I’m getting a bonus at work. It’s issued as a paper check so there will be no direct deposit.
I was thinking about putting a portion of it aside, in a non-family account, to use as a surprise for my wife. A trip or something. I’m really not sure what, yet.
Is it unethical to do this? Hide money from my wife? If I intend it for something nice that includes her, part of me sees this as OK. The other part feels guilty.
Opinions?
There is such a big difference between “hiding money” and surprising someone with money. I see no ethical issue with your situation. It’s only hiding money - and a sign of a bad relationship - if you are worried she will steal it or use it for something you can’t afford (or for drugs or something).
I see no problem as long as the money is really extra and isn’t needed to pay bills or daily living expenses. I think it’s a cool idea since so often extra money gets used up on little things and you never really get to enjoy anything extra from it.
The amount will however show up on your 2010 w-10 from your company, so be prepared.
If your joint financial situation is otherwise good (no debts or things that need upgrading / fixing this should go towards) then it’s probably OK IMHO.
In terms of the surprise part - if you’re going to spend it on her, it might be a good idea to have a “hypothetical” discussion of where she would like to go on a surprise date/trip before you book anything though.
You’re fine if she doesn’t find out. If she does you’re sunk.
You can’t go back and later claim you weren’t hiding it and it was a surprise. Because if you were planning to hide it from her, going online and posting in a public forum, saying you were going to surprise her, would be the perfect cover if you get caught out.
Do yourself a favour and avoid it. Take your bonus and split it with her. Give her half and you half and then tell her your surprise and see if she’ll use her half to go along with.
It’ll still be a surprise, just revealed a bit earlier.
As Eric Davidson the Governor of Wentworth Detention Center (on Prisoner: Cell Block H) says:
Mr Stuart, in this job it’s not enough to BE honest. You must be SEEN to be honest. To let anyone even think your not, is a discredit to the service
Yeah, I tried the “hypothetical” the other day after an ad for a cruise ship line. No tropical cruises for her. No beaches.
Our money situation is good right now. My first thought was “Big Screen, Big Screen!!” but that’s really a gift for me.
Taxes in 2011 are no problem, I do them.
If you’re using it to surprise your wife with something special, I can’t even imagine why it would be wrong. I have a coworker, who hides every additional penny he can squeeze out of a stone from his wife and kids. Why?
He has a whole secret family in the Philippines. He sends them as much as he can.
THAT’S wrong.
Joe
How about this: instead of opening a secret account, just stash the check somewhere safe until surprise time. Then show your wife the bonus check, and deposit it and pay for the surprise.
As the family accountant, I can easily think of reasons that this would annoy me. I have short, medium, and longterm plans for our family money; expenses and payments are decided on together. A bonus coming into the family might already be earmarked for debt reduction or for something to make our lives better longterm (a renovation or replacing an old, broken-down car). I would appreciate the thought behind a surprise trip, but it wouldn’t override my dismay at first having money hidden from me, then at perhaps having the money used for purposes that I may not agree with as a high priority.
At least he hasn’t completely forgotten about them. 
Jesus, man, live a little!
Not that you’re totally wrong, but, shit…
If I were the bonus receiver, and I KNEW we needed the money BADLY, that would be one thing. But there is no indication in the OP that they need the bonus to live day-to-day…
Does your husband / wife, the non-family-accountant, at least have some idea of the family finances? I hope so.
Joe
Our finances are largely our own, we each pay certain bills and are free to do as we see fit with the rest, after contributing to joint savings. So there wouldn’t be any hiding here, so neither of us would be upset or concerned. I dig surprises and would be absolutely delighted by my husband planning one.
For what it’s worth, I work in a mostly male blue-collar environment. Nearly all of my coworkers feel strongly that bonus or extra money that they earned is theirs to keep without telling the missus about, since it’s not part of the regular family budget.
I don’t know about everybody else but what’s worked for my spouse & I for more than 30 years is, we each have a checking account, and we have a joint account.
