Money NWR

kvruns · February 2015

We are completely separate right now and he pays for the joint expenses and I then pay him my portion of those expenses. I think at some point we will establish a joint account for shared expenses, but I don't think we will completely combine. Like I was thinking about wedding gifts, and we don't plan on registering so I am thinking we will get some cash. figure that will be a good way to start a joint account vs saying you get X% of the gifts and I get Y%

madamerwin · February 2015

AddieCake said: We have his, mine, and ours. We pay our bills, buy things for our house, and pay for activities together out of the joint account. Then we have our individual accounts to do what we want with, and we have an agreement not to buy anything over $100 w/o discussing it with each other.

-------ETF Boxes----------------------

This is basically what we do. Until recently, we had completely separate accounts and just split all mutual bills, rent, etc. 50/50. However, FI got a new job last year and now makes significantly more money than I do (and generally wants to spend more money than I do), so I basically started to feel completely broke all the time. Which was not fun.Now we have joint checking and savings accounts, as well as individual accounts. We both put 75% of our income into the joint accounts, and keep the rest to do with as we please. Rent, bills, groceries, and household expenses come out of the joint account. We have a rule that any unnecessary purchases (i.e. pretty much anything from Home Depot, since FI loves Home Depot) over $40 can be taken from the joint account, but only with the other person's ok.
I think if we made around the same amount of money we would not have combined our finances, but it started to get really messy and complicated trying to split everything down the middle. But everyone's situation is different, and different things work for different situations!

kvruns · February 2015

tfmrserwin said:

AddieCake said:

I think if we made around the same amount of money we would not have combined our finances, but it started to get really messy and complicated trying to split everything down the middle. But everyone's situation is different, and different things work for different situations!

We split based on % of combined income. So after we got our W2s this past January we split it out for bills.....my income went up slightly since I get paid for OT so my % of bills went up (boooo hehe). Works better than splitting 50/50 since our incomes are a good 20K apart

princessleia22 · February 2015

When we first moved in together, we had his, mine, and ours. For our joint account, we each put same amount in each month, then we used that for joint bills (rent, utilities, etc.) and entertainment. Any left over was saved for future joint expenses or vacations. Anything above the joint monthly contribution was for individual bills (car payment, medical insurance, student loans, etc.)

Then about a year later we both were laid off work at the same time. We cut expenses and pooled our resources. At that time all our money went into the joint account and was used however was necessary to survive. After we got back on our feet, we just kept using the joint account for everything instead of separating expenses again. We don't have a set limit for checking in with each other, but generally discuss any larger purchases (more than $100-200). He would rather not deal with finances at all, so he knows I'll see it in our account anyway. If he needs anything expensive, he usually calls me just to make sure we have money for it in the bank, because that's easier than getting online and checking himself. Neither of us spends extravagantly anyway, so it works out to have everything joint.

Currently, we have two joint sets (checking/saving) of accounts at different banks. We deposit my income (I currently make about twice what DH makes) into one bank and use that to pay our bills and live off of. His income is direct deposited into the other bank and we don't touch it, unless necessary. "His money" paid for our wedding. "His money" is saving for buying a house or emergencies or big vacations. "His money" is saving for retirement. But, we consider them both "our money" and I handle the financing for both. And I think the income difference and living off my income bothers him less when "his money" buys us the big important things. Even though his money hadn't gone toward our bills in over a year, it meant a lot to him to say that HE paid for our wedding. He isn't territorial over the money, and I've had to access it for things on occasion and he doesn't care, but it's just a pride thing for him to know that his manly money makes big contributions, rather than it getting lost beneath my money and being meaningless.

We did recently open a new savings account, bought a car last year and are currently looking at buying a home. One of the first thing the bankers ask is if we are doing joint or separate. The mortgage guy was saying that it's a pretty even mix these days on whether married couples purchase joint or separate and having separate accounts isn't uncommon at all. I think the truly joint married accounting is probably the minority now. But, not everything works for all people. I think DH and I would have more issues with the full joint accounts if he were more interested in doing anything with the finances. But, he'd rather be hands off and let me handle it all, so joint works best for us.

