I can say this exactly, except that I am the one who forgets and so he pays the bills.
We realized VERY early on that if we were going to fight a lot, it would be about money. He’s a saver - eats bologna and cheese every day for lunch and drops big bucks on car parts and electronics every so often. I’m a spender - I love to eat lunch out, and buy CDs and DVDs and generally only save up if I’m planning a big purchase.
So, we’re also on the his-hers-joint checking-joint savings plan. We make roughly the same and have for most of our marriage, so we contribute the same amount to the joint accounts. We decide together what to do with tax refunds, monetary gifts, etc - sometimes they go in the savings account, sometimes we buy something for the two of us or a house project, and sometimes we divvy it up between us.
The Week we got married we condensed all of our accounts into a joint Checking and Savings account.
I helped her eliminate all her little loans that were left (Car & School), cut up all but 2 credits cards and we went to Direct Deposit since then. I handled most of the bills. I have condensed them and got them all to Direct Debit or automatic Credit Card Payments. This is working great. We’re a pair of computer geeks and very digital people. She handles the latchkey checks and does the taxes with me playing Gopher and keeping the kids out of her hair.
So I think joint accounts work great.
Jim
Our accounts are separate, but only because my wife needs to know to the penny how much money is in her account at any given moment, and I can’t remember how much I take out. I just make sure mine always has enough that no checks will bounce. I don’t balance it at all.
So, to avoid driving her insane wondering why her account is not balancing, I keep my own account. She’s also much better at remembering to pay bills and such, so our system is that I have auto-deductions set up on my account for some major bills, and she pays the other ones. And if one account runs low, we just transfer money. It’s all treated the same. We both also have our own RRSP accounts, because we get payment deductions from work. She has a better pension than I do, so I put away extra money into my RRSP to try to keep up.
I could have written most of that post.
When Brainiac4 and I moved in together, all finances were seperate - he moved into my house and paid me “rent.” I made more than he did.
When it got to be more than shacking up (sometime before or after marriage, it really isn’t important)…we had three checking accounts and an allowance system. Allowances were the same amount. I made more than he did.
When the kids came along the dynamic completely changed. The money all got co mingled, and the individual accounts and allowances stopped. This happened about the time Brainiac4 started making more money than I did. He still does and I don’t anticipate outearning him ever again.
You guys have been really creative.
We have two joint accounts – either of us can use them but we each use “our own”. We divvy up the regular bills more or less equally.
We discuss large purchases, but since we’re old and kinda have everything we need, there aren’t many large purchases. The last one was hubby’s Harley, and the “discussion” was me saying “You know you want it, get the damn thing.” 
We have a joint account from which all bills are paid. We make roughly the same amount. My wife handles the bills, I handled them in the past. When my home office was the only office-like location, it was easier for me to pay the bills, since they were always at my desk. Now that we have a separate household desk, where my wife usually does her stuff, she does the bills.
We make sure to discuss any major purchases, bill paying, and are both pretty good about not buying things we don’t need.
We have a couple of joint credit cards, I have one personal card, and my wife just cancelled her personal card, and needs to get a new one. Even though the cards are “personal” we discuss them and pay them just like the joint cards.
DINKs, married almost 16 years.
We’ve always had separate accounts; just never got around to getting joint ones, and probably related to my not changing my name. (Why bother?)
He made the lion’s share of the income until 2001. When we were living together before we got married and I lost my part-time job at the start of my last semester of college, he told me he’d take care of the bills so I could concentrate on finals, getting a real job, etc. Felt weird having him write a check to pay my CC bill; not so much the rent, utilities, etc.
The separate checking accounts are a must; I balance faithfully every month and track every cent, while he lets his statements pile up for a couple of months before balancing them, and if he’s within $10 he’s happy. He doesn’t bother with savings, but just lets the excess pile up in checking on the rare occasions that he has any. I have two savings accounts, one for socking away quarterly taxes (I’m self-employed) and one for my cushion (usually only a couple of months’ worth, but we’re going to try to increase it). We do have agent status on each other’s accounts, so we can get into them in case of emergency.
Bills: We’ve always just divvied them up according to who has the scratch and/or whose bill it is. He used to pay the mortgage/rent, utilities, insurance, etc. Each paid his/her own car payment, credit card, etc. Groceries bought by whoever did the shopping or, if both of us went, who’s got the cash. Often it’s “You pay the vet bill, and I’ll take care of the car repairs next week.” I also used to buy loads of lumber for the house, and pay for vacations/concerts/etc., because I was paid in irregular lumps, while he paid the regular bills because of his regular paycheck.
In 2001 that all changed when he got downsized. Since then I’ve been the big breadwinner (facilitated by my kicking it into high gear, working more hours, getting more clients, etc.). So I paid all the bills except his CC bill, which he managed to cover with unemployment, part-time/temp work, etc until he finally got a full-time job last year. Plus he would pick up groceries, cheap dinners out, etc., when he could. Now that he’s working, and we refinanced the house and got rid of several CCs including his, he has more ready cash so I’m letting him pick up more bills here and there. Plus he buys most of the lumber and stuff for his projects (we’re in a constant state of remodeling). We cut down to one joint MasterCard (not to be used except for emergencies, paid off every month).
He says he’d love it if I just handled all the money all the time and he didn’t have to even deal with a checking account. That would be fine with me, since I’m better with paperwork and numbers than he is, but (1) I don’t think he should be that disconnected from the bills and (2) I want him to at least have the autonomy of having his own money instead of me giving him an allowance or something. It’s weird because he’s almost 12 years older than I am, and I have to be careful not to turn him into a wife from the 1950s.
