young&inlove Posted November 3, 2010 Posted November 3, 2010 Hello, My husband and I are having a lot of money problems right now. I am curious to hear from those of you who have made the decision NOT to share money, as in those who pay 1/2 on the bills or your bills and my bills? I am interested in going about this agreement. What are some positives and some negatives? Together we have 4 jobs. We make about the same if we add our 2 jobs.
Author young&inlove Posted November 3, 2010 Author Posted November 3, 2010 Thanks so much for your reply! I see it from both sides too. I am on the fence about it. I want to do it just so that we can each have spending money and the other doesnt get to say where and what it goes to but at the same time. We are married and should do things together. I like what you said about retirement and savings. I know that we want the same things. I think that we would have to really sit down and lay out a set plan for something like this to go smoothly. Did you both have to pitch in for things such as food and all that or was that also a mine is mine? As for bills like car payments, insurance, health care and all that, how did that get split up? I am definitely interested in going this way with my husband even with the cons.
machiavellian Posted November 3, 2010 Posted November 3, 2010 I'm about to have (another) conversation with my SO about this topic - we live together but are not married at this time, so it's not quite the same. But, for example, every once in a while I start feeling very resentful about money, because when we go out for dinner either he pays or we split the bill (we eat out maybe once a week at the very most), but on the other hand, he hasn't bought or contributed to groceries (which includes food, dog food, toiletries, other household items that are not food) in 6 months. Every time he boards HIS dog, or HIS dog needs to go to the vet, I end up paying for it. Right now I'm leaning toward thinking that there has to be a happy medium: He has 3 mortgages, and I don't want to pay for those; I have student loans, and I don't think he should have to pay for those. Ideally, I think that we would agree upon certain bills that are his responsibility vs my responsibility (mortgages vs student loans) and then we would split all other expenses equally through a joint checking account, as opposed to me having to ask him to reimburse me for groceries or vet bills.
Lauriebell82 Posted November 5, 2010 Posted November 5, 2010 My husband and I have a combined bank account now that we opened after we got engaged. Prior to getting engaged we had lived together for over a year and what we did was we had seperate bank accounts. He makes significantly more then I make (over double), therefore he paid more rent then I did, and he used the second bedroom as his office. We split the utilities 50/50, as well as groceries and household items. When we would go out we would take turns paying for dinners. It worked well. We had a smooth transition to our combined bank account also, and we never ever fight over money. We have a combined credit card now as well. Personally, I like having the the combined bank account better then seperate ones. We have similar spending styles and don't try to censor what each other buys. He actually makes out on the deal, as I have zero debt, and he has a car payment and student loans. But I don't have any problem helping him pay his debt, it's not a huge crazy amount, and since he makes so much more then I do it probably works out evenly! OP, what kind of money arguments do you have? Does he spend too much? Do you? I think personally if you don't have similar spending styles then seperating the bank accounts aren't going to solve anything. You need to come up with some kind of budget in that case.
Author young&inlove Posted November 8, 2010 Author Posted November 8, 2010 Well currently we fight over the lack of money, as we share everything. A big problem we have is, say he has cash and there is nothing in the accounts, he uses the cash and I had plans for that money. Also it is vice-versa. Pretty stressful. We were in pretty bad debt when we got married as he had shattered his hand and didn’t have insurance then lost his job. We ended up getting out and paid everything off in full. We made some stupid mistakes and are back in debt (not nearly as bad though!!). We both have about 3 accounts. We each have one separate and 2 accounts combined. We don’t make a ton but we make due with what we have. Since we both work 2 jobs, our second jobs are both under the table so its just straight cash. We plan on once we get outta this rut, that the cash we earn will be ours to do with as we please and the other can’t say anything about it. Its the stress of money that will be the cause of our marriage to come to an end.
Fight4Me Posted November 8, 2010 Posted November 8, 2010 Well currently we fight over the lack of money, as we share everything. A big problem we have is, say he has cash and there is nothing in the accounts, he uses the cash and I had plans for that money. Also it is vice-versa. Pretty stressful. We were in pretty bad debt when we got married as he had shattered his hand and didn’t have insurance then lost his job. We ended up getting out and paid everything off in full. We made some stupid mistakes and are back in debt (not nearly as bad though!!). We both have about 3 accounts. We each have one separate and 2 accounts combined. We don’t make a ton but we make due with what we have. Since we both work 2 jobs, our second jobs are both under the table so its just straight cash. We plan on once we get outta this rut, that the cash we earn will be ours to do with as we please and the other can’t say anything about it. Its the stress of money that will be the cause of our marriage to come to an end. Financial disagreements is one of the major problems that cause marriages to fail these days, so I can understand why you want to make a change before it happens to you. It sounds to me like you aren't on the same page with one another when it comes to money, particularly who gets to spend what and when. I'm not sure if separating everything out would solve that problem since it doesn't address the issue of over-spending in the first place. About ten years ago, we had a similar problem. I did the finances and dh always had to have cash in his pocket. Unfortunately, that meant it would get spent willy-nilly without any accountability, then guess who would get blamed when we came up short? Yep... me. I had an epiphany one day and decided I was no longer going to be the one to do the finances. I gave it aaaallll to him, and sure enough, he suddenly realized that, by golly, all those lunches and ATM cash withdrawals were killing us. I never said, "I told you so," but I was certainly pleased that he finally got it. Now, we have revised our system and work together on paying the bills. We set equal amounts aside for discretionary spending, and we do it in the form of cash so it doesn't get spent elsewhere. He usually takes his portion to spend on vehicle parts, and I save mine for home decor or whatever. We also consult one another before we spend more than $100 out of the bank account. The bills get paid, we still have our own spending money, and we can't blame each other for something we worked on together. As a matter of fact, it strengthens our partnership. I'm not against separate finances. I just know that for US, we would be prone to division and a "you vs. me" mentality if we employed it. We've also seen it cause problems with other couples we know, but if done well and under the right circumstances, I think it could work.
carhill Posted November 8, 2010 Posted November 8, 2010 In my M, finances were separate. Of the 'community bills', my exW paid the groceries and health insurance and a goodly portion of the entertainment expenses, as well as her own car insurance. I paid everything else. She had more disposable income than I did, markedly so once I started caring for my mom and business dropped off. Needless to say, it didn't work out. Only thing I'll do differently in the future is get a pre-nup so a future wife can't take so much of my life's work, nor I hers. Lesson learned. People in my age bracket are pretty used to managing their own finances and many prefer it that way. Not an issue for me.
someday Posted November 8, 2010 Posted November 8, 2010 This is our arrangement. We have nearly always banked separately and for the brief time we did bank together it was horrible because we were bouncing checks! He’d take cash out and forget to tell me or I’d take cash out and forget to tell him…. We know our overall expenses are joint. He takes on some of the bills and I take on other bills. We do have our own credit cards (shared but understood his is his and mine is mine). We have our own bills, too. Personal loans. Legally we are both responsible but for us, in our M, we have to do this separate. Some times he’s short or I am- it’s understood that we will pick up the slack for the other. That rarely has to happen. He normally buys all the groceries and I normally make sure the kids have their needs met (shoes, lunch money, misc. cash for this or that). I think this arrangement works best for us because we both like/need our independence from each other and autonomy for ourselves. At the end of the day it all comes out equal in the wash, anyway.
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