Shortly after my husband and I were married he informed me that he wasn’t a fan of separate bank accounts. He wanted all of our individual accounts to be combined into one large account. I wasn’t exactly on board. “What if I want to spend money on something you deem wasteful?” I asked. He answered quickly and without hesitation. “I don’t care what you buy,” he said, “I just want an easy way to manage our money.” With that simple answer he convinced me to move our money.
We started with one small brokerage account. Then added a joint checking and savings account. We added two new credit cards and made certain that our names were on all pieces of joint property including cars and houses. Over time we also added special rights to each our of retirement accounts. This enables me to view his 401k and IRAs. I can’t move the money around, but I can see what he’s invested in and how it’s growing.
When I log onto our bank’s website I can see each and every one of our accounts and my husband can easily do the same. Our credit cards are also held jointly and upon logging in I can easily review all of our transactions.
Over the years our financial landscape has become extremely complex. My husband and I own our own company, one rental property, are members of two LLCs and one trust. In order to make certain that everything runs as smoothly as possible our current setup enables us to double check each other’s work.
When I schedule a credit card payment I ask my husband to log into our bank account to verify the date and amount. We follow this same practice when paying the mortgage, insurance premiums and other big ticket items.
Last Saturday night I noticed that our credit card payment had not been scheduled. It is a new account that we opened a few weeks ago and I guess it wasn’t on my husband’s radar yet. He paid the other bills, but somehow missed this one. If we weren’t double checking each other’s work we would have missed the payment and been charged interest and late fees.
I know a lot of families who do not wish to combine their finances, but I must say that since my husband and I started using this model I can’t imagine doing it any other way. From a financial perspective our lives are one big open book. I like knowing that we have nothing to hide from one another and that we really couldn’t hide anything from one another if we wanted to. We also run free credit reports a few times a year, so new credit cards would show up on those reports.
I also like knowing that we have each other’s backs. I know a lot of husbands and wives who grow resentful at keeping tabs on their money. If poor investments are made or the bills don’t get paid it’s all their fault. With our model we are equally responsible for the decisions we make.
It also helps us stay on the same page regarding short term and long term goals. We both have a solid picture of how much money we have in the bank and how much we still owe on our mortgages. With this information in mind we can more easily plan for the future.
So how about you? Who is in charge of your family finances?
I hate to admit it, but I am solely responsible for our finances. I’ve tried several times to get my husband involved–and he’ll do it, but I feel like it’s only to appease me. He really just doesn’t “get” it and it’s not something he’s very into, whereas I could crunch and re-crunch numbers all day!
We’ve gotten a lot better about money, but I think it’s mostly because we HAVE money now. We were pretty tight for a looong time, and we finally have some breathing room.
I’m not sure what me and my BF will do after we get married. I think we’ll keep things separate until we buy a place together, otherwise keeping things separate while living together these 2 years has worked just fine for us, but maybe that will change.
I’m the one who mainly manages all things financial. We often joke that he would be screwed if I died, but it’s the truth. He’s horrible with numbers and managing things on his own, so I’d rather do it myself.
I take care of the financial stuff. Each month I do a spreadsheet and we sit down and go over it. He has full access to all the accounts and can see any transactions. We both know the limits of our discretionary funds and discuss anything that may come up. I would never combine financial stuff if I was not married. I did keep a separate savings account when we were first married but put it in the pot when I realized that if I trusted him with my life I could trust him with my money.
My fiance and I agree that I will manage our joint finances. He dislikes the physical act of paying bill, and I enjoy playing with numbers and spreadsheets. Plus, he’s been known to incur late fees because he still pays some bills with checks! We plan on total transparency though. At all times, we will both know the passwords to all joint accounts, and I will create a spreadsheet that details where the money goes.
My spouse and I keep everything separate. The main reason is that I have an inheritance I am managing for my child. We each contribute an equal amount toward household bills, and I pay them. We discuss finances often and are completely open about it. I find that separate accounts for non-household bills are helpful for me, because when my spouse takes money out of his own account to buy hobby-related things, I don’t have to think or wonder about it – he will just tell me.
I manage the day to day, he is in charge of the long term moves. We have the same goals but work better on different assignments than together!
My husband and I own both separate and joint savings/checking accounts. I recently took over paying all of our joint household expenses (gas, electricity, mortgage, phone/cable/internet, groceries, childcare, etc.) because my procrastinating husband has a habit of incurring late fees and I am just more organized and interested in personal finance. I find it to be more work (calculating which expenses come out of which accounts) but for now, we prefer to keep individual accounts to pay for certain personal expenses (entertainment, work week lunches/snacks, gifts etc.) and for our own retirement savings.
My husband and I started out with seperate accounts and each paid half of all the bills, but as life got more complicated with having kids and a mortgage we ended up slowly combining accounts. I’m in charge of all the financial decisions. My husband really just doesn’t have any interest in it. One of the things I look forward to the most is on pay day when I get to “play” with money – Pay off bills, move money to different savings accounts, figure where to put any extra pay from overtime. I really enjoy it. If I am going to make a big financial decision, I try to talk to him about it first, but I really don’t think it would bother him if I didn’t. We do both have a seperate savings accounts that if we have extra spending money, then we put money in those savings accounts. That way I have my own money for shoes, clothes and spa days while my husband can choose to spend his on cd’s, tshirts and movies.