Saving for the SC

I have a "main" join account with the SO, but she doesn't have anything to do with it. I also have just my accounts at many other banks.

I don't use banks I use shoe boxes

Maybe too late if you've already done it, but completely giving up any financial privacy is the dumbest thing you can do, IMO. Even if you have a main account, let your cash go directly into your private account and then move it over... give some excuse about your credit union having good CD rates or whatever. And that's not strip clubbing advice, it's financial advice in general, the most miserable guys I know are the ones who have given up 100% of their financial freedom. Besides the indignity of having to sneak around saving twenties at the grocery store

That's no lie Subraman,never volunteer imformation.

I had two bank accounts. A his & hers & mine that she knew nothing about.

Since my job as janitor, er I mean chief building sanitation engineer (trying to be more positive like my shrink told me to), doesn't pay so well I find it takes a long time to save up enough money to go to strip clubs. But that's okay since it gives me alot of time to brood over what a sucky place the world is, and whine about it to others.

Fuckin' fuck everything!

I have his, hers, and ours accounts. And then another that she can't see.

I'm unmarried so it's not an issue for me but I can't imagine be married to someone that analyzed your withdrawals to the degree that it was an issue. Maybe that's just me.

It must suck to be married huh? Don't gotta bother with none of that bullshit.

I pity the fool that got married.

Esta is right.

What Esta and motor have said.

On one hand, keeping an "in case she tries to leave me and take all the money" emergency account can't be good for a relationship's health. On the other hand, it seems pretty illogical to me for anyone to be 100% financially at the mercy of another person, even if it's your wife.

maybe that's why I don't see myself ever getting married

I'm married. I handle all the money. Wife has no clue about where anything goes or what are bills are. She is aware of what I spend my money on because I refuse to wash my fucking head in a sink and change clothes lol.

I wonder if gay dudes have these problems?

sofa posted: "...for those who have joint accounts, how do you set aside "fun money"."

Having another bank account on the side is about the only way I can see it working. Since I own a business, I have a full operation (mailing address, banking, cell phone, etc.) away from the house. If I were in your shoes, I would probably try to keep a separate account on the side, but even that is complicated because it is hard to keep hidden if you do not also have a separate mailing address outside of the home, at least as a place for debit cards to be mailed. Maybe a PO box would help with this, but i don't really know.

But even if you could do this now, the problem that you have is that she knows how much is supposed to be deposited into the joint account. As others have said, the time to maintain some freedom would have been early on. Even if you opened up a side account now and you diverted a piece of it to another account, it is likely that she would notice the shortfall and ask questions. Maybe you could do that when you get if/when you get a raise.

So in the meantime, I guess you will be putting aside 20s as you can. ;)

Since my habit predated my meeting my SO, it factored into my thinking when I set up our financial plan:

No shared account at all. We keep a monthly spreadsheet where we input our "shared" expenses (rent, groceries, etc.) and also all our monthly income.

At the end of the month, we take our income ratio, apply it to our net expenses to see what we would have contributed if we did have a shared account and figure out who owes who what to balance it out. Because I pay the rent, usually she owes me. Sure, the more we earn in a given month, the larger fraction we pay, but we never earn less than our expenses, so it still pays to make more.

She loves it because she knows she can use her own cash to shop for whatever she wants. I love it because, yeah, the club.

Finding the time to get to the club is more of a concern than where the money comes from.

Anonymous,

I am going to assume your SO is not your wife. Am I correct?

I pay the bills and I keep my own money. I have her pay me a set amount each month and she pays her own bills. How hard is this? Maybe you should make sure your woman can work before you shack up.

@Clubber: Correct. We live together, but aren't married yet.

FWIW, she's been divorced once already and her ex royally F'd her credit, so she's all about being in complete control of her own finances. I'm OK with that, as I have great credit (got a mortgage on my own) and she's done a great job of doing everything she can to repair hers.

Anon,

OK. I wonder about those that ARE married and keep money separate. An old ex-friend of mine got a divorce. One main reason, to her there was our money and her money.

It's going to be different woman to woman and situation to situation. It's generally understood, if we go out or get a meal together, I'm paying and it doesn't get listed. But with day-to-day, she pays some of the bills, I pay some and we balance it out.

There isn't a huge disparity in our income -- the monthly ratio is usually about 60/40 in my favor. But I also incur more costs to get to and from work and pay in more, too. If the disparity was wider, a different model where some of mine ends up being hers might be in order.

We've both agreed it really works well and we have no plans on changing it if we step things up a notch or two.

I'm single but if I was married, I would not want to be asking the wife for a couple of twenties or seeking permission to spend money I worked for. Now I might understand major purchases but not in someone else controlling the finances.

We have disposable income after all the bills, retirement, groceries, household stuff, emergency fund, etc, that we split three ways. A third for me to spend as I please, a third for her to do the same, and a third we spend together: vacations, movies, dinners, etc. A significant portion of my strip club budget comes from my freelance work, so it doesn't really impact our finances.

It helps when your wife already knows what you're doing and you don't have to hide it.