How do you deal with expenses when married?

[WEL]

I've always thought most couples lived by the whole 'what's mine is your and what's yours is mine' rule but I'm seeing that less and less. I always wanted everything to go into one pot - expense and income.

If you're married... what works?

I kind of want everything shared but maybe that's not best.

[Fishindude77]

No right or wrong to this, but we have both joint and individual accounts. Either can go online and see what's going on, so no secrets, but I like to have my own account to keep a little "mad money" in.

[disneysteve]

We started combining things when we got engaged and once we were married everything became joint except for things that can't (retirement accounts). All money is joint. There is no "my money" and "her money", no "my debt" and "her debt". Everything we have is OURS and all decisions are made jointly.

I wouldn't do it any other way. If I didn't trust her enough to manage our finances as a couple, I never would have married her. That would have been a huge deal breaker for me.

[MonkeyMama]

We share everything. We have one checking account for deposits and expenses. We share all of our accounts/assets jointly. The one exception is retirement funds which have to be owned in our individual names.

Of course, we live in a community property state and there isn't a lot to be gained by trying to keep separate money. The exception would be inheritances (since we didn't come into our marriage with any money). Since I've been with my spouse for 20+ years and he is like a son to my parents, I doubt we will keep any of those monies separate. In a different situation I would think more carefully about that. (Particularly since it will potentially be a very substantial sum).

[scfr]

We've been married 22 years and almost everything personal is jointly owned. The only exceptions are things that can't be owned joint: retirement accounts, cars, and one bank account that didn't allow joint ownership. My husband is the owner of his business account but I am an authorized signer on it. (When I was a business owner the reverse was true.) I think our Treasury Direct account used to be only under my name but later we added DH, and I can't for the life of me remember why, but maybe TD changed the rules? The bottom line is, everything is jointly owned when possible. This has worked for us.

Of course, we got married when we were youngish with close to no assets and everything we now have has been the result of our team efforts.

If either of us were to pass and the other re-marry, we might choose a different approach. In fact, I've advised DH that if he were ever to re-marry he should get a pre-nup.

[avil_saver36]

I've always thought most couples lived by the whole 'what's mine is your and what's yours is mine' rule but I'm seeing that less and less. I always wanted everything to go into one pot - expense and income.

If you're married... what works?

I kind of want everything shared but maybe that's not best.

In marriage, everything is communal property. Both are in the same boat and both have the same objective. If the boat capsizes, both drown. In my opinion, individual money doesn't exist. I may be a bit extreme, but spending even a dollar without your partner's consent is stealing 50 cents from him/her.

Both my wife and I had a few differences in how to allocate money early on but over time, we have worked them out. Now, we both have unanimous views on how to manage our estate, and we manage different parts of it. My wife manages our overseas investments and I manage everything else.

When it comes to spending, we have two credit cards - one for recurring expenses, one for everything else. No more. Everything is charged to the cards, everything is paid off at the month's end, and both of us sit together at least once a week and check our spendings trend on mint.

On the income side, all paychecks are direct deposited in a bank account I have owned since the last 15 years. My wife also gets her paycheck deposited there. It is linked to a savings account and some money is transferred there every month. We have been increasing our cash savings and are over $26K by now (started the year at $6K only).

On the credit side, we both get our credit reports once a year that has all debts and accounts listed. We both trust each other and know that none of us has any secret debt. Still, being in this habit is healthy.

On the assets side, obviously, we both are joint owners of our house, both cars and all of the investment accounts except the retirement account. I enrolled both of us on the Social Security Admin website so both of us know exactly what the benefits are as of now and how much each of us will get in case of contingencies. Both of us also have automatic life insurance from workplaces, and we both have listed each other as the primary beneficiary. Apart from that, we have both talked to our respective families and made a pact that any inheritance will directly go to our daughter. Again, we trust each other, but we do not want too much/too little inheritance from either family to be part of the dynamic between our relationship.

This pretty much covers all of our financial bases. There are some additional things we have done to protect our daughter's interests should anything happen to either/both of us while she is still a minor. That's maybe for a separate topic.

Just understand that in a marital relationship, there needs to be a 100% transparency and a complete knowledge on either side on what to do in various contingencies scenarios. Should anything happen to either of us in this unpredictable life, the partner should never be at the mercy of unknowns.

