For couples who share finances: Presents?

[Firebird]

Random query for couples who share finances: How do you handle gift-giving on birthdays, etc? It seems a bit weird to pay for "your" gifts but if you have merged finances, how else would it work? Do you pay for presents out of your allowance or something?

I semi-randomly spent a fairly large amount of money on an unplanned birthday present for DBF yesterday, and it made me wonder how I would have handled it had our finances been merged and I didn't have the flexibility of spending MY money on extra stuff.

Just curious.

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

My wonderful DH doesn't like or want presents, so I never give him any.

He shops for me. If I see an unfamiliar charge on the credit card, I ask about it to ensure it's legitimate and he'll say "that's a present for you" and I don't inquire further.

This works for us.

[Deleted]

We just buy eachother presents. Sometimes we set an amount we want to spend.

[doxieluvr]

I am pretty sure DH used a portion of my paycheck to pay for my birthday gift.

[wodehouse]

(sorry, a bit off-topic) Molly, my word! I just thought you were a young wife with a young husband in the service. Youngsters! Now I see "my wonderful DH is in his 28th year of military service!". Wow! That is one long career. My thanks to you both!

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

We just buy each other presents, we don't think about where the money is coming from. If I see a charge I didn't make and I am not sure if DH made it I will ask. I know how much he spent but I never know what exactly he bought with it.

If he wants to buy me something big he just asks me what amount I will be comfortable with or gives me a ballpark of how much he is thinking about spending.

We really don't think that much about it. It all comes out of one pot, we don't stop to think about "Wait $50 of the $100 he spent was MY paycheck". He just spent $100.

[Firebird]

So do you guys have a line item of the budget for gifts that such purchases would come out of?

[thyme4change]

Same with us - we just buy the present. I've never seen the charges before hand because he is a last minute shopper, or because he is so excited he just gives it to me right after he buys it.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

We don't, but then I don't keep a detailed budget. Instead we pay ourselves first, pay our bills second and then decide from whatever is left over.

I have set amount I give myself for Christmas but that's it. Then for birthdays I generally have a limit on how much I am willing to spend.

[illinicheme]

We have combined finances, so presents come out of common money. (Since neither of us are big spenders and we have a large income discrepancy, ours/hers/his doesn't work for us. We do have separate "fun money" savings accounts, but those are basically just for big ticket wants like PS3, new TV, etc.) We manage by just not scrutinizing the credit card statements for the few weeks around birthdays/anniversary/Christmas.

[simser]

My husband hates to have gifts that he doesn't really want. So he hands me a list of what to buy him. But all the money comes from our accounts. When it's a gift for me he also wants a list so I tell him where I want a gift card to. We tend to do "presents for both of us" at Christmas (ie new tv etc.)

Drives me nuts but...

[resolution]

We put most purchases on a credit card, so he just tells me not to look at the credit card when he buys me a gift. He doesn't ever look at the detailed credit card statements, so I just buy him what I please and he doesn't notice. I am taking him to an estate auction for his birthday next month, so this one time he will be picking out his own gift and cost.

[kgb18]

LOL. I always think it's kind of funny when we give presents because all of our finances are combined. Actually, DH and I only exchange gifts at Christmas. For other things (birthdays, Valentine's Day) we just go out to dinner. If it's a birthday, the birthday person picks the place.

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

Feb 22, 2011 16:32:26 GMT -5 wodehouse said:

(sorry, a bit off-topic) Molly, my word! I just thought you were a young wife with a young husband in the service. Youngsters! Now I see "my wonderful DH is in his 28th year of military service!". Wow! That is one long career. My thanks to you both!

Ahh, thanks! We're not young ~ mid-40s, actually. (My wonderful DH enlisted as a 17-year-old high school senior and has been in ever since!)

[debtheaven]

This is one of many reasons we like having yours-mine-our accounts!

[Firebird]

Feb 22, 2011 17:19:07 GMT -5 @debtheaven said:

This is one of many reasons we like having yours-mine-our accounts!

Definitely one of the perks. Pretty much everything else about separate finances is driving me crazy at present.

