Finances when Married

[DebtFreeGoal]

I just wanted to get the opinions of others. I recently became engaged and will be getting married in August of this year. Just wanted to know how everyone else handles their finances when they got married. Specifically was accounts are joint/separate/etc.

It would be great to get some ideas on what married couples are doing.

[thyme4change]

We went to a joint account right away. We did it because I'm a control freak, and my husband hates managing the finances. So, it was natural to do so.

I will say that with new banking regulations, it is much harder to have a joint account. There are things that my husband can log-on and do, which I can't see. So, if he logs on and pays a bill, it won't show up as a pending payment. It only shows up after the payment goes through. So, yes, we have paid the same bill twice. We use to just have a single log-on. We are still working out the new system.

Apparantly there are no joint credit card either. One person can own a credit card and the other can be an authorized user. I thought that was risky in case of death, or going crazy, disappearing in the night - whatever - so we each now have our own seperate credit card. PIA in my opinion. I seem to get so many bills now.

[dancinmama]

We combined our finances with joint accounts and named each other as beneficiaries.

[Deleted]

DH and I have two joint checking accounts and separate fun money accounts. I use mint so you can see all the activity in all of our accounts whether or not it's a joint account. One joint account is for predictable bills: mortgage, insurance, etc. The other account is flexible spending: food, entertainment and health.

[kristi28]

We started using a joint account for our joint bills when we began living together. However, as time passed after marriage, all of the accounts became joint. This was due to the fact that we deposited our paychecks into the joint account for bill paying; we were too lazy to keep up with separate accounts (at one point we had like 10 total accounts).

This works well for us as we tend to be on the same page about major spending. Neither of us worries about small spending, and we both do similar amounts of it. If we stressed the little things, one of us tended to spend more than the other, or we didn't have enough "float", we would probably still use the his-hers-ours method.

DH loves to tell people "I don't pay bills anymore! Of course, I don't see my paycheck anymore, either."

[dragonfly7]

The system you choose should reflect your money management styles. Between DH and I, attempts to maintain separate accounts have always quickly gone downhill since he completely neglects to monitor his money and bills. Therefore, we have a joint checking and a joint savings, and he has a completely separate source of income (tutoring) to fund his "allowance" since he regularly wants to buy movies/DS games. To be fair, I should start an allowance for myself as well whether I spend it now or save up for something.

[boosmom]

DH and I opened joint ckg and savings account while co-habitating. Mostly it was the rent check and any cc's we used together for household stuff that came out of it, but we also started saving money together toward the wedding. We kept our separate accounts as well. I didn't pay my car loan from the joint checking, but that's really semantics, since I only had what was leftover to contribute to the joint account....

We do get some 'play money' each month and that goes into the separate accounts, but most of our money goes into the joint account now, since all of the bills are pretty much joint bills. I'm better about tracking all of the bills and incoming/outgo, so it'd be hard if we kept it separate.

I do know some families where the DH and DW have separate accounts and then DH gives the DW $ (both DWs do work). It's strange when one DW says "I pay for the private school tuition." It's both your kids?! But she really wanted the private school vs. public school, so she pays for it. Oh!

p.s. congrats on your engagement! Do what works for you guys.

[MN-Investor]

For my DH and me, we've always had joint accounts. We never discussed it. It's just how our folks did it and it seemed right to us. Fortunately, we have similar attitudes on spending and saving, so we've never had any issues. I'm the accountant, so I do all the bill paying, Quicken updating, etc. BTW, we've been married 34 years.

This subject has been discussed periodically in the past on the MSN money boards and I'm always amazed at how passionate some people get. Basically, you have to figure out what works best for you and your partner. There is no one right way, in spite of what some people will claim. And remember that you can always modify your original set up if you discover that it's not working for you.

[Deleted]

I think some of the management style reflects your age and previous marital history.

My DH and I got married about 18 months ago. We didn't live together prior (he was actually in Phoenix). I had been divorced 10+ years, and he had been divorced 20+ years.

There was no way that we were going to give the other control over our finances. He writes me a $500 check each month (actually more because he has to add in his share of the family insurance and $25 toward the flex account). I put it all into a house account to take care of maintenance issues.

Does he have a good deal? Sure. But he takes me out to eat whenever I want to go. I have $500 more toward expenses that I didn't have. Push will come to shove when one of us has major medical issues. I know a hospital won't care that our finances are separate.

I worry about it more than he does. (Family joke: he doesn't have to worry because I do it for both of us.)

