My husband and I hold all of our cash and investments in joint bank accounts, but most of my friends maintain their money separately. I wonder if anyone has ever studied the impacts of joint versus individual bank accounts on a marriage. A lot of my friends seem to think they’ll argue more about money if they have to keep all of their money in one place, while my husband and I think we’d argue more if we kept everything separate.
I’ve been thinking more and more about this topic since I read Financial Infidelity. The book focuses on a variety of topics concerning relationships and money and the entire time I read the book I couldn’t help thinking, “wow, my husband and I never fight about money.” I keep coming back to the belief that my husband and I don’t argue about money because we maintain all of ‘our’ money jointly.
If you’d like to win a paperback copy of Financial Infidelity simply leave a comment describing your financial arrangement with your spouse: Do you hold your money jointly or individually and does this arrangement work well in your household? If you aren’t married just tell me how you think you’d keep your financial house in order.
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My husband does not have a separate bank account, but I do. (No, I am not hiding money. It is no secret.) If one looks at the impact of divorce on women and children (a precipitous and radical plunge into poverty), keeping a separate account is a most wise course of action. Women have to protect themselves and their children. To think divorce would never happen to me is naive. Things happen.
I am a college professor. Over the last decade, many of my students have had to drop-out after Dad runs off with the secretary, starts a new family and forgets about his children. Sad but true.
We have been married for almost 8 years and never got a joint account. We operate out of my husband’s as I’m now a SAHM. The day after we returned from our honeymoon, he turned over his checkbook to me and hasn’t touched it since, I’m not even sure the bank knows what his real signature looks likes or that he knows where it’s kept. Out of laziness, we’ve never added me, but I’m listed on everything else, including our money markets, savings, stocks, etc. I still maintain my account with a small balance. We do go over our finances monthly, if not more often, so there’s no hiding going on.
We have a joint account but it really is his. It was his before we got married. He added me and the cheques are in both our names but in essence it’s his money that goes in and his that comes out for his bills. He has two other accounts called ‘savings’ but I use that term loosely.
I have 2 chequing and 2 savings accounts; a set of each at two different banks. They are not secret and he knows where the statements are should he care to look.
We argue about money. I think we would argue 10x if we shared an account.
We have a joint checking account where we pay for household things – bills, groceries, etc.
We each have a seperate savings account that we use for our own things (savings for vehicles, presents, etc.)
We don’t really fight about money. We have a budget that works for us, and we’re both pretty good about sticking to it.
All of our accounts are joint. We have one big joint checking account at our credit union which earns 5.01%, so we took all our money out of ING and put it in here. I didn’t put any ‘savings’ into our ledger, only paychecks go in and bills out, but I keep a ledger of our EF, etc. We also have a few accounts left at ING like my grocery savings and little accounts like that. But it’s all joint.
I had an ex where we put our money together, and he was BAD with money. It ended badly and I said I’d never go joint again. However, my husband was always good with money and I figured I’d trust him if I married him, so I may as well. he relinquished control of the checkbook, so I’m the money lady. He knows never to use the debit card, only if he asks first and it’s a necessity. He will go on and check the account online but he knows about where our money goes, we’re very open and honest about it.
I think if we did it separate, we’d fight a LOT about money. Same as you, we never fight about money.
When I was married we had everything jointly. I think I would want to do it again, provided I get married again!
We have two credit union accounts — one we share for everyday expenses, and one for my business. Both of us are members on each one, though Husband rarely does anything with the biz account. (He does, however, pay the bills using the regular account.) We have two more accounts for saving money for certain expenses (like property taxes), one other business account (that uses my biz name — the credit union will charge extra for this privilege), and I deposit money regularly in two accounts for retirement. (Husband has a retirement account, and so do I, for investing in stocks.)
Gosh, I don’t think about how many accounts we have until I write about them! But both of us know about the accounts, and have access mutually to all of them, though some are his name as ‘first person,’ and some are mine.
I think we do a better job covering expenses together, rather than keeping them separate and guessing how much we have in funds. (We have been married more than 27 years, by the way.)
We have been married for 8 years now. We have separate salary accounts and one joint account which we use for expenses. At the start of the month we transfer a fixed amount into this from our salary accounts. The money from salary accounts is used for our individual investments, family obligations(My SO spends on his grandmother and parents, I sponsored my sibling’s education) etc. When we plan a major expenditure, it may be paid by anyone who is in the position to do so. This has worked for us so far. We had a baby last Oct and I havent joined back my work. We still continue with the same joint account except that I dont put in any money into it now.
We have separate accounts. We’ve talked a little about combining but have never done it. If we combined we would probably have 3 accounts: his, mine, and ours. We are both ok with money, no debt, but I track every penny and he doesn’t write anything down. I think I would go crazy not knowing exact balances and I don’t think he wants to track everything. I’d like to save more, but we have a fully funded efund and other savings in place.
My marriage of almost 2 decades recently ended. We always had joint accounts and did not fight over money. As a previous poster mentioned, I was naive and got burned (well, I should say, am continuing to get burned). Like spaghetti mentioned, I ‘was in control’ of the account, supposedly. I will never not have my own account again regardless of my marital status.