The Beast & I opened up a joint checking account a couple months ago. We’ve been living together for a year & a half, & we’d been splitting the bills 50-50 & taking turns paying for groceries, gas, & so on. The taking turns bit didn’t work out, though, becuase he felt (incorrectly, IMO) that he was paying for things too much of the time. So now we have a joint account & each of us has half our paychecks directly deposited in there & half put into our personal checking accounts. Bills, food, dinners out, & anything that we both use comes out of the joint account. Clothes, tuition (he’s getting his masters), books, DVDs, & so on come out of our own personal accounts. Twice a month we review our bills & bank statements & make sure everything is cool.
It works great because he used to get snippy if he thought I was spending a lot of money on myself & he was spending a lot on joint expenses, which was most of the time. Now he can’t cast aspersions on my spending habits. Plus I like knowing what’s happening with the finances. My mom never knew & my dad screwed things up royally.
Two paychecks, one checking account. Our earnings & spendings have bounced around a lot over the years, mostly due to his recent career change which dropped his earnings drastically. Also, since I am an accountant and very anal about getting everything paid on time while he takes a more aristocratice view of money and bills, I handle all the finances.
We discuss all major purchases, we each have a major credit card to buy our own lesser toys without consulting each other, and we take a sum of household money each Friday that covers all food, gas & entertainment for the week, split down the middle after the groceries are paid and the cars are tanked.
We’ve had one or two loud discussions about it over the years, usually when he starts feeling like he’s on an allowance (which we both are), but they’ve always been solved amicably. It helps that we agree on all the major stuff (retirement savings, keeping debt down, allowing ourselves the odd indulgence and cool toy), and he enjoys the benefits of a stellar credit rating without having to do the dog work. It suits our relationship, our fluctuating financial situation, and our personal tastes to work this way, but I can see that it would not be for everyone.
I’m pretty much in the same boat as Beezlebubba (sp). My wife is postponing year five of college to care for upcoming child, and she hasn’t had a job in … I don’t remember.
We have seperate accounts, but also a joint savings account with our paltry nest egg. Or bail money, however you want to look at it.
Our biggest problem is paing off old depts. Mainly to parents for school, cars, ect. But it added up over the years, and I make dick, so my money kinda gets direct-deposited into the fireplace.
Tonight I’m scouring the house for spare change so I can go buy some beer.
My spouse and I share everything, almost. I’m the one who brought money and money-handling expertise into the marriage. My husband right now is the sole income-earner. We have one checking account and one credit card. My husband has no interest whatsoever in how I handle the money. I will get him interested eventually. The one thing I haven’t changed yet is putting his name on the money market, mutual funds, and stock accounts. I can’t seem to bring myself to do it yet, and he’s not interested. He is the sole beneficiary already. We just never argue about money, as both of us have simple needs and tastes.
My wife and I have almost the exact same arangement as above. It seems to work quite well and eliminates almost all money conflicts because the other person cannot spend money that is not in their own account therefore there is nothing to fight about. I manage the household bills and write her a “bill” every month for her share of the expenses that she must deposit into the joint checking account. I always thought that the old system of joint finances was an archaic carryover from the time that little wifey stayed at home and the big man brought home the bacon. Now that most women also work, it makes since that both people could have some autonomous control over the money that they work for. I also believe that poor joint financial arrangements are one of the reasons that money conflicts are among the top causes of divorce.
I’m with you, Jazzmine, and for essentially the same reason. My wife and I have always kept one checking account and one savings account in both our names. (The rest of the family assets are held by the family trust, but I digress.)
I balance the checkbook, simply because my spouse doesn’t like doing it. When a big expense is coming up, she’ll ask me whether there’s enough in the checking account to handle it. But she knows everything about our financial affairs – balances, contatct numbers, etc. – just in case something should happen to me.
My wife’s sister once commented that it was half her (my wife’s) money, and my wife’s reply was, “No, it’s ALL OUR money.” I cannot add anything to her wisdom.
My fiance and I have seperate checking/savings accounts for now. He pays the rent and his own bills (car insurance, doctor bills, truck payment, his cell phone etc.) and I pay electric/gas, phone, household items (toilet paper, shampoo, etc.), groceries, cell phone, car payment, car and life insurance and all the kids bills. It balances out pretty well most of the time. Money can be pretty tight for me most of the time and sometimes I feel like he’s not paying enough but I have to take into consideration that I pay for all the stuff for my kids. Just daycare alone is $520 each month.
I don’t think we’ll change it once we get married. We’ll get a joint checking account but we’re still going to keep our seperate accounts. We’ll just use the joint account for our joint bills and our seperate accounts for our individual bills.
