S/O: Do you and your spouse have separate accounts?

[Anonymous]

I've heard the number one issue that couples fight over are finances. My spouse and I both work and I have much more debt (finally paid of all cc balances but have a pretty big college loan bill). I am the one that has been resisting opening a joint account because I feel like it would cause all sorts of problems for us. I just don't feel comfortable using my spouse's income to pay debts that I incurred before our marriage. I also feel like I would have to justify my every purchase. I don't spend any money on myself but I don't want to be limited in what I buy for the children or where I shop for their clothes. For those of you that have a joint account, do you also keep something separate? How do you divide the finances in your family?

[Anonymous]

We have a joint checking account into which we deposit three quarters of our take home pay each. We pay home expenses and daycare out of this account, mostly through a common credit card.

The rest of the money goes into separate checking and savings accounts, we are free to spend and save as we desire from these accounts.

[Anonymous]

No joint accounts. We married late in life and I was just too lazy to bother with all the paperwork. We have never fought over money at all -- not for 7 years. So it seems to work well for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a joint checking account into which we deposit three quarters of our take home pay each. We pay home expenses and daycare out of this account, mostly through a common credit card.

The rest of the money goes into separate checking and savings accounts, we are free to spend and save as we desire from these accounts.

we do this. we each put a certain amount into the jpint account that we pay family bills from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a joint checking account into which we deposit three quarters of our take home pay each. We pay home expenses and daycare out of this account, mostly through a common credit card.

The rest of the money goes into separate checking and savings accounts, we are free to spend and save as we desire from these accounts.

we do this. we each put a certain amount into the jpint account that we pay family bills from.

We do the same.

[Anonymous]

Everything is shared. We have credit cards together but also have one each separately that we had before we met. We use that to buy stuff for one another but it is all paid out of the same place.

Short of groceries, clothes, stuff at Target, any purchase gets discussed (and I don't mean a full on debate but a 'hey, I wanted to get a new xxxxx - cool?')

[Anonymous]

Everything shared here also. Only been married 4 years though, but it works so far.

Credit cards are shared, checking acct shared, both names on the house, etc.

[Anonymous]

All of our accounts are joint, but in reality they are used separately. We live off my paycheck - all bills are paid from the account that was originally mine. I do the bills so I know what's going in and out - we use a credit card (paid off each month) instead of a debit so the money is not leaving without me knowing it. Husband's paycheck goes into savings - although when he uses the ATM it comes from there. Works for us. I don't think it's the system that actually matters - I think it's that both people are comfortable with it.

[Anonymous]

Only one account here. We both have hefty student loans (his more than mine, accruced before marriage, mine less and accrued before and during), but no other personal debt. We've been married for 5 years and merged our accounts when we got engaged. I was in grad school at the time and only able to work part time. I was reluctant to "spend his money" on myself, but he told me to get over it. Since we've had kids, I took long maternity leaves, and now work part-time permanently, I have definitnely gotten over it!

Sure, we disagree about money, but we know each other's pitfalls (I give him the evil eye when he goes to Home Depot, he does the same to me when I am w/in 100 yards of Target). We are generally pretty frugal since money is tight, so purchases over about $100 we usually run by each other first. We have lots of conversations about our family's financial goals and how to get there. Sometimes we go off track on our plan, and need to reign each other in, but we don't disagree about the general direction. As far as paying off the student loans that were accrued before we were married, it never crossed my mind to begrudge him that. If he didn't have that degree, he wouldn't have the job he has now, right? It's a nonissue, just like when I wasn't earning money on maternity leave, it's all just our money. We always joke, "you can have half of my nothing!"

[Anonymous]

Seperate, though we are joint owners of each other's accounts. We have divided who pays what bills. Credit cards and student loans are complete seperate.

[Anonymous]

We don't have any separate money. When we got together we were both pretty broke, in our early 20s. All our money goes into the same account and we pay out all bills from that. We share credit card account too. Obviously student loans and IRAs are in our separate names, but everything gets paid from the same place.

Both of us are pretty responsible with money and think before we buy. For large purchases, we try to make some sort of consensus decision. I actually think that having money together makes it more harmonius, because you do actually want to spend joint money in a way that benefits both parties.

I wouldn't go back and do anything differently. Also DH is meticulously organized and does the online bill-paying. I usually do the pricing and comparison research for any purchases to make sure we get good value for what we buy. It works well for us. We both contribute.

[Anonymous]

Shared checking and savings accounts, no individual bank accounts. One shared cc (our main one) and two individual ones that almost never get used. Discuss larger purchases (say over $200). Haven't had a fight about money in 12+ years of marriage. Neither of us brought any major assets or liabilities into the relationship, so that probably helped.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everything is shared. We have credit cards together but also have one each separately that we had before we met. We use that to buy stuff for one another but it is all paid out of the same place.

Short of groceries, clothes, stuff at Target, any purchase gets discussed (and I don't mean a full on debate but a 'hey, I wanted to get a new xxxxx - cool?')

This is exactly us. OP, if it makes you feel any better, DH had a significant amount of debt when we got married. The only way he was able to pay a lot of it down was that we lived off his salary and used mine to pay off a lot of debt in about 2 years.

[Anonymous]

Nope. But we don't have any debt except our mortgage.

[Anonymous]

We have separate checking accounts, while savings and the house are in both our names.

We are really on the same page regarding finances and have never fought about money. We view it as ours, but the reality is we both work so I am getting an income and he is getting an income. We both make roughly the same so it's pretty easy to divide things up. Daycare comes out of his paycheck automatically as does our family's health insurance so I will take on our other big expense, mortgage, and we divide up bills so we one of us doesn't have the burden of paying all of them. That way at the end of the month when all bills are paid, college funds and savings are contributed to, we each have spending money to grab lunches, coffees, etc. without having to run it by each other.

If he goes to the grocery store he pays, if I go I pay. He runs most of the errands involving Home Depot, home repair, Target runs, etc. while I make the special trips to Whole Foods or the farmer's market more often. We don't go tit for tat, it all goes into the house and gets used/eaten whatever. It honestly never occurred to me to merge checking accounts, probably because when we moved in together before we were married we were pretty poor and had to each send our landlord a check for rent (he paid half and I paid half).

There was a time when I was in grad school that he was paying for more things. He inherited some money that we used for a large portion of the downpayment for our home. We've just always had a what's mine is your's approach to things and since we are on the same page it's never been an issue. We do discuss large purchases but they are usually again for the house.