I got to wondering about this the other day. When I was growing up, my parents had one account into which both of their salaries were deposited. They fought about money constantly.
Now my best friend is married, and he and his woman keep separate accounts. As far as I can tell, they never fight about money.
So, if you are married, do you and your SO keep separate accounts? Why or why not?
This is a lot like the other thread drifting around out there. Me and the wife have seperate accounts, but the money all comes from the same place (for the most part) so its no real big deal.
Let me explain (Reader’s Digest version):
Wife had a mountain of debt, and poor $$ management skills when I met her. I had no debt and paid my bills. Before we got married, we kept stuff seperate, and split all expenses, but I did all the accounting. She would give me her money and I used it to pay off her debt in the best way. Then, I got a mountain of cash. It seemed stupid to have her pay out the butt in interest charges every month while my cash sat in an account getting 2%, so I paid off all her stuff and kept track of her payments to me to reduce her balance.
Then we got married, she quit her job when the baby was born and the whole thing became an academic accounting excercise. Sure, I could “pay” her to stay home and raise the boy, then she could “pay” on her “loan” from me blah blah blah blah-- Whats the damn point?
Now, I cash my check, give her a wad of cash for whatever she does with it and everybodys happy. If we ever get a divorce*, well, I guess I’m just screwed for her debt I paid off, but I don’t really see things “Mine or Hers” anymore. Its all “Ours”.
She told me she loved me like a brother. She was from Arkansas, hence the Joy!
We keep three–mine, his, and one we share. We rarely fight over money.
My parents each kept their own and split bills, and I never knew them to argue about money, at least not in my presence. My sister married a man whose parents had only ever had one checking account. He insisted that somehow they weren’t really dedicated to one another if they had separate accounts. Their fights over money the first few years of their marriage were amazing to behold. One day when she was complaining to me I told my sister to just go out and start two more accounts, and to give each of them a monthly allowance. That way, there was no dividing up whose money was whose, which would apparently have offended my bil, and they would each have a discretionary fund that neither of them could question–if bil wanted to buy new golf clubs and used his account, my sister would have no reason to complain that it was going to affect the family finances, and if she blew her monthly allowance on chocolate and precious moments figurines, he likewise could have no complaints, since it was, after all, money set aside for her to spend as she wished.
He was, I’ve heard, very unhappy when she suggested it, but as soon as the plan was put into action the money fights stopped.
I’ve seen more than one finance “expert” state that, if what you are doing is working, don’t change it". Two accounts here, and it works, for the most part.
We have several separate accounts, and a joint savings account.
It works pretty well, we negotiate who will be responsible for paying what and stick to it until we feel a need to re-negotiate.
We did recently make a change that gave us both signing authority on each other’s accounts should one of us die unexpectedly and then have trouble accessing the other’s money. Having a will does take care of a lot of things, but having joint signing authority means one less thing to wait for should we have an immediate need for money in that event.
We learned this when my husband’s mother died. She had an ironclad will, no property, no outstanding taxes, no arcane investments in foreign countries or anything of that nature. In other words, cut and dried. It still took the bank six months to release her money to the beneficiaries.
We might have the odd disagreement about money but it’s more about the when or what of major purchases rather than who owes what for monthly bills or what have you.
We’re another couple who have three accounts: mine, my wife’s, and one that we share.
My pay goes into my account and her pay goes into hers. Then, we’ve agreed to put a certain amount in the joint account each month. From that come household expenses, groceries, etc. If we get a little ahead on the joint account and see no large or annual expenses coming up quickly (car insurance, for example), we might use the surplus on a dinner out or something similar.
But we have no real problems with this setup. It works pretty well, actually–she cannot complain if I spend my money on golf or lose a few dollars at the track, and I can’t complain if she’s spending her money on something I think is frivolous. As long as we keep to our agreement about the joint account for household expenses, we’re fine.
Separate so far but we keep meaning to get a joint one as well, to reduce the management paperwork. We chip in equally for all household expenses, but since he earns more than me, he buys the drinks and subsidises joint holidays.
And then he can’t complain when I spend $200 on books.
Mrs. Giraffe and I have a single, joint account. We never fight about money.
Separate accounts, no fights about money so far.
Separate checking accounts (where our paychecks get direct-deposited), joint savings account. Each person pays for certain, set household expenses and our own (separate) credit card bills. I buy most of the groceries and miscellaneous household items, but that varies.
