Working Married Couples

[Anonymous]

We are joint on pretty much everything but credit cards, and that's just because we never got around to adding each other to the CC accounts. We keep close track of our finances, balance the checkbook pretty frequently, and also keep a buffer in the main checking account so we aren't in much danger of overdrawing unless we both go on uncharacteristic spending sprees.

I think the most important thing is that both people think of the money as all going into one big family pot, even if it is in fact going into many separate pots that may or may not have both partners' names on them. Figure out what accounting method works best for you both, but never forget that you are a team and what's yours is theirs and vice versa.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the most important thing is that both people think of the money as all going into one big family pot, even if it is in fact going into many separate pots that may or may not have both partners' names on them. Figure out what accounting method works best for you both, but never forget that you are a team and what's yours is theirs and vice versa.

+1

Our accounting has evolved. When we were engaged we opened a joint account for the wedding. I can't remember if we split bills or DH put the equivalent of rent into the wedding savings account. Then once married we added each other to the credit cards but treated the legacy cards as our own. What ended up happening is most credit card purchases end up on DH's card and ones that are his gifts or I don't want him to comment end up on my CC. We also ended up adding each other to accounts once we had kids but we don't really monitor each other's account other than noting if the minimum we like to keep in the account gets too low or is getting high enough to transfer to joint savings. In the end it is all family money but we use various accounting and it keeps both of us responsible for budgeting and paying certain bills.

[Anonymous]

All the money goes into one pot. One joint checking, one joint savings, joint credit cards. I pay all of the bills out of those pots and also monitor both of our retirement accounts. I like the concept of everything being "ours" instead of some things being owned by one person.

I make almost twice what he makes, but this is the only way we would ever set things up as a married couple. It is SO stressful to have to account for the fairness of every purchase with separate accounts. "I paid for the last thing so you should pay for this." or "the groceries you want are more expensive than the groceries I want." Nobody needs the constant accounting of fairness. You don't want that kind of resentment in a marriage. We did that before we were married, and I am so glad it's over.

We thought about having individual accounts to put a little bit of free money, but we don't really need that. We just spend it out of the joint account and talk to each other if it's going to be more than $50.