Who pays what in 2 income household?

[TBH]

Re: Who pays what in 2 income household?

When we were first living together, we made roughly the same amount of $$ and split everything 50/50 but had separate accounts.

Now that we are a family, our paychecks go into our joint checking account and joint ING account (e-fund). Everything is paid out of those accounts. Technically we are each allowed $100/month mad money, but we hardly ever spend that much. We have two joint credit cards.

We do still each maintain our old individual checking accounts, savings accounts, and credit cards but they don't get used as much. Retirement accounts are considered "mine" and "his", not "ours". We both freelance a little bit, and freelance money is considered the property of the individual. If I get a big check outside the salary from my day job, I do usually put some of it in our joint e-fund account, but most of it goes to my Roth account or my brokerage.

We are both very comfortable with sharing money, and we have taken turns being the main breadwinner. But there has been a lot of negotiation over who does which money-related tasks. I enjoy it, and he doesn't. But he's not comfortable giving up all involvment, and I agree that that wouldn't be good. I pay all the bills electronically now. He pays his own credit card bill, and sometimes pays whatever bills are not electronic (mostly childcare tuition). He is supposed to balance the checkbook, but he only does it a few times a year, which drives me crazy.

We do sometimes squabble. I am more anxious about money. He doesn't care about it and is naturally frugal. I am always having to exercise control to not spend beyond our means. I want our financial lives to improve--I want to be able to save more, but I also want to be able to spend more. Therefore I want us to earn more. He thinks our current lifestyle, level of savings, and income are just fine. Why would we want a different house? A newer car? Etc? He's very content. I aspire to that kind of contentment, and I'm glad he reminds me all the time how lucky we are, altho sometimes I wish he was more ambitious, too.

[shelbylovesmelby]

Re: Who pays what in 2 income household?

When we were two incomes I'd make a list of what was due for each of us . SO we'd pay our own car insurance & such. Things like mortgage & utilities I split 50/50 between us.....
SO basically I'd make up a bill for what dh owed this pay period & whatever was left over was his to spend til next pay day & I wrote out all the bills so I know they got paid

[MonkeyMama]

Re: Who pays what in 2 income household?

When my hubby and I first got married I made slightly more so I paid all of the bills. We had both just graduated from college from being dirt poor, so it felt pretty luxurious really - my whopping 35k/year. I paid mortgage, insurance, utilities, everything. His entire paycheck went to savings & maybe $2k-$3k/year for fun stuff (bought a t.v. and went on vacation, etc.).

Right now we are on 1 income, but we both have extra money coming in from here and there once in a while, it is all the same - savings or something a little extra once in a while.

Oh, when we first got married we both had an allowance, from my check. Once we realized we were on the same page we just let it go, we know what our limits are.

Good thread!

[Ima saver]

Re: Who pays what in 2 income household?

We still keep our allowance but it is not for "blow" money. He uses his for gas. I buy gas for my car, liquor, beer, dining out, personal items for both of us, extra groceries, dog items, etc.

[geojen]

Re: Who pays what in 2 income household?

My husband and I are discussing setting up an allowance system as well, but right now we don't have the extra money. We just discuss every purchase that is above 30 or forty dollars right now. When I am out of grad school hopefully the budget won't be so tight!

[twinsmommy]

Re: Who pays what in 2 income household?

Before we separated we did his, hers, ours. Household bills (mortgage, electricity, daycare, water, one joint cc payment, cable, internet) out of the joint account.

I pay my individual bills and he pays his individual bills. At least when we split up we had our own credit ratings and history. We also had our own accounts established to function out of.

[junger]

Re: Who pays what in 2 income household?

The wife and I have one checking account (and multiple savings accounts) and separate IRAs. We pay all the bills from the one checking account. We make different amounts of money, so it seems silly to split up who pays for what -- we're both using what we earn.

[PrincessPerky]

Re: Who pays what in 2 income household?

I don't get how money can be so...hard.....before we got married I already know all about my husbands money habits, and he mine.....When I married I put my complete trust in him....money and otherwise, not that he was perfect, but that he would always work to my best future, and I his.

We have our account..it is our money, I do the paperwork and fill him in on the news, good or bad, based on recent purchases...unfortunatly it is generally bad.. but hey, living on as little as we do, we have to talk about purchases of a buck!

The only thing we have now that life is easier, is his paypal account, it is all his poker money and some from writing, and selling, and while he frequently hands over some for the household bills now, he also uses what is left for fun junk. Conversly I tend to take all cash I find (gnerally from gifts) and use it to give to the church, and his opinion of the worth of that is about equal to my opinion of the worth of his junk!....it balances....though my 'junk' takes up less space .

Now when we had to pay off DDs birth and a few mistakes made around that time, we didn't spend any money on junk or church, and we didn't buy flour every three weeks for me to bake up a storm with, and we didn't by steak, even on sale, or canned beans (I am a terribly dry bean cook), we didn't do anything really for the most part....we were working together to get rid of the debt. it was our debt, and our job to get rid of it, so WE made the sacrifices together...

