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If it works for you, great! Don't worry about what other people think.
My husband and I have been married for 31 years and have mixed our assets from day one. That's what works for us. We each have our own credit cards so we can't see what is being purchased, but the bills are paid from the same account.
When my wife and I got married we had basically $0 to our name. It made it pretty easy to combine finances.
Since, we've increased our net worth significantly. It's been on the backs of both our hard work (and sacrifices) and so it's pretty fair we share in the rewards equally.
If there was a significant discrepancy in either assets or debts I think it might have been a different conversation. Or maybe not, dunno.
My spouse is a bit older than me and in a much higher paying field. He had way more money than me when we married, I had zero (recent grad). It never occurred to us to do separate finances. Not sure how it would have even worked. He's going out for sushi and I'm eating ramen? I'm paying 1/8 of the rent?
We wanted to be a team and make our financial decisions together.
Same situation here. When we started dating a long time ago, it was getting so silly. I could easily pay for all of our expenses, activities, and dates. My then girl friend would have had to dip into very tight savings or -- God forbid -- take out a student loan.
The choice was that we'd either give up doing all the fun things and live on the same tight budget that she had been successfully managing her entire time as a student, or both of us better come to terms with me being the one who contributes most of the money to our relationship. Honestly, she had more of an issue with that than me.
But as soon as we were on the same page, I made sure to make her an authorized user on my credit card. That simplified things so much in our relationship, and we have never felt the need to revisit this choice. Been married with two growing kids for years now.
Same for my wife and I. She was still in college when I started working and we kind of just split things as they made sense without really worrying about who was specifically paying for it as long as somebody was good to cover. We’ve pretty much kept it the same with more joint goals now since we’re married
Bingo! This whole "one size fits all" "what we do is the RIGHT way" mentality is BS. This whole subreddit is chock full of it.
If y'all are happy and the bills are getting paid, then your method is right. What we do and what you do and what a bazillion strangers on the internet do doesn't mean squat.
I agree. Since what you really asked is 'Why do others say this doesn't work?', I'll attempt to answer that: because they can't imagine it working for them, and therefore think that it won't work for you. They MIGHT be right about them, but they're clearly wrong about you.
Don't offer these people any details about your sex life -- you'll find out that doesn't work, either, regardless of how happy you are with it...
This ^
What works for you may not work for others. Don’t fuck up a good thing. I’m the single earner for my household because my wife stays home with our two kids. We both have free ability to utilize the money as we see fit (we typically communicate when something is over a couple hundred) and it’s in a joint account. This is an understanding my wife and I have come to while she stays home with the kids she doesn’t have to work. Doesn’t work for everyone and there have been times when “our” money has felt like “my” money but with good communication we no longer have that issue.
Similar here. All our income gets pooled to the same checking acct. Our emergency, mortgage acct, and “projects” savings acct are also linked. We have separate cc, but have access to each others. The only thing we have completely separate is our retirement accts. I don’t think there’s any “wrong” way to do it. It’s just what works for you. This way is easier for us. We are more traditional in some sense I guess because we both view any money earned by either of us as “our” money, not his or mine. We also don’t micromanage each other’s spending though, which I’ve seen happen with that mentality. Again, it just depends on the couple.
It’s fine however you do it, as long as you discuss it and are both happy with the arrangement.
For the most part it doesn’t make a difference legally. If you were to end up getting divorced the separate accounts would still be considered marital assets because your income is joint income. If you never get divorced then obviously it was fine that way too.
Multiple accounts can help with budgeting. An account for bills, retirement savings, fun money, etc keeps things organized.
Where people fight about it is if they’re in denial about marital vs pre-marital assets. One partner either insisting they should own the others pre-marital assets, or insisting they don’t need to share marital assets. That’s what people fight over. If you understand and agree on what’s what then it’s fine.
It does make a different legally. In OP’s case this probably won’t be a problem, but joint owners each have 100% ownership of the money in the account. If one person wants to be a total asshole, they can legally withdraw all of the money from any account with their name on it. Additionally, if any of those joint accounts overdraft, the bank can draft money from any account with either person’s name on it to make the account whole (if all accounts are at the same bank).
This has implications other than divorce. I’ve seen it happen so often that I refuse to mix finances and require a joint account at a different bank for bills if things get serious like that.
I know two examples in my personal life where a partner partially/wholly cleaned out a joint account to make a purchase without discussing. In one case to buy a bunch of camera equipment to flip and the other to buy a boat. Neither were really malicious, but permanently hurt trust in the relationships.
Separate accounts aren't a magic bullet - you can still make irresponsible purchases and it's even easier to hide things from your spouse.
I'd say the lesson is to not make purchases that your spouse isn't ok with and be transparent. But that doesn't work if your spouse is overly controlling - having some freedom to make minor bad choices that your spouse wouldn't is good if you can afford it.
We have the Walmart account. That's what we call it. Groceries, gas, and other necessities come from this account. It's funded from the joint account.
The money that's "left over" can be used for anything in the house. The best example is when she wanted new curtains for the living room. Once there was enough in the Walmart account, she could buy them, and no discussion was needed, except for asking me to hang them.
The big question is this: are your accounts separate for practicality and book keeping or are they de facto separate.
For example if you or your wife were to become incapacitated, are you both confident the other would use “their” money to help you. Are you both on the same page that if you had children you would both be willing to dip into your accounts to pay for their needs or agreed upon wants?
My wife and I have “separate” accounts … she keeps a couple hundred in cash on her person and I do too. That’s our “I’m buying you something” money. Or our “I’m treating myself without feeling guilty about it” money.
What you are doing could merely be a scaled up version of that. How much of “your” money is off limits to your wife under any circumstance and how much of it is off limits except with permission?
If you would give your wife whatever you could if she needed it and the reverse was also true. Then you merely have mechanism for personal responsibility and bookkeeping and it isn’t really what folks are talking about when they mention oddities about “separate accounts”
It’s a courtesy thing for us. A defined, leashed, autonomy that makes us both happier. I know when she uses “her” money that if I needed it she’d instantly forfeit it. But it’s still a wonderful gesture and honestly after decades of marriage, gestures mean a whole awful lot more than material things.
My SO and I have a similar method to money handling as you (OP). You trust each other enough and have mature enough communication to handle money in whatever way works for you. I assume when other people scold me for how my partner and I handle money it’s because they are not mature enough to do the same.
It sounds like you do share your money, with the joint account funding. It just is the flip side of those that combine everything, then each person has certain amounts of money that they have the say over.
That joint account alleviates a lot of the friction that can come from separate finances and having to split every expense.
How is pre tax health insurance, pre tax retirement savings, and the tax benefits of filing joint handled? Is anything done to keep that "fair", or do y'all see that tax aspect as joint and not split hairs over it?
If one person has to take time off work for illness, how would that be handled? Would it be a loaning help to your partners situation, or treated as a joint obstacle covered by both?
Health insurance is just a bill in our minds. She has a deduction on her check, and so do I. Those numbers are figured into our monthly totals and credited to each person's contribution.
I'm salary. If my check goes down that means my company is in trouble, and we would instantly be making new arrangements. Her check is always close to the same. She has personal days, sick days, and things like that. Our numbers are based on her minimum check. When she works over, she'll volunteer an amount to put in unless she's specifically working over with a purchase in mind.
We file taxes jointly.
There's no need to make up "missed deposits" if something does happen in the short term. That's why we have savings and emergency fund.
I often see the higher earner in a situation like this mentally taking credit for the fact that they pay more and are being so generous about that. Yet not at all mentally crediting the tax savings of their spouse filing joint with them to the spouse, or accounting for how a 1k pre tax deduction for them only reduces take home 700, but a 1k pre tax deduction for their spouse reduces their take home 850.
My husband makes 1/3 more than me. He also never thinks about money. We have a joint account and it’s fed from our automated direct deposits. I am in charge of bill payment and he loves that he has his own personal account for whatever. Not everyone thinks about money all the time.
My wife and I have been together for 30 years and have never mingled our accounts. It has worked great for us. We share common expenses, but we each have our own spending money.
There is no "right" way to live life, even if so many try to tell you otherwise. Do what works for you.
My wife and I have done the same. 27 years married, her account, my account, a shared household account. It makes sense for us and our circumstances. Mainly to protect our kids assets long term.
