Marital Finances

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So many personal accounts here! We make close to $900K before taxes and after deductions (medical, retirement, childcare FSA, etc.) everything goes into our checking account. We have money transferred into our brokerage account monthly and we put money into our high yield online savings account and kids’ 529s ourselves. All other expenses (kids tuition, mortgage, etc) we autopay from checking. I have received a few modest payouts from a trust my grandparents created ($40K total during our six year marriage) and have commingled that money as well as any money my parents give me here and there (probably equivalent to $5K during our marriage). My husband’s parents give him $100K annually and also gave us a down payment and $150K for our brokerage account. It’s all commingled so I don’t think me vs him. My husband also has a trust that is worth close to $6M now that we haven’t touched. I’ve never understood the mine vs yours mentality. We have the same goals.

Our 401Ks, vesting RSUs from our companies, Roth IRAs are in our names because they have to be. As soon as RSUs in company stock vest and we can sell we do and then we put the money into our joint brokerage account.

[Anonymous]

Our pay goes into one joint checking account

Each have our own Amex that's on autopay from the joint

Joint trust where all after tax investments go

Each have our own 401k

Keep it simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We kept our original accounts but made a joint/house account. Pay cheques are deposited into our original accounts, and a $ amt transferred out into the joint/house account where most bills come from. We keep our own separate, but know how much is there and have individual investments with joint outcomes in mind.

This is, in my opinion, the only important part of this discussion. It's important to all be pulling on the same oar with respect to savings, investment strategy, risk tolerances, retirement planning, etc. The mechanics of who pays what bill and from what account the money comes is just noise. I have no idea why people get so worked up about it.

[Anonymous]

We tried to keep things separate the first few years but it got too complicated. Now everything is joint accounts and it works so much better. We feel like a team. One person’s setback is both of ours, one person’s raise/bonus is both of ours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of our money goes into one account. We both max out retirement now but he came into the marriage with a lot more money saved. DH was a finance major. He pays all bills, checks our retirement and college savings account, etc. I pretty much just try to remember that he wants me to pay for groceries with the Amex. We have two joint credit cards and check-in with each other if we want to spend more than a couple hundred dollars. I think he’s told me to cool it a couple times when we first bought and furnished our house. This all sounds very traditional and I guess it is on paper. I feel lucky to have his expertise and that our financial goals align so well. I can’t imagine having separate accounts— I want him in charge of “my” money!

Are you my wife??

We have the same exact set up

My wife loves it - she never needs to think about money - and that makes her happy

[Anonymous]

We hold everything jointly -- from how the cars are titled to the credit cards to all bank/investment accounts. The only thing separate are our respective retirement accounts.

We've been married 18 years and DH has always made more money than me. We have very similar approaches to money though and one person's spending or saving has never been a point of contention with us.

[Anonymous]

I don't really recommend the way we do things, but it is what it is. We've had completely separate finances for the 20 years we've been married. Our names are both on the mortgage. We split the bills, we both buy groceries and stuff for the house as needed. We split the costs for home repairs and vacations. DH maxes his 401k and I put in enough for the match. We each buy our own cars. I do most of the home finances, and just ask him to transfer money over to me. We have wildly different spending habits, so separate accounts keeps me from wanting to strangle him for what I consider to be ridiculous purchases .