[frugalmomof1]

Re: Who pays what in 2 income household?

We put our money together when first moved in togehter 11 years ago, and I have always handled all of the bill paying.
We have our own 401k plans, but everthing else is a joint account. This has worked very well for us.

Both of us make some extra money 'on the side'...he does freelance autocad work, buys, sells and fixes motorcycles, and I do online surveys (which has paid quite well this year). And we both occasionally sell a bit on ebay. Until recently we used this extra money however we wanted, but lately we have been putting it in our joint accounts to pay off some bills.

[junger]

Re: Who pays what in 2 income household?

frugalmom -- my wife has been looking to do some online surveys, but we haven't been successful finding a good, consistent provider.

Who do you use/can you recommend them?

[BCHGRL]

Re: Who pays what in 2 income household?

We had an interesting system before we were married. We had separate checking accounts and I paid for all of our common bills, and he gave me a check for 1/3 of the mortgage ( I make twice his salary). He only paid for his truck, insurance and cell, I paid for everything else. He saved the rest, but the savings was considered "ours." My strength was paying the bills on time, and his strength was saving.

When we got married, we turned my checking into our joint account. My check goes in into joint and so does 80-90% of his check. His part-time paycheck also goes into the joint. We pay all the bills from the joint checking. He keeps about 10-20% of his paycheck in his old checking account. This is his fun money. My fun money comes out of the joint since I manage it and pay all of the bills. We've maintained the joint savings we had before we were married. We've only been married 5 months, but it has worked so far!

[Elgin526]

Re: Who pays what in 2 income household?

DH and I combined our finances right after the honeymoon. It all goes into one pot, and everything is paid out of that pot. I controll the budget and all bill paying. I do show him the budget and update him on how we are doing. He doesn't care, but he can't say I didnt' try!

Every once in a while, he does say "I made X this month, why don't we have any money? What are you spending it all on?" I then whip out the budget and start to tell him. He then runs out of the room screaming "Never mind, I don't wanna know! Forget I asked!" He just forgets how much money it costs to run a household, I think.

[glock35ipsc]

Re: Who pays what in 2 income household?

We each have our own checking accounts. I am on salary and deposit exactly the same amount each month, once a month.

Her pay is kinda wierd....salary in a way because it has a floor, but depending on hours and assignments (she work for the police dept) her pay can be much higher. She gets paid every two weeks.

We each contribute to our retirements accounts; her's is a 401(k), a 457 and a Roth, and mine is a SIMPLE IRA, a Roth and four DRIP stocks.

I pay the fixed payment stuff - mortgage, life insurance, 529's, DRIPs, daycare. I also pay for propane until the end of this month, than that goes WAAAAAY down. We are having the new fireplace installed on Monday, so the propane money will probably get turned back into our investments. We own land in South Dakota, so we will get our firewood from our land. I built a wood splitter from stuff I had in the shop, used stuff, so that saved about $1000.

My wife takes care of all the utilities, groceries and other mics. We paid her car off this year, so she is making double payments on my truck, and that will be gone mid-year 2007. We also recently started getting a majority of our groceries through a home food delivery service. All natural and organic, it is much healthier and FAR better tasing, and so far our food spending has been CUT IN HALF!!!

We have seperate accounts, but in no way think of them as "seperate" accounts. She has money left, and does what she wants with it. Doesn't mean she blows it all though, but it's hers to do whatever. Same for me.

[Jewelsmom]

Re: Who pays what in 2 income household?

Don't misunderstand me. All household income is "ours."

We just divide the bill-paying responsibilities between us, so we both are grounded in what is due, how much, when, etc. He likes one bank, I prefer the conveniences of another. We both have checks/ATM cards for each others' accounts too, but never use the others' account.

I am an agressive saver (401K), even putting money monthly into my two working teen daughters' Roth-IRAs. What I have left over is used on misc. stuff (vacation budget) and additional saving opportunities.

My husband, always worries there will never be enough money for a rainy day, so keeps $30K in a checking account. Finally I convinced him to move $10K to ING for higher interest than 1%.

I know he likes the security of not having to worry about handling all our bills alone.
We had a disaster a few years ago (forest fire) and he was happy to see I had bought the right insurance (with riders) to cover our full $47K loss, minus our $1K deductable. Now he listens a little closer when I make money suggestions, e.g., paying off the smaller 2nd mortgage with the adjustable rate because the payments will increase with the prime rate increase.

[Jewelsmom]

Re: Who pays what in 2 income household?

FYI, for those who "share accounts," a word of caution.

My friend recently received an inheritance. The amount was well documented in the insurance settlement.

He co-mingled the $ it with the family finances in a joint saving account, and yrs later when they divorced, half of the inheritance went to the divorcing spouse! Judge said they should never have mingled the money in joint accounts.

A hard lesson learned.