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What are your thoughts on money in a marriage? Do you think it’s reasonable for a spouse to have a small pool of their own money that they can do with as they see fit? (within reason).

For context, I have a lifelong friend whose car just died and doesn’t have a lot of money. I on the other hand make very good money. I was thinking of gifting them a couple of grand to help.

The huge fly in the ointment is my wife would almost certainly say no. We each have our own separate bank accounts but the lions share of my paycheck goes into a joint account. Her paycheck goes into her own account.

While I would never give my friend the money on the sly, am I out of bounds to consider that some of the money is mine? I think this issue is a non starter as I wouldn’t do it if my wife was really opposed to it. I’m just curious as to what others think about the subject.

Why does most of the money you make go into a joint account (I’m assuming for joint household expenses) but all of the money your wife makes goes into her own personal account? The reasoning for that will influence my answer to your question.

If my husband decided to give or lend money to someone outside of our marriage without my 100% agreement I would be beyond pissed off. I would be absolutely livid.

Talk to your wife and explain your reasoning. You may be surprised and she may actually agree that giving the money is a good idea. If she is opposed to it though, it is just not worth it. Resentments over money are a big part of marriage failures so I would never want to risk my marriage by giving money to someone without complete buy-in from my husband.

In terms of whether or not some of your money is yours to do with as you will. That needs to be decided with your spouse with clear boundaries of what is acceptable or not. As long as both of you are in agreement about how the money is divvied up, lots of different arrangements can work.

In my marriage every financial account is jointly held except for retirement accounts and some employee stock accounts. It works for us because we want to be completely open and honest about how everything is spent and we are both careful with money. Other arrangements will work better for other couples, but ultimately you both should be in agreement.

Good luck!

It sounds like we are set up pretty the same way, with the exception that I fund the joint account with the minimum per month to avoid service charges. She transfers her portion of the bills to the joint when she gets paid. IOW with the exception of Paypal and church that account is only used as a portal between our individual accounts. I pay our joint bills out of my personal account after sweeping her transfer from the joint account. We each have personal credit cards, retirement accounts, and auto payments. I also deposit money monthly in my credit union for our rainy day and vacation funds. This works for us as our spending habits are a bit opposite of each other. This way we only need to agree on our joint bills and what they come in as. I run everything through a quicken like program so we have the data to adjust our budget of joint bills periodically.

Having said that we wouldn't spend into 4 figures without at least telling the other. Eg. When she purchased her new car, she mentioned it, how much it cost and what her payments would be, but it wasn't really up for debate as it wasn't a joint bill. It sounds like your joint account is where you keep some of your extra money stashed which makes it unclear whose money it is.

[This message edited by grubs at 8:21 PM, Tuesday, September 27th]

Darkness Falls

I make significantly more than my wife. She has a part time job that pays under 20 bucks an hour and she works roughly 24 hours a week. My salary is substantially higher than that. From the beginning of our marriage, I always put my check into the joint account. Up until 15 years ago, we made roughly the same amount of money. We never changed that arrangement simply because I don’t think of that as "mostly my money". She is free to use it for however she sees fit.

I agree with the others that you should tell your wife you’re doing it. If you have sufficient funds to cover your bills, minus the amount you’d gift your friend, then I don’t know that you should necessarily outright need her "permission" to do it, but discussing it would be polite.

Financial issues and disagreements wreck more marriages than infidelity. Heck… we could create a SurvivingFinancialInfidelity dot com site with a small forum called "the Other type of infidelity" and be up to thousands of members in a jiffy.

I can only share what works with me and my wife.
We have our separate accounts where our wages are deposited. We both have full access to each other’s accounts – both formally through the bank with a power of attorney letter, and online. This is something we did after my sister-in-law was locked out of her husband’s accounts for several weeks after his sudden passing. Eventually the estate accounts were opened again, but there was a period where she had to borrow cash from us (and it was no problem helping her) despite having joint assets in his account.
Our wages (the family income) is deposited in our separate accounts.
Our credit-cards are tied in with my account. This is simply a convenience to minimize card-fees. Most utilities, property taxed etc are charged to my account. Cards are paid in full each month.
We do a budget, and my wife deposits what’s needed into my account to pay joint bills (charged to my account).
We see what we have left and generally place some cash aside for savings or foreseeable outlay (new vehicle, new tires, maintenance, holidays…). We try to set aside some savings and we divide them equally between us and each deposits the same amount to savings. I manage the savings and will make equal contributions to the same fund or account. We agree that neither of us touches these savings without joint permission.

What is left we divide between ourselves. It’s not always equal but it is fair. My wife might want more money for something she needs, I might need more money for something I need. Since its all transparent it’s never been an issue. I have never grumbled if she spends money in a spa or getting new shoes, she doesn’t complain about my fishing permits and fly-rods. If one of us wants to make a larger purchase, it’s discussed and possibly scheduled according to the budget.

