If you have one joint account...

[Liz CA]

does your dh / dw restrain themselves from looking at the account history around the holidays?

I have a separate checking from dh but my card was just compromised and now I have to wait for the replacement...meanwhile valuable shopping time's a wastin'.  :)

Edited December 4, 2015 by Liz CA

[Guest]

I don't know if he does or not. It doesn't make the gift mean less, it's just less of a surprise if the vendor is a very specific one. A solution is asking to buy a prepaid visa with a certain allotted money and then doing your gift purchases from that :)

[SparklyUnicorn]

He never looks at the bank stuff. 

[Seasider]

He watches our accounts like a hawk, and after having debit cards compromised twice, questions me about everything.

 

So, this fall I opened a separate checking account. Only a little money flows through it, but I don't have to explain any more gift purchases.

[redsquirrel]

lol, he never looks. That makes it easy.

[Miss Peregrine]

He doesn't even know how to log in.

[Rockhopper]

Separate amazon accounts. (How else to shop?)

 

I'm the only one who manages the money, so for the odd non-amazon gift, I get the debit card. He can use a credit card if he needs/wants to -- I only reconcile those when the statements arrive.

[abba12]

We have seperate amazon/ebay/etc accounts, for just this reason. 

We have a joint bank account, but I do most of my shopping online and generally direct payment through my personal paypal account, so just 'paypal transaction' comes up on the bank account. I try to pay for real life gift purchases in cash so the store doesn't show up in the eftpos history. 

[Frances]

He doesn't even know how to log in.

Same with my husband. Plus, we rarely do gifts. We prefer to spend money on experiences.

[Loowit]

We have joint checking/savings account.  DH never really looks at it.  I keep a close eye on our accounts after having problems with security in the past, but typically he will order from vendors that I wouldn't have a clue what he actually ordered, so it wouldn't really ruin any surprises.  But we do have separate accounts for email, Amazon, and other vendor sites, so we would never see what was ordered.  I also know not to open packages just addressed to him.  If he orders something that doesn't matter it has both our names on it.

[Arcadia]

I have my own credit card and he doesn't question if I draw cash to go gift shopping.

[sbgrace]

We're joint, but we don't exchange gifts between us so it's not a problem here.

 

You can purchase pre-paid credit cards though, if that would help. Some are good deals.

 

[Tsuga]

We don't have a joint account for many reasons, all practical and someday soon we might get one.

As a matter of fact, I simply shop at the last minute anyway which makes it easy.

[SereneHome]

I just ask him not to look on Amazon.

 

I use credit cards for everything, he doesn't even know log in. 

[EndOfOrdinary]

I am the one who never looks. My job is one which gives me tip money almost daily of 30 dollars or so. It means I just separate my cash from his knowledge and use that. He has no idea how much I have in my savings and general revolving fund.

[carriede]

I check our accounts once a month, so it's not really an issue. I keep all our receipts, record them in a register, then compare them to our statements at the end of the month.

 

So the only thing we do differently is DH doesn't give me his receipts with my gifts on them until after Christmas.

 

Is everyone else checking their online accounts that often...? Most of our pre-December purchases are things I know about anyway, so that's not a problem for us. Otherwise, I'd probably ask DH where the receipt is for XX.XX charge on our bill. And if he says it's for Christmas, I'd just ask him to verify the amount.

 

We also have separate Amazon accounts.

 

 

HTH, my reply was much longer than anticipated!

[lllll]

nm

Edited December 14, 2015 by ^ 022

[bettyandbob]

Dh checks all financial stuff. However, it would not occur to him to think a particular purchase was for him, even if it was a piece of clothing in his size. That's just the way he is. I'm the opposite, but dh doesn't shop for me ahead. He waits and enters into a panic around the 23rd, then goes to the mall on the 23rd or 24th.

[marbel]

I manage the checking account and credit cards.  We buy a lot from Amazon but I am the only one who sees order confirmation emails.  

 

So, I am the one most likely to have a surprise ruined.

 

 

[Miss Tick]

I don't use a debit card, but I will mention that starting last week if he reads the email in our joint account he is going to find gift receipts. Same with the credit card, although less detail.

[ScoutTN]

Dh almost never looks at the bank website. I do all the accounting. He does look at the YNAB budget, but I make purchases for him in cash so no store name shows up.

Dh is a relatively last minute and in-person shopper, and he uses cash so that I won't know.

I often shop online, but I just enter something vague on the budget and I know he would never try to figure it out on the bank website. We are big on surprises.

 

Many years are like this year when we cannot afford gifts for each other, so there are no secrets to keep. :(

[Carrie12345]

We share the Amazon account, but I ban him from it during the holidays.  If he does peek, he doesn't deserve to be surprised!