[Deleted User] · February 2015

amelisha said:

FeeleyToBe said:

As a result though, I am very sensitive about merging money and Fiance understands and doesn't seem upset by it. He knows it was a big step for me to share all of my passwords when we moved in together. He also appreciates that I show him receipts from when I've paid the bills that effect us both- especially since the utilities are in his name, and not paying rent fucks us both b/c his name is on the lease too. I want him to know I would never screw him over or lie to him about where the money is going so I'm very open with what's being done and when.

You guys should get the Splitwise app too! It lets me put in what I've paid for something and take a photo of the receipt and add notes if I need to. He likes seeing the photos of the grocery receipts because I have a bad habit of telling him "Oh, I dunno, just give me $200," or whatever at the end of the month when he really owes me $400 and he feels like he screws me over because I'm too lazy to count it up. You can also choose "he owes you" "you owe him" or "split this bill" so there's some flexibility. We love it.

Something to look into; thanks! There's not much to split though since I pay for it all. I'm just on top of ensuring he knows something is paid, especially if it's in his name, like our utilities. Fortunately lots if things you can get text notifications for these days, but with our rent we can't so I just text him a photo of the check and/or put him in charge of dropping it in the mail so he knows it was paid.

WinstonsGirl · February 2015

We have a joint bills account that we both contribute the same amount to each month. That account pays bills, mortgage, etc. The extra every few months gets put into the savings side. We use that mainly for vacations so they money is there when we go to book.

Everything we make that doesn't go into the joint is our separately to spend as we please. That way, I don't bother him when he buys another iPhone/iPad/X-box.

Dh makes quite a bit more that I do and he wanted to split is based on our income percentage, but I insisted on 50/50 as I feel I'm pulling my weight then. He'd prefer the other way, but won't argue me on it. He also considers his paycheque "our money" while I still see it as his money. It's my independent nature coming out. If I made more than he did, I'd consider it our money too but since I make less I have a harder time with it. I feel like I'm mooching off of him even though we're both contributing equally. That's my own issue though

Inkdancer · February 2015

It's a little weird because right now I am severely underemployed, so H pays for basically everything. Eventually I hope to get things to where we contribute evenly to "our" joint account that pays the bills, and then everything else goes in our individual accounts for fun money.

lavenderfields13 · February 2015

Like most others we also have separate accounts and one joint account. We have the same bank so we opened the joint when we moved in together so we could transfer each other money using that account. We split bills 50/50. Gas & electric is in my name so when I pay it out of my account I ask him to transfer me half of it. He does the same with cable since that's in his name. FI does make more money than me so I always let him pay when we go out to eat, go the movies, etc since those things are never super expensive and I feel like it kind of makes up for that fact that we pay bills 50/50 and I make less money.

Our joint account is also our wedding savings account right now and will the house savings account/big expenses/emergency fund after we get married. I definitely want to keep our other accounts separate. I don't need to see every penny he spends - he has enough money to pay the bills so I don't really care.

ETA: we each pay for our own car payments/car insurance, etc out of our separate accounts

LabLove86 · February 2015

I think finances in relationships are fascinating. Guess I'm a big nerd.

We have his/hers/ and 2 ours. The 2 ours is one joint checking, and one joint savings.

Until very recently the joint's were split pretty evenly as we were making very close to the same amount. Now he has had a couple promotions and is now making significantly more than I am - so we are compensating in the aspect that he is taking more of the house-hold bills, and what my contribution was/would have been is now going directly into savings.

So - he takes care of his personal bills and a majority of the household bills. I take care of my personal bills, cable/internet, groceries, and the rest of what would have gone towards rent/electric/gas/ect. is now going into savings.

It is a weird place for me to be in. I have always either been equal or the main breadwinner in every other relationship. However our long term goal is for me to only work 2-3 days a week once we theoretically have children - in about 2-3 years; so I will have to get used to not paying my "half" of the bills. Plus - he has a lot of vertical potential at his job, and I am within 2-4K/yr of my earning potential in my career for where we currently live.

