Do I tell the wife?

Do I tell the wife

  • Yes

    Votes: 6 75.0%
  • No

    Votes: 2 25.0%

  • Total voters
    8
Joined
12 Jan 2014
Messages
4,580
Reaction score
714
Location
Essex
Country
United Kingdom
So yesterday I had my yearly appraisal, it went very well with very little to complain about on both sides

Even better when they discussed the pay rise, which was rather quite significant and much more than I was even dreaming of, especially as there is no added responsibility.

The missus knows there was potentially a pay rise on the cards but a much lower value.

I have so far elected to say nothing, and told her it hasn't happened.

There is 2 reasons, I already pay for most things and still get complained to that things we agreed she would pay she doesn't want to. Last week I had to buy clothes for our son, not a problem but we worked the budget so that we use the child tax credits for that. And this week I asked for money out of the Xmas pot that I put most the money in for, we use the old savings account we had to save for our wedding and she has access to it.(to buy the wife the expensive gift she wants this year) and started getting the 3rd degree of where my money is, (I have it but im trying to save for a new garage door).

There is also talk from her that she wants to reduce her working hours or even give up work and advises I need to earn more money to enable this....

Question is, should I tell her or not?
 
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You are a couple, of course you should.

I tell my wife everything, secrets are not good for the soul.
 
Yes, you should tell her. Secrets like that fester over time and cause more friction when she finds out.

however, you can always choose to put the extra cash into your pension or ove4 pay your mortgage to stop it being viewed as extra useable cash.
 
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Sit her down and tell her what you told us. We have separate accounts and a joint account. She pays food bill, I pay all other bills. Savings go into the joint account which we both dip into as necessary, xmas, garage bills etc.
 
It sounds like there is resentment on both sides.
I don't know why Mrs Turbo agreed to pay for certain things if she didn't want to.

Would it be a good idea if both of you made equal monthly payments into a joint account to cover stuff you agree should be shared?

And I agree with others: secrets are not good.

Mrs Secure knows everything about me, the good, the bad and the ugly!
 
Use your next paycheck to purchase a pair of trousers, then go & find 2x balls to put in 'em.

If you ignored your fathers advice to "never marry a woman who could beat you in a fight" then you'll need to track down a good hitman. A good hitman costs £100k (50% up front) which is exceptionally good value when you consider that a modern divorce costs £everything.

If you're the type who relies on the missus to arrange the above advice, then use your next paycheck to buy yourself a nice dress.

Hope this helps & good luck.



The current Mrs. Lard broached the subject of cutting back her hours when I semi-retired at 50. Although she is quite clever (in a sort of fashion) she is totally unable to answer the questions "but where will you live dear, what will you drive & could you really give up all those holidays"?
 
Marriage means its half hers anyway. I'm on the other side of that process and very painful and expensive it is too. My ex was a lazy cow who bimbled along without a care in the world as to how much she was spending or where it came from. She is very happy to be taking 50% of everything despite paying for less 10% of any of it.

You are kidding yourself if you think its your pay rise. She owns your ar$e.
 
Mrs Mottie and I must be really old-fashioned. I don't know any of our friends that work their finances out like we do. I got it from my parents but her dad never told her mum what he earned and could be quite mean with her 'allowance'. In fact when he died, not only was her mother shocked at the amounts he had squirrelled away into various accounts, she also became annoyed at how frugal he made them live with so much money saved up and it was in the hundreds of thousands! Did her no good though as she is set in her ways and would rather sit in a dark room with no heating on rather than 'waste' it on such frivolities as heat and light. Even our two children think we are weird and do the 'you pay the rent, I pay the food' type of thing with their other halves. I know what she earns and she knows what I earn. In fact, she 'earns' more than me because as joint director of our company, she gets the same as me plus she has her income from the NHS. Whatever we earn goes into our joint bank account. We spend it on whatever we need but neither of us go silly or get greedy. Any surplus that builds up in that account plus my private pension income goes into a joint savings account and every now and then it went from there into ISA's or more recently, premium bonds but it always goes 50/50 so we both have the same 'individual' savings. Seems only fair and right to me. We both slip the odd few quid into a separate account and that is solely and exclusively to buy Christmas and birthday stuff for each other - seemed weird buying presents for each other out of joint account money. What happens when one of you stops working? Mrs Mottie gave up work for at least 10 years to raise our children and didn't earn a penny. Even the child benefit went into the joint account.

Does anyone else work on that type of setup - seems weird to both of us that all couples don't do that.
 
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The way I work things is - we both contribute to one of my accounts, she has the card, I have it on my phone and it covers all the bills generally and the food. She became my partner almost two years ago and moved in, she came with not a lot and no savings, giving up her job where she came from, to seek one down here. I'm comfortably off, owe nothing and own the place. She coming up to retiring me retired and I have always insisted on living within my income or better.

She earns more than I get in pension, we both pay a similar amount in the pot, we each just have our personal stuff to buy ourselves.

I deal with everything financial and keep an eye on the budget, I don't think she has much idea about such things, hence her not having any savings - whilst she has money she spends and stops when she has none left.