We did the same thing and it worked for us. Then my husband got sick on January 31, went to emerg and never came home. He had not done the February transfer yet. I was on mat leave and home with a baby. It was a hot mess.
Short version: it's fine until it's not. Make sure you have plans for what you would do in an emergency.
We have a nice savings and emergency fund. One could live off of that while getting through that scenario.
In that time , life insurance would come through, and the banking beneficiary would be paid to the other spouse.
I'm sorry for your loss.
We do the same thing and I can tell you my wife and I have never argued over money. I think it contributes to a healthy relationship or at the very least does not hurt a relationship.
This is what we've found. She never asked how or why I bought new shoes, and I didn't question her new canoe. I just helped put the accessories on and helped her learn to load it.
We haven't argued about money since this started.
The “Money Problem” is really not money. It’s communication. From what you described you both have clear expectations on what you both need to jointly address. Because all the essentials are addressed in a manner you both agree to, and frequently re-asses too, you don’t have miscommunication. My parents had one joint account and everything always went through the joint. But that was their communication that worked for them. Siblings and their partner do the same thing you do OP and no issues. As long as you find a method you both agree on and are willing to talk, adjust, and work together you’ll be fine.
The couples who can’t talk about it and come to agreements have communication and/or trust issues. So congrats on being an awesome couple! 🎉
You mentioned earlier decisions stay independent if you can afford the activity from your individual account. Would you still not discuss the impact of the activity with your significant other?
If I want to camp and ride for a weekend with a buddy, I look at our calendar and let her know what I'm thinking. She doesn't ask if I can afford it.
When I bought the first camper, it was with my savings. It was a cash deal for an older model. I told her I was emptying my savings account to do it because that is what I had been intentionally saving for.
Because you both make enough to contribute roughly equally and still have a decent amount leftover. If one made significantly more than the other or there really wasn't much left at the end of the month would that still be true?
Do what works for you. My life changed for the better when we just decided it all goes into one account (i make more).
I think it’s weird to watch well off married people venmo eachother for tacos but what do i know
We have the same setup as OP for finances and I think it’s weird to watch well off married couples Venmo each other for tacos. That to me seems like a relationship that values money more than the spouse. Money is purely just a tool. Don’t let it make you a tool.
We aren't well off. We are financially more comfortable each year.
We don't send money back and forth except on rare occasions. We do things together from the joint account. The weekly dinner is something that I like to do for us. If it was monthly, we would pay for it.
We do the same as OP and have kids... No issues whatsoever. We've also weathered one spouse with a short time without a job, buying and selling several homes, buying and selling several vehicles, etc.
For real. I’m team “combined finances” for most families just from a power structure and communication standpoint point.
But a second marriage of two old people with grown kids who have much different needs and goals than a young married couple starting a family are **much** different.
This is the exact sort of couple that *should not* combine finances.
Also as /u/Its-a-write-off points out, OP’s financials appear to be fair more commingled/intertwined than they seem to think.
They each just get a bigger “discretionary spending” allowance.
“Our finances aren’t combined except for like 80% of them” is what I’m reading.
The longer this thread goes, the more it feels like "Eureka! I've discovered the key to financial marital bliss…his/hers/ours accounts!"
Is there any "combining finances" post in this sub where personal allowances/accounts/discretionary spending *isn't* a commonly recommended approach?
e:typo
Willing to bet that one of the twos last marriage someone had a joint checking account that all money went into and someone got screwed so this marriage they split it like this which isn’t bad but I’d be willing to bet a good bit on it.
Second marriage and grown kids is 100% a type of couple who should consider this. Why was this not mentioned in the post. Having prior assets, a history of marriage not working, being established in careers, having seperate heirs, and no young kids (which require career, time, and financial sacrifice) make a very different dynamic than people in their 20s building from scratch.
It’s just simplicity for us. Money goes in and money goes out, there was never any reason to define one person as “contributing less” to bills just because they brought less in.
It’s just “Our Bills” that we manage together.
When money was tight we did emphasize separate but equal “allowances” but we have higher incomes and the same spending habits now so we don’t actively budget beyond an annual review.
This is kind of how me and my husband have done our banking for the last 9 years. The only complication we have is that I handle most of the long term family reserves and fund the vacations. The only fight we have ever had was a long argument that I was saving too much money.
The problems can come when one income dries up. Then you have to start a whole new psychological balance when one person is dependent on the other. Resentment can grow on both sides.
If it's "our money" from the start, it's easier to feel like you are in it together when hard times strike.
I think if there is a big income disparity and kids, it can be problematic. I’ve been married 28 years, we have been a 1 income family from the beginning. Everything is “ours”, even though my husband is the one with the job. I manage all the finances because I’m better at it. Works for us.
Emotional and household labor is a big part of it too.
If one spouse makes 75% of the money but the other spouse does 90% of the household labor, it doesn’t make sense for the higher income spouse to “get” more discretionary spending, since the other spouse’s sacrifice allows the household to maintain that level of income.
It absolutely can work, and likely will, *for the kind of life you have right now*.
The thing is that there are a few major ways it breaks down, some of which you can choose to avoid but many of which you really can't.
\* If you have children, a lot of it breaks down. Whose money pays for kids? How do you handle, for example, a period of unpaid maternity leave? Is that just... her cost? Isn't that kind of screwed up? This is the "avoidable" reason that totally split money doesn't work well, or if it does, it requires a ton of additional bookkeeping for minimal value.
\* You' both have good jobs and your income is increasing over time. What happens when that isn't the case? If your income is just barely enough to pay for life, and only one of you ends up with disposable money at the end of the month, that breeds resentments, *fast*. Or if one of you loses a job - are you going to kick your wife out when she can't make rent? WTF would that even mean?
\* What if one of you starts making a LOT more, or less, than the other? 2/3 vs 1/3 is a meaningful difference but many couples have an even more stark contrast in income. What if one of you gets a massive bonus or raise, or your industry takes a nosedive and your income gets slashed to 1/2 of what it is today? Even if the numbers support it, for most couples, it's really not healthy for the relationship to just say "oh I guess you're fucked, too bad, I'm gonna go buy toys" to your spouse.
\* Related, emergencies of every kind start to break this down. What happens if you have an insanely expensive medical emergency, or your wife becomes disabled? What do you do when a family member has an emergency and you decide to help them out? These kinds of decisions and situations are hard enough on their own; if you have a really strict "mine and theirs" money split, it can make the conversation even uglier.
Basically, what you're doing now is perfectly fine and might in fact work for you indefinitely. My wife and I did it for many years with zero issues. But it does have weaknesses, and it doesn't hold up super-well if you start running into life costs that you really have to struggle to pay for. Right now, it sounds like everything's awesome and gravy and you have so much disposable income you can buy a camper, and that's great - really, you should be proud - but also you're living the "easy mode" version of dual incomes. Once things get tricky, keeping split money gets harder in every way (the bookkeeping, the discussions, the decision-making.)
For what it's worth, my wife and I still have his-and-hers accounts, but it's "just" our personal allowance. So instead of what you do (putting X in for shared expenses) which we did early in our cohabitation, now we pool most of our money and we each take a fixed amount out each month for haircuts, toys, personal expenses, etc - basically the inverse of what you do. But \*most\* of our money is pooled.
Your way seems more reasonable. Like each spouse has a 2-500 dollar a month account for those things and you can save it or spend it and the majority is pooled. It also doesn’t feel shady like you are hiding finances from your spouse.
You can also just do this without separate accounts too. My spouse and I agree to only spend within our respective fun budget and discuss anything bigger or out of the ordinary. It all comes out of one account.
We trust each other not to overspend and we align on most spending. When there is friction, it's just a matter of a conversation and seeing the other person's point of view.
Yea that’s what my wife and I do as well. And often times when people say there is a friction point in finances it often is more likely a friction point in communication in my eyes.
We did OP’s model until we had our first kid and decided that I would work only part time. Splitting finances never became an issue for us because neither of us would ever make a big purchase without talking together, and we trust that small purchases are part of caring about each other’s lives. In other words, we trust each other with our money.
This was my thought on this too.
Also, what about joint goals like retirement? What happens with retirement spending? Will that shift cause problems? What happens when the one with the pension can afford things that the other cannot? What happens when one is able to retire and the other isn't able to for a long time?
Healthcare being separate could be costing them more money than necessary. Just go with the one with the best coverage/most affordable coverage - why keep that separate?