Essentially - we have a combined house-hold income goal - and it should be within reach in the next couple years. That is of course if life goes as planned. Which - ya know - always happens.

huskypuppy14 · February 2015

FeeleyToBe said:

mobride2015 said:
Oh - he's MUCH more anal about tracking his spending and receipts, so we may end up doing one of those combo deals where we contribute to a household account, be it savings or whatever, and then have our own accounts for personal spending.

This could be a problem for us too. I track everything, but not in a paper ledger. I RARELY use cash, and RARELY write checks, so all of my transactions show up immediately in my account. I don't see the point of doing double work. I check my account daily (sometimes several times a day) so I always know what's there and what's not.

He on the other hand still does almost everything by paper and writes a ton of checks. I'm like, "pay this shit online." If we had a combined account I KNOW it would get overdrawn because he'd spend money, not record it right away; I'd look online, see $x there and think it's okay to spend and we'd overdraw.

It'll be interesting.

ETA: Also, because I check my online account to often, I'm also more likely to find out first if my account has been compromised. Him; not so much.

My husband still writes checks for his student loans. I'm like, honey it's the same amount every month, just put it on automatic withdrawl. Nope, he doesn't want to.

We have our own accounts, but we are both on each other's in case of an emergency. So they are technically joint accounts, but we don't treat them as joint. I pay for the mortgage and he gives me half every month. I pay the gas and electric, and our health insurance. He pays for cable, our dog's pet insurance, and the insurance on my e-ring. We each pay for our own cars, cell phones and student loans.

Anything else is paid by whomever. We don't keep track and pay back the other person. We consider everything our money, we just each manage our own accounts. For vacations, someone will pay for the hotels, the other person will pay for dinners etc. It works for us, so we don't feel the need to have a joint account that everything comes out of.

A lot of people seem to have a number that they will check with the other person before spending. We don't really have that. I paid off my car, 2500 dollars and just did it. He bought a new cell phone and told me after the fact. We're not huge spenders so that's probably part of it.

lovesclimbing · February 2015

We only have a joint account. He makes more money than I do, but we consider all of our money and everything we have to be ours - not his or mine. So I suppose technically he pays more of the bills or whatever than I do, but it doesn't matter since it's all our money.

katiekessler123 · February 2015

lovesclimbing- that's pretty much our situation, too. My husband will always make more money than me, but to us it's not a big deal. We don't even really think about it. I like having a combined account, because it allows us to establish savings goals together and work toward them. I like the teamwork in it all. My husband is in finance, so he's been really good about helping us establish goals.

We also have a combined "mid term" savings account that is automatically pulled from our other account every month. It's linked up with our life insurance policies. The basic idea is that if you keep pulling the same amount each month, in about 25 years, with the high percentage rate this account gets, you'll have a large chunk of money.

ohmrs2014 · February 2015

We have separate and joint. Our joint is used for everything for the apartment and our personal is just that. We do have a joint savings account.

princessleia22 · February 2015

huskypuppy14 said:

FeeleyToBe said:

mobride2015 said:
Oh - he's MUCH more anal about tracking his spending and receipts, so we may end up doing one of those combo deals where we contribute to a household account, be it savings or whatever, and then have our own accounts for personal spending.

This could be a problem for us too. I track everything, but not in a paper ledger. I RARELY use cash, and RARELY write checks, so all of my transactions show up immediately in my account. I don't see the point of doing double work. I check my account daily (sometimes several times a day) so I always know what's there and what's not.

He on the other hand still does almost everything by paper and writes a ton of checks. I'm like, "pay this shit online." If we had a combined account I KNOW it would get overdrawn because he'd spend money, not record it right away; I'd look online, see $x there and think it's okay to spend and we'd overdraw.

It'll be interesting.

ETA: Also, because I check my online account to often, I'm also more likely to find out first if my account has been compromised. Him; not so much.

My husband still writes checks for his student loans. I'm like, honey it's the same amount every month, just put it on automatic withdrawl. Nope, he doesn't want to.

We have our own accounts, but we are both on each other's in case of an emergency. So they are technically joint accounts, but we don't treat them as joint. I pay for the mortgage and he gives me half every month. I pay the gas and electric, and our health insurance. He pays for cable, our dog's pet insurance, and the insurance on my e-ring. We each pay for our own cars, cell phones and student loans.