My point is that neither of us would do well with a single checking account. I have $75 left in mine. That's fine. My retirement accounts are funded, my bills are paid, and I have nothing else I really need to buy. (Gas and the phone bill are already subtracted out.) That would drive him NUTS because he has $25,000 in his non-interest checking account.

I like the way I handle $$$, but it's not workable for a couple.

[Deleted]

Jan 24, 2011 19:03:46 GMT -5 @dragonfly7 said:

The system you choose should reflect your money management styles.

I'm a financial control freak and it would drive me nuts to have someone making ATM withdrawals out of "my" account. I had a joint account with a guy when we owned a 2-family together but we still kept separate accounts, too. We each put an agreed-upon amount in the house account every month- more than the mortgage, to allow for other maintenance expenses. With both DH and my Ex, I pay all the bills- in my first marriage, he gave me a check every month for his share of the expenses, and DH just gives me a check for most of the balance in his account every month. I invest most of it and the rest goes to charity and general expenses. (DH is on SS, I make a lot of $$$.) DH has autonomy with his account; whatever he spends it on is his business.

Credit cards: it's pretty crazy right now. Four in my name with him as Authorized User, 2 in his name. One of the 2 he rarely uses- the other is a new one to rack up AA miles and get the 40,000 mile bonus for opening an account. Two of mine were from offers that gave 75,000 miles each. All 3 of those will disappear in a year when annual fees kick in. Fortunately DH is a very modest spender; I've never checked the credit card bill and freaked out at anything he spent. We pay in full every month.

People do get passionate about this subject, but I say whatever works for the 2 of you is fine.

[Urban Chicago]

DH and I went joint well before we were even living together.

It's worked very well and he's never done anything to make me not trust him. I do have one account that's money from my family. He'd never want to get involved in that so it's just in my name.

We also have a "talk to me" limit so that if you're going to spend more than X amount in one day, you have to call and let the other know. Learned that at Pre-CANA, possibly the only worthwhile part.

[Deleted]

Jan 24, 2011 20:33:07 GMT -5 Urban Chicago said:

We also have a "talk to me" limit so that if you're going to spend more than X amount in one day, you have to call and let the other know.

Yeah, DH and I have that and we never went through pre-Cana. We pretty much mention anything that's not routine and over, say, $50. That's hardly a budget-breaker, but it's what we do.

[frisbee21]

Congrats on your engagement.

Everything we have is joint and I handle all finances as DH not interested and has never balanced an acct in his life. This is what evolved over the past 10+ yrs:

1) His paycheck direct deposited into main checking acct. (I have the debit card and pay all the bills, mostly online.)

2) My paycheck less $500 direct deposited into savings acct.

3) $500 from my paycheck direct deposited into another account for which DH has the debit card. He spends whichever way, cash, groceries, gas, 7-11 stops. We don't write checks off it and never have to balance it. Stress-free for me. Has a line of credit attached in case he doesn't pay attn (likely). I check it about 2x month to make sure he's ok.

4) Some larger bills like 529 contributions come automatically out of the savings acct.

Like I said, it's evolved! Be careful with separate accts. My DH once set up an eTrade acct without my name on it and it was a real pain since I handle most of the finances.

[Gardening Grandma]

As MNInvestor says, you have to do what works for you. What works for us is a "his", "mine" and joint checking accounts. The separate accounts are for our own personal discretionary spending.
We have a rewards cc that joint spending goes on. I also have my own visa for my personal spending. So does he. I manage the joint account and my personal one.
The investment accounts are his IRA, my IRA and a joint taxable account.

[mrsgords]

Jan 24, 2011 18:13:48 GMT -5 dancinmama said:

We combined our finances with joint accounts and named each other as beneficiaries.

Same here. I handle all the finances, including creating a budget, paying bills, tracking investments, etc. Works for us.

[Deleted]

I've heard (I can't recall if this is Liz Weston or Suze Orman advice - I would trust it more if I knew it to be the former) that you want to make sure you both always have one card in your own name only, no matter what else you may combine. I think the concern is that accounts may be frozen when one person dies, and the surviving spouse will need to have one account that works without interruption to pay for necessities (bourbon, or what have you) in the short term while the paperwork on everything else gets squared away.

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

He earns the money and I spend it.

[lurkyloo]

Congrats!

A couple of relevant things to think about:

How old are you? How well established are your financial identities? The earlier, the easier to merge; the younger you are, the more flexible people tend to be about changing things. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think several of the separate-money posters here are on the more-experienced side and either learned the hard way the downside of merging money with an irresponsible spouse, or got used to managing things their own way and didn't see the point of changing that.