With my first husband we had a joint account and I wrote out all the bills. Both of our paychecks went into the account and I gave him $50 a week for his “allowance.” He had an ATM card for awhile but he started taking money out and not telling me about it and we bounced several checks. I cut up his ATM card after that! It was good that we did it this way because he never knew how much money we had so I opened an account in my own name and saved money in it for 6 months before I filed for divorce. 
Valkyrie and I are real flubs when it comes to personal finances. The amount of money we make, and the amount of bills we pay each month, dictate the necessity of one checking account. And even then we’re deep in the red.
She likes to hold on to the checkbook but she doesn’t like to balance it; I try to keep an eye on it more than twice a week, and she doesn’t enter checks in the register when she writes them. sigh
Yes, I see the little red lights flashing. I choose to ignore them.
Next time you re-order checks, get the kind with the little carbon copies on the back. I had to do this for Mr. Seawitch, too - he means well, but he has a short attention span.
We have a joint checking/savings account, I have my own checking/savings account, spouse has his own savings account and we have a joint tax savings account.
What this means is: Spouse handles nearly all the $$, his paycheck and most of mine are deposited to the joint account for bills, rent, etc. The rest from my paycheck goes to my account(s). I use my account to fund my Ebay habit, book habit, etc. He uses his account to fund his stock-buying habit, while consulting me on this since it’s affecting both of us.
Boils down to: I’m a spender, he isn’t. This way my spending is limited to a level we’re both comfortable with. I will confess, however, there are times I need to get imaginative as to how I’ll pay the latest Ebay charge for yet another doll for my collection. But this solution is one we worked out together, and it seems to work.
Incidentally, when I got my raise last month, we also agreed half the increase would go to the joint account, half goes to me. Only seems fair – this way we BOTH benefit.
One checking account in both names, same with the savings. Both paychecks go into checking, with a sum from each of hubby’s paychecks going into savings.
No credit cards. A debit card and checkbook held by me. Hubby has an ATM card. Asks if he can spend money and is good about telling me what he’s taken out when he does.
I write all the bills and work the budget. It gets a little burdensome sometimes, but I have free reign on the cash and he’s perfectly content with that.
Works for us.
Well, I don’t have a SO, but I do have a roommate who’s currently out of a job.
If we were married or shacked up and dating, I’d be gently nagging him to get a job so that we could have more play money. Since we’re not, I cover the bills and rent temporarily, and buy groceries, and the one night a week that he works right now gives him money for gas and any eating out he wants to do on his own. When he’s employed next month, he’ll pay me back for the rent. (The deal I made with him was that while he was jobless, I’d cover utilities if he’d clean the house and cook and such.)
My extra income is mine to spend on my entertainment. I sometimes go out to eat and take him, but (although this sounds really childish) I refuse to spend my extra money on fun things only he would enjoy. That’s why we’re roommates, not dating. If we were, we’d be “in the same boat” and we’d split the money.
I have a checking account. When he works, he cashes his check and gives me whatever money I need to pay the bills. Then he runs around and spends cash for two weeks, and I pay bills and then run around writing checks for two weeks. We go to the grocery store every week, and when he’s working, we just make sure the stuff only one person will eat comes out even, and then split the total at the checkout. Since I’m the only one working right now, I just give him a list and the cash and send him to the store.
We haven’t really bought anything together, although we may purchase two comfy chairs in a few months, which we’ll split monetarily, and agree on colors for.
Being roommates is so much more peaceful than dating, for me. It’s odd.
Corr
When Mrs. Stoner and I were first married, we comingled all our bills and had a joint checking account. It worked out great except for a couple minor things… I was always broke, and there was always something new around the house,such as big screen T.V.s or new bedroom sets. We also had no savings.
My wife would always come up with reasons to spend money.
Anyway, I set the Mrs. down and laid down the law. My salary would be used to pay the house payment, car payment, and utilities. Her salary, about 2/3 of mine, would go towards grocerys, household needs, and stuff for the kids.
Since then, we never argue over money, and I’ve also been able to save some money for retirement.
We realized early on in the relationship that if we were going to fight, it would be about money. Mr. Winkie’s a “save big and then spend big” kinda person; I am a “CD here, lunch out there, where did it all go?” kinda person. So, we have his money, my money, and our money.
A percentage of each paycheck goes into a joint checking account. All monthly bills (mortgage, utilities, groceries, car payments) come out of the joint checking account, as well as auto maintenance and related stuff. We each put a set amount per month into a joint savings account, which we use for big purchases (house downpayment, new furniture for house, bigger TV to go in new entertainment center in the house …). Whatever’s left goes into our separate checking accounts for “fun stuff.” He can buy radio-controlled trucks to his heart’s content, I can eat lunch out if I want to, the bills get paid, and nobody’s crabby.