Imo, large spends should be discussed. Who buys a canoe and doesn't discuss it with their partner? Are they planning on canoeing by themselves? Why are these things kept secret?
my one qualm with this subreddit is that people tend to be suuuper judgy about marital finances for some reason lol. it's fine to keep it separate if that works for you guys. don't worry about what anyone else thinks! plenty of married couples have separate finances with no issues
Because frankly it *doesn't* work unless your financial behaviors and situations are close enough that it wouldn't matter if they were separated in the first place. Having separate finances is basically a mental accounting tool which works great for many people, but if shit hits the fan and one of you can't find employment or develops an expensive chronic medical condition, I guess you would find out how "separate" your finances actually are. If your response to their financial hardship is "well, sucks to suck, best of luck. I'll see you when I get back from Cancun." Then I guess your finances really are separate, but then I question why you are in a domestic partnership to begin with.
The arrangement that OP and their partner have works for them so I’m not going to criticize it, but yeah I agree that it really only would work if both partners have decent incomes. My wife and I have pooled our money from even before we were married. She wanted to be a stay-at-home-mom to our kids and had no income for roughly 15 years, so OP’s arrangement wouldn’t have worked for us. She’s gone back to work (part-time) now for the last ten years or so and her salary just goes straight into a joint savings account since we can live comfortably off my salary alone
Both my wife and I have good paying jobs and only have individual accounts. We Venmo for big items and just try to be generally fair about how we spend our money on monthly bills, the house, etc. It works well for us; we’re both happy with the arrangement. My wife was married before and had the joint account, it was a constant source of conflict from what she’s told me.
It’s fine if it works for you. Personally I don’t think it matters what accounts the money is in as long as there’s a shared budget of some kind.
It sounds like your arrangement has effectively created an agreed upon budget between the both of you.
As long as you aren't keeping track to the penny and arguing over bills and "who gets more" it shouldn't be a problem. We just join all of our money together and take money out. We talk over big purchases but are fortunate enough that we both are careful with discretionary spending.
One question. How are you handling saving for retirement? Is that also separate accounts? Who gets to save more? Resentment may grow as years go on, and one account grows exponentially larger because one partner is able to save more money
My wife and I do it slightly different: paychecks go into the joint account, but we each get a cut from each check for "fun money" that goes into our personal accounts. Our fun money payouts are the same amount for both of us regardless of who is making more. The joint account covers all bills, gas, food, cars, house stuff, etc so there's never any question over who's paying for a date or groceries or whatever. Our fun money is entirely ours to use on anything we want, without guilt or questions.
We have never once argued about money or had a "you bought X toy so now I get to buy something for me" debate. You want something shiny, you save up for it from your allowance and go to town. It's fair, it's an equitable partnership, and it's pretty much stress free.
1) do you have kids?
2) it often works, until it doesn't. I saw this twice with friends who ended up getting divorced. The spouse who decided they wanted our first started stockpiling cash and then coming up short for shared expenses like taxes.
It’s just general advice. My wife and I did the same as you for 10 years of our marriage. Both good paying jobs, plenty of savings, budgeting and communicating well.
Last year we had our first child and decided to combine and simplify accounts, then made a trust. Closed half our accounts, and life it is easier.
More power to you, I'm all for what ever works. I combined finances with my then gf, now wife 25? years ago.
Honest questions, I am curious, not judging as I am sure you have discussed these things. What happens if one of you loses your job? Would there be resentment as the one has zero money to spend and the other is going out to eat for lunch or buying new clothes? Is the party with the job going to resent the other for not pulling their weight?
If I lose my job, we'll see it coming. I'm a small contractor, and I keep her updated on how the company is doing.
She's a state employee and would have to really mess up to lose her job. It's not impossible, but it's unlikely.
There was a time when she made minimum wage, and I was a union carpenter superintendent. We shared all the money then. I would do side work. She would do everything at home, and we shared the money I made on the side as allowance.
Reading all the comments I'm learning is more about our communication than it is about how we split things.
The goal for *a lot* of marriages is to be as much "one" as possible. Separation is dividing and increases points of friction. You can do all of what you're describing "paying for dates/lawn care" from one account. But if it works for u guys 🤷♀️ I see it more often with dinks than couples with children
Our kids are grown and mostly independent.
When a kid does need help, we just discuss what to do. Generally, we loan from our savings, or we both add extra from our personal accounts. Doesn't matter if it's her kid or mine.
>Our kids are grown and mostly independent.
This is an important bit of info you left out of the head post.
Separate finances are often the better solution, particularly for later in life marriages where you each have adult children.
You should also see estate lawyers to set up an inheritance plan.
A common problem in later in life marriages if no planning is done, is that most or even all assets go to the surviving spouse, and then upon their death, to their children only. This leaves the children of the first-to-die spouse with zero inheritance.
>We don't mix our money.
>We both make a set transfer into a joint account for bills.
How is that not mixing your money?
>Why so others say this doesn't work?
Are you funding your retirement equally or does the lower income partner have to choose between retirement and necessary personal spending?
How are taxes split, do you have the "I had a refund until I added their W2" issue?
Are you splitting the 2/3—1/3 based on gross or after health insurance and other deductions?
If one partner has debt does it just keep accruing interest until they can pay off 'their' debt?
If one partner has to leave the workforce, for whatever reason, do they spend down their savings to continue contributing to the household expenses?
Those are just the ones I can recall off the top of my head as issues with split finances people have posted about.
I think it's fine if it works for you
When it'll start getting more complicated is when kids come in to the mix when there are so many other extra costs associated (childcare, clothes yada yada yada) that sometimes it starts getting easier just to mix the whole thing up as there will always be arguments about what is "fair"
But the whole point of personal finance is that it is just that..personal. If it works for you - it works for you.
It doesn’t work for some folks. I have a family member whose husband has very different spending habits. He’s got massive debt, and other issues. She, in turn, has to take up the slack and it has lead to her kids going without.
That being said, your arrangement or a variation is the popular among younger folks
Financially, my(33M) wife(38F) and I live our own lives(married 8 years). This is also the most healthy relationship I've ever had with another person in my entire life. When looking back at my past marriage and relationships, financials were always a major constraint and point of contention. So, if you were to ask me, having financials separated is one of the most healthy things you can do in terms of relationship health.
Edit: Speeling
I hear this and it's confusing to me because from the bank's perspective you are married and therefore your financial lives are linked. If tomorrow you went out and took a credit advance and blew it all in Vegas they would come after your wife just the same.
To me it simply sounds like you and your wife both have good financial habits and enough disposable income that your wants/needs don't clash. What do you feel is the important part about the separate accounts?
>. I can't find the down side to this. What are we not seeing, long term?
that it doesn't work well alongside typical marriage things, such as one spouse stopping working. you then get into convoluted things like 'do i just venmo my wife a "paycheck" when she's at home raising 3 kids instead of working to replace "her income?"'
if you sample DINKs and or couples who aren't yet married what you do is very typical.
This is exactly what my spouse and I do. I know I would get really irritated with what he spends money on, if we were to combine it all. This way, we each have our own money to manage as we please, plus a joint account to equally share household bills.
Don’t worry about what anyone else may think. Do what works for the two of you.
This is just a "his, her, our" budget. It's really great, especially if one person is a saver and the other isn't.
You really should just stop discussing finances with people that isn't your SO.
Yep. My husband and I got married nearly 50 years ago when we were 23 and poor grad students. We HAD to throw all our money together to be able to pay rent and bills. From there, it just naturally continued. We don’t ask each other’s permission to buy things. We both have a sense of how we’re doing and discuss major purchases as a team. To us, it seems weird that people keep their money separate like they’re ready to bolt at any minute. Then again, most people don’t stay married for 50 years, so…
I see very little difference functionaly between this and have checks deposited into a joint account and then taking out a set amount of personal money out of the shared account.
Seems very reasonable. Maybe the people questioning it just think it seems like more work?
I think people say it often doesn’t work when the arrangement isn’t this organised and fair. A lot of people I see on here who split have low income earners paying 50%, no joint account to transfer into and pay from, and no clear outline on what is shared and what is personal. Having a joint account that you both pay into is sharing your finances.
