Banking...Joint or Seperate?

mrandmrsbrist

Will you (or do you) have joint accounts? Or are they seperate? Why?

mrandmrsbrist

FI and I will have a joint account. We never even really thought to have seperate accounts...

drama1308

We're going to have two joint accounts. FI says it's best to have two bank accounts.. but they will both be ours.

yodacub

FI and I will have joint accounts, too.  We discuss finances fairly often, FI always tells me when he's paid off more of his student loans   In our case, having joint accounts makes sense, we haven't even considered keeping our finances seperate. 

amongthelilies25

we will have joint accounts. He currently has an account with his mom... and he will probably keep it. just in case we ever need to borrow money (which i hope we dont).. she can easily transfer. 

but we won't really use that bank account. 

DramaGeek

All of our accounts are joint.  For us, it just makes sense.  It would be too hard to figure out how to make it fair with who pays what and all of that, and I feel like for us it would become too much like roommates with a business transaction.

Obviously, having separate accounts works for a lot of people.  We have friends who joined their accounts when they got married but ended up separating them again later.  It's what works best for them right now.

letyourselfgo

Probably separate. FI and have different banking habits and preferences.

SuMmErKuTiE

All of our accounts are joint.. our checking, savings, all credit cards, cell phone, insurance, etc.. it makes a lot more sense to us to have it all together since we have to pay all our bills together.. the mortgage, car payments, cell phones, credit cards, etc..

We're a team and some day when we start our family and I'm staying at home and not working until the kids are in school, we'll be living off of just his income which would make whatever bank account I would have had on my own non-existent if there's no income going into it. As for our savings, that's us putting money away together for our futures, emergencies, and fun things such as new stuff for the house or vacations, etc..

kalizoomba

we both have seperate accounts. After we get married, we'll get one joint account to use for combined things like rent, utilities, etc, but we'll still put a little bit in our personal accounts for special occasions like gifts for the other person, things relating to hobbies, etc. we'll have our own accounts to use for martial arts classes or video games(FI) or paints or other craft projects (me). 

 I've always thought it was weird when my mom pretty much paid for her own birthday present from my dad -- since it came out of their joint account.

(But just because I have a seperate account for my art supplies doesn't mean that FI's name's not on it. It will be, just because if something happens to me, I want to make sure that he can get the money.)

diehld

We have Joint accounts now just because he is paying for the apartment while I live there... if we ever get it... 

ochemjenn

We're in the process of joining everything.  We'd rather have everything in the same place so we never have to deal with getting money from one account to the other. 

danimcg

We have separate accounts now, but plan on joining them once we get married. This will be where the bulk of our money sits, in savings and a checking account for paying bills and whatnot.

I think that we might have separate savings accounts of our own (in both our names tho, just in case) in which we can put our "allowance" because I know that we will be allotting some play money for ourselves. I feel like that way we can save for things that we want that don't include the other person. Like FI saving for something for his quad and I will buy myself scrapbooking supplies : ) just an example.

ElisabethJoanne

There was a really good series on slate.com about this. You should read it.

We already have his-hers-ours accounts. We set up the joint account for dates so we didn't have to do the check dance every date and to see how we handled joint finances. [In short, we don't handle them, I handle them, but we're OK discussing it together, and we have the same attitudes about how to spend and save the money.] We started with $50 each, now we each contribute $100/month, and that pays for meals together and a shared Netflix account. I imagine once we're married it will become our primary account, but we'll keep significant separate accounts, too.

I could explain the details of why we'll still keep significant separate accounts after marriage. Part of it is just easing into having someone share in your every purchase. Part of it is convenience. I have 8 bank accounts and 4 credit cards, plus a 401k. His finances are even more complicated. That's a lot of paperwork just for some sort of emotional togetherness. Also, I don't want or think we should combine all our pre-marital assets. It'll make estate administration much trickier should one of us die suddenly. [I could bore you with details; I'm a lawyer, but I won't.]

