Splitting Finances

flbride2015

How do you all do it with your spouses or soon to be spouses?

AddieCake

We have 3 accounts: his, mine, ours. Bills and joint purchases or activities come out of the joint account, and we do whatever we want with our own money. If we are going to make a purchase over $100 from our own accounts, though,mwe consult first.

WinstonsGirl

Pretty much the same as Addie.  We each put a set amount into the joint acct. each month.  Every few months, the extra cash goes into the savings account side.  We use that for vacations, AC, house repairs, etc.  Anything we buy from our personal account doesn't need to be discussed, though we generally let each other know.  But since it's "my" money instead of "our" money, DH doesn't feel the need to have any say in it, and same for me.  

flbride2015

AddieCake said:

We have 3 accounts: his, mine, ours. Bills and joint purchases or activities come out of the joint account, and we do whatever we want with our own money. If we are going to make a purchase over $100 from our own accounts, though,mwe consult first.

How did you determine how much goes into the joint account? We're considering doing the his, mine and ours but I'm not sure how we should figure out how much each of us should put in ours (other than obviously the total amount we need for shared expenses and savings).

I think what is really throwing me off in our situation is that he's military, so he receives a housing allowance (which increases once we marry). My initial thought is to just include it as part of his total income and split it by percentage of each of our incomes; but I had a friend suggest that rent and uilities should come solely from the housing allowance since he wouldn't be receiving it all if we lived on base. Then do any splitting from there.

WinstonsGirl

We looked at our monthly bills, what we make and went from there.  We pretty much rounded up several hundred from our bill estimate, so we always have extra just in case.  It works out to almost half of my pay check and maybe a quarter of DH's.  He wanted to do a percentage amount, since he makes more, but I was insistent that we be equal.  I like to pay my own way.  And he usually pays when we go out, so I'm sure it equals out pretty close in the end.  

AddieCake

We each contribute a percentage of our respective pay checks. My husband makes more than I do, so he puts more in, but I have better insurance than his job would give us, so that comes out of my check.

lyndausvi

We have a your, mine and ours account too.     It's a strange setup though.   DH deposits money into the joint account for savings and ALL of the rent.     I only deposit into savings.   I pay the rent from the joint account and pay for the other housing expenses (cable, electric, etc) directly from my account.   We are a one car family and DH pays for it from his account.  

DH makes way more than I do, so he pays a larger percentage of the joint living expenses.    

Groceries and entertainment come out of our individual accounts.  We do not split them or even takes turns.  We do not compare to see if one has paid more or less.   This time of year DH is only home for meals at breakfast (he gets free meals at work) and 1 dinner a week.   So I tend to buy the groceries because well, I'm the one going to the store to buy what I want to eat.    DH likes to go out on his night off, so he tends to pick up that tab.  The rest of the year it varies who picks up the tab. But as I said, we do not keep score.

When we first got married we split housing and utilities 50/50.   I bought a condo with my much lower salary before I met him, so when he moved it we just split it 50/50.  Then we moved, DH's pay increased, mine decreased, each of us were unemployed at different points, now DH's salary is much higher and mine has not bounced back to where it was when we first got married.   We just adjusted our system accordingly.

Even though we have 'separate' accounts, we are each on those accounts.  That way if god forbid something happens the other has access to the money without going through the courts.   However, neither one of us logs into the other's account.  Heck, DH doesn't even know how to access our joint account.  I think all he knows is where the checkbook located.  Oh and he reads the statement once a month.  Other than that he doesn't access it at all.

Even though we have separate accounts, we still think of it as "our" money.

novella1186

We're still kind of figuring this out. We have our own savings accounts (for short-term stuff) and a joint savings account (for long-term or major stuff like buying a house) but separate checking accounts. We split rent and utilities, so I just "quick pay" him every month (it's a feature Chase bank has that's basically just transferring money to someone).

We alternate buying groceries, dog food, etc. and then separately pay for our own cars and student loans and fun stuff. If something big comes up, like an unexpected vet bill for one of the dogs, we generally split it.

We've started talking about doing joint checking just to simplify all this. Seems like it's more complicated than it needs to be.

luckya23

As far as I know, I will be handling most of the bills as I always have, but my name will be going on his checking account so I can transfer to the appropriate places. I have 3 checking accounts and about 10 savings accounts, but none have much in them as I just use them to divide and save money for certain bills.
I need to get a better handle on his car loan to see if we should just pay that off ASAP.
Interested to see the other answers, though!

Cookie Pusher

DH and I maintain our own accounts at the moment (it may change after we buy a house, but not likely). DH pays the rent and cell phones while I pay the utilities, insurance, and groceries. Since DH makes x% more than I do, that splits currently works out so DH pays x% more than I do in household expenses. We each maintain our own savings account but we check in with each other periodically to make sure we're hitting the goals we set for ourselves. There's no way for us to say "$y goes into savings each month" because things always come up - car repairs, birthdays, replacing something, etc. - but we have a combined quarterly goal that we have thankfully been able to meet without having to make any drastic changes to our lifestyle.

