While we're on the subject of money ......

.... There's one thing that has always caused me to shake my head slowly from side to side.
It's when you're having a conversation about anything with a friend or relative, even a perfect stranger, and they say something like, "So my wage goes into my bank account but the money she earns from working at the weekend goes into her account".
In other words, husband and wife have separate bank accounts and, usually, that means that one partner doesn't know how much is in the other account or what amounts are being spent out of it.
The thing is that such conversations tend to be entered into just before mention of arguments about money.
I just don't understand it.
The very idea of having separate bank accounts brings up thoughts of secret spending, one partner from another. Surely that's not a good idea relationship-wise.
The Boss Lady and I have always had just the one bank account from day one and I can honestly say that we have never had arguments about money. Lack of it, yes. We've had them. But it has never been a case of one accusing the other of spending to much.
Maybe the lack of arguments about money is also caused by our money rule. It may sound stupid but it seems to work. Obviously there are things that need to be paid for. Things such as the mortgage, utility bills, food shopping etc and they don't count in THE RULE. What counts in THE RULE is when you want to buy something that is strictly for your own use. Not for you and your partner's use. Just your own.
THE RULE is simple.
If it costs £24.99 or less, no worries. Get it if you want it.
If it costs £25.00 or more, talk about it first.
The price has gone up over the years but basically, it works.

Anyway, Happy New Year to one and all and may your money worries be pennies rather than pounds

[shazzababie]

hmmmm Stevie

I have been with Billy 29yrs this month, we aint married and we have separate bank accounts but 1 joint savings acct. It has never been an issue for us. We dont have credit cards as we feel if we cant pay cash for it then it aint worth getting into debt over. With the obvious exception of the mortgage lol ...

We dont argue about money, if i need cash then he will pay some into my acct, if he needs cash (which is never as he has a great job) then i would pay some into his... the way we look at it is we split things. He gets the mortgage whilst i get the shopping every week, the bills get split with some from my acct and others from his... we have never discussed a joint acct apart from the savings one which we rarely touch tbh....

if we are out for the evening he normally lifts cash but i do take my turn occasionally lol x We have more important things to worry about than cash tbh... I suppose when we first set up home it was an issue as money was tight but as you gather possessions and furnish ur home over the yrs then it becomes less and less of an issue...

Its other people who make it an issue for us tbh...Billys brother needs to know how much we spent on everything, then moans about us being able to afford thngs... what he doesnt get is that he has 3 kids to bring up whilst we have none so his priorities are in a different direction to us .... this has caused a few arguments over the yrs between them as his brother seems to view it as some sort of competition between them... gawd i wuld far rather have 3 kids than some of the stuff i have lol ...

Anyhow rant over - can u get back to writing ur book plz x

Shaz

shazz .... I suppose it was a bit rude of me to try to ram our way of doing something down everybody's throat saying, "This is the best way" and I apologise for that. However, I still maintain that separate bank accounts can cause arguments. I guess it depends on how firm a relationship is in the first place.

Back to the more important subject of book writing, I have just got some new Speech Recognition software and I am going to use that rather than a keyboard to write the rest of the book. I takes it harder having to write two versions of the book. The version that you see here is not the finished version. In the real version, names and events will be changed although the basic plot (and Charlie) will remain the same. The reason for all this is that if I want to offer the finished book to a publisher in the hope of earning lots of cash, the book must not have been available to read on-line.
The problem, as publishers see it, is why should they go to the expense of printing thousands of books when punters can read the book for free with a few mouse clicks?

Anyway, give it another few days and I'll get back into harness.

[shazzababie]

lol Stevie u werent in any way rude lol ... what works for me and Billy may not work for others as is the case with you and ur missus lol ..... i think we're all just lucky in the respect that money isnt a great issue in our life as opposed to being happy is lol ....

Glad to hear that Charlie will be back with us soon xxx