the argument but then I got a bit insulting I guess so that was my bad I am sorry. Just a heated discussion, which I actually did upon self-analysis for entertainment

So moving on, the worst system I ever heard was a guy that gave his wife an 'allowance' based on how 'good she'd been the preceeding week'. Burnt the dinner on Tuesday? £15 off the allowance as 'punishment'. And yes -- it extended to the bedroom

So, do you accept my apology for suddenly lunging at your jugular for no really good reason? Feel a little embarrassed about it...

No1newts · 1 Dec 2009 at 14:58

Me and the lass have our joint account from which pretty much everything comes out of. Mortgage, Bills, Car payments, food, anything else to do with the house and pretty much anything we do together jointly. We also have a joint savings account, we do no saving seperate of eachother.

But we also have our own current accounts which about £350 of our wages go into each month for when we go out on the booze or want to buy stuff solely for ourselves. Works perfectly and never had even the slightest arguement about money once. Makes it simpler to control our finances as we can plan how much we will spend on clothing, drinking and the rest i.e. £700 every month and so we can plan what to do with the rest of our money.

DannyDan · 1 Dec 2009 at 15:00

Same as a lot of the others in here, we have seperate current/savings accounts and a joint account for bills and general household expenditure.

jamief · 1 Dec 2009 at 15:01

britboy4321 said:
With a joint account you both have access to the money. And we have no 'justify your expenses and I'll be judge and jury and rule on it and whether I give you the amount you need from my personal stash' discussions thank you very much!! That'd be aweful! 'I hereby judge you worthy of my charity .. well done'?!?!?! To a life partner?!?!

It's a partnership. A single unit called 'family'. If you don't understand -- you probably never will. Its not me vs her its me AND her. It's hard to explain ..

Agree completely.

I don't take the **** and neither does my wife.

If I want a game or something, I'll buy it. Were I buying 10 games a month, it might be an issue, but I think I'm fairly sensible.

If I wanted to spend £500 on something (and not your typical single-geek type "ooh I must upgrade lolz" type stuff) then we discuss it and unless its something ridiculous, it isn't an issue. The same applies vice-versa, and its worked quite nicely for the past 4 or so years we've shared an account.

Khrest · 1 Dec 2009 at 16:05

We have a joint account.

My wages are paid into it.

Her wages are paid into her personal account.

Hang on a mo......I'm missing something here.....

Vonhelmet · 1 Dec 2009 at 22:03

Everything goes into the joint account. Set amounts of spending money go out into personal accounts for personal use.

z3b3dy · 1 Dec 2009 at 22:22

Multiple joint and current accounts between us. It starts to get interesting when you're dealing with 4 different currencies.

Also we have friends here in Moscow who've been married for years but when you go out to dinner with them they still split the bills and work out exactly how much each one should pay which I find amazing!