Anything else is paid by whomever. We don't keep track and pay back the other person. We consider everything our money, we just each manage our own accounts. For vacations, someone will pay for the hotels, the other person will pay for dinners etc. It works for us, so we don't feel the need to have a joint account that everything comes out of.

A lot of people seem to have a number that they will check with the other person before spending. We don't really have that. I paid off my car, 2500 dollars and just did it. He bought a new cell phone and told me after the fact. We're not huge spenders so that's probably part of it.

I used to have everything direct pay. Like you, I checked balance regularly and generally knew what and when expenses were due to come out of it. Then I realized that I had given EVERYONE access to my account and decided that wasn't the best thing. Yeah, they had access for legitimate reasons, but with all the potential data breaches and stuff, it just seemed less secure. Plus, although I had a good general idea of my expenses, I didn't check it as closely and noticed a couple bills that had started creeping up. And since I wasn't so involved in paying/balancing my accounts, it was a while before I noticed it. So, I opened a new account and limit who has permission to access it. And for most of my bills I write checks every month. That forces me to be hands on with the bills at least once a month so I more quickly notice if there is an issue. It also allows me to dispute a bill before paying it, if needed. I do still do direct pay for some bills. Like, student loans and auto insurance, where it reduces my rate to have auto pay. And we do have our credit cards set up to direct pay minimum payment on them, since they are quick to punish if even a couple days late, but we have those coming out of a separate account. That way, if it gets compromised it's not coming out of our primary account.

We have a total of 7 accounts (4 checking and 3 savings). For our primary bills account, we only write checks and keep most of our money in there. That keeps our bill money more secure. A couple years ago we had a debit card compromised (thanks to Target) and it cleared out our account right before rent & bills were due. We ended up late on bills and paying late fees while waiting for money to be credited back. So, we set up separate checking accounts to use for checking & bill paying and one for debit. We transfer money to our debit account regularly, but keep most of our money in the other/safer account. This way if our debit cards are compromised again, we know that our primary bills will still get paid and criminal will get minimal money from us.

chloe97 · February 2015

This is an interesting conversation. My FI recently took a job where he only gets paid by commission, but has quite a large liquid savings account to hold him through until he gets paid. I have credit card debt that I am slowing paying down and b/c I get great benefits, I have a really large 401k. Right now we split all bills and he is paying for everything wedding-related. The plan is to 100 % pay off my cc's with his savings and then I will pay for all household bills etc etc from my check. His checks will be used for savings replenishment and for any and all non-essentials- clothes, going out to eat etc- oh yes and child care when it comes time! This way, we know in lean times in his business we will be ok, and we can splurge a bit more when things are going well.

katiekessler123 · February 2015

Here's my big question, and there is no judgment attached to this, just curiosity: IF you have separate accounts, why did you decide to do that? Most people seem to be splitting bills anyway, so why keep separate accounts? Is it bc you will be bothered by what your husband is spending? Or some other reason? Truly just curious. The thought of having separate accounts never even occurred to me.

cakemurderer · February 2015

I'm loving the varied answers here. My current situation is not really ideal and I think we need to figure out a more fair way to divide expenses. Right now we're living together but have separate accounts. He pays the mortgage (mercifully not a big one), internet, and Netflix. I pay for groceries, household products, and do most of the cooking. We sort of alternate paying the electric bill and oil bill. Basically whoever has more money that month will pick up the bill. I'm not sure if I'm cheating him out of money or not, and since I want things to be fair I think we'll have to work out a better way to track household expenses.

With my ex-husband things were simpler. He made more money than I did but it was never an issue. Our paychecks went into the same joint account, most of our expenses went on the same credit card, and everything was paid out of that joint account. It was probably the easiest solution. It was both a blessing and a curse that I single-handedly managed our finances because I was good at saving and investing and he wasn't a crazy spender, so I didn't have to keep him in line often. Of course, the bad part of that was that he really had no clue what was going on with our finances, nor did he care. When I proudly told him how much money we had in our savings account he immediately started looking for a big-ticket item to purchase, without asking me if I was OK with depleting our savings by 20%. That made me wish I'd never told him!

