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Beads921
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Life is good today.
How do you and SO handle money?
FI and I have been discussing this lately, and I think we're going to combine pretty much everything, but still each maintain the long-term savings we've started. We'll each have a weekly "allowance" for personal expenses, although we haven't really nailed down specifics (this won't be an immediate shift).
We've been living with separate chequing, short term and long term savings, with a joint chequing account since we bought our house, and while it works, it's not ideal. It's a pain to maintain that many accounts and determine what expenses should come out of where. We'll stick with it until I have a full-time job though, because until then, our incomes are really unequal and I'm living partially on savings (being a student = totally lame financially).
So, what do you and your SO do (if you live together, and if not, what do you plan to do)? How does it work? What are the pros and cons? We're not totally sold on combining, but we agree that what we're doing now isn't working for us anymore.
Life is good today.
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Re: How do you and SO handle money?
I agree - it's a huge pain in the butt sometimes. Currently BF pays all the bills. I have a set amount automatically transferred into his account every Monday. We flip flop between who pays for things when we are out and about, and most of our bills are paid online as well - so if he forgets something, or doesn't have time to pay it - I can go in and choose which account I want the money to come out of. We do a lot of transferring of money lol.
To be honest, we may keep our accounts separate even when/if we get married. It's all the same money in our heads, but for whatever reason - having it separated is still nice. Plus he loves it around birthdays and Christmas since I do online banking all the time, I can't see where he is spending money.
Though, we've lived together for only about a month, and I'm not sure how long this arraignment will last. I'm desperately trying to avoid setting up another bank account. I already have 4!
When we move in together we are keeping everything separate. We each have our savings and checking accounts. So we'll have certain bills we will each pay and be saving a certain amount per month for a wedding and a house. I didn't want a joint account until we were at least engaged. We will each pay for things like car and insurance separately.
Right now FI makes more than me and pays the rent, and I get utilities and groceries and most other expenses. -Unless those other expenses add up to more than rent, and then he will pitch in. It's all the same money so to us it doesn't really matter that things are 'separate'. It just seems like more of a pain to combine everything.
Married!
[QUOTE]We have our own checking accounts and savings account and transfer money back and forth. We plan on using his account as a joint account but until we have kids it's not really a high priority change. We both pay for things out, and all the joint bills are paid out of H's account. All of our personal things are out of our checking account. It would be IMPOSSIBLE to balance a joint checking with how independent we are and <strong>it's not like I'll remember to tell him every time I get gas or go through Sonic for a diet drink. And he shops on Amazon way too much for me to keep up with.
Posted by hellotarra[/QUOTE]
</strong>
Okay substitute amazon for other stores, and diet for non-diet slushies and corn dogs... and I agree with all of this! LOL
We've been doing this for years now, so we probably won't change it after our status changes.
'Just my 2 cents.
We both have checking accounts with the same national bank and can send electronic payments to eachother for our half of the rent. So it's just a matter of one of us sending in the payment. For utilities, we'll each have a couple we pay seperately. Dinner out is on him and groceries are on me. We both have seperate savings accounts and are very open about what's in them and saving for a future house or wedding.
In about 60-90 days I'll know if this needs to be re-worked!
ETA: I forgot this part! Beads- I have had a joint checking/savings with my ex-H before. It can be done, but you have to communicate with eachother about balances, bills paid, and can you make purchases. My ex-H and I weren't great about this and lesson learned. If you communicate and are on the same page a joint account makes all the money handling a little easier on where its coming from and going into.
He pays mortgage and electric/water. I pay insurance, gas, and random stuff like cleaning supplies. We split food.
We will join everything when we get closer to the wedding or after the wedding but for now I want to pay off my car and down my schooling before we join anything.
Still here and still fabulous!
I control our joint finances and make sure the utilities, mortgage, car payment, etc. are paid. If there's some big purchase he wants to make, we sit down and discuss it. He always makes sure he has my permission before buying large items.
Right now we have everything combined. I like it that way, however, we really aren't in a RL money situation yet. He plans on handling the budget and the bills. I think it will work out ok but I am sure it will take some getting used to.
Married! May 27th, 2012
[QUOTE]Anyone else notice that Mookow referred to her H as "FI?"
Posted by Elle1036[/QUOTE]
Haha oops :)
Married!
Right now everything is separated. Once we move in together and are married we have discussed that we will combine everything with each of us having a separate account for savings. We haven't discussed it in depth though.
[QUOTE]Anyone else notice that Mookow referred to her H as "FI?"
Posted by Elle1036[/QUOTE]
I was going to mention it and then TK wouldn't let me so I had to come back.
We attempted to create a joint checking account for rent and utilities, but it turns out H could not access it online unless I gave him my username and password. I was bummed, because I ordered checks and everything for it. So, in the end we're still separate. Maybe one day we will have the one joint account.
I haven't balanced a checkbook in close to ten years. I'm surprised how many people here mentioned something like that.
I haz a planning bio
Life is good today.
Currently, we each have our own checking and savings. DH pays the rent, most the utilities, insurances, and biweekly groceries (namely, Costco and the local butcher where we get our meats). I cover my health insurance and our Aflac, a portion of the utilities and the weekly grocery shopping (produce and general shopping). We mostly use my car, so we alternate filling the tank, and the hubs fills his tank on his own (maybe once a month). We tend to have enough left over to stash money in savings every month, and still have a little bit of fun money, to go do social things or go shopping.
Our game plan is to have a joint checking and joint savings, and each have our own checking account. The majority of our paychecks will go in the joint accounts, minus some play money for each of our private accounts per pay period. This will let us be able to do gift shopping without the other one knowing. I also would feel better doing "fun" shopping (like a trip to HomeGoods) out of my "play money" and not our household account, but that's just me.
"Oceana swings from logical to anus punching." - Buttons
Planning / Married / Blog
[QUOTE]Everything is separate, and we pretty much plan to keep it that way. H pays most of the utilities (they were in his name before we moved in together), and we write two rent checks every month to balance it out. We attempted to create a joint checking account for rent and utilities, but it turns out H could not access it online unless I gave him my username and password. I was bummed, because I ordered checks and everything for it. So, in the end we're still separate. Maybe one day we will have the one joint account. I haven't balanced a checkbook in close to ten years. I'm surprised how many people here mentioned something like that.
Posted by leia1979[/QUOTE]<div>
</div><div>I used to keep my checkbook balanced until about 2 years ago, but I realized that half the time I was looking up my debits online just to write them in my checkbook register- and I wrote very few checks anyway. I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't bother to balance it. (Both FI and I are really good about checking our joint and individual accounts often and we will always notice if a check hasn't cleared yet.)
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We have different spending habits and different priorities, so it works for us to keep our incomes and expenditures separate. As long as we can both be counted on to come up with the money for our portions of the bills and not amass a whole bunch of debt without the other's knowledge, I don't feel like we really need to know the details of each other's finances.
The past 9 months have been a little different for us since I moved to MS without a job and we had a wedding to plan, but now that life is pretty much back to normal (me working again, no more vendors to pay), we're slowly transitioning back to our norm.