Marriage & Money

[caramba]

Whats your approach to finances after marriage? Split everything 50/50 no matter each persons income? Separate or joint accounts?

One breadwinner while the other stays at home?

 

Whats your opinion?

/Caramba

[Woggle]

My wife and I have seperate accounts and we don't bug each other about how to spend each other's money as long as we both contribute our half to the household expenses. It works for us.

[Curmudgeon]

My wife is retired and drawing a pension and I'm still working. We each have checking and savings accounts on which we're the respective principal account holders but all accounts are joint, as is our money market fund investment account. I have a 401(k) for which she's the sole beneficiary and I also have my employer-based, defined benefit retirement fund for which she is also the beneficiary just as I am on hers. We each have survivor benefits from one another's accounts if one of us predeceases the other.

 

My wife uses her checking account for household expenses to which I contribute a bit more than she does. I use my checking account to pay all bills, including our home and all utilities. What's left in both checking accounts at the end of the month is transferred to our respective savings accounts and the monthly expenses budgets start anew. Each of us also takes an "allowance" each month for personal use.

 

It works for us! It also took a lot of experimenting over the years to get a system we're both comfortable with.

[Gunny376]

Although I'm currently living the single life?

 

With my last LTR GF, who was a school teacher the way we did it, was we added up all the household expenses. Then we added up the total household income between the two of us. Use that as a sum and divided the individual income by the sum of the whole ~ came up with a percentage.

 

Because I was on active duty at the time, it came to a 60/40 per centage difference. Sooooooooooooooooo, I paid 60% of the expenses for the household expenses. This freeed up more of her income for her personal expenses. The catch was? Her car payment, insurance was hers. She wanted a new car? Can you afford a new car? Her CC's (Credit Cards) were her's and mine were mine (I've got the one Mastercard)

 

Now that I'm going the single route again ~ I'm very much on board with Mary Hunts' "Debt Proof Living". Not where I want to be ~ yet? But I've got almost of a years income saved up and put back (took years to get there) plus specific money pegged and put back for specific anticipated expenses. I pay a cheaper preimium on my insurance because I pay once a year ~ rather than month to month. My car insurance (full coverage) went from $72 a month to $52 because of this. I've got enough money put back in the auto maintenacne fund to cover a new engine and transmission, not to mention regualar scheduled maintenance. Even though I'm not due until Sept. I've already got the money put back for tags and registration.

 

Mary calls these "Freedom Accounts" (You can Goggle ~ she's got a website by the same name ~ "Debt Free Living" It will cost you $2 a month to join and get full access, and to get her monthly e-mail newsletter ~ worth every penny. This will also get you access to the fourms, as well as all the archieved newletters.

 

Other categories for "Freedom Accounts"

 

House Maintenance and Repairs

Property Taxes

Furniture and Appliance Replacement

Vacation

 

Another good book to read is "Manage Your Debt" can't remember the authors name off the top of my head, but she the editor of MS "Money Talk" section.

 

Other books (she's written 14 all together) by Mary Hunt:

 

"Debtproof Living"

"Debtproof Your Marriage"

"Debtproof Your Children"

 

Also recommend Dave Ramsey's "Complete Money Makeover" he's got a website as well, and a syndicated radio show.

[tommyr]

Joint accounts for pretty much everything. My wife is a Stay-At-Home-Mom so I believe it would be unfair for me to control my own bank account.

[bab]

We've got a joint account into which both our checks go. Immediately after they go in a certain amount is automatically deducted into our savings account, it amounts to about 15% of our net monthly income. H isn't actually on the savings account, which I think is probably for the better because he has a history of using the money in his saving's account. But, it's a linked to our joint checking and he could figure out how to get in without to much trouble and transfer the money back into the joint checking if something were to happen to me. All fun money, all bills, everything comes out of the joint checking. It's working for us.

[Topper]

I would never do joint accounts again. Never.

[bab]

I would never do joint accounts again. Never.

 

What's the reason?

[Woggle]

To me a joint account would cause too much problems. If we both keep our own accounts and pay our fair share of the expenses we can both spend our money as we please. It just creates less problems.

[My Fair Katie]

We have joint everything. I don't recommend it.

[Touche]

This is such an interesting thread. We've always held joint accounts. I've worked for the entire almost 13 years we're together except for the last three. We've never had a problem except for ONCE when my H contributed a rather large sum of money to someone's campaign (local person). He never told me about it. (Knowing I never would have agreed to that.)

 

We always (except for that time) discuss all expenditures that are out of the ordinary. I don't have an "allowance." Don't need one. We're both very conservative as far as our spending.

 

We recently sold our house in the city and moved to a suburb. We came away wth a bit of a profit and had no problem agreeing on where the money should go .i.e. how it should be saved/spent.

[Jinxx]

Started out with joint everything. HUGE disaster. Separate accounts is the only way to go. Split half of everything. That is the only way to keep in control of your own money.

[Mustang Sally]

Started off with joint account.

 

Caused problems, now each has separate account with a joint acct additionally for monthly expenses.

 

This has worked best for two very headstrong people like H and I.

[IpAncA]

Joint and separate ones. There is NO WAY I would combine my paycheck with his. That went out the window for sure once I seen the $2,000's he took from out joint without telling me. THAT is another reason why joints are bad.