Edited because punctuation is hard.

lyndausvi · February 2015

katiekessler123 said:
Here's my big question, and there is no judgment attached to this, just curiosity: IF you have separate accounts, why did you decide to do that? Most people seem to be splitting bills anyway, so why keep separate accounts? Is it bc you will be bothered by what your husband is spending? Or some other reason? Truly just curious. The thought of having separate accounts never even occurred to me.

We have both. We already had established accounts before we met.

Actually DH has had the same account since he was 16. Neither of us found a need to get ride of them. Both our accounts are with national banks, but neither have location where we live. So our joint accounts are from a local bank.

chloe97 · February 2015

katiekessler123 said:
Here's my big question, and there is no judgment attached to this, just curiosity: IF you have separate accounts, why did you decide to do that? Most people seem to be splitting bills anyway, so why keep separate accounts? Is it bc you will be bothered by what your husband is spending? Or some other reason? Truly just curious. The thought of having separate accounts never even occurred to me.

I was wondering the same thing. I actually have a few friends who have done separate accounts and so I brought up this method when FI and I got engaged. He said "no way, we need one account!" I know that my friends with their own accounts have shopping habits that they didn't want commented on by their husbands, FI and I probably have equal habits when it comes to spending. In fact, he has been spending more on clothes lately than me, but until our finances are combined I feel like I need to keep my lips sealed.

JennyColada · February 2015

We don't have any joint bank accounts, but I do have a credit card in my name from DH's account.

DH pays all of our "living" bills aside from my car payment (which I pay, but he pays the insurance).

I have a savings account that I contribute to to cover my increase in income tax.

Aside from that, we just spend how we want. DH is usually the one to pay for dinners and vacations. I pay for all of my school supplies/tuition.

It's pretty uneven, but so is our income. I think I'm making about 10% of what DH does right now.

katiekessler123 · February 2015

Chloe97- we also have very similar shopping habits..we are both very frugal and love to save money! I really think that's why having a shared account only works for us. I feel like we're really able to save so much more money as a combined force. I never feel stress about money anymore, and I don't think he does either. For the record, we were both in our early 30s when we got married, so financially we had been on our own for about 10 years post college before getting married. I thought it would be a much bigger leap to combine our accounts, but it turns out that it's been a really easy transition.

Jells2dot0 · February 2015

katiekessler123 said:
Here's my big question, and there is no judgment attached to this, just curiosity: IF you have separate accounts, why did you decide to do that? Most people seem to be splitting bills anyway, so why keep separate accounts? Is it bc you will be bothered by what your husband is spending? Or some other reason? Truly just curious. The thought of having separate accounts never even occurred to me.

We have both been married before and divorce gets messy when there is money involved. We both make very good money, we both do not have any debt other than our homes, and we both think along the same lines financially. Why change anything? We each spend our extra money how we see fit and when I say we "Split" bills, I just mean that we each have our own bill assignments, we don't actually each pay half of a bill. So, example, DH pays our mortgage and utilities. I pay our daily expenses, cars (when we have loans), travel, and home improvement type things. I have a lot more discretionary money than he does, but I pull out of savings more to cover our big ticket items.

lovemesomemonster · February 2015

FI and I have lived together for 6 years and own two houses together. We have one joint credit card for home improvement supplies but that is it and it will probably stay that way after we get hitched. We don't add up and split everything like food etc. He pays the mortgage, I pay the bills and my student loans, and whoever stops by the grocery store just buys the groceries. When we vacation it's kind of the same, typically if I have the money and I buy the flights I pay for those and he picks up all the fun stuff.. he does make more than me so if we are going to do a vaca or something extra and I flat out tell him "yeah, no way I can cover that right now" he just pays. It works for us, the bills get paid, I don't care or have to see what he spends on golf, and he doesn't care or have to see what I spend on shopping.

