I am recently engaged and I would just like to hear how some married couples, where both earn an income, handle the money and bills? Do you just lump all of it together or do you keep it separate? Is one a more substantial earner than the other and how owuld that effect how itis done? I of course don’t want specifics (how much you make etc.) just some ideas and the pros and cons of your individual decisions.
We have our pay deposited in one account. And we live off that account. We’ve rarely earned comparable salaries, but it didn’t matter. All of the money went into one pile, and was doled out from that pile.
At one time, we tried having 2 accounts and dividing the bills. That didn’t work for us since someone kept forgetting to pay his share. So we went back to me paying the bills. It’s worked pretty well for 22 years.
My husband worked with a man who kept his salary a secret from his wife. When he got bonuses, she never knew about it. She just blindly and blythely signed the tax forms, never bothering to ask him about them. I guess it worked for them - as far as I know, they’re still married. But I can’t imagine living like that.
When we got married, we had his, hers and ours accounts. That feel by the wayside when we had children – so much money went for the kids that it seemed pointless to divide it any other way.
In terms of income we’ve sliced it just about every way it can be sliced. When we first got married, she earned a lot more than me. Then we earned about the same. Then I earned more. For the past few years, she’s earned a lot more than me again. It really hasn’t affected the “one pot” system. We both pay ourselves a personal allowance and consult on big purchases.
We flushed it down the toilet!
Boy. Was that fun!
My wife and I make roughly the same amount. We each have our own checking account and a joint account. She is much smarter than I am and handles figuring out the common bills, we each are responsible for our own credit cards, magazine subsriptions, etc.
We each have a car we brought to the marriage and pay for and maintain them individually.
Neither of us would make a large purchase without discussing it with the other first. I’m more of a spendthrift, so I rely on her cooler head to talk me out of a lot of crap we don’t need.
She pretty much tells me how much money to dump in the joint account each month and I do. We keep rough track of common expenses. If I pay for groceries, she’ll pay for the next couple of dinner out, for example. We don’t have any kids, but I’m pretty much responsible for vet bills for the dog and she covers the cats.
Also, if one of us needs a loan for something big like a bi-annual car insurance bill or whatever the other one will loan it interest free. We usually keep track of these amounts in just a rough sense.
When we first started living together we were more careful to keep things exactly even, but over the past 5 years it is much less exact.
For 40+ years we’ve pooled our money. First 3 years, he was earning & I was finishing school. Then we were DINKs for about 5 years. Then I was a SAHM. Eventually, after I had been back in the work force for a while, my salary surpassed his. Now, he’s retired and I’m still working. It evens out over time.
However, we do each maintain a separate savings account of our own, and some separate credit cards. It’s a good thing, IMHO, for every individual to have the means of suppport and credit should the other disappear for some reason.
Also, I generally handle the accounting and the bill paying out of our common funds, just because I don’t mind it and am more organized than he is.
Suburban Plankton and I have always had a joint checking account that both paychecks went into. Our marriage is a partnership, so everything is ours, not his/hers. Sometimes I made more than him, sometimes he made more. Didn’t matter. Everything into one pot…except bonus checks. Bonuses we kept for ourselves. To spend as we please. However, most of the time, “as we please” meant something both of us would enjoy anyway.
We’ve pooled our funds since we were shacked up. Everything is both of ours. There is not a great difference in our earnings. I pay the bills and we discuss expenditures that will run over $100. It works well for us.
My husband and I have four (four!) different accounts. We each have a personal checking account. Those accounts are used for day-to-day individual purchases such as gas, books, DVDs, a candy bar at break, etc. We also have a joint checking account where the majority of our pay goes. We pay all of our bills out of this account. Finally, we have a joint savings account (which was originally mine and is tied to my checking account).
For the most part, it works pretty well. I make substantially (over 50%) more than my husband, but that doesn’t figure much into how we handle our money. The only time I’ve ever felt a twinge of conflict is back when it seemed as though he was doing more personal spending than I was from his account. He upped his contribution to the account after we talked, though, and it worked itself out. I think that any situation can be handled as long as you communicate.
We’ve had separate accounts since day one. We each have our own “personal” bills that we take care of, such as credit cards, student loans, car payment. He makes the house payment and pays the cable bill and car insurance, and I pay the utilities and phone, plus buy the groceries. It has worked fine for us so far. In the past, my husband was terrible with money, and that’s why I kept a separate account—so at least one of us would have money in case of an emergency. Now he’s much better, but it’s habit for us. We often give each other money if the other is short, or switch around what we pay for based on who can afford to pay what. We don’t keep track of who pays for more, or insist that one pay the other back or anything like that. We each just take what we can handle.
When Mrs. Giraffe and I were living together before we got married, we each paid a fraction of the household expenses based on how much we each made. We decided to pool our money when we got married, and it’s worked out really well. I can’t imagine doing it any other way.
When we first started pooling the money, we were both a bit apprehensive. Her about us not spending too much, me about having some spending autonomy for small stuff. We solved it by making a budget which included a certain amount of no-questions-asked money each month for each of us. We did that for a while, until we realized that neither one of us was prone to over-spending and then just stopped worrying about who was spending what.
The most important thing is for the two of you to sit down and honestly discuss the issues, not just now but whenever it’s needed. IME, differences in “philosophy” (e.g., saver vs. spender) cause many more problems then sorting out the mechanics.
In one relationship, we divvied up responsibilities in a manner that seemed reasonably equitable to us, and each took care of our portion. I paid rent and bought groceries; spouse paid for bills and eating out. We ate out a lot, so the food portion was quite high, plus I made more money; it all worked out fairly well. Never had any kind of joint account.
