Post-Marriage Bank Accounts?

peaches85 · July 2010

Non-MGs:
What are you all planning on doing with your bank accounts after the wedding? Are you going to have one joint account? Two separate accounts? Or one joint account for bills and two separate accounts for personal spending? I feel like the third option sounds best in theory, but the reality of determining how much gets put into which account and which account various expenditures are taken from would get to be too stressful. What are you all thinking?

MGs:
You're all there right now... what works best and why?

Reilly626 · July 2010

Good question!!! Right now we are separate, with one joint for wedding savings... will probably keep it that way as I pay the mortgage now and dont want to screw with that...

cherylanddan0706 · July 2010

We had a joint savings prior, and separate checkings, after we got married we got a joint checking, but both have our own checking accounts too, personally I do not like buying MH a gift with "our" money, and if I want to buy something expensive for myself, I don't need to discuss it if that makes any sense.

cvl105 · July 2010

We have a joint for all of our bills and mortgage and just general spending. We each still have our own personal accounts too. We've been this way since we bought our house over 2 years ago. It works very well for us.

akmackay · July 2010

We opened a joint account once we bought our house (before the wedding) for the bills. Now we're married we both still have our own accounts, and we have 2 joint ones (don't even get me started...) for the bills. We both do direct deposit and so half my paycheck goes to my personal, half to our joint account. DH does the same and if we need more money in our joint he transfers his money.

Faith2730 · July 2010

Haha funny you mention this because my FI and I had this discussion the other day. We THINK we are going to have 2 accounts. A joint account and then an account in my name. The joint account would be for the bills and our everday expenses. I think I am going to keep a separate account for me to do all my little odds and end shopping that I like to do.

My FI is very organized with his checking account and I am the complete opposite. We think I would drive him crazy if I used the main account for all my "little" things I like to get done (ex-hair, nails, eyebrows, ect...) My fiance is the type that writes everything down that he uses on his debit card and puts a check by it once it clears. I have to admit I am nothing like that...although I shoud be.

peaches85 · July 2010

Follow-up question...
How did you decide how much to put into your separate accounts if you have a joint account as well?

Faith2730 · July 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_new-jersey_post-marriage-bank-accounts?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local Wedding BoardsForum:90Discussion:fbc8f1c9-7f27-4d18-bd07-143824f0e927Post:7ea0e7d4-1850-4c0a-9d48-c5604f385dab">Re: Post-Marriage Bank Accounts?</a>:
[QUOTE]We had a joint savings prior, and separate checkings, after we got married we got a joint checking, but both have our own checking accounts too, personally I do not like buying MH a gift with "our" money, and if I want to buy something expensive for myself, I don't need to discuss it if that makes any sense.
Posted by cherylanddan0706[/QUOTE]

I agree! He doesn't need to know all my splurges! :)

mariaNryan · July 2010

Right now we have a joint checking account for our rent and all other bills associated with living.... and thats it..... All our money goes into this account and we both have debit cards from the account

Laurms15 · July 2010

We have one account with our down payment for our future house (which we don't touch ever).

We have a joint account into which we direct deposit a certain amount each pay check and basically we pay our joint credit card from that (joint card used mostly for groceries)

We split the rent based on salary I just write him a check for my portion and he pays it. He pays gas/electric and I pay cable/internet which is usually a pretty even split.

We pay for our cell phones separate and I pay for the car since it was mine before the marriage and I use it daily to commute.

The rest of our money goes into our separate accounts.

jennhiggins · July 2010

We have a joint account where our checks our direct deposited into for house bills, entertainment, etc. We each also have a personal accunt for personal spending where an automatic transfer is set up every month from our joint to our personal. DH felt bad spending "our" money on his boy toys as I did about clothes shopping. We decided 15% (split between us) of our monthly take home cash would go to us personally. So far it's working well!

gymchick05 · July 2010

This question has been stressing me out since we got engaged. I own a business so I have a bunch of accounts for that, plus a business savings, a personal savings, a wedding savings, etc- I like things seperate so I dont think I have more money than I really do, etc. Right now I pay the mortgage and all the bills and he is moving in at the end of the month. I really dont know how its gonna work out. Im guessing we will set up one joint account for bills and each keep one personal account, but Im a control freak and really dont want to stop paying the bills and knowing exactly how much we have each month for savings etc, haha. Either way, I am not changing any of my business accounts, so I can always use the checking/savings there to buy him gifts, etc...but I'd prefer we each have our own accounts and 1 mutual on- just seems easier and its how my parents do it too

mrsdevilguy · July 2010

We haven't really discussed what we're going to do after the wedding. We bought our house almost two years ago and have worked out who pays what each with our own checking accounts so I can't imagine it really changing.