The second thing to consider is, How do you and your DF feel about financial control? Is either of you on the control-freak side? Will it be a source of friction if one likes to track every expenditure and the other can't remember what he/she did with that $40 ATM withdrawal? How tight will your budget be, and how much freedom will each of you need?

Personal counterpoint: DH and I married at 30/36, and already had our financial identities established. He's a joint account holder on my primary checking account; I'm the beneficiary on his (he offered to make me joint holder but I found it a PITA to have two names on one account the first time round). We each have bills that we pay regularly, and I have part of my paycheck direct deposited into his checking (enough to cover half the mortgage). We consult occasionally regarding balances in checking/401k/etc to make sure everything is on track. I like the system because I get to exercise my OCD/control freak tendencies on my own behalf without driving him nuts! He's got a much healthier attitude towards money than I do; he spends money without worrying about it when it's called for but doesn't waste it. Also, our budget is fairly loose--our income significantly exceeds our outgo. I think if your expenses are very close to your income, you may be better off merging; more teamwork is called for in that case.

[cael]

Congrats OP! I'm getting married in July so we'll be going through this too What I'd like to do is combine everything, especially since he's going to be laid off by the fall (probably - they've pushed it forward 3x now!), and if he's collecting UE for a little while, he unfortunately won't be seeing much of it so I can make sure the bills get paid. My plan is to have our paychecks and/or UE direct deposited into one account instead of our individual accounts, and I'll pay all the bills out of that account. I made it clear to him this doesn't mean he will have no access to his/our money - just gotta make sure the bills get paid, then we can deal out any weekly "fun" money. We'll keep our indiv. accounts for the "fun" money for now probably.

Problem is, I don't think he's sure he's OK with me handling the money. I'm somewhat of a control freak & prefer to do it myself, but to be honest if I left it all to him, he wouldn't be able to handle everything, and he knows that, so he's coming around I think.

[DebtFreeGoal]

Jan 24, 2011 22:01:16 GMT -5 lurkyloo said:

Congrats!

A couple of relevant things to think about:

How old are you? How well established are your financial identities? The earlier, the easier to merge; the younger you are, the more flexible people tend to be about changing things. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think several of the separate-money posters here are on the more-experienced side and either learned the hard way the downside of merging money with an irresponsible spouse, or got used to managing things their own way and didn't see the point of changing that.

The second thing to consider is, How do you and your DF feel about financial control? Is either of you on the control-freak side? Will it be a source of friction if one likes to track every expenditure and the other can't remember what he/she did with that $40 ATM withdrawal? How tight will your budget be, and how much freedom will each of you need?

To answer your questions.. I am 28 and my fiancée is 30. We've talked about maintaining separate accounts to use for personal spending and also have a joint checking for living expenses and a joint savings dedicated toward vacation, dream home, etc. I will admit that I tend to want to have more financial control and in this case I think having separate accounts and joint accounts would work best for us.

After reading what others had to say I think it would work best for us if we have our paychecks direct deposit into the joint checking account, have autowithdrawl to put a portion into the joint savings, and autowithdrawl an agreed upon amount into our personal accounts.

[Miss Tequila]

We have separate finances and it works for us. Actually, my husband pays the majority of the household bills (we have no mortgage, so just the taxes, insurance, utilities, etc). He does that to even out the fact that I only work 30 hours a week so I can care for our children (doesn't quite make-up for what I'm losing in salary and certainly not what I'm losing in advancement opportunities at my firm).

I also do not feel the need to discuss any of my purchases with my husband. If it is a joint purchase that we will both be responsible for (something for the house) then we discuss that. However, I bought a house in Florida and didn't tell him until a few months later. It was my money and my investment and I didn't need his input (he hates real estate investments since we sold our jointly owned RE 5 years ago).

[spartan7886]

We have a mix of joint and separate accounts (both 24). He wanted joint accounts on everything because that's the way his parents did it, so he's seen that work. My parents had separate accounts for everything, and I saw that work. I insisted on separate checking accounts, just so I always know what's in mine, since I like to keep my float pretty low. Both are technically joint accounts, but one is his primarily and one is mine primarily, and we always tell the other if we have to make an ATM withdrawal from the other bank. 95% of our spending is on the Amex anyway. I pay the joint Amex and an automatic withdrawal to the savings account, since the Amex was mine predating the marriage, and he pays all the other bills including the mortgage, which comes out pretty even, although the primary reason here was my oddball schedule, so it worked better for him to pay bills since he never travels for work. We each pay our back-up credit cards (a necessity when you use an Amex). We wound up with his-hers-and-ours investment accounts because we never bothered to make our old ones joint, just reassigned beneficiaries, although our newest account is joint. We violated a cardinal YM rule there and went to Edward Jones. After a year, I'm calling that account a Hold.