FaithCaitlin

Currently, we have separate accounts. When we get married, everything will be joined.

faith415

Right now we have separate accounts. Before the wedding, we're planning on making a joint account and each contributing money to it. That way we can easily put in any checks we get for the wedding and pay for honeymoon expenses from it. We'll eventually have all joint accounts, but we both have direct deposit from our jobs and will need to fill out paperwork to transfer it first. 

azdancer8

We took both our accounts and made them joint.

DH's old account is for all of our living expenses. My old accounts are strictly for savings at this point - we'll use them when we start to build a house. His paychecks go in "his" and my paychecks go into "mine". I think the only thing that I don't have access to right now is DH's seldom used credit card - but that's just a matter of time.

MelissaC315

Right now we have separate accounts but after we marry we plan to have joint accounts. We felt like it made it easier to pay all the bills together... mortgage, cars, car insurance, etc.

iamjoesgurl

We have a checking account, 3 savings accounts and two investment accounts that are joint accounts (with the exception of a savings account and investment account that I'm not sure if he has added me to).  When we get paid, this is how we handle the accounts:

1.  Part of each of his paychecks is put into one savings account.

2.  The rest of his check is put into the checking account.

3.  Part of each of my paychecks is put into a different savings account.

4.  The rest of my checks is put into the checking account.

The amounts for 1 & 3 above are small and we use them for spending cash (ATM cards on both).  So he can take out what he needs and I can take what I need without worrying about the balance or whether there will be anything in the account to take.  The checking account is where we pay our bills from (no ATM cards are used on that one).

MissyCee

We have separate accounts. It's easier because we each take money for our own recreational things as we please. We never fight about money so it's a great system for us. Probably in the future when we have kids we'll have a main joint account and just put little amounts into separate accounts for little things of our own but do all the bills and such out of the joint account.

sessionswedding

We currently have separate accounts, but will be combining them into a joint account after the wedding.

Bett2012

currently separate, but will be combined (likely multiple accounts) after marriage.

lulubella2011

joint after marriage

BronwynH

We already have a joint checking account. We combined a couple months ago since we have to pay some bills already like for our apartment. I have a savings account. It's for both of us, but it only has my name on it. I'm going to add his name to it too though.

AshNoel8

We will have a joint account. We don't have me added to his yet because I had to wait until I got my new driver's license with my new name. Once I did, we went to the bank to add me to his account and then close my old account and the bank's system was down so we couldn't do it. We are going to go back tomorrow and hopefully the system will be working so we can join them. I don't like them being separate. We will both have so much "spending money" for clothes, whatever, but it's all going to be in the same account. 

CassandraPotter

After marriage our accounts will become joint, because like everything else in our life, everything will become one.

kellya01

We're working on joining our accounts and closing out our old "single" accounts.  With the new changes in checking (no more fee-free checking accounts), we need only one checking account with ONE fee, as opposed to three.  Also, since we opted to put our joint checking at the credit union, our interest rates for saving and for loans are MUCH better than any other bank out there.  It just makes sense to have all of our income going one place so I can then transfer $ to the high-interest savings account to earn more.  Plus, I'm the one writing the checks and managing the bills, (we agreed at least a few months ago on that), so it's easier if we have joint accounts. 

squarepeg72

We have separate accounts now and will maintain them after the wedding. We are going to create a joint account that we each contribute to to pay household expenses and things like that. It was actually a blessing to have separate accounts when my xH moved out ...

MrsReynolds12

We each have separate accts and a jt acct after marriage we will convert to a jt acct. We should just have a jt acct since I pay all of his bills with his money of course.

kipnus

We're planning to have one joint account, but we'll also each keep our own personal accounts. The joint account will be for all shared expenses (rent, bills, groceries, tithing, entertainment, etc.) and our separate accounts will be for clothes, gifts, and whatever else we feel like spending our money on. We will figure out a budget together and decide how much money each of us will put into the joint account every month.