I can see how one person spending £3k on car mods while the other struggles to make their share of the family commitments can cause an issue, yes.
Should I split the bills by proportion?
- Thread starter knowlton
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I can see how one person spending £3k on car mods while the other struggles to make their share of the family commitments can cause an issue, yes.
Hypothetically, If you did and your wife (or you) gave up work to raise the children, how would you go about sharing your finances so that you both maintain the level of independence you chose?
It wouldn't matter who wore what as everything is jointly owned, who uses it doesn't matter. It's a family unit kind of concept.....
I wonder what percentage of divorcees had separate or fully integrated finances and what, if any, part that played in their eventual breakup?
I wouldnt know, all I know is our finances have never been an issue even when we were poor.
Are you saying you think there is a possibility your relationship would have struggled if you had kept separate finances then?
I'm confused with the point you are trying to make here as it seems a bit contradictory.
It's got nothing to do with my friend.
If I spend £2k on a new PC one week and my wife spends nothing, so what!
Why would that cause any kind of friction, equally if she spent £2k on clothes in the sales (as she has done) why would I care.
That is what joint finances are, the only friction would come if one of us spend our entire savings on something frivolous without consulting the other first, and that would be the same regardless of how your finances are arranged.
It is about affordability, not who spends what.
That would be tricky as we arent in that position and its always easy to structure an answer to follow your own point of view. BUT if we did then I would pool all the bills, mortgage and food into the joint mortgage current account along with some contingency fund and then split whats left between us to do what we want with it
I wouldn't know as we have since being married 15 years ago always shared everything jointly.
I can, however see some fundamental issues with separate finances when one either earns significantly more or if one has no income unless the other then finances the family entirely.
Giving an allowance to your partner for example seems wrong to me.
Which is a sensible solution. This is effectively what we do, but without designating what percentage belongs to who, as we don't feel the need.
Then we are relatively well off and we discuss large ticket stuff as a rule, it may be an issue if, for example one was gambling or spending outside our means.
The difference is that ALL money is joint there is no distinction based on who earns it and who doesn't, not only what the earner decides they want to sacrifice to the marriage while keeping their own independent finances.
By keeping your income to yourself and then paying into a separate joint account enough to cover the bills/mortgage and a "little something" for the wife seems pretty insulting to the wife to me.
You may as well hire a "wife"......
But there is no actual difference. If only one person is earning (as is the case in our household atm) then the other is effectively being subsidised, doesn't really matter on the methodology you use, the end result is exactly the same. So why is it insulting for you to give spending money to your wife directly rather than indirectly doing it by dropping it into a joint account? It seems to me to be exactly the same.
Because it isn't a lesser commitment, it is just the same commitment differently managed?
I think the difference lies in the implication of ownership. The way we organise our finances means that regardless of who contributes the ownership is joint, in other words there is no "me" as everything is "we".
In your situation, she would not be giving me "spending money" because as with the rest of our marriage there is no implication of individual ownership and as such there is no subsidising of anyone as there is effectively only one entity, Us. (that does not detract from our individuality either, as we complement and enhance each other in that respect without compromising our individual traits and interests)
Does the question mark mean you are not sure?
How is it simpler though? no one has actually said. I find separate accounts simpler because:
- You are sharing the load of checking statements and keeping on top of finances
- You don't have to keep asking each other "Did you buy xxxx from xxxx, I don't remember you saying, is it fraudulent?"
- You can easily check statements online on your own because of the above, meaning quality time together isn't spent doing things like going through bank statements
- Your bills coming out of one account makes it a lot easier to read what outgoings are going where, without having the noise of everyday transactions
- Your joint account is less likely to be emptied by a fraudster, thus avoiding any short term problems paying bills. This is because you will be unlikely to ever use your joint card much outside of places like Sainsburys.
Honestly I don't see how anything could be simpler than what we do at the moment with separate accounts, it's not like you have to go down the bank to pay into the joint account - it's all done by standing order. I'm all ears though.
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![[FnG]magnolia](/styles/overclockers/avatars/9.png){kind=avatar}
Caporegime
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I wasn't going to post this because it contains sweeping generalisations but then I thought, "Hey, when has offending some geeks on a computer forum ever bothered me before?" 
Let's get all the group hug stuff out of the way first. Yes, horses for courses, YMMV, what works for one may not work for another blah blah blah. I think we're all clear on this assumption.
