Reply to Getting married in our 40s. How should we combine finances?

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[quote=Anonymous]We were 33 and 38 when we got married.  Both of us were somewhat established.  We each determined which things we wanted to keep out of marital money, balanced the amounts relatively, then set aside those money into new accounts only in the one name.  Put those on the prenup.  Everything else from that point on was marital.  We were both comfortable with our banking, so we just left all of the accounts in place.  We just added the other person's name to all of the accounts, credit cards, banks, credit union, etc.  This way we didn't have to change direct deposits, change accounts, change CC's or anything else.  Much easier to just keep using the same accounts.

We each pay for different things monthly, but it's all joint money.  Because of the standard expenses that we each have, we have an automatic electronic monthly transfer of money from one account to the other.  About every 2-3 months, we stop and review finances, what we've each been paying and what the interest rate on various accounts is.  Takes about 3-5 minutes each time.  We try to shift the majority of the liquid funds to the money market with the best interest and just keep a certain amount to cover the payments that we each make or we shift money from one account to another to help cover expenses.  One of us ends up writing a check to the other about once a year to balance out accounts.  But doing this means that we both have a decent idea of what we have in all of the accounts, and who is paying what and how much they cost.  If either of us is unavailable or incapacitated, we can figure out the other's banking pretty easily and we won't end up with surprises.  We use the rule that anything under $200 we each have full discretion on spending.  Over $200, we discuss before spending.

We've been happily married for 17 years and 2 kids and have no fights about money because we are both involved and responsible.[/quote]

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