JoanE2012

DH and I each make about the same.  DH pays the mortgage and most of the bills.  I pay a couple bills and do the bulk of our saving in our vacation/emergency/house fund.

As for accounts, we each have our own checking account, plus we have a joint checking and savings account.  We still view all of the money as "ours" - none of the his and mine mentality.

southernbelle0915

All our income goes into one account. Then we each get an equal "allowance" that goes into our own, separate accounts to do with as we each please. I put half my allowance into savings and half into checking, which I use to pay my personal CC.

From the joint account, we pay our mortgage, bills, any balance on our joint CC, and then divert money into savings, investments, and other joint accounts. We have most of this set up to do auto payments and auto transfers. The surplus cash goes into a joint general savings.

huskypuppy14

Ours is similar to Lynda's. We just each kept our own accounts, and put each other on them. He manages his account, I manage mine. He has a debit card to my account for emergencies or something agreed upon, because I have Bank of America and he has a credit union. 

I make more money so I pay a little more of our mortgage. We just transfer money from his account to mine to pay the mortgage every month. That's the only thing we split (since it's the largest). I pay for the gas and electricity, and he pays the cable. Our health insurance is from my company, so I take care of that, he pays the dog's insurance. Groceries are paid by whoever goes to the store, we don't keep track. We each pay for our own cars and student loans. 

Anything for the house just depends on who has more money (usually me). So I bought our new bed, and I paid our escrow payment. H usually pays the trash and water bills.

Like Lynda, we think of it as our money, even though we manage our own accounts.

redheadbride15

We're newlyweds trying to figure it out too. Right now it seems too complicated to get a joint checking account and shuffle money around all the time, though we may end up doing that. We're just doing what we did before we were married. We alternate paying rent and other big purchases just so we don't completely deplete one of our accounts. He pays his student loans, car payment, and rent on a second apartment he needs for work. I pay all the utilities (just because I set them up so they're in my name) and most of the groceries (I tend to do the shopping). We earn similar amounts of money and it all kind of evens out. We do a joint check-balancing (or the electronic equivalent of it) once a month so we both know exactly how much is in the other person's account. We also both have savings accounts, which we will pool at some point before we buy a house.

lachattefatale

We have joint checking and savings accounts. We just both toss whatever we can afford into it every paycheck and then we pay for big expenses out of it, like my root canal, the down payment for the car, the wedding, etc. Everything else, we divvy up and pay for out of our personal accounts. We've been talking about using Mint.com or something to more carefully budget as a unit instead of closely tied individuals, but we haven't done it yet.

kvruns

We opened a joint one to put wedding gifts in but not really sure how much we will use it. We each pay a percentage of bills based on total combined income. We are keeping things separate due to a prenup so not much joint. He is more of a spender but since it is his money I "can't" really complain he blew XYZ on something stupid since he still has enough for his portion of things although I wish he would think more long term with some of that stuff.

JCbride2015

Similar to PPs. We have his, mine, and ours. For the meantime he deposits a set amount into the joint each month; I transfer that to my own account and then pay all the bills, including groceries. I make multiples of what he does, so this basically means he contributes according to his income and I contribute the rest. The current split is fine with me but we need to work out the mechanics better and actually use our joint checking account.

afox007

When we first moved in together we tried splitting the bills 50/50. That lasted maybe 3 months. Then it somehow became whoever had the money needed at the time paid for whatever the expense was. We still have seperate accounts, but basically play musical chairs with our debit cards I've had days when I've only had his cards and he's had all of mine.

Pretty much at the end of the day regardless of who made it and which account its in it is our money. We run most expenses by each other, but I have noticed that unnecessary things like a new purse for me or new music equipment for him we always just mention we want it and wait for the other to buy it with someone's money.

l9i

We have joint checking/savings.  Essentially, almost everything (we both have a percentage of our pay checks going to a long term savings) gets dumped to checking and we divide it up from there, leaving enough to cover bills and then any surplus is split between our short term savings and DH's student loans.  We pay for most everyday purchases with our CC, earn rewards, then pay in full each month.  We both aren't huge spenders so this arrangement works really well for us and we typically run any higher spending (100+) past the other.

Before getting married we lived together and shared expenses and it was never a 50/50 split.  During one part DH was pretty much carrying us and during another part I was, now we both have stable jobs and it's more even.  I think our joint accounts are much easier than previous when we had to transfer money to each other or write each other checks.

TrixieJess

AddieCake said:

We have 3 accounts: his, mine, ours. Bills and joint purchases or activities come out of the joint account, and we do whatever we want with our own money. If we are going to make a purchase over $100 from our own accounts, though,mwe consult first.