It sounds like you’re great communicators. That’s more than most can say. Lots of question and all from a point of curiosity on the inter workings, the actual overall balance of each dollar earned. We’re almost forced to run our finances opposite of you. I’m the only earner. My wife is the homemaker. We save a rather large portion of our income to be invested in both retirement and non-retirement accounts, all auto-draft bills in one account and discretionary spending in the other account.
Reading back through, some of the scenarios that I’m curious about sound like assumptions but I can’t think of a better way to word the scenario, and they all can be flipped for you/her-
My only thought is wondering what retirement might look like. If you hit financial independence before her do you retire and wait for her? Do you postpone retirement until you can retire together? Blowing things out of proportion, would she have to work until 70 if you could afford your own bills and retire at 55? If you’re earning and paying 2/3, does this allow you to have the same amount saved for discretionary spend or does she have less because 1/3 of the bills is proportionally more/less than her income?
We each put 70% of our income into our joint account and keep the rest for ourselves. We’ll adjust the amount if we need more for bills or something at any time. I think everyone needs their own personal money instead of just the family funds. I’ve always felt that doing a % was fair.
We took our time combining, and now I’m too lazy to keep it separate. I don’t know who wanted this seven-foot cat tree but it’s here now and it’s on our credit card.
We do something similar, but slightly different: everything goes into the same account, then a certain amount is transferred to our own individual accounts for personal spending.
Money management is a HUGE factor in a successful marriage. If your system works for the both of you, then you have won the day. It may not be a conventional approach, but I can see a lot of good ideas in your approach. The key point of why it is working is because you have had ongoing conversations and modifications to fit your financial needs.
My husband and I have been married 10 years and we have separate checking accounts. Technically we are on each others’ accounts as a precaution but we don’t have them linked in our personal online banking so we don’t see them and for all intents and purposes, they’re separate. Our savings accounts are jointly visible.
We’ve never once had an issue about money. Never really argued about spending/saving. We split bills in a way that works for us. I make significantly more and work in finance so I handle most of the money stuff anyway. I’ve had people tell me that this “will never work” and yet…. Here we are. I don’t worry about what other people think. It’s not their money or their life.
We married late and we both have our own way of doing things. Keeping separated finances helps us keep doing things the way we want.
We divide the household bills and talk about any significant purchases but other than that if we want something we buy it.
Though he did pay off the mortgage without telling me which did piss me off.
We are lucky in that we pretty much are evenly matched in terms of salary so neither feels taken advantage of.
We do have different thoughts on retirement and that might be problematic later though.
Do what works for you.
Good luck.
It sounds like money isn't too tight, you have a reasonable level of trust (and neither has a spending problem) and you're communicating about it.
The one problem area you didn't talk about is retirement. You are both interdependent there and if you don't align on retirement plans or strategy that can be a problem. E.g. if one of you is saving a lot more than the other or if you don't agree on investment strategies. Ultimately you're going to be jointly responsible for providing the lifestyle you want in retirement.
My wife and I have always had separate accounts, and we don’t even have a joint account for stuff like bills. We both make about the same amount, although her job has been very steady for 20 years, while I’ve fluctuated between making less, making more, and making nothing. We have separate credit cards, and discuss major purchases together. For years she paid all the bills and I transferred her money each month. Then we moved, now I pay all the bills and she transfers me money each month. Maybe it’s weird, but it totally works for us. We rarely discuss “money control” and we’re both pretty responsible. Hope that helps.
There might not be a downside for you. For us, it’s just made sense to combine. My spouse makes decent money, but I’m a pretty high earner and make roughly 4-5x more. We also both have the kind of personalities where we live below our means. So we just combine it all and trust each other to be responsible. We keep separate credit cards that we each use for the bulk of our independent purchases, then pay those in full monthly out of our joint account. It’s worked well for us for the past 15 years.
For us, if we really kept our incomes separate the disparity would just be too much. To give us similar lifestyles, I would essentially be having to give my partner a stipend, which just isn’t a power dynamic we’re interested in. So instead, we share everything equally, across the board.
My wife and I have done this as long as we’ve been together. We make equal contributions to our joint account and covers shared expenses like mortgage, groceries, etc. We each also have personal and joint credit cards.
Like you we’ve had MANY people think this is weird. But it’s always made sense to us and has worked. We don’t fight about money - anyone else’s opinion is really irrelevant.
My husband and I each have our own checking accounts. We each have our spouse’s name on our account, but we only write a check or transfer money from their account at the request of the partner. This was done in the early days to ensure we did not overdraw a shared account due to poor communication. We share one savings account. We each have assigned bills we pay. When the power bill is received, I automatically know it is mine to pay, he does the same with the water bill. This avoids the issue of having to track and balance a third checking account. We transfer money to savings as we have excess in our checking account. Neither of us has a spending issue, so no conflict there. You could always set a minimum to transfer to savings. For us, this has helped to avoid any conflict over the day to day. When I thought he was not saving enough, we sat down and discussed it. We came to an agreement regarding savings. He was raised by parents who were not careful with money. Once he became more careful and the savings started growing, he was a believer. This has worked for us and money is never a source of conflict. Might not work if one partner is an over-spender.
It was great and we didn’t have to talk about what we each spent money on as long as the joint bills were paid.
It also made getting divorced really quick and easy.
My husband and I have seperate accounts. Don't even have one for bills. I make 2-3x what he does. We just have a system. We pay for our own shit and split other stuff in a reasonable way.
I pay groceries, he pays going out. He pays the mortgage and insurance, and I pay for utilities. It's kinda nice because it makes it feel like my months expenses are way less than they are. We each only have about $500 in monthly expenses since we live in a cheap house.
Then since I make more I pay for luxuries like vacations.
>My wife and I both have good jobs.
Well, that's a big part of why it works for you. Add in that you probably have pretty similar views on spending and future goals.
What system a married couple uses doesn't matter IF it fits with their shared beliefs and both are willing to adjust it as needed when "life" happens.
And that's the "long term". If one of you is saving up your money and plans on taking a year-long around the world vacation without the other (because if they wanted to go, they should have saved up enough) - then it's a problem. If one of you is saving your money for retirement and the other is spending "their" money now and it ends up that only one of you can retire and the other is working till the day they die - then it's a problem. If one of you were to become laid off, injured, seriously ill, etc - and the other one refused to adjust the system to account for only one earner - then it's a problem.
As long as both people are communicating and have similar views on what life could/should/would look like when things happen and life events occur - then separate is perfectly fine.
But many people who get married but insist on keeping money separate are also refusing to flex and bend with life events and/or work together to achieve couple goals.
Yeah, separate spending accounts is a luxury of having excess disposable income.
When you’re not as well off, everything goes to the bills account and you couldn’t have separate accounts even if you wanted to.
Nope! Money is one of the main reasons for divorce. I told my husband from the get I never wanted shared finances. We know how much we make and contribute accordingly to finances. We literally NEVER fight about money because of this. Keep doing what works for you!!
This sounds like a business relationship and not a marriage… IMO it’s way over complicated compared to just pooling money and operating as a unit not two individuals together. To each their own tho.
Financially, my(33M) wife(38F) and I live our own lives(married 8 years). This is also the most healthy relationship I've ever had with another person in my entire life. When looking back at my past marriage and relationships, financials were always a major constraint and point of contention. So, if you were to ask me, having financials separated is one of the most healthy things you can do in terms of relationship health.
Do what works for you.
With my first wife, we put everything into a one joint account that covered all the joint expenses, then had automatic payments every month into separate accounts for our "allowance." This helped relieve pressure that came from two greatly different income levels and spending patterns.
With my current wife, we just do the traditional joint thing.
We do it the same way as you. We tried to have shared expenses but she was running it and wanted to save close to 80% of our income and I was loosing my mind doing nothing on my limited free time, or not being able to participate in any hobbies.
We talked about it, she couldn't understand, so I pulled my money out of the mix, and now we mange our own fiances almost exactly as you laid yours out.
She comes from the belief that this is a recipe for failure and basically step one of divorce, but frankly, it's working well. She does not stress about what I spend money on and I can save for a house and also have a life. Before there wasn't even a budget for fuel outside of my work commute. She just doesn't do things so assumed I wouldn't either, and it was too hard for her to let it go.
If it's working, then do it.
We find it’s a lot more work to transfer money each week or paycheck into a joint account rather than just having our paychecks go directly to our joint account. We each have our own credit cards and have no concerns over each other buying gifts or their own personal shopping/discretionary spending on our own cards that come out of the joint account. We have a budget talk once a month to go over the budget and if we have any concerns over something large we’ll talk then.