 

For bills. I pay my own, he pays his. The ones we share we split up based on who makes the most. Whoever makes the most gets the expensive ones.

[Trialbyfire]

My ex and I kept separate accounts with equal splitting of the bills. Both of us had assorted accounts, including investment and retirement accounts.

 

Everyone needs their own credit rating and have the ability to handle their own assets.

[Touche]

But I have my own credit rating and we both handle our joint accounts together.

 

Separate accounts work for some people and joint ones work for others.

[FireandIce]

We have our own accounts but pretty much just use the joint one. I've only worked PT for the last few years because of our children so my husband is the main money maker. I start back FT to work next week but we'll keep it the way it is. We've been doing it that way for 11 years and it's worked for us.

[bab]

I really like the joint account because there is no keeping score about who pays for what. He makes more money than I do, so yes he is paying more. He also spends more. But we don't know what the percentage is, and we like it that way. His paycheck is "our" money, and my paycheck is "our" money. We make enough that we don't have to discuss the small purchases, but we always talk about the big ones.

[Touche]

I really like the joint account because there is no keeping score about who pays for what. He makes more money than I do, so yes he is paying more. He also spends more. But we don't know what the percentage is, and we like it that way. His paycheck is "our" money, and my paycheck is "our" money. We make enough that we don't have to discuss the small purchases, but we always talk about the big ones.

 

That's just the way we have always done it, Bab.

 

It really helps if you're on the same page as far as financial goals go. I mean we're now starting to talk about retirement. We're very focused as far as what we need to do to have the kind of lifestyle we want to have in ten years. And we're both pretty disciplined about delaying instant gratification for the sake of our future financial health. We both hate debt. Financial freedom is our goal and we're well on our way in that regard. In fact, we recently "down-sized" as I've mentioned by selling our house in the city.

 

It's funny because with my ex, we had separate accounts (ex-husband that is.) But when my H and I became engaged and startied talking about all of this, he was adamently against that. He was also adamantly against my hyphenating my name as I had done in my first marriage. He is old-fashioned and felt that we're in this together all the way or not at all.

 

Rightly or wrongly, that's the way he saw it.

 

I was a little hesitant about those things but I thought, hell...it's ALL or NOTHING this time. I'm going to take a little risk and give it everything I have. And that's just what I did.

 

Luckily it's worked out for us.

[Curmudgeon]

THAT is another reason why joints are bad.

 

Bad for you, perhaps, but not bad for us. Our incomes are comingled and even though we're joint on all accounts, we don't intrude upon one another's checking accounts. It's a simple matter of trust and respect!

[Mr. Lucky]

Our incomes are comingled and even though we're joint on all accounts, we don't intrude upon one another's checking accounts. It's a simple matter of trust and respect!

We have a similar situation with separate joint accounts, if for no other reason than it is hard to keep track of an account balance if two people are writing checks and posting debit card transactions against it at the same time. I fund my wife's account 2X month because, as a civil service employee, we put her entire paycheck into the ridiculously (thanks, taxpayers ) favorable retirement accounts they offer.

 

If you are scraping to get by, I think a single account is the way to go. If you are a little more comfortable financially, separate accounts make more sense so you both have your own mad money. JMHO,

 

Mr. Lucky

[Touche]

We have a similar situation with separate joint accounts, if for no other reason than it is hard to keep track of an account balance if two people are writing checks and posting debit card transactions against it at the same time. I fund my wife's account 2X month because, as a civil service employee, we put her entire paycheck into the ridiculously (thanks, taxpayers ) favorable retirement accounts they offer.

 

If you are scraping to get by, I think a single account is the way to go. If you are a little more comfortable financially, separate accounts make more sense so you both have your own mad money. JMHO,

 

Mr. Lucky

 

???? What are you talking about? We're not exactly "scraping by" and the joint accounts work perfectly for us. A single account would be ridiculous for us. We don't need separate "mad money". Our mad money is the same. It's together.

 

We don't both write checks either. Only one of us does. The rest of our expenses are all paid by credit card. We just got a free cruise for our family by paying our phone, electric, grocery, etc. expenses by credit card.

[Mr. Lucky]

???? What are you talking about? We're not exactly "scraping by" and the joint accounts work perfectly for us.

I certainly did not mean (or say) that everyone with a single account was "scaping by". If money is tight, there aren't many discretionary decisions to make and so one account makes more sense. If the situation is different, couples have more options. Get it?

 

Mr. Lucky

[Touche]

If you are scraping to get by, I think a single account is the way to go

 

That's what you said.

 

Not true. If a couple is "scraping by" a joint account can make more sense as well. That way you have more options as far as discretionary spending.

 

Get it now?

[Mr. Lucky]

Not true. If a couple is "scraping by" a joint account can make more sense as well. That way you have more options as far as discretionary spending.

Are you being difficult on purpose? If you are just scaping by, there isn't discretionary spending unless you're counting the choice between paying the light bill or the mortgage. Under those circumstances (and in "My Humble Opinion"), a single account makes the most sense. THIS IS NOT AN INSULT TO COUPLES THAT ONLY HAVE ONE CHECKING ACCOUNT.

 

Sheesh...

 

Mr. Lucky