Laurms15 · July 2010

We put the same percent of our salaries into the joint account. That way its even since he makes more then I do.

Danes983 · July 2010

We currently have a joint checking for wedding stuff and our own savings and checking accounts. After the wedding we will combine all to 1 savings and 1 checking. We will both agree on an "allowance" each week for ourselves that we can buy whatever we want no questions asked. We both feel any big purchases need to be disucssed so thats why we will do it like that. My FI is very laid back. if I wanted to buy a expensive bag or something he would be like as long as we have the $ I dont care. I would feel the same unless he wanted to buy like a car or something.

AnnPH424 · July 2010

The plan is for joint checking, emergency savings and another savings account for vacations etc., plus investment accounts. We make about the same salary wise so we're just going to distribute everything evenly. I think this is something that we disagreed about the most since being engaged. I thought we should have ours, his and mine but he disagreed so we're going to give this a shot.

Karma01 · July 2010

Before we were married we had a wedding account. Now that we are married and bought a house we have our account but each have a seperate account but we mostly use our joint acct since that is where our paychecks are deposited. The joint account pays bills etc..

jaimelody · July 2010

We kept things the same as before we were married. We each have our own accounts and pay bills and personal expenses ourselves. He pays the mortgage, I pay everything else.

Geri510 · July 2010

Since we currently live together my FH just gives me a certain amount deposited into my account twice a month - from which we pay the cable, gas/electricity, rent & buy groceries. He pays for the car (including insurance each year) as well as his motorcycle.

Since I make about double what he makes I pay more of the monthly bills. When we get married we'll have a joint account in which we will deposit money when we get paid & pay all of our bills that way. We currently have a wedding savings account which may turn into our house account after we get married.

MissButters · July 2010

We'll probably contribute the same percentage of our salaries to a joint account based on what percentage of our salary needs to go to bills.

Example: Total Bills is $4000
Salary 1 = $3,000
Salary 2 = $5,000
Total Salary = $8,000

Percent of total salary that is bills = $4000/$8,000 = .5
Person with salary 1 contributes = .5*$3,000 = $1,500
Person with salary 2 contributes = .5*$5,000 = $2,500

Seems fair, I think!

felicia220 · July 2010

We got joint savings and checking when we moved in together, I still have a separate checking and savings (that I don't even bother putting money into) just because I'm lazy and didn't feel like closing it....haha. Thankfully, we were always on the same page about money.

kasabby · July 2010

We currently have a joint checking and savings for the wedding and bills for our apartment. We also have separate checking accounts and savings accounts that we had prior. We will stay like that after so that we each have our own account to but personal things with.

nessi979 · July 2010

we make almost exactly the same amount of money. We each have our personal accounts, and we have a joint checking savings. We deposit the same amount each into the joint each month. This account pays for our living expenses, and also leaves some left in savings each month for vacations or splurges.

All the wedding expenses come from him. And the down payment on our home will come from me. It works out to be even.

uppereastgirl · July 2010

I have four accounts -- my own savings, my own checking, and a joint checking and a joint savings. My husband has the same setup. We also have a joint credit card and separate credit cards. Each month we each pay our portion of the rent and utilities and other joint expenses to the joint accounts, and we add extra to go into joint savings. Whenever I think I have too much for just me in my personal accounts, I move a bunch over to our joint savings.

That arrangement works for us because we have very different spending habits and that way I don't have to worry about running purchases by him because he'll be paying part of it. And it makes me be able to, say, go out for dinner and drinks with my friends without him getting stuck with a portion of the bill. We don't really have specific savings goals right now except that saving is really good and important, and even if we decided to buy an apartment or whatever, I wouldn't care if a chunk of the down payment came from "my" accounts. I don't see them as entirely mine.

I'd imagine as time goes on the joint accounts will become by far the largest accounts we have, but I do like the idea of always having money set aside as my fun fund (and having him have the same).