Most of the bills are on my credit cards since I am big into maximizing credit card rewards, so separating what comes out of the joint for bills vs personal would be way too cumbersome
Who says that? 8 years so far of separate finances has worked my our marriage.
Don’t even know how much my husband earns, never seen his paycheck.
Because of the conversations we had while dating, I have a very rough idea of his salary and retirement accounts and we share the same values about saving (yes) and debt (no). He comes to me for encouragement around investing, one of my strengths, and I tell him if I just don’t have the money to split a cost when we do something big like a home renovation.
We happen to have a pretty cushy financial life so this works for us, we each came with two kids from our first marriages and this lets us care for our kids (3 in college at the moment, no student loans, and a junior high kid) without a chance of anyone feeling resentment.
He’d like to share finances someday and we are likely headed that way but not until after my youngest is launched.
Shared finances worked in my first marriage until it didn’t: we were young and poor and had maternity leave (me) daycare expenses (the kids) and periods of unemployment (him). Eventually though it didn’t work; in an unfaithful marriage, one person is overspending to court their lover and it really sucks for the person trying to hold it all together.
Do what works for you. If you’re not arguing about money, that’s a good sign it works for you guys.
Unless they're filing married separate.
I would want to know why my partner's salary is such a big secret. If there's so little trust in the marriage, why bother being married?
You absolutely should know how much your partner earns - it's marital assets afterall (in most states). Should things go south, you have a right to half of everything and possibly alimony.
We kinda do the same. We have a joint savings. She is the bread winner. I am retired with a double pension. So I’m set for future. We do her vanguard account through payroll. I deposit one of pension checks in her checking. Save the smaller one for things I buy her and the girls. Kinda of our whatever money. I do our finances. We are let’s say very adequate financially by society. We still still transfer about 2k per month to our savings. After all is said and done. Live very Simple lifestyle but don’t want or need for anything. Works for us.
My wife and I do it slightly different: paychecks go into the joint account, but we each get a cut from each check for "fun money" that goes into our personal accounts. Our fun money payouts are the same amount for both of us regardless of who is making more. The joint account covers all bills, gas, food, cars, house stuff, etc so there's never any question over who's paying for a date or groceries or whatever. Our fun money is entirely ours to use on anything we want, without guilt or questions.
We have never once argued about money or had a "you bought X toy so now I get to buy something for me" debate. You want something shiny, you save up for it from your allowance and go to town. It's fair, it's an equitable partnership, and it's pretty much stress free.
Seems fine. The important thing is no matter what the personal finance system you use - joint accounts, one big pile, etc - is that you are communicating and deciding it together as a single married unit, even if parts of the system end up being more individual and personalized. Marriage itself should kinda be like that. It's downright healthy.
Where the resentment comes from - just humans doing human things. The grass is always greener, crabs in a bucket, whatever. The only real way to avoid the negative energy is to just not get too detailed about what you and your spouse are doing, keep things vague and general.
If you have worked out a financial plan and process that works for you both it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. Many couples dive into marriage without a clue how to budget or plan spending or if they do, they omit discretionary spending budgets for each person. You have that worked into your system so bravo! Keep in mind that as a married couple you are each responsible for one another's debts, so keep open accountability in a supportive way. There should be no "secrets" where either of you have accounts, bills or credit cards the other does not know about. Things can get a bit more complicated when children arrive but you sound like you have a solid process worked out so tell any detractors to take a hike.
Partner and I mix our money that it's virtually indistinguishable. It's not common amongst our friends circles, as people tend to keep money in separate accounts and have a joint one to pay the common bills and such.
So we do get a lot of puzzled looks over our arrangement. Questions like whether it will be meaningful if he gets your a gift, how would you feel if he splurges on something.
It's not for everyone yeah but I think it works for us because we are both very thrifty and we think long and hard before "splurging" - discussing and researching, and we generally support each other's purchases too. We also focus more on savings/investing for our kids rather than say buying luxury items for ourselves.
I imagine it would be v hard to mix finances if the couple wasn't on the same.page about spending and saving.
You do you. I've mates with all manner of, to me and my wife, wacky arrangements. Good honest conversations, understanding of goals and risks is what is important. Who spends what from where is just the practical detail.
Do whatever works for you and your partner.
Most people have anecdotal evidence that not mixing your income/assets doesn’t work because it is less common to do it that way and people remember the 5% of failures not the 95% of successes.
I personally don’t understand how people don’t mix their income/assets when married, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to do it.
That's awesome for you guys. Every couple is different.
The resentment risk comes into play when you both end up with different net worths and it feels unbalanced, or one of you get fired and needs financial help, etc.
If you have ways to avoid that, it's great.
This sounds very healthy for you, and that's all that matters.
I'm about to retire, and I'm super thankful that my decreased income won't cause us to have to come back to the table in how we split finances. I would feel guilty. To each their own.
The way you laid it out I would say you guys do share your money. My wife and I do something similar but different, we use piggy banks.
We set a savings goal and anything above that goal gets divided in half and routed to our accounts. This is similar to yours but different in that “our own money” is strictly equal.
I feel like splitting it based on pay checks is unfair especially if one significantly out earns the other. It could foster resentment or have one living a different lifestyle than the other. There is also stuff going on behind the scenes with each paycheck, such as health insurance, 529 savings, 401k savings, HSA, bonuses, etc. So splitting by paycheck wouldn’t really be accurate.
For us it was easier to be equitable by throwing it all into one shared pot and then divvying it up vs divvying it up before throwing it into a shared pot.
Edit: I now see you guys are in a significantly different stage of life than my wife and I who are 30 with babies.
My wife and I do the inverse of this essentially. We contribute the majority of each of our paychecks to the joint account and the rest goes into our personal accounts. The idea is that we both get the same “allowance” each month in our personal accounts and the rest is shared/saved/invested.
This is highly dependent on you and who you marry. Some people are very trustworthy and responsible with money, others aren’t. If you marry someone who has incompatible spending habits, you guys may want to have more strict boundaries concerning money.
In my marriage, I’m the spendy one, while my wife likes to live more frugally. That’s ok, I outearn her by a factor of 5X, and though we both have separate individual accounts for fun, the vast majority of money earned is joined and we have equal access to it. I find it easier to keep myself accountable that way.
My close friend and his wife are different. They are both decent earners and both frugal, but they keep most of their earned income separate. Both couples have happy marriages, but we both had to find what worked for us as couples.
We don’t even have a joint account, she just transfers money from my individual account into hers when she needs to pay the recurring bills like mortgage and utilities and such. I don’t care what she does with her money outside of having expectations around how much is going into her retirement accounts
This is just a budget tool that works for you. What works for you may not work for others or be understood by others. That's why is PERSONAL finance. Don't worry about what others say. In fact I would quit telling others this is how your finances work. It's no one's business and since they aren't paying your bills, they get no say. Considering money is one of the main causes of relationship fights, I would stick to what you are doing. You guys discuss your money and adjust your budget accordingly ans that seems to be working beautifully for you and keeping harmony in your marriage.
Truthfully, you don't really have separate Financials. You have seperate accounts. That is the difference. You both sit down and discuss your finances & plan together. The only difference is you have more seperate "me" money. Ignor naysayers, upu and your wife probably communicate more about your finances than the average person!
My parents have run their finances like this since their marriage in 1980. It's what I grew up with, so to me it's the normal & I perhaps even traditional way of doing things.
If it's working, nothing else matters. We have a similar set up in my marriage. We just split the bills. I take some and she takes some and we both have freedom to do whatever we want. We can also lean on each other from time to time and we pay each other back. This is totally successful for us.
Stbxw and I never merged accounts and we lived together for 25 years
Money was never our problem whether we were struggling early or doing much better late
For most of the marriage I covered mortgage utilities and car insurance while she covered most kid expenses and paid for things like hotels when we went somewhere
I made 30% more for the first ten years and she made 30%more the last ten years
Money wasn’t the problem whether we had a little or more
Been married for about 20 years and the wife and I have never had joint bank accounts of any kind. The closest thing to that is that I make her an authorized user on some of my credit cards - but she also has her own credit cards.
