Couples who keep separate finances - how do you decide who pays when you go out to eat?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's how it works, when you have comingled assets and are not living paycheck to paycheck:

You have shared credit cards. Shared savings. Shared investments. You pay for stuff when you need to. If you're going to buy something discretionary, and you know it's expensive (and you know, don't act like you don't), you go to your spouse and say, "Hey, I think I'm going to buy [x], do you have any issue with that?"

"How much is it?"

"$[y]"

"That seems reasonable"

or..

"Are you sure we need that right now? We were planning to repair the deck this summer"

or..

"Why don't you spend the extra money to get the better version, so we're not buying it again in two years"

Outside of that, we also discuss investment strategy. "How much do you think we should put into the funds this month?" "Do you think we should put more into the emergency fund?"

Neither of us look at every line item on the bank statements. Could we? Sure. But there's not someone snooping over every purchase. It's there, no one is hiding anything, and no one is untrusting of the other. Around gift-giving time we will say, "Hey, don't look at the XYZ statement" because a line item may give a clue about a gift purchased for the other spouse.

Except for something big, I don't discuss what I'm buying. I just buy it and sometimes tell my husband, sometimes not. Something big if I don't want to buy but really want, he'll do it or I'll send him an email with exactly what I want as a "gift."

Except if there is an ex and child support, its absurd to be that petty and controlling over money assuming there are no money issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We co-own our house but otherwise everything is separate. If we are out together as a couple or a family DH always pays for everything. Maybe patriarchy in action.

He pays the mortgage and childcare but I pay all the bills, property tax, auto insurance etc. I guess our finances are separate in name only, we are totally commingled and not really counting beans. We could get a new account and both contribute to it every month etc but what would that really get us?

Gee, I don't know. Maybe total transparency for one thing?

DP. We have a similar arrangement and our accounts are totally transparent. I have all his passwords and he has mine. We divide expenses up in a way that works for us. If it’s something big and joint, like a tax bill, one of us may transfer some money to the account that we’re using to pay the bill. Having a new account that we both contribute to would just be another unnecessary layer of bookkeeping.

You realize that having joint accounts doesn’t mean that your spouse doesn’t have another account you don’t know about, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We co-own our house but otherwise everything is separate. If we are out together as a couple or a family DH always pays for everything. Maybe patriarchy in action.

He pays the mortgage and childcare but I pay all the bills, property tax, auto insurance etc. I guess our finances are separate in name only, we are totally commingled and not really counting beans. We could get a new account and both contribute to it every month etc but what would that really get us?

Gee, I don't know. Maybe total transparency for one thing?

DP. We have a similar arrangement and our accounts are totally transparent. I have all his passwords and he has mine. We divide expenses up in a way that works for us. If it’s something big and joint, like a tax bill, one of us may transfer some money to the account that we’re using to pay the bill. Having a new account that we both contribute to would just be another unnecessary layer of bookkeeping.

You realize that having joint accounts doesn’t mean that your spouse doesn’t have another account you don’t know about, right?

I think of the posters can't imagine that. They seem to think having a joint account ensures complete transparency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don’t have joint accounts but our assets are still “commingled”. We don’t do any of this weird scorekeeping though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This. DH makes about 8X what I make but I manage all the bills. Each month he writes me a large check to deposit in my account.

We discuss large expenses but frankly I don’t want to know how much he spends on coffee and he probably doesn’t want to know how much I spend on kids activities. We make enough it really doesn’t impact our financial goals and it allows us to have autonomy over small things that matter to us individually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We co-own our house but otherwise everything is separate. If we are out together as a couple or a family DH always pays for everything. Maybe patriarchy in action.

He pays the mortgage and childcare but I pay all the bills, property tax, auto insurance etc. I guess our finances are separate in name only, we are totally commingled and not really counting beans. We could get a new account and both contribute to it every month etc but what would that really get us?

Gee, I don't know. Maybe total transparency for one thing?

DP. We have a similar arrangement and our accounts are totally transparent. I have all his passwords and he has mine. We divide expenses up in a way that works for us. If it’s something big and joint, like a tax bill, one of us may transfer some money to the account that we’re using to pay the bill. Having a new account that we both contribute to would just be another unnecessary layer of bookkeeping.

You realize that having joint accounts doesn’t mean that your spouse doesn’t have another account you don’t know about, right?

I think of the posters can't imagine that. They seem to think having a joint account ensures complete transparency.

+1 We have transparency and separate (and joint) accounts. I don't see any reason we have to have THAT many conversations about money - unless one of us is being reckless, or our HHI has changed a lot and needs more finessing. We agree on the broad basics, and don't need to micromanage each other on a day to day basis.