However, let's get back to those sweeping generalisations I mentioned earlier. The primary reasons I can see for wishing to maintain separate accounts are :
1. Selfishness - "It's MY money, not ours, MINE!"
2. Trust issues - "She might leave me so I'd better have a nest egg."
3. Deceitfulness - "Heh, she'll never know I bought this new processor."
[/generalisations]
We find a joint account easier to manage and it gives us instant visibility of how our finances are looking at any one time. We don't have any desire to hide the things we buy - we're adults not children - so one account is perfect for us.
Look, I don't suppose it really matters how strangers on a computer forum manage their money. If it works for you then that's just great. But don't think that Castiel and a few others, including myself, are alone in thinking a joint account makes more sense. Remember that this is a computer forum and that attracts a type of person who - generalisations back on - will be more likely to be selfish, inward looking and self-focussed.
So yeah, do what you want with your money I guess.
Let's get all the group hug stuff out of the way first. Yes, horses for courses, YMMV, what works for one may not work for another blah blah blah. I think we're all clear on this assumption.
However, let's get back to those sweeping generalisations I mentioned earlier. The primary reasons I can see for wishing to maintain separate accounts are :
1. Selfishness - "It's MY money, not ours, MINE!"
2. Trust issues - "She might leave me so I'd better have a nest egg."
3. Deceitfulness - "Heh, she'll never know I bought this new processor."
[/generalisations]
We find a joint account easier to manage and it gives us instant visibility of how our finances are looking at any one time. We don't have any desire to hide the things we buy - we're adults not children - so one account is perfect for us.
Look, I don't suppose it really matters how strangers on a computer forum manage their money. If it works for you then that's just great. But don't think that Castiel and a few others, including myself, are alone in thinking a joint account makes more sense. Remember that this is a computer forum and that attracts a type of person who - generalisations back on - will be more likely to be selfish, inward looking and self-focussed.
So yeah, do what you want with your money I guess.
Have a joint account doesn't mean you can't do all those things anyway.
One account where our income is paid into and the bills, family expenditure is paid out of. One account which hold the majority of our money as savings. One account for emergency expenditure. One account which is the trust for our son.
Both of us have access to all accounts, we generally buy things jointly anyway and reconciling the budget is easer as there is only one budget and not three.
If I want to buy something as a surprise for the wife (or vice versa) then I can use my CC or just withdraw some cash, it is no big deal.
As for fraudulent transactions, it is pretty obvious if a significant amount of cash goes walkies that it is fraudulent and it doesn't need separate individual accounts to combat that. And neither does having separate individual accounts mean that it is less likely to be emptied by fraudsters either.
You can do all these things with jointly held accounts, you need not retain individual ownership of bank accounts to protect those accounts.
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[FnG]magnolia;19667310 said:I wasn't going to post this because it contains sweeping generalisations but then I thought, "Hey, when has offending some geeks on a computer forum ever bothered me before?"
Let's get all the group hug stuff out of the way first. Yes, horses for courses, YMMV, what works for one may not work for another blah blah blah. I think we're all clear on this assumption.
However, let's get back to those sweeping generalisations I mentioned earlier. The primary reasons I can see for wishing to maintain separate accounts are :
1. Selfishness - "It's MY money, not ours, MINE!"
2. Trust issues - "She might leave me so I'd better have a nest egg."
3. Deceitfulness - "Heh, she'll never know I bought this new processor."
[/generalisations]
We find a joint account easier to manage and it gives us instant visibility of how our finances are looking at any one time. We don't have any desire to hide the things we buy - we're adults not children - so one account is perfect for us.
Look, I don't suppose it really matters how strangers on a computer forum manage their money. If it works for you then that's just great. But don't think that Castiel and a few others, including myself, are alone in thinking a joint account makes more sense. Remember that this is a computer forum and that attracts a type of person who - generalisations back on - will be more likely to be selfish, inward looking and self-focussed.
So yeah, do what you want with your money I guess.
+whatever the biggest number you can think of is.....
You seem to be missing the point [FnG]magnolia - you don't have to be hiding anything, my bank statements are in our filing cabinet along with my partner's, we trust each other enough not to need one big figure in front of us so we're fully able as adults to take the most practical option.
Got to say, Castiel's way of life seems a lot more......trusting for want of a better word. If I was ever to be blessed with a lady I actually loved, I wouldn't question having a joint account at all. If we share EVERYTHING, what on earth does a bank balance mean in the grand scheme of things?
I don't think it is specifically about how many accounts, but the ownership of those accounts.
Each to their own, but we find it simpler and dare I say, more trusting to have joint ownership of our financial business in all things, not only those things that have to be. A single family, a single budget. It helped us be mortgage free in 5 years as we lived frugally and as we had what was effectively a single income it was easier to budget fairly to do that.
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