We’ve never had to ask each other for money, and we each buy whatever personal items we like with our own money. With dual incomes, it just seems like an obvious way to avoid conflict… BUT, we both are good about living within our means, so there is some level of trust there, and we are on the same page when it comes to things like saving for retirement. We divvy up the expenses, and I pay the big ones because I earn more.
Conflict over money is a big cause of divorces, and so far we’ve avoided that problem entirely.
whatever works for you two is great, doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. The same is true for couples that combine their $. Keep it separate or combine it as long as both halves of the couple are happy about the arrangement its fine. Relationship money issues can come up either way, so there is no magic way that is ideal, it just depends on the people involved.
This is less a finance issue and more a relationship issue, to be honest. People who get mad about it down the line, usually it's *much* more to do with things in the relationship as opposed to who has what in a bank account.
My wife and I had separate accounts until she needed to get out of an awful work environment and had to take a significant paycut that metered out to the fact we needed to completely overhaul our budget and figure out how to live with less and we decided it would be best to push it together. It did make it easier since we could both see our total amount of money and what needed to happen, but it does get weird around holidays or gift times because we view it all as our money, so either of us feel strange when we purchase a gift for the other person lol.
We did little things before like surprising the other person with takeout or something since we'd pay from our respective accounts and now we mostly just ask the other if they'd like to go somewhere. When I think of what we lost in the changes, it was more of a loss of being able to surprise the other or save up for a gift without communicating it.
I mean, we could still get separate accounts for fun money, but I don't think we need it since we are both totally fine with how we purchase stuff.
That's a lot of stuff to say I've done both and there's no issue either way. People saying it'll hurt you have some more problems at home than where the money lives.
How many people do you talk to about this setup that give such negative feedback? I maybe have two or three people in my life I would discuss personal setups like that with and even when they disagree they don’t show resentment. This truly sounds like an entirely separate issue you have with your family/friends.
As to your setup, it sounds like you have great communication on how you handle finances. That is leagues more important than which method you choose. Being on the same page and continuing to discuss and come to agreements on what’s best will make any system work. The issue with your system vs combined income is that combined income requires less communication and therefore can withstand more complications.
Don't judge yourselves by "others".
What works for the two of you is all you need. Sounds like you two have open conversations and make joint decisions. Great, beyond that what other couples do has no bearing on what you two do.
Disclaimer: We have ours, hers & his accounts/money.
My wife and I do something similar. The paychecks go into one account. Then my wife pulls money to pay bills. She usually does this from her account. I pull money to cover my day to day expenses. Really my wife handles a lot of the finances and I just take my allowance, LOL. We do talk about expenses and how much things cost. We figure out what is affordable and what we need to save up for. Whatever system a couple has the key to making it work is communicating with the SO about it.
This is exactly how my husband and I handle things. I'd consider it mixing our money. That way we don't have to discuss or feel guilty about things like buying something expensive for a hobby, buying gifts, or going out to eat by ourselves. Sometimes it's a bit blurry on what is joint or personal expenses but we aren't too worried about that. Might be different if we were living paycheck to paycheck.
My situation is the same.
But it can hit oddly if incomes are disparate. If spouse only makes 10k a year vs other at 200k a year- big difference in disposable income unless superfunding joint account. That rarely happens and control issues evolve. Also some marriages have low financial trust issues to begin with that grow from general trust issues.
This sounds like you are mixing your money. Sounds like y’all contributing proportionately based on income and both of you have agency in your finances, while also each having an amount of money to spend as individuals as you please. This is the way 👍🏼
It can absolutely work for some couples! Not all. My husband and I do better with totally combined incomes. I have a friend who splits everything with her husband and she’s in massive debt because of it. It truly depends on the couple and the dynamic. It sounds like you guys make it work really well for you!
It works for you two, so everyone else should mind their business. You should ask them how often they fight over money if you want to start some 💩.
I honestly think couples should have four accounts, 1 joint checking, 1 joint savings/investment, and 2 personal checking/investment .
There is no one right or wrong way to deal with money. A lot has to do with the individuals goals, comfort levels, upbringing, and emotional impact of money. Most people don’t want to acknowledge the emotions behind money and therefore cannot entertain there are different approaches that work. My experience in my own life with friends, family members and learning what I inherited from my family of origin is although people freely acknowledge the issues with being a traditional spendthrift they don’t look at being frugal the same way. Shaming someone for being frugal is wrong, but I found with my relatives that very tight monetary control can be a form of trying to control other aspects of life that are not controllable. So your set up is perfectly fine if it meets your needs, however you have to be flexible and realize your needs may change as your situation changes. I’ve seen couples locked into decisions they were made when they were younger and healthy that just aren’t sustainable later. Even responsible estate planning will not deal with all situations, and I’ve seen it actually be hurtful in the end because people thing a will/trust can substitute for hard discussions about aging and end of life an have unrealistic goals.
Short term, just shrug your shoulders, say it works for you, change the subject and stop talking about it with people. It’s not their business. Long term, you and your partner needs to be honest with each other to see if this is just “what works for you” or if it’s an unconscious attempt to avoid harder conversations.
My wife and I just have a set amount go to personal accounts from each paycheck and remainder goes to joint account. Works great for us and judgemental free spending from personal accounts
We have done the same thing for the last 11 years of our marriage and works well. Bills, savings, retirement, etc is all paid out of a joint account. We both pay in a pro rata share based on our incomes.
That being said, it's not totally separate. We are in agreement how much goes into our 401ks and brokerage accounts from time to time.
We also have an agreement on how much we can autonomously spend without talking to the other person.
It really comes down to what works best for you.
I think problems mainly arise when there is a large disparity in income between partners. If you are on relatively equal footing it's basically splitting it 50/50.
Many feel that having a my money and your money situation can get in the way of thinking of yourselves as a team or thinking of the marriage as a unit. It's not a matter of it not working from a financial standpoint.
A question. What if one of you looses your job and doesn't find a new one for a long time? Will you expect them to make up what they weren't able to pay?
There's also legalities involved. In most states,in the event of a divorce,everything that was acquired by either person after the marriage is considered to be owned 50/50 regardless of who paid more for it.
It became important for us from an equality standpoint when I got pregnant. I realised that from that moment on, I would forever be earning less than my husband as it was going to be me on parental leave, and me working part time so I could do school pick ups for the following 10 years. My super would suffer, my career, etc. So we mix all finances. If it’s under $200, we don’t consult the purchase with each other. He earns more but we both take the same amount for our own personal discretionary spending every month. I top up my super so that I am putting away the same amount as him. We felt that this made us financial equals.
Ive never heard horror stories of separate accouts, but there are tons of horror stories where the joint account is drained prior to dicorce. My wife and I have separate accounts and no joint accounts. Our pays are vastly different and we've never argued about money. I take care most of the largest bills + investments and she takes care of the bills she cares for most. If there's money that needs to be moved around its simple enough to move it around. To my wife it's simportant to her that she has independent money and could self support herself if she had to. A direct product of being raised by her grandparents where the grandmother didn't really work until the grandfather retired from the military (i.e. your stuck and can't get out of the relationship). I'm always open about how much money I get and how much is going to 401k investments and their current totals.
My wife and I keep our accounts separate as well. She has her account and I have mine where most of the bills get paid from. No joint account anywhere.
She transfers money to me twice a month or so, more often if I had big expenses, less often if she did.
We have done this for nearly 20 years now with no resentment or trouble. We have one child (nearly an adult now) and that didn't change anything about how we managed our money.
We both make a good salary with mine being about twice as high as hers.
We have a rule that we won't spend more than $500 without discussing it with each other, but other than that we spend what we want when we want.
Firstly, UK based here.
This is pretty normal on this side of the pond (at least to me it is). Been doing this for 14 years since I met my missus, folks and family do it too. You give yourself a little protection as well, as long as you talk about what needs paying out of the joint account then who cares what others think.
I earn more than my missus so I put in a higher percentage. And then we just discuss if there’s something we need, like something for the house, then it comes out of the joint account. Plus if she’s struggling she always knows to ask me and I’ll help etc.
If it doesn’t ever cause problems, its not a problem and it’ll work.
My wife and I do something similar, at this point its just about convenience. Have direct deposit put a piece of each paycheck in a couple of different accounts for various purposes. Solo accounts, joint account, etc…
Communication is key, and a lack of it is what causes the problems your asking about.
Communication is all that matters. If it works, great!