[corn18]

We are 26 years of all communal. I will say that I might change that up if my wife decides to go back to work when the kids are all out of the house next year. I think it would be good for her to just keep what she earns and she can do whatever she wants with it. My feeling is she will save it up for something. I make enough right now to cover all our expenses and savings with money left over, so this could be fun for her.

My in laws had separate finances when they were retired. My MIL got her SS check to spend on whatever she wanted. My FIL's SS and pension payed expenses (he never really bought anything). She had no idea how much money they had and he didn't much care what she did with her money. Worked well for them. Until FIL died and MIL had no clue how to manage anything.

[phantom]

My husband and I think of all of our money as shared. Even things that are technically only in one name or the other (like our retirement accounts), we think of as being owned by both of us. It's worked well for us so far (6 years). While I know separate finances work well for some people, we've discussed that option and can't see it working for us.

We do each get $50/month that we can spend however we like. What doesn't get spent, rolls over to the next month, so we can save for fancy toys, if we like. But, we don't bother with separate accounts for that money. It's just earmarked on paper.

[sblatner]

We've been married for 24 years. My husband wanted to have separate accounts but made a lot more money than I did so I asked if we could try joint for six months to see how it went and we have never looked back. When we were dating, it was difficult for me to keep up with his lifestyle and I didn't want that to be a problem once we were married. i.e., he liked expensive dinners which I could not afford to reciprocate.

One thing is though that we are both savers. Neither of us spends a lot on clothes, electronics, personal care, etc. We make joint decisions on most purchases and at the beginning, had a rule that anything over $50 had to be a joint decision. Not really that the other could say no but just so that the other knew what was being spent...wanted to make sure we had enough money to pay the bills.

I have to say, we have never had an argument about money.

[HappySaver]

All joint as well. We both came into the marriage with no real assets. Can't imagine doing it differently.

I think the situation is different for people who have prior marriages, children, and/or significant assets. They should keep portions separate. Otherwise I see no good reason to not join everything.

[BuckyBadger]

All together.

All paychecks come into the same account and are then divvied up. (I do the finances.)

Although retirement accounts are in our individual names, the asset allocation is spread across them all as if they were one bucket. For example, he has a low cost bond index so his 401k is almost all bonds. I had a better total US stock index, so my 403b is almost all total stock, and so on. Roths, over which we have more control, are used to make up the difference.

We have joint credit cards and we buy what we want when we want it. We are not on a tight budget, so we're able to spend a few hundred bucks a month on something without discussing it. Anything over $300 or $400 we would discuss.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Joint for me. But i have friends and family who do it all separate. I think either way is fine as long as you both agree

[Jovanny]

The two of you should understand that it takes time to get accustomed to healthy financial habits (post marriage!)It is wise to let your spouse know if you expect him or her to discuss purchases over $100 with you first. You must also discuss your bank accounts and long-term financial goals in-depth.

[safari]

For us it's more convenient to keep the accounts separate because it's easier to balance that way. I know how much I am charging on my credits cards and what bills I need to pay, so I keep enough money in my checking account to pay off those bills every month. My wife does the same with her checking account, but regardless of whose name is on the account, we consider it our money and we always make joint decisions about purchases. Whose card to use to charge the purchase depends on convenience (e.g. if we found something we like on my phone, I'll purchase it, since I am already logged into my account), special deals (e.g. extra cashback offered on a specific category by someone's credit card), the retailer (e.g. I might have free shipping with the retailer, but my wife doesn't), and things like that. I enjoy finances, so I manage all of our family's finances and have full access to all of my wife's bank accounts, credit cards, 401K, HSA, etc. She even trusts me with her email passwords, so I can retrieve the security codes that banks often send to validate the user. We know each other's phone pins, as well. We trust each other 100%. I wouldn't marry someone I didn't trust 100%.

[snafu]

We also use joint accounts to manage money and easily access all financial details electronically. I've been frustrated from time to time as I've always been a 'saver,' DH has always been a 'spender' and drives buying major, expensive items. I think if we were just starting out I'd have each of us contribute to various budget categories based on percentages of net income.