How do you guys divide financial things?

lilja032

So Fi and I are sorting out how our finances at the moment and I'm feeling pretty guilty. He earns a crapton more than me (I'm still a student so essentially don't really earn anything at all) and so pays the majority of the bills and I contribute where I can. He has no problem with this arrangement but I just feel so so bad about it! And I worry because I know it's going to be this way for the next 4 years (I just started medicine and he has been finished for two years). Anyway I'm interested to hear how other people sort things out financially? Esp. if one person earns way more than the other. This might be a P and R because I'm cooking dinner but interested to hear your thoughts!

MyUserName1

We pay everything except for individual fun things and individual eating out from a joint account.  We both contribute 80% of our income to that account and keep 20% in our own fun money account.  I feel that since he makes more, he should get more fun money.  He disagreed, and wanted us to have the same $ amount, but I won that one.

amorg334

We share everything.  We have the same bank account and it is not just one persons money.  My fiance makes probably double what I do.  But we just go with pay the pills save what we can and we do not have any seperation 

NOLAbridealmost

I make more than H.  We both are graduates with jobs and student loans (although I have more loans because of law school). 

We split rent. I pay energy. He pays cable. (we had been doing that before the wedding so we just kept doing it).  I pay for our cell phones, health insurance, car note, and my student loans.  He pays for his student loans.   Everything else......we just take turns or whoever has more money at the time will cover it.  I put a lot into our joint savings account because I make more.  At the end of the day this is a community state and we have no prenup so it would all come out in the wash anyway. This arrangement just makes it easier for each of us to know who has to take care of what things each month. 

misshart00

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_how-do-you-guys-divide-financial-things?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:cc418d0f-8f46-4022-958e-c3d5a0520c13Post:21b56344-de69-401c-bc2d-f4caaa69db10">Re: How do you guys divide financial things?</a>:
[QUOTE]We share everything.  We have the same bank account and it is not just one persons money.  My fiance makes probably double what I do.  But we just go with pay the pills save what we can and we do not have any seperation 
Posted by amorg334[/QUOTE]



Same here. I just find it so much easier that way. All our money is direct deposited into our joint account and we make our budget out of that.

lilja032

MUN1 that sounds like a really straightforward idea. At the moment we don't really have a set system as I said-I just contribute when I can and I reckon it'd be easier if things were a bit more set in stone. So do you guys include buying lunch/getting a offee etc those sorts of things as fun money purchases or joint account?

lyndausvi

DH pays for pretty much everything.    My check goes to some fun stuff, my phone and some random for the 2 of us.

I just got a great raise.  Starting in Sept I will be picking up the electric and cable. 

Back in ST Thomas we split things more like 60/40.  But I made twice what i do now.  I moved here for him.  His raise moving here makes up for me making less money.  I don't feel bad he pays for most everything.

lilja032

NOLAbride that sounds more like how we do it. I just feel bad about things like joint holidays etc because he always ends up footing a WAY bigger proportion of the bill than I do! Does your H feel the same?

MyUserName1

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_how-do-you-guys-divide-financial-things?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:cc418d0f-8f46-4022-958e-c3d5a0520c13Post:16d0431e-f93b-49a0-a918-cbd8255b6a31">Re: How do you guys divide financial things?</a>:
[QUOTE]MUN1 that sounds like a really straightforward idea. At the moment we don't really have a set system as I said-I just contribute when I can and I reckon it'd be easier if things were a bit more set in stone. So do you guys include buying lunch/getting a offee etc those sorts of things as fun money purchases or joint account?
Posted by lilja032[/QUOTE]

<div>Any time we eat out without the other it comes from fun money.  If we eat out together, it comes out of joint.  Neither of us eats lunch or gets coffee out very often.  He packs lunch, I pack snacks to graze on. We make coffee in the morning to take. It was pretty much an arbitrary decision.  I thought we'd eat out less if it came out of our shoe budgets.</div>

Kate61487

We have everything 100% together, that includes fun money.  We make similar amounts of money, me a little more.  But I feel like a 100% joint process is even more logical if your pay grades are drastically different.  Especially if you're hardly making any money, I'm sure he wouldn't want you to feel like you're completely broke while he has spending money. 

Obviously you need to consult with one another and have an agreement about how much you can spend on a splurge, how often, etc.  But that's more about both of you having an understanding of your financial situation and what's okay and what would strain you.

