question for those who have shared bank accounts

DianaL616 · June 2012

This might be a silly question but how do you buy each other birthday gifts, etc without the other person seeing it on the checking account and knowing where their gift is from?

My birthday is this Saturday and H is wondering because he wants to buy my gift without me knowing about it (of course) but I handle the finances so he's all worried now. It's something that I hadn't even thought about. I'm not worried about me shopping for him but he's worried haha. For example, for Christmas he got me a Coach wristlet. If we had been sharing accounts then I would definetly had known that it was a gift for me. Steffen doesn't frequent the Coach store for himself lol.

How do you handle it?

mandi921vh · June 2012

This is the exact reason that we plan to have a joint checking account and keep our own checking accounts... for gifts or surprise gifts. Maybe take out money to purchase the gift...? Or if you are ordering online will your mom or friend accept a check from you for them to put it on their debit/credit card?

Kelsee52612 · June 2012

My DH will either hit up an ATM and buy my gift with cash or make the purchase RIGHT before he gives it to me, this way the charge hasn't hit our account yet!

MrsSheeler518 · June 2012

We haven't really thought about it yet.. but we will either just go to the ATM, or if its online, just buy it via Paypal, and thats how it shows up on the bank account.. not really a big deal to us anyway, since we usually just pick out of gifts.

comeongetdown · June 2012

you could pay for it with a credit card, then pay the credit card off with the joint checking account?

we haven't decided on how we're doing our finances yet, so for the time being everything is still separate. this was one of my concerns also because DH and i like to surprise each other

DianaL616 · June 2012

comeongetdown:
you could pay for it with a credit card, then pay the credit card off with the joint checking account?

we haven't decided on how we're doing our finances yet, so for the time being everything is still separate. this was one of my concerns also because DH and i like to surprise each other

Yeah I was just talking to H and I think this is what we will end up doing because I don't really look at our credit card statements..I just pay it and move on. We like to surprise each other too!

AurorasEnvy · June 2012

We've had joint accounts (everything) for about a year and half now. It's a non issue, really. We put everything on our credit card and pay it off every month in order to rack of rewards. The odds that he bought it, and I check the statement before I pay the bill are very low.

adventureisoutthere · June 2012

H and I have had joint bank accounts pretty much since I moved in (1.5 years ago), we have joint chequing account but we each have our own credit cards. So gifts we either put on our credit cards and then they just get paid off afterwards, or we pay cash.

amandad18 · June 2012

We've had a joint account for a few years and go the buy it on the credit card/ pay it off asap route

leopardgurl831 · June 2012

I would probably pay cash, use the credit card he doesn't check every day, or tell him not to check the account until after his birthday.

Flowerstar1023 · June 2012

We have a joint account but each have two separate credit cards right now. Our plan is to keep one credit card each in our own names and then get another rewards card in both our names. That way we can spend money without the other person going "You spent $100 on a bike accessory" or "You spent $100 on that dress?". Plus, you should really keep a separate credit card anyway so that you still have an established credit history in solely your name.

FutureMrsW9 · June 2012

We opened joint accounts for gifts and other shared expenses, but we thought it wise to keep our own separate accounts, too. This way there are no arguments about how "personal" money is being spent and the money for shared expenses is still there in the open. If you don't want to keep you individual accounts, you could just take cash out and make your purchases in cash, no? I usually do this anyway.

question for those who have shared bank accounts

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