Home Finance Question for Married People

[durk]

Not that anyone is keeping tabs, but we too hav 1 account. Real question MichaelS is where is this checking account? What kind of interest do u get?

[Pokey]

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.

 

Pretty much mirrors what my Wife and I do Jim, and once the house was paid off......oh what a great feeling.

[snot]

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.

close to what we do too.

Edited January 8, 2016 by snot

[Tonik]

Pretty much mirrors what my Wife and I do Jim, and once the house was paid off......oh what a great feeling.

That event still makes me smile and giggle.

[zx3vfr]

I make about 10k more a year than my wife. But her job pays for our health insurance for a family of 4 which is roughly 10k a year. Our money just goes into one account and all the bills come out of that account. When we want something or want to get our kids something we just do it without much discussion because we invest, donate and save what is recommend for our age group.

[ludwb675]

Same as most. We have a joint savings and checking account. I keep just enough in the checking to cover a months worth of bills, transfer the rest into the savings. I take care of all the bills but most automatic payment. We discuss all large purchases and i complain every month her credit card balance is too high (jokingly). 

 

But we both have good jobs, no kids and live within our means in terms of house and cars. So we often times spend without thinking about it when it comes to dinners, clothes, etc. 

[2talltim]

I have personally never understood the whole "her money" "his money" separate bank account thing. Like Jim said above, we are partners for life and have one checking and savings account, both our names are on all the bills and we make decisions together. For the ones that are already planning ahead for your divorce i don't even know how to respond to that other than . Me and the Mrs. have been together for 22 years and married for 18 of those years. For the the first 20 year i always made more than her for a while it was substantially more, she went back to school and worked hard to get a degree and i worked hard to keep our heads above water and now she now has a career and make more money than me and that will continue to be more every year. So both our checks go into the joint account every other week and i sit down and pay the bills that are due. If she needs or wants somthing she get it, if i need or want something i get it if it is a high dollar purchase we make a joint decision. 

[jschaf]

Happily married for 32 years. Joint everything, plus she gives me a nice allowance. So far so good.

[Tonik]

Like Jim said above, we are partners for life..

 

Look, I love you man. But not that way, not that there is anything wrong with that.  I meant my wife.

[Connie14]

Having separate accounts does not necessarily mean that you are not partners for life. We have separate accounts. I am fiscally conservative, and I handle all household financial items.

My libertarian nature does not want to tell my wife what and what not to spend her money on. She can spend her money how she sees fit. We go through the finances quarterly, so she can see the status of everything.

[2talltim]

Look, I love you man. But not that way, not that there is anything wrong with that.  I meant my wife.

You would break my heart, now i wish i had a separate account.

Edited January 9, 2016 by 2talltim

[AreYouSerious?]

You socialize your finances?  Pooling resources?  What is this, Russia?

[Steve Butters]

I'm not married but might as well be... Own a house, new car together etc.. We split 50/50.. We budgeted all our monthly bills and an entertainment allowance and split it down the middle... We have a shared account that we put our portion into and all shared bills and entertainment are paid from that account.. The rest of the money is ours to do whatever with... No shared finances, no reason to argue about money... Don't need permission to buy shit either... We never ever argue over money, not even one time... Shared finances is a terrible idea in my opinion but everyone has their own preferences

[Steve Butters]

I have personally never understood the whole "her money" "his money" separate bank account thing. Like Jim said above, we are partners for life and have one checking and savings account, both our names are on all the bills and we make decisions together. For the ones that are already planning ahead for your divorce i don't even know how to respond to that other than . Me and the Mrs. have been together for 22 years and married for 18 of those years. For the the first 20 year i always made more than her for a while it was substantially more, she went back to school and worked hard to get a degree and i worked hard to keep our heads above water and now she now has a career and make more money than me and that will continue to be more every year. So both our checks go into the joint account every other week and i sit down and pay the bills that are due. If she needs or wants somthing she get it, if i need or want something i get it if it is a high dollar purchase we make a joint decision.

Lol so fucking judgmental. Get off the soapbox.

If anything, shared finances leads to more divorces... Having a joint account doesn't make someone your partner for life. There's more to it. But it has been shown to have the opposite effect

m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3587811

Edited January 9, 2016 by Steve Butters

[Steve Butters]

Idk why I bother posting links on this website, they never work... I know it's my mobile browser, but thus is the only site that gives me issues

[2talltim]

All I know me and the Mrs. have never fought over money, hard times as well as good. We have a common goal in life to get to and are working together to get there. The words mine, yours, hers, his never happen it's always ours or we. Maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones, or maybe we are the misfits in this fucked up world.

My parents did it this way for 47 years and the inlaws did it that way for 42 years and marital problems were never a problem.