[Deleted]

Jan 25, 2011 0:46:25 GMT -5 resolution said:

I handle all of the bills and investments, but I discuss investments with him beforehand.

Same here. DH doesn't want to deal with the investments but he has a good understanding of the subject, what's risky, what isn't. He knows roughly what we have and what it's invested in, and when I want to make major moves.

[Deleted]

We keep everything separate. We each have our own checking account, and I have a savings account. My husband makes a little more than I do, so he pays the rent and I pay the utilities. I get child support for my older son which I use to pay his expenses, while my husband pays the daycare for our younger son. I also buy all the groceries and household needs, but if I'm running out of money, hubs will give me his debit card. We have been co-habitating/married for 3 years and decided to keep everything separate because we both brought our own debt into the marriage (I had significantly more). When our debts are paid off, we will still maintain separate accounts because that's whats easiest for us. Sometimes I disagree with what he spends his money on and vice versa, but with separate accounts, that's just what it is - our own money. We've never had any kind of financial disagreement and are perfectly happy with how our situation works.

Congrats on the engagement!! ;D

[tcu2003]

We got married last July (I'm 29 and DH is 34), and we do joint and separate accounts. Our paychecks are set up to deposit a set amount in our joint checking, joint savings, and then our individual savings and/or checking accounts. It's more or less a PITA now to keep track of so many accounts. DH uses his CC for everything, and pays it off at the end of the month, and I tend to use my debit card for everything. We're moving to a different state this spring for work, so we've talked about combining accounts when that happens to make things simpler. We'll each still keep our own CCs, but probably combine to just joint bank accounts. Both of us are on the same wavelength as far as spending habits go, and we tend to pay bills together, so hopefully there won't be any issues with just having joint accounts down the road.

[sunuva]

We had already established our own banking identities before we were married. Conveniently it was with the same bank. We kept our original banking accounts and opened a joint account. The joint account makes for a convenient account with which to transfer money into and out of. The account is to handle extraordinary events as they come up. I throw $100 into it every week. On occassion when we need to settle a large credit card bill I (or my wife) can throw the extra dollars into the account necessary to be transferred to whomever needs to pay the credit card bill (say vacation spending - airline tickets, car rentals, etc.).

By doing this we still maintain our individual banking. The education plans come from her accounts and the bill payments come from my accounts. We pay our own credit card bills (excepting circumstances as already mentioned). The joint account has worked really well as an immediate means for transferring monies between our individual accounts as the circumstances warrant.

[sheilaincali]

DH and I married on my 21st b-day and he was 23. We were young and didn't know any better. We had one joint account because that's the only way we knew how to do it. Works for the most part. Sucked big time when I found out DH was a compulsive shopper. I would tell him "Ok, it's Tuesday and we have $200 to get us through to Friday". That would stress him out and he would spend every cent and then some by Thursday. Plus DH is a recovering s.ex addict and had his own credit card that I was unaware of. It's how he financed his addiction and his girlfriend.

Now that we are old and wise (35 and 37) we still have joint checking. But we each get our own allowances every week ($20). We don't use credit cards and we have the same user name and password to all of our accounts. We don't spend more than $50 without talking to the other person first. Now Joint Accounts work just fine for us. But had I known about his issues in the beginning I would have kept separate money from him.

[kimber45]

DH and I have joint accounts. He never uses his debit card or checkbooks, just pays cash for everything. He will hint when he needs money ("Honey, I need gas in my truck,.. etc)

[Anne_in_VA]

Since we married when we were older we have separate accounts. I'd been married before to a control freak who controlled all the money and I'd been divorced for over 20 years, so I wanted to keep everything separate.

He pays the rent and phone out of his account and I pay the utilities out of mine. We have our accounts at the same credit union, so I transfer money to his account to cover the rent/phone and he transfers money to mine to cover the utilities. It works really well for us and I like having control over my money. I give myself an allowance each payday and that works well for me. He tends to balance his account every couple of days, while I only do mine every couple of weeks. I spend very little and take my "allowance" out in cash, so I don't need to monitor it that closely.

Neither of us has to ask the other about spending habits but we do discuss any larger purchases - usually anything over $100.

[Deleted]

I'm surprised so many people keep money separate. Seems very strange to me. Why pay bills out of 2 different accounts when you can just combine the accounts and pay out of one?

If you're worried about the spouse, I would think it'd be more worrying to divide up responsibilities and each have their own pot of cash.