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I have a question if you and H exchange gifts...

S and I never really exchanged gifts.  Maybe we did when we were first dating, but not really ever during our married years.  We had all our money in one acct and it would have been really hard to keep a secret (for him anyway since I did all the money stuff).  Plus, if either of us wanted something, we talked about it and either decicded to buy it or not.  I think I would have been miffed if he bought me something without us discussing the purchase with me first.

So, my question is, if you share finances, how do you keep it a secret and do you ever get upset if he spent more than you wanted or vice versa?

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Re: I have a question if you and H exchange gifts...

  • We kind of cheat because we only buy each other one ornament, so I kind of have an idea of what's coming. That said, I'd be annoyed if I saw that he spent more than $40 or so on it (depending on what it was) since we share finances.

    For birthdays, we tend to do some kind of experience (dinner together at a nice restaurant, for example) but although we have a joint credit card that we use for almost everything (for the reward points) we also each kept the card that we have the longest history with when we got married. We use those cards for surprises and since the bills don't come until the end of the month, we don't find out about it until afterwords.

  • We share finances but we both also have separate accounts for our "allowances". We deposit a set amount into our own accounts each month for play money. We also use those accounts to buy each other presents. 
  • image+buttercup+:
    We share finances but we both also have separate accounts for our "allowances". We deposit a set amount into our own accounts each month for play money. We also use those accounts to buy each other presents. 
    So, do you deposit extra in that account for gift buying, or do you just have to save some of your fun money each month to buy the gift?

    . I don't know why this is so difficult for me!
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  • We have joint checking and savings accounts--nothing separate at all. It's easy to keep things a secret from DH because he never knows how much is in our account or what I'm spending and he never checks our online banking. He usually gets my gifts on Christmas Eve or the day before (I don't mind the last minute-ness because he doesn't have time to do it earlier) so I just don't look at our online banking for a day or two. Eventually I see what he spent of course, but the gift itself is a surprise.
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  • We set a limit and then get that much cash out. That way we use cash on everything and nothing shows up on the account. And it makes it easy not to go over the set amount. 


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  • imageShansBride:
    image+buttercup+:
    We share finances but we both also have separate accounts for our "allowances". We deposit a set amount into our own accounts each month for play money. We also use those accounts to buy each other presents. 
    So, do you deposit extra in that account for gift buying, or do you just have to save some of your fun money each month to buy the gift?

    . I don't know why this is so difficult for me!
    It just depends. Usually I have enough saved that I buy his presents with "my" money. He usually transfers money to his to buy mine. This year for Christmas I "asked" if it was okay to transfer X amount for his gift and we agreed upon a number.
  • imagedrillerswife:
    We have joint checking and savings accounts--nothing separate at all. It's easy to keep things a secret from DH because he never knows how much is in our account or what I'm spending and he never checks our online banking. He usually gets my gifts on Christmas Eve or the day before (I don't mind the last minute-ness because he doesn't have time to do it earlier) so I just don't look at our online banking for a day or two. Eventually I see what he spent of course, but the gift itself is a surprise.

    Same here 

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  • DH handles the credit card and pays it off each month, so it would be easy for him to just charge a gift without me knowing. We both monitor our checking and savings accounts. I would just withdraw cash from our checking or savings to pay for a gift for him, and he would be happy with the simple answer that I needed cash for secret Christmas presents.

    That being said, we normally don't buy gifts for each other. We're more the types to go out on a fun date or take a trip, or buy something joint. 

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  • We do share finances, but I do all of our account management so I think I bought his gifts with my credit card. He took out a lump of cash and bought gifts for me as well as a few other people. 

    We agreed to get a few small gifts and one larger gift in advance. He asked what was available and I told him (much more than he took/spent).  For us this worked out to fairly close to the same price spent on each other. I don't think that I would be upset if it wasn't 'equal' so long as neither of us spent outside of what we could afford. 

  • We share finances, but I really keep track of all of it on my own. Most years, we set a budget and use cash for it, so we don't know what we got. This year though, our gifts were a little more expensive than years past, so we talked about them before buying them. I still got him some small stuff for his stocking so that at least he'd have one surprise on Christmas.
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  • imagekayleeb:

    We set a limit and then get that much cash out. That way we use cash on everything and nothing shows up on the account. And it makes it easy not to go over the set amount. 

    We usually do this. 

  • We discuss if there's anything we are wanting.  If not, we don't do gifts.  He's surprised me one Christmas and was able to put it on our account at the store and pay it after Christmas so I wouldn't see or suspect anything.
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  • Generally we don't surprise eachother with a gift. Although this year I just withdrew money from our account and bought his. It would a little more difficult if I would have bought it online since he checks our account. We have joint checking and savings.
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  • We don't do birthday gifts and no Christmas gifts this year, but we have exchanged gifts in the past. We have separate credit cards so we each charge all our purchases to them, then pay them off from the joint checking account. Unless I request H show me his credit card statement (which I don't), I just know the total amount of his statement for the month.

    We discuss large purchases together before we buy them, so those have yet to be a surprise gift.

    imageimage
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