And I read that story it says nothing about shared finances being the cause, it just say money and finances are the leading cause. Maybe....... it's because most couple are untrusting of each other with money and that leads to the problems. Maybe of they shared more it would have helped. Every thing is subject to interpretation

Edited January 9, 2016 by 2talltim

[Steve Butters]

I still love you Timmy... And I think you just got lucky and got one of the good ones... I don't think this petty financial shit has any effect on that.. If she's a good one, she'd still be no matter how you do the finances... That's all I'm getting at, it's not relevant

[sprocket226]

Wife and I have a checking account, and a savings account.

Both our pay checks get deposited together.

[zx3vfr]

I'm not married but might as well be... Own a house, new car together etc.. We split 50/50.. We budgeted all our monthly bills and an entertainment allowance and split it down the middle... We have a shared account that we put our portion into and all shared bills and entertainment are paid from that account.. The rest of the money is ours to do whatever with... No shared finances, no reason to argue about money... Don't need permission to buy shit either... We never ever argue over money, not even one time... Shared finances is a terrible idea in my opinion but everyone has their own preferences

Lol. Sharing everything doesn't lead to a divorce. If you ever do get married and all that freedom gets taken away because she wants to share everything, you'll want that freedom back but when you get it back you'll only have half your money and half your things. Start sharing now

[cobravenom452]

My wife and I have one bank account, pay all bills out if it. We give each other an "allowance " every week the same amount. We pay gas and all necessities out of the account, only wants like guns, purses, and the like come from our allowance.

[Bad324]

I control the purse strings. All pay checks deposited in to one checking account. All bills come out of that. All spending goes on the credit card for the reward points. All savings gets divided out between 2 savings accounts. The one savings account is awesome because I can put the money in to multiple buckets within the account that I have ear marked for certain things. This year I've pledged to start investing other than our work 401k's and my IRA.

It works pretty damn well even if there is some areas we spend more than id like

[jbot]

when i say "1 account" i mean joint accounts for 95% of payroll income... of course we have a checking account, investment accounts, savings, retirement, etc etc etc, but they are all joint.  we still have our old individual checking accounts.  i keep mine more for sentimental reasons than anything since i've had it for like 20 years.

[redkow97]

I don't think having a joint account is a risk so long as you both have the same financial philosophy.

We don't carry credit debt. We don't have car payments. We discuss large purchases, or hoard cash to hide them from each other. That sounds shady, but the reality is that I skip fast food and pocket $30/week while my wife buys sushi for lunch a lot. She splurges on clothes, I pay for race fees and tires.

It's not a competition to see how equal we can spend, we just both do what we enjoy, and respect each other's enthusiasm for different activities.

[jporter12]

I make about 10k more a year than my wife. But her job pays for our health insurance for a family of 4 which is roughly 10k a year. Our money just goes into one account and all the bills come out of that account. When we want something or want to get our kids something we just do it without much discussion because we invest, donate and save what is recommend for our age group.

 

Sounds very similar to what we do in my house.

 

I'm not married but might as well be... Own a house, new car together etc.. We split 50/50.. We budgeted all our monthly bills and an entertainment allowance and split it down the middle... We have a shared account that we put our portion into and all shared bills and entertainment are paid from that account.. The rest of the money is ours to do whatever with... No shared finances, no reason to argue about money... Don't need permission to buy shit either... We never ever argue over money, not even one time... Shared finances is a terrible idea in my opinion but everyone has their own preferences

 

I think the important thing is that you have found what works for the 2 of you to take care of things.  It sounds like it works well, too!

 

I control the purse strings. All pay checks deposited in to one checking account. All bills come out of that. All spending goes on the credit card for the reward points. All savings gets divided out between 2 savings accounts. The one savings account is awesome because I can put the money in to multiple buckets within the account that I have ear marked for certain things. This year I've pledged to start investing other than our work 401k's and my IRA.

It works pretty damn well even if there is some areas we spend more than id like

 

Is the savings account setup that way, or is it just something that you keep track of?  I like that idea, and I think we may be doing some more of that in the future.

[jporter12]

My wife and I both REALLY suck at budgeting, and we're in the process of changing how we do things, but it's still all from the same joint account.  We also have 2 savings accounts, one to not be touched other than emergencies, the other is linked to the checking account for a cushion, and bigger purchases.

 

My wife is really good at planning, and with that will get things paid on time.  I'm better than her with math and spreadsheets, so I that's what I do, and together we are figuring out how much needs to be in the account at certain times to pay bills.  More accurately, we are using a spreadsheet for a checking account register, and we'll be taking out 1/4 of the larger monthly bills out of that each week, so that we will know what we CAN spend, instead of just thinking that we have enough, and ending up NOT having enough.  Once we get back on top of things, we will be doing more auto pays, etc...