Couples with separate finances

[raeoflyte]

Anyone left that operates with separate finances? If so and you're willing to share - how does that work especially if you have kids together?

[daisylu]

We have yours, mine, and ours - and have access to everything (though DH pays no attention to mine). The  majority is "ours" meaning savings. DH pays the mortgage, electric bill, car insurance - I pay the phones/internet/food. It is mostly even, though he contributed more when he made 2x my income. DH has always paid for most of my wants (which are $$$), eating out, and household repairs out of "his" instead of the "ours", so it evens out. If we go to Lowe's for something DH wants, I make to sure to stock up on some household things on his dime. 

We do not nickel and dime every purchase and will do something for the other "just because". The kids were always considered an "ours" expense, though activities/trips/whatever were usually paid out of DH's pocket and not "ours" (and they are not his kids!).

Taxes come from "ours". 

We have been close in salary the last 6 years, with me topping DH the last 4.

[giramomma]

We have his/hers/ours accounts.

It's a little weird, because I'm still the primary breadwinner.

DH's pay from his job and his dividends go into his account. I only know how much when we have to sign taxes.

He pays for everything associated with the van ("his" vehicle), his copays, his contacts, mostly his clothes, and small things from Menards (like, a new filter of some sort, or lawn bags, etc). He also pays for the kids' tuition. And then that's also his spending money. Oh, he also pays for his life insurance too and gifts for me for Christmas and my birthday.  He is the conduit for DD1 paying her part of car insurance expense. Except., I'm not sure how hard he is on her about that. And know what? I don't care. He also pays for new camping equipment and his phone.

That said, on account of my job situation, we got scholarship so tuition is half the cost it normally is. So, starting next month he's got to put money towards the HELOC. He should still end up ahead, Because what I'll ask towards the heloc is less than what half of tuition was.

My jobs cover everything else, except for 529s and IRAs. That's special snowflake money.

By the time we added the peanut, I wasn't going to move my blow money (20 or so a month) into a separate account to call it mine. Life is too short. So, now when I want to spend money frivolously (like when I got to the thrift shop yarn sales). I take cash out of "our" short term savings and that's what I get to spend.

I always found it easier to just assign bills to DH and be like, dude, it's on you.

I think there has to be a lot of trust in our way of doing things. If I didn't trust DH or if he was irresponsible with bills, then my method wouldn't work. Then I'd probably ask for x amount to be contributed to my account on a monthly basis, and then I would take ownership of paying all the bills. With Zelle, etc, these days. You don't necessarily even meed joint accounts to shift money around like that.

ETA: Sinking funds/short term savings would probably be in that lump sum request. Maybe 529 money. (Although, I'd move to having each parent open up a 529 for the kid). Retirement, all completely individual. I think things like cars and vacations can get a liittle hairy.

 

[wvugurl26]

We don't have kids. I'm on all his accounts except the one credit union but very little goes in that one. I never added him to mine because neither of my banks were local or even in the same state at the time.

He bought the house 3 years before we were married. He pays all the house bills, cell phone and insurance. I do put $50/check into the USAA account that pays our insurance.

I pay for groceries, travel, gifts and our expensive entertainment habits. I usually pay for gas in my car. He makes maybe $25k more than me?

One of my coworkers with kids, they put x amount into a main account to pay for the house and kid bills. He's got a house from before their marriage that his mom rents from him.

I was 33 when I got married. I could never have one joint account. I do trust him but I keep a balanced checkbook and I don't think he's balanced one a day in his life. It would stress me out way too much.

If interest rates ever come down and we bought a more expensive house, I would contribute more towards that.

Our goal is to be able to save all of one salary. We keep moving towards it.

[daisylu]

Oct 15, 2024 16:22:25 GMT -5 wvugurl26 said:

We don't have kids. I'm on all his accounts except the one credit union but very little goes in that one. I never added him to mine because neither of my banks were local or even in the same state at the time.

He bought the house 3 years before we were married. He pays all the house bills, cell phone and insurance. I do put $50/check into the USAA account that pays our insurance.

I pay for groceries, travel, gifts and our expensive entertainment habits. I usually pay for gas in my car. He makes maybe $25k more than me?

