Paying For Christmas Gifts

NestCayla · December 2013

Hey Everyone! Would love to get your advice/opinion on some Christmas/holiday shopping!

If you and your partner have a joint banking account, share credit cards etc... I would love to hear from you!

When it comes to Christmas shopping and getting each other gifts -- how do you keep it a secret!? Are you buying your gifts for him/her with cash? Or do you not even bother keeping gifts a secret?

brij2006 · December 2013

We each have a credit card that is in our separate names. Those are used for gifts and surprises.

lifeonthehill · December 2013

We both shopped amazon for xmas this year actually. haha. So it could be practically anything and just comes up as Amazon.

We also agreed to talk about each time we spent money so the other wouldn't have to check the bank statement thoroughly to see where it went.

hoffse · December 2013

Yeah I mean, unless you tell your spouse "either buy me this from store X or this from store Y" you have no way of knowing what it is just because a store name appears on a credit card statement. I mean, even if it says Sephora, I don't know if he's gotten my make up (I sincerely hope not), perfume, or some nice lotions, etc.

If you're still worried he would figure it out, you can agree to make xmas purchases for him on one card and he makes xmas purchases for you on another. And then you each track those separate cards for fraudulent transactions until Christmas is done.

But personally, I think that's overkill.

vlagrl29 · December 2013

I use my credit card and then pay it off with money I have in a separate account. I'm pretty sure DH uses cash on mine.....although I already know he got me a coach wallet.

vpine · December 2013

we have joint account, take out cash for each other's presents

CuriousKiddosMama · December 2013

We tend to use cash for just about everything, so it was cash this year for gifts. That way you don't know where it is coming from. I did charge one thing for him, but it was a hunting item and I had to make sure it was the right one before I purchased, so that will not be a surprise as well. Also, I did add a couple shirts to my black friday shopping for him, so even though those went on the card he thinks it was just sheets and whatever else I bought that day.

smbenevides1989 · December 2013

He used cash, I used my debit. We have a joint account, but he rarely checks it.

Xstatic3333 · December 2013

H and I rarely succeed at our presents being surprises. Usually one of us is so excited that we spill the beans well before Christmas.

ta78 · December 2013

We didn't buy gifts this year, but I did see before hand that he had bought me something from a jewelry store. It was still a surprise what it was. He never checks the acct, so he'd have no idea. I do buy most things from Amazon though.

If I did want to keep it a real surprise, I would use my credit card and pay that off.

sillygoosegirl · December 2013

For the most part, we don't even try to make gifts a surprise anymore. Our main gift this year is a new sliding glass door in the master bedroom... Yeah, not a surprise, but we are both looking forward to it!

We also do most of our shopping on Amazon, and as another poster pointed out, you can basically buy anything from Amazon. We also shop for our families on Amazon, so really, an Amazon charge means nothing, LOL. In prior years, we've normally both agreed to not check the accounts the last couple weeks before Christmas, but I don't think we will even bother with that this year.

mana8503 · December 2013

I handle all the money, I don't think H ever checks the accounts. And he's really bad at gifts, so I just made him an amazon wishlist, and I'm pretty sure he just got everything off that. Eh, it works for us.

orangehills · December 2013

DH gets cash each month for fun money, he used that to get gifts for me. We are only filling each other's stockings this year with little things since our shopping spree last month, and our Hawaii trip in a month and a half is our gift to ourselves. I am the one in charge of the accounts, he never looks at them, so I just got his stocking stuff lumped into all the grocery bills

seedabee · December 2013

We have a joint account but also keep separate accounts. We use those to buy gifts.

EJChapman123 · December 2013

Usually, he uses a card I don't check regularly because he only uses it for gifts, and then by the time the bill has to be paid the gifts have been exchanged and its okay for me to look at it and pay it off. He honestly almost never looks at our accounts, I do all the finances, so I don't have to do anything special, but I still use a card he doesn't even know how to log into for gifting.

He put something on our main card this year though, so I saw it. But it was for personalization mall, I don't know what exactly it is. Oops!

Paying For Christmas Gifts

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