Maybe I wanna surprise her with 5983409834 cash monnnneeeeyyyy gift?

 

why not?

so everytime i were to do a job for someone on the side i should run home and tell the wife "look honey i got $100 today ... what do you want me to do with it?"

what's the harm in having an account where when you do side work or sell something you toss the cash into an account that you use to buy things for the kids or to pay for your hobbies thats not part of the family funds?

i see nothing wrong with it and honestly i've seen plenty of relationships where it would have been beneficial to have a little more seperation of funds. my mom doesnt know what my dad does with all his side earnings and he doesnt dip into the shared accounts for his hobbies or the toys he wants. she obviously knows theres money somewhere when he comes home with a brand new $14k snowmobile that he paid cash for but she doesnt ask how much, where is it or how he gets it.

the last 12 months out of his "private" fund he has purchased:
plane tickets for my mom
his new snowmobile
my sister a new dirtbike
family vacation
new tv's for the house

if you have a CC your partner doesnt know about and you use it to buy things they dont really know about ... how is that any different than having cash stashed to buy things the other doesnt really know about? ones just on credit thats gotta be paid at the end of month with said cash anyways

 

I was planning on telling her, but I wanted to wait till after we were married to do so. She will have her name added to all of the accounts except for my 401k, but will be added as a beneficiary on it if something would happen to me.

She comes from a very low income background and has never had much money to call her own. She is a very frugal spender, so I am not worried about the money disappearing. I just really wanted to have that discussion once we were married. I guess it really doesn't matter at all. I wish we could have been married 6 months ago, but she had to have a September wedding. Oh well, at least she won't fuss at me now when i tell her I am going to go buy stuff for the woodshop or the house.

 

I don't think he means running home to tell the wife every time you make $100 but in most cases, that $ would just be deposited into an acct that was joint OR that she at least knew about. Doesn't mean the $ is her's, just means it isn't "hidden". Just seems shady to keep stuff from your own wife - marriage is a partnership!

I see nothing wrong with having separate accts so you can do what you want with the $ you earn, but I don't see why it's necessary to keep those accounts private. I have my own acct as does hubby but we also have a joint account for joint purchases....:dunno:

 

Exactly. Marriage is a partnership and trust should be reciprocal. She doesn't care if I spend money that she doesn't know about as long as the bills get paid and vice versa. That's how it should be in my opinion.

 

Money messes up a lot of relationships.

 

+1!

 

meh i disagree ... 100% openness is not always the best answer. and just because you don't tell someone all the facts doesnt make it shady.

they pay their bills, his paychecks go direct deposit into the joint account, she holds the debit card and check book to said account.

on the flipside, he has lots of sidework that nets him cash. he puts it into an account that she doesnt have access to nor knows whats in it. she knows he does sidework and makes decent money since he never asks for her to give him money from his paycheck. she just doesnt know how much he makes with said job, where the money goes or how much is there. if he wants to buy something with that money he buys it, he doesnt ask. theres no discussion. its his little stash. as far as she is concerned the money he makes on the side is just enough to be his pocket cash

starting marriage at day 1 and marriage after 25 years are two different things.

i think you would be hard pressed to find a married couple in the 20+ year term that openly shares 100% of everything they are involved in.

 

I didn't say everything should be shared 100% - I said it was fine to have separate accounts. I just think it's odd to have your separate account be a "secret" account. I guess it works for your parents but it definitely isn't something that would work for me. I can't see hiding things like that from my husband.

 

Marriage is a partnership :blah:

Who cares is the guy has a secret money stash. :dunno:

Unless they're broke and he's keeping money away from her, whats the problem.