One of my coworkers with kids, they put x amount into a main account to pay for the house and kid bills. He's got a house from before their marriage that his mom rents from him.

I was 33 when I got married. I could never have one joint account. I do trust him but I keep a balanced checkbook and I don't think he's balanced one a day in his life. It would stress me out way too much.

If interest rates ever come down and we bought a more expensive house, I would contribute more towards that.

Our goal is to be able to save all of one salary. We keep moving towards it.

Another good point. I was 34 and DH was 30 when we married. We both had our own homes and grown up lives (me with 2 kids) before we married. Very different scenario from people who married younger.

[Cookies Galore]

No kids, unless you count cats. Though they will never get old enough to have jobs and cover their own food or vet appointments, lol.

We each have our checking and savings accounts, plus we have a joint checking and shared savings accounts. The joint checking account is pretty much used to transfer money to me. I have always taken care of bill paying and setting savings goals; it mainly started because spouse was bad with money and now it's just because why change what works. I keep him in the loop on everything, though he doesn't seem to care and just appreciates that everything is taken care of, I guess.
My husband gets paid weekly and every Friday he asks how much he needs to transfer and that's pretty much that. I make about $30,000 more and cover our insurance, and we do a roughly 60/40 split with the mortgage/bills and savings. For the most part, everything (except the aforementioned bills) just goes on my credit card and that gets included with the transfer amount. There are plenty of times where we treat each other and I'm not going to nickel and dime a pizza delivery.
I'm probably making it sound more complicated than it really is. It works for us that in essence, we are working jointly even if most of the pots are separate.

[TheOtherMe]

Please don't get so crazy about the division of your expenses that you request your tax preparer to calculate the exact percentage of the taxes that belong to each person and then say "She owes me some money" when you find out.  

[lurkyloo]

We just never bothered to combine    DH makes close to triple what I make, probably 4-5x if you base it on actual take home, so he covers most of the big bills.  I covered childcare up till elementary school, still cover summer camp, groceries etc, clothes, water bill, bday and Xmas gifts, personal and school expenses.  Neither of us makes a fuss about it.  He covers expenses related to the rental house but also gets the rent deposited to his account too.  Practically he covers the big expenditures (pool, driveway replacement, fence) since he has upper six figures or worse in the bank-he’s terrible about investing.  I don’t usually keep more than 10K in my primary checking, although I have a backup savings with 12Kish.  We both have a lot in retirement; he has some stocks awarded by his company, I have quite a bit more in taxable investments that’s mostly gifted or inherited.

I max my 401k, cover health insurance and max an HSA and have significant extra tax withholding so my actual take home is kind of sad-but plenty for what I actually cover.  I’ve also spent 40K+ on four years of prepaid in state tuition for DS.  Basically I worry about tax implications and try to minimize tax liability, and he doesn’t really unless I prod him.

Combined finances are almost always the more efficient way to go.  We have beer tastes on a champagne budget and therefore have the flexibility to do whatever.  I have a tendency to overspend and it stays reined in a little better if I pretend his money doesn’t exist.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

We never joined accounts when we married.  He has his, I have mine.  I moved into his paid for house and have not paid for anything on it.  That’s fair.  He pays living expenses and travel, I pay for stuff I buy myself, my car and insurance, my healthcare and groceries.  While I am not on his accounts, I know his ATM codes, he knows mine.  We also know how to access each others accounts, and have quarterly accounting as to what’s in each.  Money does go back and forth, and I think he considers my savings account his slush fund (but he does replace it).  It works for us.

[bean29]

Yeah, we have a convoluted mix of Joint and personal accounts.  My DH is a high earner self employed person.  We have a joint checking account and DH's business account at the same Bank.  The Business account is not a joint account, but I have check writing authority.  DH tells me how much his commission is and I just take what I want/need based on what I think the business needs to keep  He has been making very good money the last few years.  I pay the estimated tax payments from our Joint account.  I don't pay them from his business account.  This is kind of a trust thing on both our sides.  If he didn't just trust me to go in his account and pull money like I do I would go nuts.  I don't pay the Estimates quarterly, I actually pay them monthly based on my estimate of how much I expect is due the IRS.  DH doesn't want to know about that-he just trusts me to handle it. 