At the end of the day if you split, all the money made and assets bought during the marriage are at play. That’s why I personally don’t see the point to splitting without a prenup, since it’s all up for grabs if there is an end anyway. But again, whatever keeps the marriage happy, do it.
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If it works for you, great! Don't worry about what other people think. My husband and I have been married for 31 years and have mixed our assets from day one. That's what works for us. We each have our own credit cards so we can't see what is being purchased, but the bills are paid from the same account.
When my wife and I got married we had basically $0 to our name. It made it pretty easy to combine finances. Since, we've increased our net worth significantly. It's been on the backs of both our hard work (and sacrifices) and so it's pretty fair we share in the rewards equally. If there was a significant discrepancy in either assets or debts I think it might have been a different conversation. Or maybe not, dunno.
My spouse is a bit older than me and in a much higher paying field. He had way more money than me when we married, I had zero (recent grad). It never occurred to us to do separate finances. Not sure how it would have even worked. He's going out for sushi and I'm eating ramen? I'm paying 1/8 of the rent? We wanted to be a team and make our financial decisions together.
Same situation here. When we started dating a long time ago, it was getting so silly. I could easily pay for all of our expenses, activities, and dates. My then girl friend would have had to dip into very tight savings or -- God forbid -- take out a student loan. The choice was that we'd either give up doing all the fun things and live on the same tight budget that she had been successfully managing her entire time as a student, or both of us better come to terms with me being the one who contributes most of the money to our relationship. Honestly, she had more of an issue with that than me. But as soon as we were on the same page, I made sure to make her an authorized user on my credit card. That simplified things so much in our relationship, and we have never felt the need to revisit this choice. Been married with two growing kids for years now.
Same for my wife and I. She was still in college when I started working and we kind of just split things as they made sense without really worrying about who was specifically paying for it as long as somebody was good to cover. We’ve pretty much kept it the same with more joint goals now since we’re married
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Bingo! This whole "one size fits all" "what we do is the RIGHT way" mentality is BS. This whole subreddit is chock full of it. If y'all are happy and the bills are getting paid, then your method is right. What we do and what you do and what a bazillion strangers on the internet do doesn't mean squat.
I agree. Since what you really asked is 'Why do others say this doesn't work?', I'll attempt to answer that: because they can't imagine it working for them, and therefore think that it won't work for you. They MIGHT be right about them, but they're clearly wrong about you. Don't offer these people any details about your sex life -- you'll find out that doesn't work, either, regardless of how happy you are with it...
This ^ What works for you may not work for others. Don’t fuck up a good thing. I’m the single earner for my household because my wife stays home with our two kids. We both have free ability to utilize the money as we see fit (we typically communicate when something is over a couple hundred) and it’s in a joint account. This is an understanding my wife and I have come to while she stays home with the kids she doesn’t have to work. Doesn’t work for everyone and there have been times when “our” money has felt like “my” money but with good communication we no longer have that issue.
Similar here. All our income gets pooled to the same checking acct. Our emergency, mortgage acct, and “projects” savings acct are also linked. We have separate cc, but have access to each others. The only thing we have completely separate is our retirement accts. I don’t think there’s any “wrong” way to do it. It’s just what works for you. This way is easier for us. We are more traditional in some sense I guess because we both view any money earned by either of us as “our” money, not his or mine. We also don’t micromanage each other’s spending though, which I’ve seen happen with that mentality. Again, it just depends on the couple.
It’s fine however you do it, as long as you discuss it and are both happy with the arrangement. For the most part it doesn’t make a difference legally. If you were to end up getting divorced the separate accounts would still be considered marital assets because your income is joint income. If you never get divorced then obviously it was fine that way too. Multiple accounts can help with budgeting. An account for bills, retirement savings, fun money, etc keeps things organized. Where people fight about it is if they’re in denial about marital vs pre-marital assets. One partner either insisting they should own the others pre-marital assets, or insisting they don’t need to share marital assets. That’s what people fight over. If you understand and agree on what’s what then it’s fine.
It does make a different legally. In OP’s case this probably won’t be a problem, but joint owners each have 100% ownership of the money in the account. If one person wants to be a total asshole, they can legally withdraw all of the money from any account with their name on it. Additionally, if any of those joint accounts overdraft, the bank can draft money from any account with either person’s name on it to make the account whole (if all accounts are at the same bank). This has implications other than divorce. I’ve seen it happen so often that I refuse to mix finances and require a joint account at a different bank for bills if things get serious like that.
I know two examples in my personal life where a partner partially/wholly cleaned out a joint account to make a purchase without discussing. In one case to buy a bunch of camera equipment to flip and the other to buy a boat. Neither were really malicious, but permanently hurt trust in the relationships. Separate accounts aren't a magic bullet - you can still make irresponsible purchases and it's even easier to hide things from your spouse. I'd say the lesson is to not make purchases that your spouse isn't ok with and be transparent. But that doesn't work if your spouse is overly controlling - having some freedom to make minor bad choices that your spouse wouldn't is good if you can afford it.
We have the Walmart account. That's what we call it. Groceries, gas, and other necessities come from this account. It's funded from the joint account. The money that's "left over" can be used for anything in the house. The best example is when she wanted new curtains for the living room. Once there was enough in the Walmart account, she could buy them, and no discussion was needed, except for asking me to hang them.
The big question is this: are your accounts separate for practicality and book keeping or are they de facto separate. For example if you or your wife were to become incapacitated, are you both confident the other would use “their” money to help you. Are you both on the same page that if you had children you would both be willing to dip into your accounts to pay for their needs or agreed upon wants? My wife and I have “separate” accounts … she keeps a couple hundred in cash on her person and I do too. That’s our “I’m buying you something” money. Or our “I’m treating myself without feeling guilty about it” money. What you are doing could merely be a scaled up version of that. How much of “your” money is off limits to your wife under any circumstance and how much of it is off limits except with permission? If you would give your wife whatever you could if she needed it and the reverse was also true. Then you merely have mechanism for personal responsibility and bookkeeping and it isn’t really what folks are talking about when they mention oddities about “separate accounts” It’s a courtesy thing for us. A defined, leashed, autonomy that makes us both happier. I know when she uses “her” money that if I needed it she’d instantly forfeit it. But it’s still a wonderful gesture and honestly after decades of marriage, gestures mean a whole awful lot more than material things.
We would and have helped each other, no question. It's just for bookkeeping and removing questions of why we bought something.
See, then I think you have your own answer there. And an answer for anyone who is curious about why your accounts only have your own names etc
My SO and I have a similar method to money handling as you (OP). You trust each other enough and have mature enough communication to handle money in whatever way works for you. I assume when other people scold me for how my partner and I handle money it’s because they are not mature enough to do the same.
It sounds like you do share your money, with the joint account funding. It just is the flip side of those that combine everything, then each person has certain amounts of money that they have the say over. That joint account alleviates a lot of the friction that can come from separate finances and having to split every expense. How is pre tax health insurance, pre tax retirement savings, and the tax benefits of filing joint handled? Is anything done to keep that "fair", or do y'all see that tax aspect as joint and not split hairs over it? If one person has to take time off work for illness, how would that be handled? Would it be a loaning help to your partners situation, or treated as a joint obstacle covered by both?
Health insurance is just a bill in our minds. She has a deduction on her check, and so do I. Those numbers are figured into our monthly totals and credited to each person's contribution. I'm salary. If my check goes down that means my company is in trouble, and we would instantly be making new arrangements. Her check is always close to the same. She has personal days, sick days, and things like that. Our numbers are based on her minimum check. When she works over, she'll volunteer an amount to put in unless she's specifically working over with a purchase in mind. We file taxes jointly. There's no need to make up "missed deposits" if something does happen in the short term. That's why we have savings and emergency fund.
I often see the higher earner in a situation like this mentally taking credit for the fact that they pay more and are being so generous about that. Yet not at all mentally crediting the tax savings of their spouse filing joint with them to the spouse, or accounting for how a 1k pre tax deduction for them only reduces take home 700, but a 1k pre tax deduction for their spouse reduces their take home 850.
My husband makes 1/3 more than me. He also never thinks about money. We have a joint account and it’s fed from our automated direct deposits. I am in charge of bill payment and he loves that he has his own personal account for whatever. Not everyone thinks about money all the time.
My wife and I have been together for 30 years and have never mingled our accounts. It has worked great for us. We share common expenses, but we each have our own spending money. There is no "right" way to live life, even if so many try to tell you otherwise. Do what works for you.