I don't know that any system is the best, but this is what works for us.

mrs.spunky1508 · July 2010

We still have mostly everything separate. My name isn't even on the mortgage (but is on the deed). DH makes roughly twice what I make and we've kept everything separate but sorta equal since we moved in together and it works so there's no need to change it. We basically pay the same percentage of our incomes toward bills, but we don't do 1/3 of each bill is my responsibility and 2/3 is his or anything like that.
Our setup goes like this:
I pay the gas/electric bill. water/sewer, HOA fees, and the satellite/internet/phone bill. I pay additional to the car (trying to pay off 3 year loan in just over a year). I give DH a check in the amount of half the mortgage, he deposits it in his account and pays the mortgage from there. After all those bills are taken care of, I put the rest to retirement (no work-sponsored plan).
His bills are the mortgage (well, half), the regular amount of the car payment and the credit card bill.
All of our gas, groceries, incidentals, house purchases, etc. go on the credit card and gets paid off at the end of the month.
Everything else goes into savings.

teacup0618 · July 2010

We are going to open a joint savings account for the wedding, and I'm assuming we will be keeping our own personal checking accounts. After the wedding we will probably keep it that way but save for other things we want to do together like remodeling our house/ saving for a new house down the road etc. We also have a joint credit card (rewards card with no interest for a year and a half) that he mostly uses to put things on when he travels for his company or has to expense anything out through his company like airfare,hotels, his food each day he travels...It was originally my credit card, that I used for big purchases (like when i bought him football tickets and world series tickets) and I added him on it when we realized how much money he spends on the company's dime and how much our points will go up. He just has to send in the reciept to his company for whatever he is expensing out thats work related, they reimburse him, and he takes that money and puts ir right back toward the card payment. It works out great we get a lot of points for airfare and hotels to use for our own personal traveling!

Lola Minnie · July 2010

Share joint checking & savings

Have our own checking & savings also. Currently still paying bills together like we had prior to our wedding. We'll see how it goes as the months pass since I started a new job that pays less than I was used to.

Julephenia · July 2010

We have a joint checking, and personal checking and savings. I'd like to open up a joint savings, that will probably happen when we start getting gifts.

Our pay goes into our personal, and then we put the money we owe to bills into the joint. We've been like this for several years, and I doubt we'll change - it works well.

AlmostLoCo · July 2010

Our original plan was to have one joint account and then each have a personal account for "fun money". Within a month this pretty much evolved into just having all of our money flow in and out of our joint account. DH was struggling with figuring out what should be his personal expenses versus household and kept doing things like using our joint credit card to buy concert tickets. There are so many sketchy areas - like commuting costs, auto repair, etc. Plus, I manage our money and found it more difficult to manage both our joint and my personal account. Overall it's just easier to have only the one checking account.

Instead, within our budget we each have an amount allocated to personal spending. I keep track of that monthly and tell DH he has to start watching it if he's coming close to his monthly allocation. Even though I earn much more than him our amounts are nearly equal, mine is just a bit higher because I have more commuting costs and dry cleaning expenses. I feel like since we are in a partnership now it shouldn't matter who earns what and I didn't want him to be resentful.

We do both have savings accounts from pre-marriage that we're keeping separate with the understanding that it's available in case of an emergency. Any savings moving forward is in our joint money market.

I think different things work for different couples, it took us a little while to figure out what works best for us.

SandDD · July 2010

We have personal & joint checking and savings. We do household bills, rent & some joint spending (dinners or drinks out together, groceries, etc) from the joint checking. We both just agreed on amounts that worked for us when we first moved in together and haven't really touched it since. We manage savings independently depending on what we are comfortable contributing that paycheck or month.

We both have different spending habits when it comes to our checking accounts so we've kept them separate for now. We will most likely keep them that way because neither of us wants to really "own" the whole paying system.

MandWNJ · July 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_new-jersey_post-marriage-bank-accounts?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:90Discussion:fbc8f1c9-7f27-4d18-bd07-143824f0e927Post:7ea0e7d4-1850-4c0a-9d48-c5604f385dab">Re: Post-Marriage Bank Accounts?</a>:
[QUOTE]We had a joint savings prior, and separate checkings, after we got married we got a joint checking, but both have our own checking accounts too, personally I do not like buying MH a gift with "our" money, and if I want to buy something expensive for myself, I don't need to discuss it if that makes any sense.
Posted by cherylanddan0706[/QUOTE]

I totally agree! We have the same set-up.

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