Our line-of-thought is that legally marriage makes it "us" and not Mr Bigger and Mrs Bigger. It’s not "her" income or "my" income, but our income.

Now – would I help out some friends? Yes. But I would discuss it with my wife and if she saw how strongly I felt about it then she would agree. But it would be a joint decision.

Our line-of-thought is that legally marriage makes it "us" and not Mr Bigger and Mrs Bigger. It’s not "her" income or "my" income, but our income.

Even though we keep things more segregated I still see it as ours not separate mine, hers, and ours. My wife doesn't. She came with kids and has been adamant that they are her financial responsibility. She's relented a bit with the youngest that has lived with us for the past 8 years but it still pops up on occasion. Like the upcoming Senior spring break trip and college tuition. I do my best to sneak what I can over to my side of the ledger while letting her have that win.

[This message edited by grubs at 2:33 PM, Wednesday, September 28th]

I neglected to answer your original question. So here goes-

I do think it is reasonable and even desirable for a spouse to have a small pool of "their own" money that they could do with as they see fit. Having a set amount budgeted each month for each person in a couple for "their own" money could alleviate a lot of resentment.

It would hopefully rein in the partner who overspends by providing a limit. It would also allow the frugal spouse the opportunity to buy what they desire without guilt.

One spouse could save up and buy something big like a table saw and the other could spend their money on buying as many shoes as they want.

I have such an aversion to shopping that we never needed to do this, but it really could eliminate a lot of resentment in a couple where each partner has different spending habits.

You could expand this to have a set amount budgeted for charity where each person receives an allotted amount to use for causes that they find important. That would then make it more palatable to give the money away to a friend. I would caution you however that giving money to a close friend can often have lasting negative consequences on the friendship. I still think it is in your best interest to pay close attention to your wife’s advice.

Ya know what I was advised by both a lawyer and womans shelter. Always have your own money!

Now I have my own account and no, wh doesn't have access to it and never will.

For me, the issue is "small pool of money."

DH and I each have blow money. We have his/hers/ours accounts

We have four kids don't even make a combined 6 figures.

A small pool of money is $30 a month.

A couple of grand is about half of what we live on a month.

And, while, yes technically, we could afford it.

It would come at the expense of something else: vacation, kid activities, 2K less for retirement...you get the idea.

Who earns more is immaterial to me. (I bring in about 75% of my family's total income).

We also do each have separate savings account. Since I'm married to a recovering addict, I cannot be foolish enough to gift that money away. I need it, in case I separate.

DH would need his savings to find a place to live. It would be foolish for him to give that money away as well.

My husband and I are both high income earners. We have our own chequing accounts that our paycheques are deposited into. We have a shared chequing account that we automatically deposit large portions of our paycheques into to cover shared expenses like our mortgage, daycare, groceries, car payments etc. We have shared and individual savings and investment accounts that we both understand to be joint property depending on our circumstances. We have individual credit cards that we typically pay off with our individual accounts (unless one of us has put a large joint expenditure on it - ie. new furniture or something). We both are free to make expenditures from our individual accounts without consulting with one another. Our informal rule is that we run anything strange or more than a couple of hundred dollars or so with one another out of respect/ politeness (for example, my husband let me know he was planning to buy himself new golf clubs recently even though his parents were footing most of the bill - it was a 40th birthday present). Luckily neither of us are irresponsible spenders so it’s not a source of stress- if anything he has to encourage me to spend money sometimes (I still have the mentality of being a poor student even though that’s very much not our situation anymore).

I think it’s vitally important for people - especially lower income spouses - to have access to their own money, but all that said, I’d be annoyed if my husband lent several thousands of dollars to a friend without consulting with me first, EVEN if it was money that was in his individual savings. Even if I would have been okay with it had he asked me first.

Duplicate.

[This message edited by emergent8 at 5:30 AM, Thursday, September 29th]

There's a reason why money causes so much conflict in marriages. We are emotional and territorial about it. Additionally, if you committed to a life together, the reality is that money is never going to be "evenly split." Add to that, in most states of the US, most debts and monies earned while in the marriage are considered a marital asset (some exceptions can be made with pre-nuptial agreements). While it feels like we can all keep it neat and cleanly divided, what happens if say, one spouse needs a kidney transplant? Does that spouse pay for their new kidney alone? What about recovery? What if they have to take time off after the transplant surgery and it's unpaid? Does one spouse "lend" the other spouse the kidney transplant recovery money or is it a gift?

You and your wife had one agreement about money due to her part-time work (I'm guessing so that she could be the primary caregiver of children). The status quo behind that has changed, but you haven't changed the practice. It sounds like the two of you need to sit down and have a discussion about your financial arrangement and how you will address money moving forward.

In terms of gifting a large sum to a friend. Yeah, that would piss me off if my spouse did that without my agreement.

[This message edited by hurtbs at 8:15 PM, Friday, September 30th]