In my current relationship, we each have an individual account and contribute to a joint household account from which rent/bills/groceries/etc. are paid. Contributions are more-or-less proportional to income (i.e., I make twice as much, so contribute twice as much). The biggest problem with this method is keeping careful track of the funds in the account (or have overdraft protection) - it really sucks when you bounce a check because someone else wrote a check that you didn’t know about. (More complicated in our case due to the number of people involved.)
In my personal situation, I wouldn’t be willing to do a single account, simply because of the lack of financial restraint of one partner. The other problem (for me and others with whom I’ve discussed this topic) is the lack of “personal” money. I should be able to spend some money on myself without having to answer to anyone (amount depending on circumstances). Besides, how do you buy each other presents without revealing the cost?
Until last September, we had separate banks but my SO didn’t like hers. They kept saying she had money in her account but when she went to use that money, it wasn’t there and she got hit for the debt plus the overdraft fee. She ended up owing them nearly 700 bucks!
In September, I heard about a program in my bank for military personnel and employees of the federal government. I opened a checking account in that program and got a second checking account as part of a package deal. My SO moved what was left of her money to that second account. It’s technically a joint account but she’s the only one using it and I only use the primary account. Both accounts are available through the Internet via my login number & password.
We’ve found that it works best to have one person handle the bills, and that person is my wife. She knows better than I do what the upcoming expenses are, how much she plans to spend on groceries or whatever, so she knows how much we can spend or save right now.
When I moved back to Florida, Ivylad was delayed in his move by about six months. I had the kids, so I opened up an account to pay the rent, groceries, bills, etc, while he paid the bills up in South Carolina.
When Ivylad followed, he opened up his own account. We used to have a joint account in SC but it NEVER balanced. He’s one of those folks that if he writes a check for $12.57, he’ll record it as $13. I, however, record it as $12.57.
It just sort of morphed into who pays what bills. I pay the mortgage on the house and the water bill. He pays the mortgage on the rental property and, since he likes the AC at 70 degrees, the electric bill. We don’t have any joint credit cards except for Lowe’s. I was paying on that until he decided we needed a brand new riding lawn mower with trailer (our son mows yards for extra money) and he took over Lowe’s. He buys the groceries and I pay for the kids’ tuition at private school.
It’s worked out well. No more arguments over money and who didn’t record what in the checkbook. If one of us wants to go out to eat, there’s no fighting over “We can’t afford it!” We take any found money (IRS refunds, for example) and split it down the middle.
Like Angel of the Lord, we have his, hers, and ours checking, plus a joint savings account. The bulk of the money goes into the ours account, which we use to pay the mortgage, bills, groceries, etc. We each keep some in our personal checking for things like clothes, snacks, haircuts, etc. And every month, I put a bit in our savings, which goes for things like repairing the kitchen ceiling, which has suddenly starting leaking, goddammit! (My husband is a full-time student, who is working 20 hours a week. At this point, his paycheck doesn’t stretch far enough to contribute to savings.) The system works well for us now. I like having a little discretionary money of my own (I hate the thought of buying my husband’s birthday present with his money).
We have a direct draft for the mortgage, but I pay most of the other bills. I’m better at remembering that kind of thing than my husband. I would definitely put one person in charge of paying the bills, but make sure that the other person knows how much you’re spending each month.
Currently my wife and I have seperate finances. We both make the same amount (both PFCs in the Army). We each pay our own bills, and save our own money. Mainly this is because we have yet to be stationed close enough together that we could live together, and it is easier to have seperate finances while seperated. Once we get stationed together we will be combining our finances.
-Otanx
My boyfriend and I, who have lived together for many years, have usually made about the same amount. We tried having separate accounts and dividing bills equally, but it led to heartache and arguing because we had very different ideas of what was appropriate spending, saving, &c. Now we have his, hers, and ours accounts. The his and hers get regular allowances and that money can be spent freely on fun stuff with no comment allowed from the other party. The ours account is used for all other expenses.
I’m in charge of paying bills, tracking expenses, and doling out allowances. This new system works wonderfully because it plays on both of our strengths: mine of controlling money and his of ignoring it. We’re both much happier this way, if no richer.
We both have our pay direct deposited in the checking account, and everything gets paid from that. We use our debit cards for almost all purchases, and don’t carry much cash. I get paid bi-weekly, my wife gets paid monthly. So she keeps a running tab of everything incoming and outgoing. Before we were married, she set up the apartment and the utilities and phone and cable, so the bills all still come in her name, and she takes care of that. She makes a bit more than I do, as she teaches piano several days a week in addition to her day job.
No matter, it all goes into the bank, and everything gets paid on time, all the time. Any money we have is “our” money, neither of us owns more of it. If one of us wants to buy something, and we can afford it, we do. We don’t buy expensive stuff, because our aim is to get out of debt, not more into it. It’s worked for eight years. I can’t see us doing it a different way!
Our system is actually pretty simple and seems to work well. We have a joint account that pays for all the household expenses and we roughly figured out what those are going to be on average over time. Every week, we have the bank do an automatic transfer from each of our personal accounts into the joint account. The liberal budgeting is designed to build a surplus over time so we don’t do the bill doling out thing. The money is there in advance to pay it from the joint account. Anything that is a joint or household expense that we know in good faith comes out of the joint account. Everything else stays in our personal accounts and we pay for cars, clothes, everything else. We just switch off at will on things like expensive entertainment and don’t really have to talk about it.
We have our own savings accounts, investment accounts, and 401K plans. We also have joint savings and kid’s savings accounts.
I refuse to the fully joint account method. I would be divorced in a month.