[Katy]

We don't have surprises.  I frequently purchase my own Christmas gifts or we go shopping together, he sees something that looks like me, and buys it with me right there after I agree I love it.

[Southern Ivy]

LOL I'm the one who hardly ever looks, so chances of him knowing what he got are high.
This year, though, I ordered something for him, but forgot the amount before I put it in the checkbook. I looked in the account to get the price and accidentally saw a very specific vendor. I know what I'm getting for Christmas. Whoops! 

One year, I wasn't thinking and ordered his Christmas gift off of his Amazon account instead of mine. He got an email detailing everything he got.  :lol:

[Guest]

I take care of all the bills and gift buying isn't really his love launguage. No ruined surprises here unless he looks under the bed!

[maize]

Dh basically never looks at our accounts. I keep a financial accounts and information summary document on the computer and try to update it several times a year, that is the only financial information he usually sees.

 

Not that he couldn't look if he wanted, he just isn't interested in following things closely. One reason I made the financials document is that I realized he probably won't know or remember passwords and important account information because he never uses them, and if something happened to me that would leave him in a mess. I've got all the account numbers, web address, and passwords in the document. 

 

Which of course would be a problem if someone hacked into my computer, but I can't address all possible concerns.

[Julie Smith]

Well considering any Christmas shopping DH does involves me telling him what to get, where to get it, and sending him to the store. - One account wouldn't ruin anything I'm getting. 

 

If I wanted something to be a surprise for Dh I would have to pay cash, or arrange something else - such as getting my Dad to buy it. 

Dh watches the accounts closely and gets messaged in some way or another whenever anything is bought. 

[Momto6inIN]

DH never looks at our accounts and would never have any idea what he's getting. If I die I seriously have all of our account info and whatnot in a special document in our fire safe box so he can find it.

 

He orders off his own amazon account sometimes for me, and I never check our credit card statements til the bill is due anyway, so that wouldn't ruin any surprises for me. Especially since "last minute" is his middle name. :)

 

The one time I knew what I was getting was when he used my laptop to search and order. So when all kinds of ads for Kitchen Aid mixers started appearing instead of curriculum ads, I kinda had a bit of a heads up what I might be getting! LOL

[J-rap]

We usually end up kind of knowing what each other is getting for the other, and that's fine. 

[Liz CA]

Dh watches the account closely due to fraud activity - especially at this time of year. I hat to charge on my credit card but this may be the solution for some items that are easily identified by vendor.

[Forget-Me-Not]

We use credit cards for 99% of our day to day purchases (we've got a couple of CCs that really pay off in terms of cash back & rewards) and pay the balances off each month. I pay the bills so he doesn't see purchases unless he goes looking. Amazon is where it gets troublesome. I finally made him open his own Amazon account (I think you can link 4 or 5 accounts in the same household to one Prime subscription) when I had some surprises ruined. He uses his own account and marks them as gifts, so when the boxes arrive saying "Gift For Forget-me-not" I know not to open them.

[marbel]

We use credit cards for 99% of our day to day purchases (we've got a couple of CCs that really pay off in terms of cash back & rewards) and pay the balances off each month. I pay the bills so he doesn't see purchases unless he goes looking. Amazon is where it gets troublesome. I finally made him open his own Amazon account (I think you can link 4 or 5 accounts in the same household to one Prime subscription) when I had some surprises ruined. He uses his own account and marks them as gifts, so when the boxes arrive saying "Gift For Forget-me-not" I know not to open them.

 

I did not know this.  I wondered about all these people with separate Amazon accounts.  I'll have to check that out.  Thanks!

[Farrar]

All the credit cards are shared. I don't look except when we go over them at the end of the month anyway. He refrains from looking too closely at the holidays beyond amounts.

 

Our Amazon accounts are linked with Amazon households. Everyone should do this. SOOOO useful.

[Rachel]

My husband checks our bank account daily. If I buy something for him online and want to keep it a surprise I either use PayPal or buy it along with something for the kids.

[Ravin]

We don't have joint banking, but we do share an Amazon account. We usually just don't try to surprise each other.

[TranquilMind]

does your dh / dw restrain themselves from looking at the account history around the holidays?

I have a separate checking from dh but my card was just compromised and now I have to wait for the replacement...meanwhile valuable shopping time's a wastin'.  :)

My husband never looks, unless I tell him to. I handle all the money. 

[QueenCat]

Dh doesn't look at our accounts unless I'm showing him something. He doesn't shop for me until a day or two before Christmas so I don't look at the Visa account on those days. But if it's a real issue, go get your self a Visa gift card to buy the surprises with, and then he won't know.