My wife and I had a single, joint account for the past 8 years. Just three months ago or so, we divided into “His”, “Hers”, and “Ours”.
The amount in “Ours” was decided by a budget, still flexing to a stable point, with provisions for a reserver, etc. The remainder is divided 20/80 into “His” and “Hers” respectively. She gets the larger share because she covers our three children’s expenses, too.
So far, so good. We haven’t fought but once over money since we’ve done this.
We have separate accounts. He’s the financial whiz (the Quicken addict) so he pays all of the bills and keeps track of all the expenses.
He charges our groceries on his charge card. I usually buy clothes and other things for our son. He gives me a bill once a month, which has my half of the expenses totalled, minus half of what I paid for BabyTee’s things. I reimburse him.
Occassionally, we adjust the percentage that we each put in if, for example, one of us got a monster raise or a promotion, that person might pick up more of the rent bill.
It works just fine. We never fight about money. We put $10 a week into a pot to buy incidentals during the week. We do the same when we are on vacation to pay for items not purchased with a credit card.
One account, and maybe three fights about money in 25 years, all when we were lower than I was comfortable with.
It’s almost embarassing, but it works out that I get everything either of us make signed over to me, I pay the bills and keep track of the money we have, and write him a cheque for his discretionary purchases. I don’t like telling him how much money he can spend, but he seems to prefer it this way.
In NY we had 2- one shared, and one for me alone. I opened my own because my first marriage ended with me penniless and homeless thanks to all of our money being in a joint account that he cleaned out. I will never, ever be without my own account again. The other account was joint, and we payed bills and such out of it. It was joint for the sake of ease of transactions and such.
Here in NC, we have 2. Each in our own names. I pay the bills out of mine, and he has his for banking things- cashing checks, etc. He does not have access to my account, but can deposit and such if needed. He also can just grab my card if he needs it for something- I don’t have an iron grip on it or anything. If he decided he needed access to that money, I would make it joint and open a separate account just for me, but I doubt he would bother. We have no real savings and the money in there just goes out to bills anyway.
We’ve shared an account since before we even lived together (when I was in HS and we were saving to move in together after graduation, I had a bank account and he had a job, so he just put his checks in my account)
At this point we never have more than we need to pay the bills, so “personal” money doesn’t come up often. We seem to fluctuate every 6 months as to who makes a decent living and who scrapes by, so we just concentrate on mutually getting enough pay the rent.
When one of us wants to make a purchase of more than like $20 (I said we’re scraping by, alright?) we talk about it and see if the money is there, and we each try to be fair about who gets what.
I can understand people wanting seperate accounts, but when I asked my mother’s advice back when the SO and I were getting serious, she said that keeping finances seperate had been a mistake for her in the past, and that the two of us would be better off throwing in together. Of course she also said at the time that if we wanted to get married, we should go for it, because “getting a divorce is easier than breaking up.”
Joint account. Two paychecks.
Our bills. Our money. Our debts. Our equity.
No arguments about money.
It has worked for us for twenty years.
We’re a multi-account couple now – his, mine, joint checking and joint savings. We were married a year or two before we got around to opening the joint accounts, but things seems to work better now. Paychecks go into the joint checking, from which all bills are paid, with set amounts going to savings and both personal accounts. Debit cards subtract from the personal accounts, though the joint can be accessed by either at an ATM. Since we’re both bad about remembering to write down things like $40 taken out at the ATM and $50-odd at Safeway, it seemed the best way to avoid potential holes in the account and quibbling about money. Seems to be working.
Joint account here. No money fights.
We kept things separate until we both had the same views and goals. We brought very unequal amounts into the relationship, but there have also been unequal earnings at times, etc. We just view it all as ‘ours’ with no ‘he spent, she spent, he earned, she earned’ calculations.
I think whatever works, works. No need to analyse it, just figure out what works with the particular personalities involved. Neither approach is better in general IMO, just better in specific circumstances.
Two jobs, two checking accounts, two sets of bills. I pay mortgage, insurance and utilities; she pays lot rent, car payment and cable. No fights about money.
Well, actually…
I make quite a bit more money than Mrs. HeyHomie, but I pay a larger percentage of the bills. In fact, we each pay about the same percentage of our salaries on bills. But since I make more, I have more spending money.
Mrs. HeyHomie thinks that’s unfair. Do you Dopers think that’s unfair?
Newlyweds here. (One year and one week.)