All bills are paid from the joint checking, except a couple of credit cards that I have and a couple that he has. So we each have a private place to stash money.
I have no idea how much he has.
This way, also, I have no idea how much he’s contributed to the pro-life campaign, Republican Party, etc. Which is a GOOD thing for family unity.
Also, if I did know, then I’d have to contribute an equal amount to the opposition.
Man? I’m a girl-type. Early on my husband and I decided that I would be the money person since I’m frugal and have mad skillz at making money stretch. I keep him in the financial loop all the time, and like I said, we make financial decisions together. We have only the one joint account. It would take an effort for Jim to hide money from me (and me from him). As far as I know, we’re both okay with that.
It sounds like Belrix and wife don’t need the bonus to live day-to-day, but financial planning is more than just day-to-day. If they have no debts and have retirement investments, and Belrix’s kids from his previous marriage are well taken-care of, then a surprise might be nice. Belrix knows his wife better than we do; maybe she looks at things differently than I do (well, there’s a good chance of that 
).
My mother hid money from my father all the time. She pretty much had to, because if he knew they had $10 he’d spend it and she was the one who paid the bills. Dad had no idea how much it cost to run the family and he didn’t know about the secret savings account.
He hid money from her, too - so that he could spend it. He’d get a paycheck, cash it, and hand her part of the money and tell her it was the whole thing.
…and they’d both confide in us kids what they were doing.
Anyhow, with the memory of that situation always in my mind my wife and I keep no money secrets from each other. Even the embarrassing items (Frequently heard spouse’s complaint: “You paid $100 for a new golf driver because it had one degree more loft than the one you were already using?”)
Ethically, Belrix, I think you’re in the clear. Practically, it will depend on your wife’s temperament.
Will she be delighted with the surprise or freaked out that you didn’t tell her about a chunk of money that came your way? Are finances otherwise all right, with savings on track, bills paid, rainy day fund topped off, and retirement goals met? Then she’s much more likely to be delighted. If she has money worries or if she was financially mistreated/manipulated by a past SO, she could well freak out on you.
If in doubt, you might check with her mom/sister/BFF and get their opinion of which way she’ll break.
I mean “Man” like the royal “we.” Or something. I figgered you were a girl.
The only time I got a significant bonus that I could hide from my wife (it was a $300.00 winning lottery ticket that a friend bought me!), I was like a four-year-old. I asked her, theoretically, what she would spend a couple hundred bucks on if she could, without consequence. But I couldn’t even last a day. I ecstatically told her that I won a small amount of money, and wanted to buy her a present, but didn’t know what to buy.
She said iPod, so there ya go.
Joe
Feel her out on her opinions on charity. Specifically, sending large sums of money to a person you met on a message board.
But in general, I don’t think there is anything particularly wrong with it as long as you think she’d be happy. Would she immediately think “how did you afford this?” if you surprised her? Then when you told her, would she counter that the money could be better used on something practical like a new dishwasher? If so, you might want to just say “Hey, honey, I got a big bonus at work and was thinking we should use it to take a trip. What do you think?”
It depends on the financial operations you two have agreed upon, I think. Some couples (and I agree with this view) feel that as long as the bills etc are paid, any “extra” money is the earners to keep, but if they’re going to make a “big” purchase (like an LCD TV or something) then common sense indicates it would be prudent to consult with their spouse before wandering into the TV Emporium.
I guess you can do this. It isn’t exactly unethical. But I don’t think it is a good idea. I wouldn’t take the chance. Look at it this way: if you get found out prematurely you can at most come out even. Probably won’t. If you don’t get found out, you have denied her the opportunity to plan and anticipate a splurge.
For better IMHO is to tell here about the check but hold the check and have her come up with a splurge for herself. Only then deposit the check. When we get extra money, hers ends up in the checking account-which she uses to pay the routine family bills-and likely as not just goes to bills. So I don’t let her “have” (of course if she insisted that is up to her) the money until she has something fun for her to do.