We had a bit of a 'discussion' last week about her spending wastefully, wasting large sums on food we do not eat and a massive over stocking, partly in anticipation of the need to tighten up because of the increasing energy bills. If she decides to make a dish, she tends to go out and buy everything needed, without checking what she has in stock. So cupboards and shelves just fill up, until stuff goes out of date part used. We are both quite headstrong, so a 'discussion' can become quite heated, despite her being very wrong.

I would dearly love to be able to tell her how much I have put by, but I suspect she would then begin frivolous spending - so no I will not tell her. She will be quite rich when I die, with a comfortable home all paid for - my Will is made out. She has so far refused having a Will drawn up at my expense.

Despite being with me almost two years and probably living more comfortably and securely than I suspect she has ever done, she still claims to be not settled here.
 
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Mrs Mottie and I must be really old-fashioned. I don't know any of our friends that work their finances out like we do. I got it from my parents but her dad never told her mum what he earned and could be quite mean with her 'allowance'. In fact when he died, not only was her mother shocked at the amounts he had squirrelled away into various accounts, she also became annoyed at how frugal he made them live with so much money saved up and it was in the hundreds of thousands! Did her no good though as she is set in her ways and would rather sit in a dark room with no heating on that rather than 'waste' it on such frivolities as heat and light. Even our two children think we are weird and do the 'you pay the rent, I pay the food' type of thing with their other halves. I know what she earns and she knows what I earn. In fact, she 'earns' more than me because as joint director of our company, she gets the same as me plus she has her income from the NHS. Whatever we earn goes into our joint bank account. We spend it on whatever we need but neither of us go silly or get greedy. Any surplus that builds up in that account plus my private pension income goes into a joint savings account and every now and then it went from there into ISA's or more recently, premium bonds but it always goes 50/50 so we both have the same 'individual' savings. Seems only fair and right to me. We both slip the odd few quid into a separate account and that is solely and exclusively to buy Christmas and birthday stuff for each other - seemed weird buying presents for each other out of joint account money. What happens when one of you stops working? Mrs Mottie gave up work for at least 10 years to raise our children and didn't earn a penny. Even the child benefit went into the joint account.

Does anyone else work on that type of setup - seems weird to both of us that all couples don't do that.
Virtually identical to us including parent situation but presents bought from our joint accounts.
 
I make my wife sound terrible, she's not, we have our good days and bad days, but I do love her to pieces.

Mrs turbo is terrible with money which is why I have always insisted on seperate accounts.

She has a tendency to "dip" into account and forgot to put the money back if it's for bills and such.

We have an agreement she pays for food, childcare and 1 car plus her personal stuff, and clothing for our son.

I pay for everything else, if we go out for days it's me, if we go on holiday it's me etc etc, I pay for all the DIY around the house, any repairs, appliances when they go wrong etc etc.

I want to save up for new kitchen, garage door, knock walls around in the extension, we could do with a new car in the not to distant future bla bla bla.

What I don't want to happen is for her to suddenly decide that because I'm now earning so much more she can give up work.

I've already said this is off the cards regardless of what I earn, she doesn't like her current job and wants to quit, i said she can get a job with slightly reduced hours so she can do the school run but once she's cleared her credit and store cards, which she does want to do, she feels like she's missing some of our son growing up by working full time, and I get that, it's nice to be able to pick him up from school (I don't once a week and it's great).

So far she appears to be struggling to pay her store cards as she just can't stop herself buying things from next.

Money is probably the single most thing we argue about, mostly because up until now it's always been tight.
 
The way I work things is - we both contribute to one of my accounts, she has the card, I have it on my phone and it covers all the bills generally and the food. She became my partner almost two years ago and moved in, she came with not a lot and no savings, giving up her job where she came from, to seek one down here. I'm comfortably off, owe nothing and own the place. She coming up to retiring me retired and I have always insisted on living within my income or better.

She earns more than I get in pension, we both pay a similar amount in the pot, we each just have our personal stuff to buy ourselves.

I deal with everything financial and keep an eye on the budget, I don't think she has much idea about such things, hence her not having any savings - whilst she has money she spends and stops when she has none left.

We had a bit of a 'discussion' last week about her spending wastefully, wasting large sums on food we do not eat and a massive over stocking, partly in anticipation of the need to tighten up because of the increasing energy bills. If she decides to make a dish, she tends to go out and buy everything needed, without checking what she has in stock. So cupboards and shelves just fill up, until stuff goes out of date part used. We are both quite headstrong, so a 'discussion' can become quite heated, despite her being very wrong.

I would dearly love to be able to tell her how much I have put by, but I suspect she would then begin frivolous spending - so no I will not tell her. She will be quite rich when I die, with a comfortable home all paid for - my Will is made out. She has so far refused having a Will drawn up at my expense.

Despite being with me almost two years and probably living more comfortably and securely than I suspect she has ever done, she still claims to be not settled here.

This sounds very similar to me and my wife...
 
Virtually identical to us including parent situation but presents bought from our joint accounts.
Lol. We are moving that way I think because there's not really much we need or want these days. We are thinking of buying a greenhouse for the allotment out of the joint account and calling it a birthday present to each other!
 
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