Same. All our money goes into the Joint. I transfer money to my account for Bills (it's cheaper to pay them out of my account) and I have a certain amount of money as does he. 

We have a budget of how much is coming in and going out every month. If there is extra, we talk about where else we can allocate it to. Right now we rely on my one income for bills and needs and use FI's Baby Bonus and Part-Time Job money for savings and possible wants.

emmaaa

DH and I have a joint checking account and we each have our own savings. 

Right now, we are still kind of living paycheck to paycheck. We have some cushion room but not enough to have a certain amount designated for each of our savings. So all of our bills, groceries, and fun money come out of the checking.

I am the one who actually pays the bills though. I don't like setting up automatic payments, I would rather go online and do it myself. So I go online to pay each of our bills. DH knows when everything is due but lets me handle paying for it. He gets money out to pay for our rent. Since we have joint account, every purchase we make, I record. DH texts me the amount and the place so I can keep up with it.

MyNameIsNot

We also have his, mine and our checking accounts, but the joint account is only for bills. We have a set amount that we each have to deposit in the joint each paycheck to cover all the bills. (I rounded up a little, so there's usually a couple hundred dollars left over every few months that goes into savings.)  All our savings is joint, so any major purchases would come from there. 

I make slightly more money, so I cover the bulk of joint expenses like dinner out or groceries to even things out.

twoleighs

We have one joint checking and one joint savings.  We each get a set amount in the budget to do whatever with.  I handle all the bill paying and keeping track of what we have and where it's going.  

kimmiinthemitten

His, hers, ours.  

We have a 66/33 income split, with mine being commissioned income so we split the total cost of our monthly bills 60/40.  I direct deposit mine through my paychecks into the joint account and he pays all of the bills through that.  We bought our house before we got married so it was important to us to pay from the joint account with both of our names.

We go back and forth on groceries and dinners out, and then I typically pick up the extras because my FI has never been to Target and needed that table or towels or tiki torch or...

Our his and hers accounts are ours to do with as we please.  If I want a new purse I can and if he wants Tigers tickets, he can.

Jells2dot0

We are similar to @JoanE2012. We have similar incomes and he pays for the house/utilities. I pay for cars, trips, misc expenditures. However, we do not have any joint accounts. We have similar spending and saving habits and have our accounts listed as separate assets in our prenup.

KatWAG

Everything is completely joint for us.

mikenberger

We have the hers, his, ours money. We make very similar income (I make 2k more a year for another 4 weeks - YAY!) so we both contribute 15% of our paychecks to a joint account. Out of that account comes food, mortgage, utilities, car insurance, cell phone. Out of this account, we save around 1k monthly and that's for vacation, house fund etc. Our personal cash is spent for entertainment. We don't keep tabs though on who spent money on what last...

It was extremely important for me to keep my own money. And this way, we can do that.

onefootinthebayou

We haven't formalized this yet although I believe we will just add each other to each of our checking accounts.  I make quite a bit more than DH but we seem to split finances pretty equally.  He's made some large expenditures on a house I own and I've bought expensive plane tickets for vacations & typically pick up hotels.  

I spent a long time building my career so at first it was a little tough for me to think about 50/50 share when there is such a large gap btw our incomes but I got over that very quickly.  His money is mine & vice versa.  He's very generous with me and really pulls his weight when covering joint expenses.  

We are in the middle of two moves at the moment but as soon as that is settled we plan to do a pretty rigorous budgeting exercise b/c we both agree that although our financial situation is very healthy, we spend WAY too much.  

ohmrs2014

We have our separate checking accounts and a joint account, as well as a joint savings account.

NowIamMrsKlein

We each have our own accounts but consider all money 'ours' not his and mine. When we get married we will most likely go to the bank and figure out joint accounts, we just figured right now we'd wait and switch everything over at once.

Because he has the higher income, he pays the big bills out of his account: Rent, Car Payment, Insurance, Gas and Food. 

Basically his paycheques go towards all our bills.

My account goes towards the smaller utilities simply because I think its important to keep some things in my name for credit reasons. I pay the heat, power, water and phone bills.

75% of my paycheque goes into a high interest savings account that we are using to pay for the wedding and into a TFSA which is our house fund.

So, while our accounts are separate, our money is our money. Its never 'Oh I paid for this last time' 

sheknows6

Right now it's my account and his account, although we have access to each other's accounts. We are planning on having a joint account once we're married for all expenses and joint spending, although I will probably maintain a separate account for myself until his career catches up with mine.

I make more than my FI, and he asked me to manage our finances, so I agreed. I split the bills with him 70/30- I pay the lion's share with the rent and he does all the utilities, his personal bills, and usually the groceries/fun stuff. I bought a house before we had met and that will remain in my name; if I sell it then the money goes into my personal IRA.