It's also nice having the one joint CC, I don't feel like I ever have to ask him for money (since he does make quite a bit more), if I can't cover something like groceries that week I put it on that card and he pays it.

amelisha · February 2015

katiekessler123 said:
Here's my big question, and there is no judgment attached to this, just curiosity: IF you have separate accounts, why did you decide to do that? Most people seem to be splitting bills anyway, so why keep separate accounts? Is it bc you will be bothered by what your husband is spending? Or some other reason? Truly just curious. The thought of having separate accounts never even occurred to me.

1. We had them already and we're lazy. The idea of changing everything over seems pretty monumental at the moment - whose bank do we use and how should we set it up? How do we deal with our investments, savings plans/RSPs? I'm joint on all my parents' accounts and property to simplify things as they age, so what do we do with those? We don't even have especially complicated finances and it still just seems like a lot of unnecessary work, frankly.

2. We don't want to be involved in each other's discretionary spending.

3. We are cognizant of the fact that, no matter how in love and committed we are, stuff happens and a future divorce is not impossible, so maintaining a bit of independence in case our lives don't go as we've planned seemed prudent.

4. Overall, we just value our independence and not having our own money seemed crazy to us, married or no. I know lots of people don't feel that way, but we do. It doesn't mean I don't love him or trust him - I absolutely do, completely - but I prefer to have some things that are mine and not ours. We consider this more of a partnership than a merger, haha.

kvruns · February 2015

Jells2dot0 said:

katiekessler123 said:
Here's my big question, and there is no judgment attached to this, just curiosity: IF you have separate accounts, why did you decide to do that? Most people seem to be splitting bills anyway, so why keep separate accounts? Is it bc you will be bothered by what your husband is spending? Or some other reason? Truly just curious. The thought of having separate accounts never even occurred to me.
We have both been married before and divorce gets messy when there is money involved. We both make very good money, we both do not have any debt other than our homes, and we both think along the same lines financially. Why change anything? We each spend our extra money how we see fit and when I say we "Split" bills, I just mean that we each have our own bill assignments, we don't actually each pay half of a bill. So, example, DH pays our mortgage and utilities. I pay our daily expenses, cars (when we have loans), travel, and home improvement type things. I have a lot more discretionary money than he does, but I pull out of savings more to cover our big ticket items.

FI has been married before and she ran up a lot of shopping debt and other financially irresponsible things so I know he has some trust issues there. Although honestly I think they had both single and joint accounts though also saw it as "their" money by the fact that I know he paid for a significant portion of her debt.

I always assumed when I got married we would have joint accounts and nothing separate - separate seemed weird. But then as I got older I realized that while I hope I am married for the rest of my life you just never know and it is nice to have some apart. I think if we ever have kids or one of us ever stopped working things might change a bit but for now I think we will combine some but keep separate the rest.

FiancB · February 2015

We are pretty much joint. I have my original checking account that a small amount of money drops into, but that's just because I'm too lazy to change it, and it's also linked to my oldest credit card so I don't want to change that. But otherwise we went over to his account.

Jells2dot0 · February 2015

kvruns said:

Jells2dot0 said:

katiekessler123 said:
Here's my big question, and there is no judgment attached to this, just curiosity: IF you have separate accounts, why did you decide to do that? Most people seem to be splitting bills anyway, so why keep separate accounts? Is it bc you will be bothered by what your husband is spending? Or some other reason? Truly just curious. The thought of having separate accounts never even occurred to me.
We have both been married before and divorce gets messy when there is money involved. We both make very good money, we both do not have any debt other than our homes, and we both think along the same lines financially. Why change anything? We each spend our extra money how we see fit and when I say we "Split" bills, I just mean that we each have our own bill assignments, we don't actually each pay half of a bill. So, example, DH pays our mortgage and utilities. I pay our daily expenses, cars (when we have loans), travel, and home improvement type things. I have a lot more discretionary money than he does, but I pull out of savings more to cover our big ticket items.

FI has been married before and she ran up a lot of shopping debt and other financially irresponsible things so I know he has some trust issues there. Although honestly I think they had both single and joint accounts though also saw it as "their" money by the fact that I know he paid for a significant portion of her debt.