MyUserName1

WTF TK?  I posted a reply.  It was about how if we eat out without the other, it's fun money.  If we eat out together, it's joint.  I had that idea because I thought we'd eat less if it came out of our shoe budgets.  It was really a brilliant post, too bad you all missed it.

bruna29

FI and I will be getting a joint account once we are married. He will keep his own account and I will keep mine. That's just for security (no one ever thinks they will get a divorce, but if we do, then we at least have our own accounts). I was raised that a woman should always protect herself in the case of something happening to her spouse whether he dies, leaves, cheats, whatever. In order to protect myself, I personally think it's necessary to have my own bank account.

Right now we split everything down the middle. He pays for his own bills like car insurance, health insurance, and the like. I pay for everything that has to do solely with me (my car insurance, gas, etc.) I just graduated in May, and he has one more year of school, but he'll be able to pay for his half through loans. 

Once we're both working we will have our own student loans to pay for. I'm not responsible for his and he's not responsible for mine. We will put a good portion of our paycheck into our joint account and pay for joint bills out of that (rent, utilities, groceries, etc). Out of our own accounts we will pay for our own bills (student loans, car insurance, health insurance, gas, cell phone bills). 

NOLAbridealmost

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_how-do-you-guys-divide-financial-things?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:cc418d0f-8f46-4022-958e-c3d5a0520c13Post:ffdb36c4-615c-4246-9aea-b3d5a157c599">Re: How do you guys divide financial things?</a>:
[QUOTE]NOLAbride that sounds more like how we do it. I just feel bad about things like joint holidays etc because he always ends up footing a WAY bigger proportion of the bill than I do! Does your H feel the same?
Posted by lilja032[/QUOTE]

<div>When we go on trips, I usually pay for the airfare/hotel but H covers almost all of the "fun stuff" while we're there--which, for us, sometimes costs just as much as the air and lodging.  I don't think either of us care one way or the other about who pays for what because we know that at the end of the day it's all "ours."  It's just easier to keep things divvied up for now, but I don't think either of us has hard and fast ideas about whose debt/income is whose. </div>

NOLAbridealmost

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_how-do-you-guys-divide-financial-things?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:cc418d0f-8f46-4022-958e-c3d5a0520c13Post:a3d5dc22-d72c-417e-b845-a2e35d56decf">Re: How do you guys divide financial things?</a>:
[QUOTE]F<strong>I and I will be getting a joint account once we are married. He will keep his own account and I will keep mine. That's just for security (no one ever thinks they will get a divorce, but if we do, then we at least have our own accounts)</strong>. 
Posted by justdance93[/QUOTE]

<div>I have zero knowledge about Michigan's laws, but just be careful with this line of thinking.  In most community property states, each spouse is entitled to 50% of ANY income that EITHER spouse earns during the marriage and it makes no difference whatsoever whose bank account the income goes to.  If you're a community property state this is almost 100% likely to be the law of your state.   I don't know if Michigan is or not, but just be aware that if you really, really want to protect yourself you need to get a post-nuptial agreement if you don't already have a pre-nup because it's not going to make one shred of difference whose account has what in it. </div>

bruna29

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_how-do-you-guys-divide-financial-things?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:cc418d0f-8f46-4022-958e-c3d5a0520c13Post:b4c84cbd-5b34-47cb-a0b9-92c3ba3adc0e">Re: How do you guys divide financial things?</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: How do you guys divide financial things? : I have zero knowledge about Michigan's laws, but just be careful with this line of thinking.  In most community property states, each spouse is entitled to 50% of ANY income that EITHER spouse earns during the marriage and it makes no difference whatsoever whose bank account the income goes to.  If you're a community property state this is almost 100% likely to be the law of your state.   I don't know if Michigan is or not, but just be aware that if you really, really want to protect yourself you need to get a post-nuptial agreement if you don't already have a pre-nup because it's not going to make one shred of difference whose account has what in it. 
Posted by NOLAbridealmost[/QUOTE]
Very interesting. Thanks for posting this. I will absolutely be looking into this!

HockeyFan4

I make considerably more than H.  When we started living together (about 3 years before we married) I asked him what he was comfortable spending on bills a month.  It was a little less than half of rent.  So he writes me a check every month for that amount.  When we got married we opened a joint account, but it is essentially just $ from wedding gifts and our tax refund (and we don't spend it...we are saving for a house).  Otherwise we have our own accounts and buy things on our own.  I pay all the bills & groceries.  He pays about half of rent...and when he gets extra money he offers to pay for more things (like dinner or groceries).  Ya, I am H's sugar mommy. hahaha

ghowlett

We both have the same percentage direct deposited each week into our joint account to pay for all monthly household expenses (mortgage, car insurance, groceries, gas, utilities, etc.) and the remaining balance is direct deposited into our personal accounts.  Personal accounts are for fun things (like manicures for me, poker night for him) without any input from the other person.  I make more & I think the percentage is the fair way to do it.  He wouldn't get any "fun" money if we did dollar amounts instead of percentages.  If we go out to dinner together, we use the joint account.  If I get a coffee on the way to work, I use my account.

