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Joint or separate accounts?


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Those of you in long term relationships/marriages. What works for you, and why? My parents had separate accounts and never really argued about money

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In my last relationship, we had separate accounts and one joint where we both transferred the money for the bills, then I would take care of the rest. It was, and still is, the way I'm more comfortable with.

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Most accounts are joint, and for the few that are not, we are each other's beneficiaries. Separate accounts are good if you have different attitudes towards saving/spending, so you can handle that within the limits of separate accounts.

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Joint or separate accounts?

 

I think the short answer is both.

 

We have a joint account that all checks and deposits flow into. From this gets paid our living expenses and funds our retirement savings.

 

Drawn from that automatically is a set amount that transfers into our separate accounts each month, this we each spend as we please. My wife gets more as she also takes care of the kids and grandkids.

 

Very few issues since we went to this system some time ago...

 

Mr. Lucky

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amaysngrace

My parents had joint accounts and my husband and I had separate accounts. My parents were joined for life and my husband and I became as separate as our banking accounts.

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Another vote for both. My parents had this arrangement & so do DH & I. The paychecks go in the main joint account. Overtime or money from PT jobs goes in the separate accounts.

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We have joint accounts for family money, that is money from employment and retirement income. All family expenses are paid from those accounts. We each have separate accounts for inherited money and gifts from others, and we can each spend that money as we like (except no political donations). If you have significant money at the time you get married, that should go into a separate account. We were both broke when we got married.

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we can each spend that money as we like (except no political donations).

 

Interesting exception. Why is that?

 

Mr. Lucky

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Mr Lucky - My wife is a strong Democrat and I vote straight Republican so we have agreed that we will not make any political contributions even from our separate accounts. This makes it easy to say "no" to requests for contributions. Also, no yard sighs.

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In the case of both, to put all deposits into the joint account first and then disperse from there into separate accounts, or to put deposits into separate accounts and then disperse into joint accounts?

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Those of you in long term relationships/marriages. What works for you, and why? My parents had separate accounts and never really argued about money

 

My parents have joint accounts. These days, especially if you're under 45, you're better off with separate accounts because if you don't, your money will be for both of you and her money will be hers. She'll also buy you gifts from that account that you put your money into and expect you to be thankful that you're married to her.

 

 

Be careful. Also, why marry? Why not stay in a committed relationship?

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Kitty Tantrum

Joint.

 

I was quite pleased to close my account with my old bank when my fiancé added me to his. Maintaining my own bank account was stressful. I'm fine with budgeting and managing money, but any time something came up (card not working, fee that shouldn't be there, etc.) and I had to call or go in and talk to someone from the bank, I wanted to die. He's perfectly great at making phone calls and talking to people, but not so great about managing money. So for us it makes sense to team up and split the work of managing one account. I deal with the numbers, he deals with the people.

 

It helps that we have similar values and ideas about how to use our money. We're poor and things are pretty tight, but we haven't argued about money yet.

 

For me, I can't think of a good reason to keep separate accounts that would not also be a good reason to not marry someone.

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