For those of you who don’t have a job, for example if you are a stay at home mother, do you and your partner have a shared bank account and you can spend the shared money freely? Or do you get allocated a certain amount a month which you can spend (whether it’s for the house, family or personally)? Or, how else do you purchase things you want/need?
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I am a stay at home wife but I don’t have children. I get an allocated amount to spend on myself a month and when it comes to household things like food, bills, needs like clothes, my husband spends on me. If I have extra big things I need that month then I can discuss it with my husband.
When I was a SAHM, my husband and I still maintained separate checking accounts, though we were joint owners on each other’s. And we have a joint savings account. My husband loves doing the numbers, so every pay period, he’d pay the bills, and give me the grocery/household money. We both also got the same amount of spending “fun” money each month. Anything leftover went into savings. Now I’m working part time, but the breakdown is still pretty much the same. We pay bills, we both get a “fun” allowance, and everything else goes into savings and investments.
We’ve always had a joint account and I have full access to all money, savings and investments. I pay the bills, mortgage and do all of our investing as well because my Husband has no interrest in any of that.. I don’t abuse the priviledge and rarely want anything beyond necessities. I’m much more frugal than my husband and he’s admitted the reason we’re in such good shape financially is because I am responsible for the money management for the most part. Neither of us would make a large purchase without consulting the other but we don’t need permission to buy a Coffee, get a Haircut or go out for lunch for example. We just have trust and common sense. We’re empty nesters now and I’ve gone back to work but I was a SAHM for two decades.