Wedding Woes

poll re: finances

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Re: poll re: finances

  • DH and I are pretty much on the same page with how we handle money, thank goodness. Before the wedding, he moved in with me, so I continue to pay all the household bills out of my accounts and he puts all the money he would have spent on his household bills into savings.
    We eat different food, so actually, we buy our own groceries. We more or less trade off on buying shared supplies like toothpaste and paper towels.
     
    We do have a joint account that we both have access to, but it just so happens he prefers to monitor that account. 
    We're moving in a few weeks. I think what we'll do is pay the household bills out of the joint account and continue to use our own money for food and stuff. I'm sure we'll re-evaluate how much we're each saving every month, and we'll re-evaluate again if/when I get pregnant. For now, what we do is working! 
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  • We share everything. I have a higher income so that goes to our checking and exp see, Hs check goes right into savings and we only transfer from it if there is a big payment we need to make. That really helped with saving for a down payment since if it wasn't in the checking account it was harder to spend it. @princessleia22 do either of you have direct deposit where you can send more to a savings every month? THis really helped us think more about what we were spending because we had to actually move money over rather than just having it in there. 

    We actually do the same thing as you.  I have the higher income, so my income pays our bills & expenses.  DH's income is direct deposited into a separate checking account, even at a separate bank so it's not as easy to transfer money back and forth. We consider that our long term/big item savings and it really does help with savings to do that.  That method is what paid for our wedding. But, I'm self employed and my income varies a lot.  The last 6 months or so have been slow on my income, so we've been tapping into the other account a lot. Lucikly, we are finally on a more stable path with mine lately and the other account is slowly starting to rebuild. But, lately DH has had a habit of just grabbing whatever debit card is on top in his wallet to use for spending.  Often that seems to be the one for our long term savings account. So, I've now told him to just leave that card at home. After really looking at our budget and figuring out what we SHOULD be spending, I now will put that amount in our primary account at the start of the month and move everything else to our savings at that bank.  Having the account look empty helps curb spending too.

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  • DH does all of the actual bill paying, but we are on the same page--we both have the apps on our phones, track how everything is doing, have regular budget chats, etc. 
  • We have a joint account.  I used to be the bill payer and H didn't know what went on with our bank account.  But we are trying to budget now, so we both sit down together and go over where our money is going. 

    Our budgeting tool makes us enter everything manually.  Maybe I should switch us to Mint to hook up our bank accounts and credit cards.  That will make it easier.  We also talk about going back to cash living.  We have already removed most credit cards from our wallets.

  • H and I have shared finances, and he handles almost everything money-related. His salary is almost 2x my salary, so a 50/50 split really is not equitable; it would leave me broke if we just split everything down the middle, especially since H's spending habits are a little more liberal than mine. (What can I say? I'm cheap.) We both have direct deposit set up - 90% of each of our paychecks goes into our joint checking account, the other 10% goes into our individual accounts to do with as we please. All of our bills are on auto-pay, and H has a spreadsheet that shows what comes out when, and how much money we have in the account each week. He is also really on top of paying off our credit card every month. If I have any questions/concerns, he pulls up his spreadsheet to show me what's going on.

    We have access to each other's accounts, so at any given time we can both see what's going on. But money matters really stress me out, and I don't like spreadsheets, so H is in charge of making sure everything is running smoothly. We put all gas and groceries on our Alaska Airlines credit card (we don't use that card for anything else), and we pay it off in full every month. It's a good way for us to know exactly how much we are spending on food and gas.

    On the flip side, I do most of the grocery shopping, cooking, house cleaning, and pet care. H does the outside chores.

    I would really like to do what @charlotte989875 is doing, so we can save up for a down payment. I know we could live more frugally and survive off of H's salary alone, and put mine into savings, but I am having trouble getting H on board with this plan - he is good at budgeting, but he also likes to have money to spend... We don't live paycheck-to-paycheck, but we really should be saving more.
    BabyFruit Ticker
  • @madamerwin I try to use the same card for the same things to keep track, but somehow I end up just using all three of my rewards cards for all sorts of crap. I use my amex for groceries since it's 3% cash back on groceries, use Discover for gas since last quarter it was 5% back, etc. But somehow every month they get all jumbled. But since we pay them off in full every month, I'd rather do that than pay cash/debit.

    I need to actually sit down and see which of the three cards has the best points/benefits and only use that for most things.

    H and I talked and were going to try the old fashioned writing down every damn thing. We're actually taking an excel class this month so maybe we'll use that down the road.

    Image result for someecard betting someone half your shit youll love them forever
  • Ours are a bit of a challenge because of business matters so SS...  Ours is a "We manage our finances alone together..."   Some things we have combined, others our own individual account...  Then there are things that H manages that I consider "if I need to know, I'll ask, but really, I don't need to know and happy in my ignorance"...
  • We have his, mine, and ours. All of our bills and most of our entertainment as a couple comes out of the joint account. From our separate accounts, we have an agreement that we do whatever we want with that money unless it costs over $100. Anything over that gets discussed before purchasing. 

    A few of our bills are paid automatically, but I pay the ones that are not. My husband can obviously see the transactions on the bank statement, but in general, he doesn't know much about the regular household bills. 
    What did you think would happen if you walked up to a group of internet strangers and told them to get shoehorned by their lady doc?~StageManager14
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  • We're transitioning toward joint finances, but still mostly separate. If FI had his way, I'd take care of everything, but I refuse (despite being both the mathematician and the control freak about money).

    My dad was the breadwinner and took care of all the finances growing up; my mom didn't want any more to do with it than she had to. He passed away when I was 14, and my mom had no idea about his life insurance, mortgage insurance, dealing with medical bills, etc. We wound up losing the house and going a few months without heat or decent groceries in the couple of years it took her to manage her grief AND try to figure out all the finances. 

    As a result, I push my FI to know everything. I don't ever want him in a situation like that, and especially wouldn't if we ever have kids. 
  • We have separate accounts right now. FI pays the bills but keeps everything on a spreadsheet and I pay him my half each month. We both have savings accounts for the wedding and the house down payment. Once we get married, we've talked about opening a joint account for shared expenses and still keeping separate accounts for our individual "fun spending." We make around the same amount of money and have similar spending habits, so it was fairly easy to combine finances.
  • @ShesSoCold  I read your op thinking "did I write that?" because it legit looked so similar to what I deal with!
    Granted my H is getting better, but it's just like "I swear I will cut every card up if you don't focus on dealing with shit!" sometimes. Mind you, mine is from where I work.
    Side note: i use excel spreadsheets. I make a budget that I know we must stick to - ie; rent, groceries, etc - and give room in case something comes up. I've tried apps, but excel is still my go-to thing! It gets posted on the fridge to keep eye on where money goes.
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