Do you and your spouse have...

[Anonymous]

Joint and seperate for spending allowance

[Anonymous]

Joint.

[Anonymous]

One joint savings account and everything else from checking to savings to credit accounts separate. He owns his own business so it just works for us this way. Total transparency though and never any issues.

[Anonymous]

Both. We have separate accounts from before we were married and we didn't close them, but we don't keep much money in them. Most of our money is joint accounts. Married nine years.

[Anonymous]

Married 26 years. Joint everything.

[Anonymous]

Separate. And I am very fine with that.

[Anonymous]

Separate checking; joint money market and brokerage.

[Anonymous]

Separate checking and joint savings. Over time, we just sort of divvied up the bills based on our incomes. He makes more, so he pays more, and we both have plenty left over at the end of the month. Then we just just dump large chunks into savings whenever. I like having my own checking acct because it gives me a sense of control and autonomy. Also, my parents were always overdrawing their checking acct because nobody knew what the other was doing, and it stressed me out. Finally, I know I would micromanage my husband's spending if I knew exactly what he was doing, and I want him to feel like he has autonomy too. As long as we keep saving at a good rate, what I don't know can't hurt me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Separate checking and joint savings. Over time, we just sort of divvied up the bills based on our incomes. He makes more, so he pays more, and we both have plenty left over at the end of the month. Then we just just dump large chunks into savings whenever. I like having my own checking acct because it gives me a sense of control and autonomy. Also, my parents were always overdrawing their checking acct because nobody knew what the other was doing, and it stressed me out. Finally, I know I would micromanage my husband's spending if I knew exactly what he was doing, and I want him to feel like he has autonomy too. As long as we keep saving at a good rate, what I don't know can't hurt me.

Same here. Separate everything, and we share expenses relative to our incomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Separate checking and joint savings. Over time, we just sort of divvied up the bills based on our incomes. He makes more, so he pays more, and we both have plenty left over at the end of the month. Then we just just dump large chunks into savings whenever. I like having my own checking acct because it gives me a sense of control and autonomy. Also, my parents were always overdrawing their checking acct because nobody knew what the other was doing, and it stressed me out. Finally, I know I would micromanage my husband's spending if I knew exactly what he was doing, and I want him to feel like he has autonomy too. As long as we keep saving at a good rate, what I don't know can't hurt me.

DH and I keep separate checking and brokerage accounts for similar reasons to those posted here. We both want the autonomy to spend without accounting to the other, and this works because we trust each others' spending habits. Also, we haven't really had time to figure out how to handle logistics for managing a joint account and separate "montly allowance" funds. We also both came from families where both parents worked but Dad made much more than mom so Dad paid the big bills and Mom just paid for her personal stuff (clothes, hair) and some family incidentals (kids' activity fees, gifts). We basically do the same thing, although I spend my earned income on household supplies, groceries and kid stuff whereas our moms had a monthly allowance from our Dads for that purpose.

DH recently decided that he would prefer I use a credit card where the bills go to him for all kid, household, and grocery expenses, because he thinks I'll be more motivated to stay in the workforce despite being tempted to SAHM if I get to watch my savings balance rise. He is probably right. I need to see money in my own name to feel secure.

In reality, we both know that we're in it for the long haul so don't much care how the accounts are titled. Every year or two we share account statements to see how we're doing. I do sometimes worry that we're not in the right asset allocation because we each do our own thing, but not enough to make fixing that a priority.

Admittedly, our approach only works because we both work full time and live below our means, which gives us the luxury of not really having to budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you and your spouse have joint or separate accounts? Why?

Both. We each have our own checking account (we can transfer money back and forth),but everything else is joint.

[Anonymous]

Both. Mainly because we're too lazy to close our separate accounts and we like to buy each other surprise gifts every once in a while. We have enough in each to avoid fees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Joint and seperate for spending allowance

Ditto. Joint and SEPARATE.

[Anonymous]

I like having both because you never know what will happen. No one thinks they're going to get divorced, but shit happens. If I ever needed to bail, I have my own credit card and checking out already set up and could just turn off direct deposit into our joint accounts.

Not a pessimist, just need to have something of "my own" and so should DH.

[Anonymous]

EVerything is joint. That's because DH absolutely sucks at managing money, so I control it all.