Thursday, December 20, 2012

One Non-Sleazy Reason to Have a Secret Account

Money can be a problem in relationships. Both parties don't always agree on what is a good way to spend the money, or what is worth the deal, or which vacation costs so much that you want to cry. Some couples have separate bank accounts and their own "allowances" and I have NO idea how they regulate those types of things and dictate how bills are paid. But that doesn't matter, because it's not how our household operates. We share it all and both have access to everything. Yay! Sharing! BUT, I have officially found a non-sleazy reason to have a secret account, whether credit or bank:

GIFTS.

Our 1st wedding anniversary was last week (related blog to come soon). We went to Lanzarote and had a wonderful time. It was the perfect way to celebrate our first year of marriage. It was also necessary for simple weather reasons: deathly cold here, warm beaches there. Since we were planning on the big trip, we decided not to do gifts, paper or not.

I decided to get Husband a gift, anyway. Nothing exciting. Just something small that I knew he would like. Since he obviously has access to our bank account online, I paid with our paypal so that he wouldn't know about the gift. FAIL. I didn't know that paypal sends an email/receipt about the transactions it pays for. Guess whose email address is attached to our paypal. Not mine. Guess who basically never checks his email but happened to check it soon after this receipt was sent. Again, not me. So my secret was out.

Randomly, because I'm a freak who needs to control things and always know our financial status, I went online to check out our bank account sometime after that, not knowing that Husband had gotten the paypal receipt. And a curious smile spread across my face because there it was: a transaction at a jewelry store. Husband had bought me a secret anniversary gift!! Stupid joint checking account!

Needless to say, because we are both so caring and wanted to let the other have the secret, neither of us mentioned that the jig was up. Somehow it came up in Lanzarote and I found out he knew and vice versa and we had a good laugh about it.

But from now on, I might start secretly siphoning money from our account and paying for gifts with cash.