[whoisjohngalt]

Well, according to my DH I am impossible to shop for, so he usually asks me first if I want X. And then I kinda decide if A) I want it and B) we can afford it. There were times when he surprised me with gifts from his own (saved from allowance) money.

Him? Well, his gifts are too specific for me to buy on my own since I know nothing about computers or camera equipment or tools or stamps or fish or..., but if I wanted it to, it would be super easy bc he never ever EVER looks at our cc statements.

Lena

[debtheaven]

Pretty much everything else about separate finances is driving me crazy at present.


Why Firebird? Can I help? This said, after three or four years I gave up on trying to manage DH's personal account. There's just so much one can do LOL.

There are basically two ways to do yours-mine-our accounts. Either you get your salaries deposited into your individual accounts and transfer money to a third, joint account. Or you get your salaries deposited into a joint account and then transfer money into both your private accounts.

We do it the first way. I originally managed all the accounts but DH was frustrating me too much so I officially now only manage my account and our account. DH is content to live in Lalaland. After four years of trying to change that, I finally gave up. He has the money, but he manages it like an idjut and at some point I just gave up. Much fewer arguments that way.

Happily for both of us (and he recognizes that), I am the family CEO LOL.

[shanendoah]

I guess I am lucky that I am really good at compartmentalizing.
DH will often hoard cash from his allowance/gifts for months (years) at a time, and then buy me something with his cash. But otherwise, he uses the credit card. Since gifts come out of our individual allowances, I do need to track the money, so I know exactly how much he spent.
But, because of my good compartmentalizing, I manage to think of the money as completely seperate from the gift, and say "Thank you" for the gift and just note that he has $X less available of his allowance.

[robbase]

I use my off shore account

generally if we just paid a credit card bill, and my wife's b-day or whatever is 2 weeks away, I will probably use that credit card, because she won't look at the credit card balance for another 3 weeks or so, so that way it is a "surprise" at the time she receives the gift

also I take out $60 cash each week that I can do what I please with, so I just take the present from this, or I come up with an excuse like "we had so and so leave for another place of work this week and I took out an extra $X in cash to contribute to a gift or whatever" and I will just drip-drip the money for her present that way

but usually we don't do presents, we do experiences and major purchase, instead of Christmas we got a new couch, we went to San Antonio vs. doing valentine's day, etc.

[debtheaven]

My wonderful DH doesn't like or want presents, so I never give him any.

Molly, I can understand not liking or wanting excess, but how can somebody just plain not like or want presents?! If you don't mind me asking of course.

And I lurk at SS, so I know you really do buy him little presents, his favorite foods and things like that.

[cronewitch]

I don't like presents, they are mostly a waste of money. I buy what I want and when someone gives me something I don't want I don't know what to do with it. I still have Christmas gifts from over a year ago I haven't used for anything. I just opened bath salts from this year and used bubble bath I got this year. I wanted bubble bath but he got me some that doesn't bubble. If I bought it I would just replace it with some I liked. Instead he went to a fancy store and got beautiful bottles with corks that look really nice but don't bubble, they smell good. I wanted to pick up a big bottle of the cheap stuff but now it would hurt his feelings.

I didn't want anything I got this last Christmas included the hand crocheted doilies mom made me. I appreciate the thought but the stuff is staying in the boxes. I appreciate the thought but would rather not get more stuff. Even the bed sheets that were exactly like what I am using. I don't want to fold sheets so only own one set. Now I have another set but may not open them for a very long time.

When I was married and sharing money gifts were paid for out of family money. Many weren't much of a surprise like the year of the sewing machine. I gave him a business card with the model number I wanted. He went to the correct store and asked the clerk for one that hemmed jeans. I figured I would get a sewing machine so bought him a stack of jeans. I still have the machine that was the wrong one 30 some years later. He probably stopped at the store on the way home from work on payday to get it, we never had credit cards or checks back then, strictly cash.

[Firebird]

Feb 22, 2011 18:10:29 GMT -5 @debtheaven said:

Pretty much everything else about separate finances is driving me crazy at present.


Why Firebird? Can I help? This said, after three or four years I gave up on trying to manage DH's personal account. There's just so much one can do LOL.