I always assumed when I got married we would have joint accounts and nothing separate - separate seemed weird. But then as I got older I realized that while I hope I am married for the rest of my life you just never know and it is nice to have some apart. I think if we ever have kids or one of us ever stopped working things might change a bit but for now I think we will combine some but keep separate the rest.

This was my DH as well. However, he certainly did not have to twist my arm into keeping things separate. In fact, I'm the one who first brought up signing a prenup. There is no way I wanted to battle anything out again and I highly value my independence.

My poor DH really got put through the ringer with his ex. She went after everything, including his parent's accounts because they had my DH listed on there for emergencies. She also kept insisting there was hidden money. It was all insanity. My ex was much easier to deal with during our divorce. But, since I was the breadwinner, I had to cut a check to him in the end. Nothing burns more than writing a check to someone who no longer wants to be married to you.

kvruns · February 2015

Jells2dot0 said:

kvruns said:

Jells2dot0 said:

katiekessler123 said:

This was my DH as well. However, he certainly did not have to twist my arm into keeping things separate. In fact, I'm the one who first brought up signing a prenup. There is no way I wanted to battle anything out again and I highly value my independence.
My poor DH really got put through the ringer with his ex. She went after everything, including his parent's accounts because they had my DH listed on there for emergencies. She also kept insisting there was hidden money. It was all insanity. My ex was much easier to deal with during our divorce. But, since I was the breadwinner, I had to cut a check to him in the end. Nothing burns more than writing a check to someone who no longer wants to be married to you.

Oh ick, that would be a nightmare on the searching for secret money. Or for you writing that check... that's worse than writing it to the IRS!! FI was the "winner" in his divorce, he kept everything pretty much (but couldn't she have taken some of the crap she bought that sucks and is still sitting in the house......) and there was no monetary pay out either way, mostly because she cheated on him and her actions more or less lead to the divorce so I don't think she even tried to get anything.

I'm financially independent and secure and stuff so I know he doesn't worry about me having $$ issues or debt issues or anything but I think he would have a hard time doing it all together.

WinstonsGirl · February 2015

katiekessler123 said:
Here's my big question, and there is no judgment attached to this, just curiosity: IF you have separate accounts, why did you decide to do that? Most people seem to be splitting bills anyway, so why keep separate accounts? Is it bc you will be bothered by what your husband is spending? Or some other reason? Truly just curious. The thought of having separate accounts never even occurred to me.

We both bank with different banks, and I don't want to change. DH doesn't seem to care. We also have our own money for spending now. At one point, DH came home with the new Xbox and a new iPhone over about 1-2 weeks. Fine by me cos it's his money. He also doesn't get to complain about how much I spend at chiro and massage. Personally, I'd have issues trying to explain all purchases I make cos we had a shared account. Ours is solely for bills/mortgage and food.

littlemushroom · February 2015

katiekessler123 said:
Here's my big question, and there is no judgment attached to this, just curiosity: IF you have separate accounts, why did you decide to do that? Most people seem to be splitting bills anyway, so why keep separate accounts? Is it bc you will be bothered by what your husband is spending? Or some other reason? Truly just curious. The thought of having separate accounts never even occurred to me.

We have both. Honestly, a big part of it is for gifts. We don't want to feel like we are essentially paying for our own gifts by having everything joint. Now, if he wants to buy me flowers or I want to take him to his favorite restaurant it is truly a gift from one of us to the other. Not to mention, when we want to surprise each other with things, they stay a surprise. If everything came out of our joint account, we would see the transaction before we got whatever it was.

The other part is we see and hear about how other people argue about money. Having both kinds of accounts and setting up our joint budget and monthly savings that we both find fair is a really good way to know that money will almost never be an issue for us. We are both savers, so we don't think we would have an issue with how the other spends money. But as adults who have had our own money for years, we also think it would be weird to have to check in with the other anytime we want something a bit more extravagant. Having both joint and separate accounts means we know our basic living costs and savings goals will always be covered. The rest is for us to use or save as we want.

Finally, we got our joint account when he moved in with me before we were engaged and a year before we married. The system was working so well for us, there was no reason to change. Honestly, before we worked this system out I was one of those people who just assumed everything would be joint after marriage. But now I really love how we have things set up.

Money NWR

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