DH just does his job and earns his $$ and trusts me to manage the investments.  We discuss the investments and what we are doing together, but I now have taken some of his money and made it mine just because we don't have time to take him to the bank and add him to the account (DH has his office open most Saturdays, so it is difficult for both of us to be available at the same time to open an account). I did make him the beneficiary if I pass. We have a good amount of $$ not invested in the stock market that are in high yield savings accounts right now.  Most of our cars are in his name because my credit is locked and I don't have time to figure out how to unlock it.  We will fix it when we re-title my car after we buy out the lease we took to capture the $6,500 credit that is only available if you take the lease first for the EV.  Everything we have is covered by marital property laws anyways in case of divorce.  DH has a bunch of credit cards I am not on, but I need to go in and review them/reconcile them to find the deductible expenses for the year.  It just works, but I am going to have him close/stop using some of them b/c it is just too much work to track everything.  I also told him I think some business he is chasing is not worth his effort similar to some things Andi is telling her producers.  He was receptive to what I told him.  

So, our "joint" checking account is really used only by me to pay our joint bills.  He has a business checking account and a business CC and numerous other personal CC.  He was not great about keeping track of them and making the monthly payments so I went in and set them all up to automatically pay off the balance every month.    

My DH has been self employed most of our marriage, the joint account was established before we married.  I put most of what I earn in 401K and HSA accounts, and we live off of DH's earnings.  

[flamingo]

We have our own accounts then one small “joint” account that we use for groceries, eating out, and sometimes gas for our cars. If we get a refund on our taxes, it goes in that account, and then we’ll put towards our next vacation. I put grocery money in there every month because I’m currently the breadwinner. Otherwise it’s all separate.

DH pays our mortgage every month, his own car insurance, and when he had it, his car payment, and his cell phone. He also pays for his own shopping (clothes, electronics, etc). I pay everything else (utilities, home and health insurance, groceries, etc). We have no kids so it works for us. If we had kids, I imagine we’d put more into that joint account (and he would actually contribute). We split travel expenses equally. Home repairs and furnishings we figure out as we go. Thus far it hasn’t been an issue, we usually split it equally. 

This only works bc we’re on the same page financially, and we both have decent incomes. When we first got together and I made a small fraction of what DH made, he paid for most everything. That’s changed as my income has increased and his has decreased. 

[Pink Cashmere]

I’ll just go with our original setup.

Because we were in our 40’s when we moved together, it was easy to be clear on our individual stuff. My only debt was my mortgage and of course I was responsible for taking care of it, his only debt was the payment on his Honda, plus he had 3 minor children. As far as the house we live in, he pays the mortgage and all of the needs as far as maintenance and repairs. I paid for lights, gas, water, internet and cable.

In some ways, his thinking is very traditional, IRT to feeling like he is supposed to be the “provider”, but not so traditional that he wants to be the only one with income. Which is fine with me, since I don’t want to be dependent on someone else anyway. 

We opened a joint savings account for “house stuff” when we moved in, that we contributed equally to. The agreement was to save money for when something unexpected happened and to furnish/decorate the house. The only time we’ve used it for an unexpected repair was when the sliding door to the deck fell apart a couple hours after his Mom died. I immediately told him not to concern himself with the door, I’d handle it, which I did, and paid to replace it out of the joint account. All other repairs, he has insisted on paying out of his own money. That is the only joint account we have.

We both bought groceries. I kept the kitchen stocked, he bought groceries when he or his children wanted a specific meal or junk food. FTR, his children were always welcome to whatever was in the kitchen, regardless of who bought it. I bought all of the household supplies.

I pay for my car, he pays for his vehicles….. insurance, maintenance and repairs. All of the vehicles are paid for, except the Mustang. I am responsible for my Jeep, but the one time we had to put it in the shop, he surprised me by paying for the $800 repair.

So we had some hard lines, and some blurred ones. The blurry areas were usually him voluntarily paying for something I was supposed to pay for, or something he knew I wanted and was going to eventually buy on my own.

I imagine it is more difficult to try to separate things after years of joint finances, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. It will require some honest, probably uncomfortable and/or difficult conversations though.