There are basically two ways to do yours-mine-our accounts. Either you get your salaries deposited into your individual accounts and transfer money to a third, joint account. Or you get your salaries deposited into a joint account and then transfer money into both your private accounts.

We do it the first way. I originally managed all the accounts but DH was frustrating me too much so I officially now only manage my account and our account. DH is content to live in Lalaland. After four years of trying to change that, I finally gave up. He has the money, but he manages it like an idjut and at some point I just gave up. Much fewer arguments that way.

Happily for both of us (and he recognizes that), I am the family CEO LOL.

Well, long story short - as much as I love DBF, he's not the best at managing his money. Which means that he occasionally overestimates how much he can give me for this bill or that one. That wouldn't happen if we merged our finances and I handled everything. I am itching to get everything into a single account so I can stop worrying about him being short on "his" share of something.

The problem is, I don't feel comfortable combining accounts like that until we're married. So until then, I just kinda ;D and bear it. He's not irresponsible, just disorganized - he does eventually pay me back for the money I front for him. It's just not easy to manage my own finances when I never know exactly how much I'll be fronting for him in any given month.

[Firebird]

Feb 22, 2011 18:20:01 GMT -5 @debtheaven said:

My wonderful DH doesn't like or want presents, so I never give him any.

Molly, I can understand not liking or wanting excess, but how can somebody just plain not like or want presents?! If you don't mind me asking of course.

And I lurk at SS, so I know you really do buy him little presents, his favorite foods and things like that.

Actually, my DBF doesn't like presents either (though he is excited about the tent I bought for him yesterday - he was with me when I decided to spring for it, so it wasn't much of a surprise).

For him, it's the elements of "pressure" and "gratitude." If some random aunt buys him a Christmas present and he has nothing to give her, he feels guilty.

[blackcard]

We both keep some extra disretionary cash to ourselves, for ourselves. Thats what I use for his presents.
Finding the right present though, is another matter. Probably needs another thread.

[cytoglycerine]

For birthday gifts, we each just buy the other something from our spending allowances. If we go out somewhere for one of our birthdays, the cost gets rolled into the household expenses for the month. For Christmas, I have a dedicated savings account, and I budget for us to be able to have $100 each to spend on our presents for each other (on top of the money I save to spend on our friends & family). We usually end up having a little contest to see who can get the best stuff for the other for only $100.

[luckyme]

Since I am a SAHM, from the thinking that goes on here, all of the money is DH's. ;D

We don't think that way, as we consider everything "ours". I think we are luckier than many, as we are on the same page financially, so money is never an issue. We never think, yours, mine, ours.

That being said, he buys me horrible presents, so I consider them a waste of money and told him not to do so years ago. If I want something, I'll buy it and then tell him he got me a present. He is pretty easy to shop for, so if he wants something or needs something, I buy it for him.

Usually though, we just go out for dinner. I have hit the point in my life, where I positively hate cooking anymore, so dinner out is utterly fabulous to me.

[973beachbum]

We don't like presents either. I love giving them to the kids but for us it is a little silly at this point in our lives. We also have a bunch of pots the money comes from to pay for the gifts, ours, ours and ours etc. we have a slew of accounts.

Occasionally one of us will want something which the other always knows. We won't buy it because of the money or may feel it is extravagant or there are other things that are more useful that we could do with the money. So the other will buy it for them as a gift. It is a gift because we value the others happiness over our own, not because of the money.

[wodehouse]

We have commingled finances. Although I am the only one with an income, so in the end all gifts come from me even if they are for me (and maybe that's why I don't like to see her spending a lot of money on me for items that I don't really like or want). We have a household budget and gifts for my spouse are entered as line items. She knows the amounts but I do try to blot them out when I publish a copy of the budget. Gifts for me have to come out of her allowance. So, maybe this isn't quite as commingled, or as separate, as I would think. Her funds are separate (although they all come from me), my funds are commingled in the household. Or maybe it's that the household's expenses come out of my funds.

[Deleted]

We have a xmas budget in which we give each other gifts. If we want to go over we use our fun money, we also use our fun money for birthday presents. If we use the cc or debit card that person will say, don't look at this card.