Separate accounts and a rather complicated way of dividing expenses. It works for us and we never fight about money either.
Separate accounts in the Tech household.
We’ve got joint CDs, funds and other assets together but checking accounts are separate.
I don’t think we’ve ever had a fight about money.
Just one account.
Lady Chance and I have been together since our first year in college so it was natural that we just went in together when we graduated and moved out.
We do have seperate IRA accounts but that’s because of some 401k rollover items in the past. Most of our savings is in a single account but those items are seperate.
Joint checking, one joint savings, my wife’s savings, and individual checking accounts (mine is for my business expenses). Also some CDs in common.
No problems. I handled most finances; my wife puts money into savings for big expenses down the road.
Separate accounts here.
He works FT, I work PT. We have two smallish children.
He pays all the big stuff (mortgage, electricity), and I pay for small stuff (food, kid expenses).
We both save around 15% of our income off the top, and keep a joint emergency fund for household expenses such as car repair or appliance replacement.
I wanted to keep our expenses separate when we were a new couple because he had poor money managenment skills, big debt, and no savings. I just didn’t trust him to handle ‘my’ money. Since we started that way, it has remained so. He has improved his management skills greatly, though, so now I would trust him to manage it all, but we have had nothing occur to change the way we do things.
We have separate accounts and when we both worked we had it so I paid all the bills (water, electric, car payment, etc.) and my husband paid the mortgage. Now that I’m staying home, we still have the separate accounts but I do all the money management. I keep a small amount of money in my account for stuff like gas and groceries, transferring money in as I need it. All the bills are paid out of his account. After I pay the bills and put money into savings, I let him know how much money we have left to spend for the next two weeks. He doesn’t spend money on anything besides lunch without asking me and I don’t buy anything except necessary household stuff without asking him. That’s because we’re on a tight budget, though, since I don’t have an income. We have never had a fight about money.
I think not fighting about money has more to do with similar values about finances rather than separate vs. joint accounts. Our system works because we are both pretty frugal and we both find it more important to save money than buy luxuries. We also have similar attitudes about using credit - we pretty much don’t. plus, we share the goal of wanting $20,000 in the bank by this time next year so that we can finally move to Australia.
My parents have always had separate bank accounts and they made similar incomes - and not little ones, either. They fought all the time about money when I was growing up, though, because my dad would freak if my mom EVER used a credit card. I remember him flinging stuff in the kitchen because my mom ran up a $30 balance on her Visa. That’s not a typo. She really only used her credit card if she knew she was getting paid in a couple days and would always pay it off every month. My dad, though, was raised by someone who put the family massively into debt using credit, so it was a huge, often unreasonable issue with him.
Two accounts.
He pays for the mortgage and other house things. I pay for groceries, our health and car insurance, clothing for all of us, and a lot of incidentals. I am currently paying down personal debt and an old tuition bill, which is why I don’t pay as much into the household. I also contribute heavily into my retirement account, which I consider to be joint even though it’s in my name (he’s self employed, which is why he doesn’t have health insurance or a juicy employer-sponsored retirement plan).
It works, pretty much. I wrestle with guilt over not helping more with the big expenses, but my husband makes more than me and had a royalty buy-out that gave him a cushion. We don’t fight about money, although I suspect we would if things got tighter.
One account couple here. I get paid weekly, she gets paid monthly, so it just works out better for both of us that way. Certain of our expenses are simply too big to be easily paid out of a separate account owned by either one of us, so this is better. Since merging the finances, we have never overdrawn the account.
Our household stuff gets paid out of one account–his. I put a little less than half of my checks in his account toward the mortgage and utilities and whatnot, and he pays all that, along with his car insurance, credit card, most of the groceries, etc. My car insurance, medical bills, pet expenses, and various odds and ends come out of the rest of my income. Big expenditures we talk about, whether it’s personal or for the house.
We tried doing everything together, but we have different banking and accounting styles. So, his check into his account, he dithers over every single bill, tweaks amounts and lives in happy banker bliss. My check into my account, I deposit the same amount every payday into his account. I pay the automatic insurance, etc and have savings taken out of mine - amount in the account slowly grows but I don’t have a daily update like he does. Different banks - different styles.
I also have the joint account I’ve had with my dad since I was 5 years old. When my mom owes me money, she deposits it there. I call it my major appliance fund. Hubby can’t touch it.