Home Finance Question for Married People

[Tpoppa]

This question has come up at my house as of late.

 

How do you handle monthly living expenses?  50/50?  If one is a higher earner do you pay a significantly bigger portion of living expenses?

 

How do you handle this? 

[Cdubyah]

My wife and I just had this same discussion, as we are new homeowners.

I make significantly more money than my wife, and I suggested maybe a 60/40 or a 65/35. However, being the stubborn woman she is she decided 50/50 was appropriate for our mortgage. Justification was that I pay for other bills that she doesn't contribute to. Also, I pay for the vast majority of outings, activities and meals.
It's not an ideal situation in my opinion, because her half of our mortgage is more than half of a bi-weekly paycheck for her.

 

The ideal option for us would be to combine bank accounts. But she likes her credit union and I like my bank. So that hasn't happened yet.

Edited January 8, 2016 by Cdubyah

[ScubaCinci]

We handle it as if it does not matter. What's hers is mine and what's mine is hers. She pays some bills, I pay some bills..bottom line is that they get paid. Though we keep our finances mostly separate, our discretionary spend is pooled between us and her income far exceeds mine (her last paycheck was equivalent to my annual salary and I make a good living).

Edited January 8, 2016 by ScubaCinci

[Tpoppa]

 However, being the stubborn woman she is she decided 50/50 was appropriate for our mortgage. Justification was that I pay for other bills that she doesn't contribute to. Also, I pay for the vast majority of outings, activities and meals.

So what does that work out to be in total monthly expenses?  70/30? 

[blue03636]

We just have one bank account.

[Tonik]

We just have one bank account.

 

No shit. We are partners for life.  All our money goes into one account and we make joint financial decisions on everything.

[Mary#17]

Same here. One bank account. Decisions on extra spending together. Doesn't matter who makes more, that just seems harsh to me but you need to agree on what works for you.  I've heard of couples where one spouse is not necessarily responsible with money so I guess I could understand going separate if you were in that situation. 

[jbot]

1 account.  you're fucked in a divorce regardless so there is no point bothering with it unless you have a very very specifically laid out prenup.  even that won't matter much when it comes down to assets earned after marriage anyway.

[Tpoppa]

One account would not work for us.  Different accounts are needed for different things.  I personally need 3, used to be more.  

 

I pretty much pay 99% of house/living expenses, but were going to do it differently.

[Bad324]

1 account. you're fucked in a divorce regardless so there is no point bothering with it unless you have a very very specifically laid out prenup. even that won't matter much when it comes down to assets earned after marriage anyway.

This. Plus after 10 years of being on my own and handling my own budget and finances, I wasn't about to give up control.

[Cdubyah]

So what does that work out to be in total monthly expenses?  70/30? 

 

Probably pretty close. If you looked at total output of money.

[Sapphy]

Not sure what the actual split is, but I played with the numbers until we are both contributing about the same percentage of our income to the home and joint expenses. So we both give about 85% of our income to house,bills, insurance, ect.  My 85% is a lot more $ than hers, but so is the 15% that is mine.

[Tpoppa]

Not sure what the actual split is, but I played with the numbers until we are both contributing about the same percentage of our income to the home and joint expenses. So we both give about 85% of our income to house,bills, insurance, ect.  My 85% is a lot more $ than hers, but so is the 15% that is mine.

 

That sounds reasonable.  Are you both happy handling it that way?

Edited January 8, 2016 by Tpoppa

[Sapphy]

That sounds reasonable.  Are you both happy handling it that way?

 

 

For the most part.  Sometimes we each get grumpy when the unexpected expense comes along, and we have to contribute more than planned.  But more of that is the issue of the unexpected expense and not the spit of the money. 

[Sapphy]

Not sure what the actual split is, but I played with the numbers until we are both contributing about the same percentage of our income to the home and joint expenses. So we both give about 85% of our income to house,bills, insurance, ect.  My 85% is a lot more $ than hers, but so is the 15% that is mine.

 

That sounds reasonable.  Are you both happy handling it that way?

 

For the most part.  Sometimes we each get grumpy when the unexpected expense comes along, and we have to contribute more than planned.  But more of that is the issue of the unexpected expense and not the spit of the money. 

 

 

I will add that I pay all the bills.  We both have accounts at Chase, they have quick pay, so we can flip money between accounts in like 10, in the middle of the night while sitting in bed with our phone.  I am more responsible about such things, plus since we could not be legally married till this summer, we could not do some types of joint account and bills until we were allowed to get married.  

[TwiztedRabbit]

Wife and I make similar money.. but 1 account.. we both double check eachother work on the bills.. lots of auto pays.. what's hers is mine and so on.. any big decisions we talk about and go from there.. sometimes I get.my way some times she doesn't get hers..

Xmas and bday are paid for by cc. Though we generally set a limit...

[blue-yamaR6s]

One back account for bills.  Couple savings accounts for different reasons.  I earn more than she does but she is very frugal in her spending for most things. Joint decisions are made on spending of big tickets items.  We trust each other as well to keep the spending down.  I would hate to have to track the split finance of bill paying.  We have similar views on finances which makes it work.

[max power]

I pay the house payment, wife pays utilities. I make more and sock away money in savings for remodeling and what not. She buys the dog T-shirts.

Separate account since before we got married.

[redkow97]

We recently acquired a second bank account when we got our new mortgage.  The wife's check goes into one account, and my check goes into teh other, so there's never any chance of our balance being too low to cover the mortgage.

 

That said, we try to ignore whose money is going where...  In practice, my paycheck covers our mortgage, utilities, etc.  - basically any recurring expense that is set up for automatic withdrawal.  Her account covers everything else.  Groceries (the amount and frequency vary), gasoline (not heat), lunches while we're at work, etc.

 

While my wife makes more than me, apparently we spend more on "everything else" than we spend on simply paying our scheduled bills.  That's what has been nice about the second account.  You don't look at it for a month, and all of the sudden there's $2,000 extra sitting there, because you forgot about the surplus.

[Tpoppa]

I pay the house payment, wife pays utilities. 

This is pretty much what I think we're going to.  We share costs for kid related stuff, but have our own money for personal things and hobbies.

 

More people use the 1 account method than I would have guessed.  Good info   I don't think it would be feasable for us to get down to 1 account. 

[Tonik]

1 account for most of us might be misleading.  We have three, but all three are ours.  Both our paychecks go into one...auto xfer to savings and another checking.  Second checking is home taxes and insurance. Savings is obvious..the first account is for everything else. So our day to day living expenses and hobbies come out of that one joint account.

[TwiztedRabbit]

Correct we have 3.. checking savings and a growth account.. but both of us have access to all 3 at any given time

[Wojo72]

For a long time we had 1 account but that turned into "My money is my money and your money is my money." Never again.

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[MichaelS]

We combined accounts after we got married.  We actually bought the house prior to getting married.  During that time we just split it 50/50 as everything was still separate.  Our incomes were about 60 me 40 her at the time.  I had more debt, ie student loans so after paying my extra debt our available income was pretty equal.  Now she doesn't work so it is 100% me. 

 

Also my checking account pays a higher rate than any savings account out there. 

Edited January 8, 2016 by MichaelS

[durk]

We combined accounts after we got married. We actually bought the house prior to getting married. During that time we just split it 50/50 as everything was still separate. Our incomes were about 60 me 40 her at the time. I had more debt, ie student loans so after paying my extra debt our available income was pretty equal. Now she doesn't work so it is 100% me.

Also my checking account pays a higher rate than any savings account out there.