We change our savings goals all the time, but we treat it like it's a household bill.  And since we're paid weekly, we get those "bonus" 5 week months (we budget our months based on 4 weeks) and during those months, we just add it all to savings.

bruna29

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_how-do-you-guys-divide-financial-things?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:cc418d0f-8f46-4022-958e-c3d5a0520c13Post:b4c84cbd-5b34-47cb-a0b9-92c3ba3adc0e">Re: How do you guys divide financial things?</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: How do you guys divide financial things? : I have zero knowledge about Michigan's laws, but just be careful with this line of thinking.  In most community property states, each spouse is entitled to 50% of ANY income that EITHER spouse earns during the marriage and it makes no difference whatsoever whose bank account the income goes to.  If you're a community property state this is almost 100% likely to be the law of your state.   I don't know if Michigan is or not, but just be aware that if you really, really want to protect yourself you need to get a post-nuptial agreement if you don't already have a pre-nup because it's not going to make one shred of difference whose account has what in it. 
Posted by NOLAbridealmost[/QUOTE]
Apparently Michigan is an equitable distribution state, so I guess it would depend on the circumstances of the divorce and the judge's ruling and all of that. OP, I don't know where you are from, but that information might help you out.

JoanE2012

FI and I both make similar amounts of money.  We treat it all as "ours".  I recently sold property and moved in to his place, so now we are pretty much saving my paycheck and living off his and hope to buy a house together soon.  I think the "living off one paycheck" thing is extremely important, especially when taking on the financial responsibility of a house, and so far it's working out great for us!

ETA: We each still have our own checking/debit card where we keep a bit of "fun" money that we can spend as we wish.

mbuckley85

I make more than FI but he has more money (he's a better saver).  We split our rent in half and each pay half, we each pay our own cell phones (we are on separate plans until his contract is up in October), we pay our own school and car loans.  I pay the electric/gas bill, and my 1/3 (we have a roommate still) of the cable/internet/phone.  FI pays the car insurance/renters insurance and gym membership.  I also pay a monthly bill for our bedroom furniture.  

As far as the credit card, FI puts most of his monthly bills on the credit card and pays it off monthly (this scares the crap out of me because I am not a credit card person, but FI is a finance guy and takes care of it).  We end up getting a crapload of miles from it this way.  I only use the card for emergencies and I give FI my total at the end of the month in a check.  

whitsy

We're pretty unusual in that we keep everything separate, and probably always will. I make considerably more than H, and I don't see that changing, but we still split everything 50/50. We gather up our monthly bills - utilities, rent, even groceries - and I cut him a check and he pays everything out of his account. It works for us but we get side eyed for it for the most part.

MJheartsWeddings

Until recently FI didn't have a set budget and would kind of just wing it every month (usually that didn't turn out so well).  We decided we are going to open a joint account and put 50% of our pay checks in that account.. The money we put in our joint account will go towards all shared bills and anything left over will be savings for wedding/house. Our separate account will be towards personal bills/frivolous spending.  Baby steps towards 100% shared money.  We make about the same, FI just got a raise on Saturday so he now makes a little more.

wrigleyville

FI earns more than I do. He pays for the rent and groceries. I cover the utilities, cell phones, and insurance. My share is less, but he says it's worth it since he doesn't want to keep track of "all the little things". Plus, my student loan debt is much higher, so we really do end up paying about the same amount for monthly expenses.

We both contribute to a joint savings account (wedding, vacation, emergency), and we have our own savings accounts for Christmas and whatever.

When we go out, it basically comes down to whoever gets their debit card or cash out first. He pays more often than I do because he likes to be "the gentleman". It used to bother me at first because I felt guilty, but he loves treating me and I realized I was sort of ruining the fun for him. I make it up by buying him little things like a box of donuts or a cool toy every so often.

smilesavy

We each have seperate checking accounts and seperate savings accounts and then we have a joint savings account.  We will not be combining anything after we are married.  This is the set up that works for us.  We split the mortgage, I pay the water, gas, electric and second loan we have on the house and he pays cable, cell phone and trash.  It all equals out.  It limits any fights about why did you spend $10 on this or $5 on that. 

Anysunrise

H makes twice what I do. We have one single joint checking account, and one joint savings account. We're on the same credit card. Both our paychecks go into the checking. H pays the online stuff that isn't autodrafted (like the credit card, usually when we hit about $500 on it), I pay the rent because I like to write checks, although we're getting that set up on auto draft too. We put away usually $500 into savings most months unless something comes up (like paying for my textbooks this month).