We have kept our pre-marital accounts so far. When she worked, her money direct deposited into hers, mine to mine (both are joint accounts). She paid for her truck, cell phone, student loan, and her credit cards (Direct Debit). I paid insurance (both), rent, and household expenses. We freely wire money back and forth between the two. It is just easier that way than changing all my electronic transfers. Because…
We are trying to bolt Miami, and she is no longer working. She still pays “her” bills via Direct Debit, and she wires money to her account from mine (on a pre-arranged schedule). Once we leave Miami and settle back in the USA, and I would have to change my electronic transactions anyway, we are dumping my Miami BofA account and will both use “her” account primarily. We WILL open a new (joint) local account so that we can deposit hard checks locally (her bank is USAA, and local branches are VERY few and far between), but that will be a small holding cell for deposits before they get transferred to our “real” bank.
We don’t have money or control issues to speak of, this works very well for us.
Just one month ago stormchaser and I decided to open seperate accounts. We have not had any money fights since then.
We’ve had a joint account since before we were married. we never fight over money.
Two checking accounts, plus my own savings account. I pay all of the bills, he buys all of the groceries and entertainments (ie: dinner out). We have very different money management styles and very different pay rates, so this was all worked out before we married.
I have always been a fairly lousy money manager, so I found a bill-paying service. The money for bills is direct-deposited into the service’s account, with the balance of my paycheck coming to me. I just fax our bills to the service as they come in, and they are paid on time. Regular deposits go directly into the savings account as well, since my company allows a 3-way split for paychecks.
What a stress-free situation! I enjoy knowing that the entire amount in my account is discretionary.
We have separate accounts, but Marcie has a power of attorney with mine–she can write checks on my account, but I can’t write them on hers. She says it’s because I am ten years older and will die first. Marcie pays for whatever she wants to pay for and I pay for everything else. We never fight about anything.
It really depends on how it’s handled. It could be fairly equitable, or it could be really, really one-sided.
We have a similar situation. In our case, I put a proportion of my income into his account and he pay all the household stuff, and we pay our own personal expenses. Our spending money situation works out a lot like yours, though.
It works for us, but we’re pretty flexible about it. Because he tends to have more disposable income and is also the keeper of “our” money, he pays for all mutual entertainment–dinner out, movies, gas on road trips, concert tickets-- and most stuff for the house out of his account. If I have more than the standard monthly expenses (say I need new scrubs, or new contacts, or the critters get sick, or the car needs work), I just don’t put as much in his account. We make sure that we enjoy a pretty comparable lifestyle, so it works for us.
If he were insistent that I put in x amount come hell or high water and pay for my own unexpected expenses out of what’s left over, that would be a problem. If our levels of spending money were so different that he was buying toys all the time while I was saving up for a new pair of shoes for work, that would be a problem.
We have one joint account where all money gets deposited and all bills get paid. We used to occasionally fight about money… who was spending too much on whatever… but then we decided to pay ourselves monthly allowances into separate spending accounts, and that was the best decision we’ve ever made. The allowances are equal no matter who makes more money.
I’m not married, but I know all about my married friends’ financial arrangements and money fights.
Amy and Joel merged everything long before getting married, largely because Joel was working while she was going to school, and he had all the money anyway. They fight constantly about money because Joel is very frugal and Amy, while about average in her spending, likes to buy many little treats (a sweater, a CD, etc.) for herself (almost always on sale, never spending very much in total). They both believe that they cannot talk about money without fighting. Joel handles all the finances and takes input from Amy grudgingly.
Sarah and Jim started out separate and merged everything. They initially had trouble keeping track of spending, but finally just gave themselves each a weekly allowance for personal expenses. (Which I think they put into separate checking accounts.) They didn’t like the idea much at first, but now hardly ever fight about money and agree this is the best idea for them. Their disagreements over money relate to long-term goals, like whether to pay off credit cards first or to start a retirement account now. Sarah pays the bills but takes input from Jim readily.
Cindy and Jeff have a single account. Cindy buys things only on sale, is very handy and so makes her own things often, and saves like crazy. Jeff is less goal-oriented and not as good at keeping track of things. Single account, Cindy manages it. They have had one major money argument I can think of (over a $200 baseball bat Jeff bought) but they now laugh about it and seem happy to let Cindy manage the finances with Jeff’s input (which he rarely wants to give).
I look at these arrangements and see that the difference is not who manages the money or whether it’s separate or merged, but how the couple communicates over money issues that matters. Uptight? Defensive? Locked into your own point of view? Probably not going to be good at working out money disagreements with the spouse. Flexible? Willing to compromise? Good listener? Able to divvy up responsibility according to ability? Sense of humor and perspective? Probably going to be OK with respect to the money issue.