Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because shared expenses is cheaper than single expenses, and when calculating for retirement, we use combined net worth.

2 $500K townhouses are not more expensive than 1$1.5M house so not necessarily

? running two houses is way more expensive than running one house.

-signed a former two house owner

+1

Look at it as, you live together in a 800K home. It's not that easy to find a 400K home/TH in the same neighborhood, so your kids can continue to attend the same school. And ideally both parents need to live near each other, so kids can easily get to school daily (if they alternate who they live with weekly). And even if you do, the expenses are still higher for 2, 400K homes versus one 800K

There is no need to stay in the same neighborhood

That depends.
Little kids, it is easy to change houses/schools.
Older kids, not so much.
Learned this the hard way after divorce.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because shared expenses is cheaper than single expenses, and when calculating for retirement, we use combined net worth.

2 $500K townhouses are not more expensive than 1$1.5M house so not necessarily

? running two houses is way more expensive than running one house.

-signed a former two house owner

+1

Look at it as, you live together in a 800K home. It's not that easy to find a 400K home/TH in the same neighborhood, so your kids can continue to attend the same school. And ideally both parents need to live near each other, so kids can easily get to school daily (if they alternate who they live with weekly). And even if you do, the expenses are still higher for 2, 400K homes versus one 800K

There is no need to stay in the same neighborhood

If you have kids in school, you may choose to ease the transition to a 2 household family by keeping them in the same schools with all their friends. That means at least one parent home needs to be in the same school zone And for parents who do 1 week on/1 week at other parent, it helps if they are not too far apart.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only way your spouse‘s net worth does not count is if you had a prenup. Otherwise, your spouse gets half of yours. So the divorce will be costly for both. It always is.

This. I am a SAHM with grown kids. No prenup. Married 30 years. Everything is jointly held. And yes, everything that we have earned, built, raised and launched is ours -jointly.

As long as ALL of the accounts and property are in both of your names as joint tenants with/ rights of survivorship, and you can log in to any accounts and use them, and you file a joint tax return and study it, and you otherwise have complete transparency and trust, then I think you are doing it right in your marriage, and you can feel comfortable as a SAHM that you'd get half in divorce and all in death. The problem is that many SAHMs, including my own mom, have no access to major accounts and are completely in the dark. In death, they won't get the entire estate but something like 33-50%, possibly in a trust with restrictions. In a divorce, they may struggle to fully understand the marital property and end up with less than half. In life, the working spouse who controls the purse may keep them on an artificially low budget.

Anonymous wrote:Why is my spouse's pension not mine? He took a lower payout to cover me as a surviving spouse. All of our assets (other than an inheritance I received) are joint.

Exactly, it’s not yours you need to work for a pension

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because shared expenses is cheaper than single expenses, and when calculating for retirement, we use combined net worth.

2 $500K townhouses are not more expensive than 1$1.5M house so not necessarily

? running two houses is way more expensive than running one house.

-signed a former two house owner

Running 2$500 K townhouses is not more expensive than 1 &1.5M home. Lawn, electric, taxes… nope

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because shared expenses is cheaper than single expenses, and when calculating for retirement, we use combined net worth.

2 $500K townhouses are not more expensive than 1$1.5M house so not necessarily

? running two houses is way more expensive than running one house.

-signed a former two house owner

+1

Look at it as, you live together in a 800K home. It's not that easy to find a 400K home/TH in the same neighborhood, so your kids can continue to attend the same school. And ideally both parents need to live near each other, so kids can easily get to school daily (if they alternate who they live with weekly). And even if you do, the expenses are still higher for 2, 400K homes versus one 800K

There is no need to stay in the same neighborhood

Why is my spouse's pension not mine? He took a lower payout to cover me as a surviving spouse. All of our assets (other than an inheritance I received) are joint.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This post is really dumb. There is a huge financial benefit to combining two households into one household. That is obvious to people who are married, and that why divorce is expensive --- you have to double up a lot of costs that were combined before.

You don't need to be married to share living expenses with somebody.

Marriage is not just about sharing living expenses. Spouse's are not roommates. When you are married you also *legally* share debt obligations and your assets are jointly owned. If you inherit money it becomes a marital asset. Same with bonuses or real estate sale proceeds. If you die your spouse inherits your estate unless you've gone to great lengths to prevent that. If you have a pension your spouse is generally entitled to a survivors benefit.

If you don't like this, don't get married, bit the reason net worth is calculated as a couple not individually us because legally you are both entitled to it unless you have an air tight prenup and estate planning, which very few people do (even wealthy people).

What's mine is yours. True for marriage, not fir roommates.

This is not true as long as you keep it separate and don't commingle it.

Lol good luck when the that. Sketchy people will try to hide assets to keep it out of a difference vision of marital property but in states that do marital property this is not legal and can get you penalized in the divorce decree. Look it up.

Keeping an inheritance separate and not comingled is neither sketchy nor hiding assets. What an heir inherits is his or hers alone, regardless of marital status.

Here are two other scenarios where inheritance becomes marital property. These are outside the definition of “commingling”

Using the inheritance
How the inheritance is used during the marriage can also be a factor. For example, if the inheritance is used to pay off a joint mortgage or debt, or to purchase a jointly held property, it may become marital property.

Family heirlooms
If an inheritance is a family heirloom that is displayed in the home, it may be subject to division based on the court's interpretation.

These are examples of commingling.

Commingling can happen with property too when it’s been inherited by one spouse. Using a joint account to pay a mortgage and collect rental can cloud things, such as if you decide to fix it up after and airbnb it. A friend did this with a beach place. Her DH put a lot of work in after too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because shared expenses is cheaper than single expenses, and when calculating for retirement, we use combined net worth.

2 $500K townhouses are not more expensive than 1$1.5M house so not necessarily

? running two houses is way more expensive than running one house.

-signed a former two house owner

+1

Look at it as, you live together in a 800K home. It's not that easy to find a 400K home/TH in the same neighborhood, so your kids can continue to attend the same school. And ideally both parents need to live near each other, so kids can easily get to school daily (if they alternate who they live with weekly). And even if you do, the expenses are still higher for 2, 400K homes versus one 800K

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because shared expenses is cheaper than single expenses, and when calculating for retirement, we use combined net worth.

2 $500K townhouses are not more expensive than 1$1.5M house so not necessarily

? running two houses is way more expensive than running one house.

-signed a former two house owner

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Believe it or not, there was a time when people married with the intention of staying married for life.

And they were beaten and raped and still stayed married because women could not get loans on their own.

Luckily we don’t live that barbaric way anymore.

All of them?

All the ones that were beaten and raped that stayed. Looking at how many women and men are stuck in unhappy marriages due to religion or fear or money and how many divorce now... Yea.. the % is pretty high.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Believe it or not, there was a time when people married with the intention of staying married for life.

And they were beaten and raped and still stayed married because women could not get loans on their own.

Luckily we don’t live that barbaric way anymore.

All of them?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only way your spouse‘s net worth does not count is if you had a prenup. Otherwise, your spouse gets half of yours. So the divorce will be costly for both. It always is.

This. I am a SAHM with grown kids. No prenup. Married 30 years. Everything is jointly held. And yes, everything that we have earned, built, raised and launched is ours -jointly.

Only if you divorce.

All his money is his money and what he gives you is a gift not a legal obligation.

Anonymous wrote:Believe it or not, there was a time when people married with the intention of staying married for life.

And they were beaten and raped and still stayed married because women could not get loans on their own.

Luckily we don’t live that barbaric way anymore.

Believe it or not, there was a time when people married with the intention of staying married for life.