So basically the bills come in, and somebody pays them. We’re both pretty responsible, always discuss major purchases beforehand, and nobody is the type to forget to pay a bill. But with the change in incomes, I’ve pretty much taken over.
Married 28 years. We’ve always had only one account. We have the bills in a basket, but she usually pays them because she works from home and it helps procrastination. I balance the checkbook because I like that kind of diddly work.
It works because we are very compatible about money (though I am slightly cheaper than she is) and both despise debt. We’ve paid cash for all our cars. We’ve had maybe two arguments about money since we’ve been married.
We have separate retirement accounts because the law requires it. They’ll go into the pool also.
Popping back in to say that spelling “married” as “merried” makes me smile. It’s like a positive Freudian slip.
This is an interesting thread for me because I just got married and we haven’t gotten around to combining our money yet. My children and I moved into my new husband’s house, and up to this point, he has just continued paying his bills, I pay mine, plus I do the grocery shopping. I plan to continue to maintain a separate account, whatever happens. It just doesn’t seem smart to do otherwise.
Married 20+ years, 3 teenage kids.
Have always had joint accounts.
First 5 years she earned more than me.
Last 15+ she worked part-time, earning no more than 10-20% of my salary.
She does the majority of the paperwork and a lot of the shopping, primarily because she is better at it than I, but also partially as a division of labor because I’m out of the house working full-time.
Of course, this does require that I religiously keep receipts of anything I charge and give them to her.
And we generally avoid using ATMs - if we do, we are very careful with the receipts.
There is just so damned much paperwork coming through the house - so much crap to keep track of, that we have consciously taken steps to simplify things as much as possible.
I just don’t want a single additional statement coming in.
And I couldn’t imagine a benefit making it worthwhile to have to regularly transfer money between accounts and such.
We intentionally eliminating as many credit cards as possible, such that we now carry only 1 MC, 1 Visa (both with no fee and bonuses, and which we pay off monthly - depending on the billing date, we can get a month’s float by using one or the other), 1 discover (can’t beat cash back on your cash at the grocery store!).
When I inherited some stocks after my parents died, I put her name on the account.
The only minor problem is when buying her gifts, she sees the cc receipt.
But that is no big deal at all for us.
I should note that I make a pretty good income and we have relatively modest tastes, such that we generally have a pretty comfortable cushion.
Not rolling in dough, but neither are we counting pennies waiting for the next check.
My wife and myself earn roughly the same amount of money, and dump it into a joint account. I get paid bi-weekly, so she saves her pay and then we have his-and her weeks, so to speak. A certain amount of cash comes out of the account every week – some goes into a kitty, so there’s cash in the house for shopping, gas, etc, and then we each get a weekly stipend for personal expenditure. I pay all of the bills out of the joint account, as I have the patience to keep track of incoming/outgoing; she doen’t even have a cover for her checks, never mind a register!
She also has a home-based business, linked to a different checking account, but that’s her business, not mine.
I am not married, but I have a friend who does the following and I think it works nicely. I would probably do the same.
They each contribute 75% of the income to the household. They spend 25% on what they want.
Furniture comes out of the household funds and must be agreed upon.
If they can’t agree upon a purchase of furniture and one of them still really really wants something he/she may buy it from the personal funds.
I don’t know how they handle their investments, whether that comes from house hold or personal funds, but I would take it from household funds (I think.)
We have joint accounts (checking, savings) and I maintain an individual checking / savings account. Both of our salaries go into the joint checking account, and all bills are paid out of that account. A few hundred dollars each month get transferred to my individual checking account, and I use that for miscellaneous spending cash and some groceries (most come out of the joint account). I’ve suggested that Typo Knig also have an individual account for mad money but he doesn’t want the bother. Which leads to him having no financial secrets from me - mostly a good thing but it means he can never surprise me on my birthday, as I’ve already seen the entry in Quicken
Loans etc. are handled jointly - both cars are in both our names.
We have several joint credit cards, and we also each have one individual card - “insurance” in case something happens to one of us, then the other one already has individual credit established. The only other individual accounts we have are our IRA/401(k) accounts.
Doesn’t seem smart in what way. . .your situation specifically, or in general?
To the OP:
Basically we have a joint account, and then she has a personal account.
In the joint account, I get direct deposit of my paycheck which is 3 or 4 times what she nets. Pretty much all of the bills come out of this (CC, mortgage, loans, food, cash).
Her account is her small business account. It’s basically there for running her business.
What ends up happening is that the joint account runs the household, her account runs her business (materials, travel, fees, etc.), and then we take big chunks out of her account for things like trips, remodeling, filling up the IRAs, etc.
Her account is weird. It will be at $1000 and then two-months later, it can be at $20,000, so it’s hard to count on. I think we tend to treat it a little like it’s “found money” when it gets fat, but we’re not frivolous about it.
Well, I believe the usual way for “merried” people to handle the finances is to take from the rich, and give to the poor.
Married 3 years. We have separate accounts, although we’re probably going to get a joint savings account soon. I make considerably less than him, so it’s worked out for me paying for groceries and household crap from my account, and him paying the rent and bills from his. I give him about half my paycheque towards rent and savings. We don’t consult about small purchases unless money is tight, and always talk about big purchases.
Neither of us is a mathematical whiz, but he’s a little better with numbers and lists. I’m better with household budgeting. It works.
Hard to say, but speaking as a female who has been in abusive relationships in the past, I personally don’t feel secure without setting aside a small private fund. My new husband is a good man and I will never be in danger from him, but I still feel better having some “just in case” money hidden away. Just in case what? I don’t know.
I expect that my husband will keep some money aside from the joint account as well.