Christian Weddings

Money!

So it's been on my mind a lot this weekend. In just over 2 months FI and I will be combining households! EEK. Anyway, we've found the place that we will be living after the wedding, and I'm moving into it in Oct. So it's more rent than where I'm at now, but thankfully FI's parents told him that once I found a bigger place, he could help me out with rent instead of paying them rent. All that to ask a question, and maybe get some discussion going. How are you and your FI planning on splitting your finances, or how do you and you SI split them? Will you pool all your money together, have separate accounts and each pay for your own thing, or some other style.

 

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Re: Money!

  • We are planning on pooling our money into one account, and then paying everything together, with FI being more "in charge" than me, but we will work together on a budget. He just has better impulse control when it comes to money, so he gets the job of keeping us on budget :)

     

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  • We need to work out the details of all of this. But, we're in the "what's mine is yours and yours is mine" mindset, and plan on combining. The issue is where we're going to combine them... are we going to keep one bank/credit union and ditch the other, or ditch both and find a new one together? We haven't decided yet. Lucky for us, we have a wedding coming up at the end of September that requires a 4ish hour drive there for, so we'll have plenty of time for in-person money talks. :)
  • We haven't talked totally about this yet. Probably in October will be our counseling session about finances. I currently am unemployed and told him I plan on using anything I make to help pay down my debt. He's been busy saving up an emergency fund and we plan on living on his income.
    I would love to eventually be a stay-at-home wife. Our goal is pay off our debt as much as possible over the next couple years.



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  • fpaemp2011fpaemp2011 member
    5 Love Its First Anniversary First Answer Name Dropper
    edited September 2013
    When we got married, I moved from VA to KS to join him, so he added me to the checking account he opened when he moved four months earlier.  When I worked for a year, I just had my checks direct deposited into the joint account.  When we moved back to VA, we opened a joint account with our own debit cards, even though I'm staying home (I'm working on my doula certification and hope to start taking clients in about a year, though).  Nothing is separate, everything is "ours."

    @elBecko- If you're changing your name, WAIT until you have your new drivers license to open the joint account.  It just makes it easier instead of needing your old license, marriage license, new SS card.  Getting the new license was enough of a paperwork headache.  I'm sure moving states didn't help at all.  :-P
  • @fpaemp2011, that is exactly the kind of thing I would forget to do! Great advice, since I will definitely be changing my name.

    If I'm remembering correctly, I had everything switched about 3ish months after we got married.  I sent the request for the certified copies of our marriage certificate when we got back from the honeymoon-- took less than 2 weeks to get that back.  Then I filled out the form for a new SS card and mailed it in (closest office was 2 hours away), had a new card in around 10 days.  Took that to the DMV to apply for the new DL (more than just changing the name and address since I was in a new state)--it took 15 days to get that in the mail.  And then we went to the bank when we both had the opportunity during a weekday.
  • We will merge accounts, I will be in charge of bills because I am better at math and saving money, but we will sit down every month and discuss our spending habits, and make a budget together, so that way we are both on the same page. 


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  • We operate under a "what's your is mine and what's mine is yours" policy.  Currently he's the only one working and I'm in grad school, though for the first few months of marriage I was still teaching.  We've kept both bank accounts open, but I'd transferred most of my savings into "his" account.  "Mine" (his name is on it too) at a different bank acts as our emergency fund.  We cancelled my Visa card, and he added me to his American Express.  After two years we haven't bothered to combined our Discover accounts.

    When I'm working again, hopefully next fall, the plan is to live off one salary and save the other.

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  • We will be combining accounts and doing a budget together. He is really much better at finance stuff than I am. I know how to mange my money and all, but anything beyond that, like planning for retirement, I'm clueless. I have a ridiculous amount of debt from school, so we will both be trying to get rid of that as quickly as we can. I think we will really be making a joint effort since he's good at finances and I'm incredibly frugal. 
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