This just works best for us. It's so much easier to have everything go into one big pool.

sarahdactyI

This thread has been really interesting and helpful to read... FI and I are moving in together in October and have been trying to figure out the easiest way to combine finances (we both will be making the same, actually, but he'll have a bit more student loans). 

It is good to know that there are other couples who keep relatively separate accounts. I like the idea of putting a percentage into the joint account and keeping some just for "fun" money that the other person doesn't have a say in. 

This year we opened a teeny tiny joint savings account when I sold his textbooks for him, on the agreement that any money "made" by that would be used on our vacation. It was neat to be saving towards something together (even though my 'contribution' was really just posting things online and running to the post office like a mad woman). And it's nice when we go out to not have to worry who will pay/whether someone has been paying more than the other/etc.

lauralaur

We have separate accounts. I make more than H but not by much. He pays his student loans, my car payment, his car insurance and all utilities, including cell phone. I pay the mortgage, my car insurance, the extra car's insurance. I also pay for things like vacations and most of my paycheck goes into savings. We had some issues with the concept of "our" money at the onset of the marriage and I didn't feel comfortable having a joint account (H was a bit erm irresponsible, so the money stayed with me). I do regularly share the balance of our savings with H and we run any larger purchases by each other prior to buying or immediately after so there are no surprises.

lauralaur

Also, OP: PUPPY! So cute!

Ali092011

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_how-do-you-guys-divide-financial-things?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:cc418d0f-8f46-4022-958e-c3d5a0520c13Post:8c34a80d-4757-4a8c-bb6c-c442f00c3ace">Re: How do you guys divide financial things?</a>:
[QUOTE]We're pretty unusual in that we keep everything separate, and probably always will. I make considerably more than H, and I don't see that changing, but we still split everything 50/50. We gather up our monthly bills - utilities, rent, even groceries - and I cut him a check and he pays everything out of his account. It works for us but we get side eyed for it for the most part.
Posted by whitsy[/QUOTE]

I don't side eye that at all. We still haven't worked out what we will change when we actually get married, but right now we have separate accounts. We do have a joint E-Trade account that we put between $500 and $600 a month into, which right now is for the honeymoon and after will be for emergencies and home upgrades. Other than that, I pay car insurance and my student loan. FI pays for groceries. We both contribute to the cable, water, gas, electric, and tax bills, with whoever has more money at the time paying more. FI pays for the phones. When ever we go out to eat or do any fun activities, he usually pays because I don't make much and I'm broke after paying bills.

I like keeping things separate because FI prefers to pay cash for everything, whereas I like to use debit. It's just easier for each of us to do what we want with our own accounts.

tpender13

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_how-do-you-guys-divide-financial-things?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:cc418d0f-8f46-4022-958e-c3d5a0520c13Post:8c34a80d-4757-4a8c-bb6c-c442f00c3ace">Re: How do you guys divide financial things?</a>:
[QUOTE]We're pretty unusual in that we keep everything separate, and probably always will. I make considerably more than H, and I don't see that changing, but we still split everything 50/50. We gather up our monthly bills - utilities, rent, even groceries - and I cut him a check and he pays everything out of his account. It works for us but we get side eyed for it for the most part.
Posted by whitsy[/QUOTE]

If it works for you, why bother changing? Money has the potential to cause problems problems in relationships, so I wouldn't change something that works just because people think it's weird.

 This is <em>sort of </em>what we do. We lived together for several years before getting married, and we didn't really change anything money-wise post-wedding, other than me adding his vehicle to my insurance policy. We each write a check for half the rent, he pays the electric and internet bills, I pay for our cell phones, car/renter's insurance, and our medical insurance comes out of my paycheck. We're not strict about it, but we generally take turns buying groceries, or paying at a restaurant, whatever. We each have our own credit cards and auto loans. We don't have a joint savings, and I sadly don't have anything saved on my own.

H made more than I did when he was still working. He's been out of work for a few months now, but he has a decent chunk in savings from when he was working constantly, so we haven't changed anything in the way we pay for things. If unemployment goes on much longer, we'll probably readjust and hunker down with a strict budget, which is something we've never done.

kcscejal

I'm starting medical school and H is an engineer, so he makes all the money and pays for everything right now, but it allows me to basically only take out school expenses in loans.  This summer I was unemployed, and I felt pretty worthless at times, but I am really thankful that I have an H who is so supportive of my dream, and I know that someday I'll contribute my fair share.