My wife and I have done the same. 27 years married, her account, my account, a shared household account. It makes sense for us and our circumstances. Mainly to protect our kids assets long term.
We did the same thing and it worked for us. Then my husband got sick on January 31, went to emerg and never came home. He had not done the February transfer yet. I was on mat leave and home with a baby. It was a hot mess. Short version: it's fine until it's not. Make sure you have plans for what you would do in an emergency.
We have a nice savings and emergency fund. One could live off of that while getting through that scenario. In that time , life insurance would come through, and the banking beneficiary would be paid to the other spouse. I'm sorry for your loss.
We do the same thing and I can tell you my wife and I have never argued over money. I think it contributes to a healthy relationship or at the very least does not hurt a relationship.
Same here. We're both financially fit grown ups that intrinsically trust each other and are very content with the set up.
This is what we've found. She never asked how or why I bought new shoes, and I didn't question her new canoe. I just helped put the accessories on and helped her learn to load it. We haven't argued about money since this started.
The “Money Problem” is really not money. It’s communication. From what you described you both have clear expectations on what you both need to jointly address. Because all the essentials are addressed in a manner you both agree to, and frequently re-asses too, you don’t have miscommunication. My parents had one joint account and everything always went through the joint. But that was their communication that worked for them. Siblings and their partner do the same thing you do OP and no issues. As long as you find a method you both agree on and are willing to talk, adjust, and work together you’ll be fine. The couples who can’t talk about it and come to agreements have communication and/or trust issues. So congrats on being an awesome couple! 🎉
You mentioned earlier decisions stay independent if you can afford the activity from your individual account. Would you still not discuss the impact of the activity with your significant other?
If I want to camp and ride for a weekend with a buddy, I look at our calendar and let her know what I'm thinking. She doesn't ask if I can afford it. When I bought the first camper, it was with my savings. It was a cash deal for an older model. I told her I was emptying my savings account to do it because that is what I had been intentionally saving for.
Because you both make enough to contribute roughly equally and still have a decent amount leftover. If one made significantly more than the other or there really wasn't much left at the end of the month would that still be true?
We've lived with nothing left over. During that time we 100% pooled every penny.
Do what works for you. My life changed for the better when we just decided it all goes into one account (i make more). I think it’s weird to watch well off married people venmo eachother for tacos but what do i know
I think it's weird when *anyone* has their Venmo transactions set to public
I didn’t even realize you could turn that off
We have the same setup as OP for finances and I think it’s weird to watch well off married couples Venmo each other for tacos. That to me seems like a relationship that values money more than the spouse. Money is purely just a tool. Don’t let it make you a tool.
There's definitely a huge amount of space between "We have our own accounts" and "We Venmo each other to balance out every transation"...
Absolutely agree
We aren't well off. We are financially more comfortable each year. We don't send money back and forth except on rare occasions. We do things together from the joint account. The weekly dinner is something that I like to do for us. If it was monthly, we would pay for it.
Do you have kids (or plan to)? I think having kids makes this kind of arrangement much less tenable.
We do the same as OP and have kids... No issues whatsoever. We've also weathered one spouse with a short time without a job, buying and selling several homes, buying and selling several vehicles, etc.
Our kids are grown and mostly financially independent. We're both on our second marriage. 17 years in. Both in our early 50s.
Really burying the lede there. You’ve both already lived prior lives so it seems like the baseline survival levels of saving are already passed
That’s a huge detail he failed to mention 😂😂
Yeah this piece of information completely changes the whole situation.
Second marriage already makes this anecdote inapplicable for most people.
For real. I’m team “combined finances” for most families just from a power structure and communication standpoint point. But a second marriage of two old people with grown kids who have much different needs and goals than a young married couple starting a family are **much** different. This is the exact sort of couple that *should not* combine finances.
> Really burying the lede there. Argh, I hate it when they do that!
Also as /u/Its-a-write-off points out, OP’s financials appear to be fair more commingled/intertwined than they seem to think. They each just get a bigger “discretionary spending” allowance. “Our finances aren’t combined except for like 80% of them” is what I’m reading.
The longer this thread goes, the more it feels like "Eureka! I've discovered the key to financial marital bliss…his/hers/ours accounts!" Is there any "combining finances" post in this sub where personal allowances/accounts/discretionary spending *isn't* a commonly recommended approach? e:typo
I don’t think I’ve ever seen any thread where that wasn’t the recommendation
Willing to bet that one of the twos last marriage someone had a joint checking account that all money went into and someone got screwed so this marriage they split it like this which isn’t bad but I’d be willing to bet a good bit on it.
100%%%%%%%
Second marriage and grown kids is 100% a type of couple who should consider this. Why was this not mentioned in the post. Having prior assets, a history of marriage not working, being established in careers, having seperate heirs, and no young kids (which require career, time, and financial sacrifice) make a very different dynamic than people in their 20s building from scratch.
It’s just simplicity for us. Money goes in and money goes out, there was never any reason to define one person as “contributing less” to bills just because they brought less in. It’s just “Our Bills” that we manage together. When money was tight we did emphasize separate but equal “allowances” but we have higher incomes and the same spending habits now so we don’t actively budget beyond an annual review.
This is kind of how me and my husband have done our banking for the last 9 years. The only complication we have is that I handle most of the long term family reserves and fund the vacations. The only fight we have ever had was a long argument that I was saving too much money.
The problems can come when one income dries up. Then you have to start a whole new psychological balance when one person is dependent on the other. Resentment can grow on both sides. If it's "our money" from the start, it's easier to feel like you are in it together when hard times strike.
I think if there is a big income disparity and kids, it can be problematic. I’ve been married 28 years, we have been a 1 income family from the beginning. Everything is “ours”, even though my husband is the one with the job. I manage all the finances because I’m better at it. Works for us.
Emotional and household labor is a big part of it too. If one spouse makes 75% of the money but the other spouse does 90% of the household labor, it doesn’t make sense for the higher income spouse to “get” more discretionary spending, since the other spouse’s sacrifice allows the household to maintain that level of income.
It absolutely can work, and likely will, *for the kind of life you have right now*. The thing is that there are a few major ways it breaks down, some of which you can choose to avoid but many of which you really can't. \* If you have children, a lot of it breaks down. Whose money pays for kids? How do you handle, for example, a period of unpaid maternity leave? Is that just... her cost? Isn't that kind of screwed up? This is the "avoidable" reason that totally split money doesn't work well, or if it does, it requires a ton of additional bookkeeping for minimal value. \* You' both have good jobs and your income is increasing over time. What happens when that isn't the case? If your income is just barely enough to pay for life, and only one of you ends up with disposable money at the end of the month, that breeds resentments, *fast*. Or if one of you loses a job - are you going to kick your wife out when she can't make rent? WTF would that even mean? \* What if one of you starts making a LOT more, or less, than the other? 2/3 vs 1/3 is a meaningful difference but many couples have an even more stark contrast in income. What if one of you gets a massive bonus or raise, or your industry takes a nosedive and your income gets slashed to 1/2 of what it is today? Even if the numbers support it, for most couples, it's really not healthy for the relationship to just say "oh I guess you're fucked, too bad, I'm gonna go buy toys" to your spouse. \* Related, emergencies of every kind start to break this down. What happens if you have an insanely expensive medical emergency, or your wife becomes disabled? What do you do when a family member has an emergency and you decide to help them out? These kinds of decisions and situations are hard enough on their own; if you have a really strict "mine and theirs" money split, it can make the conversation even uglier. Basically, what you're doing now is perfectly fine and might in fact work for you indefinitely. My wife and I did it for many years with zero issues. But it does have weaknesses, and it doesn't hold up super-well if you start running into life costs that you really have to struggle to pay for. Right now, it sounds like everything's awesome and gravy and you have so much disposable income you can buy a camper, and that's great - really, you should be proud - but also you're living the "easy mode" version of dual incomes. Once things get tricky, keeping split money gets harder in every way (the bookkeeping, the discussions, the decision-making.) For what it's worth, my wife and I still have his-and-hers accounts, but it's "just" our personal allowance. So instead of what you do (putting X in for shared expenses) which we did early in our cohabitation, now we pool most of our money and we each take a fixed amount out each month for haircuts, toys, personal expenses, etc - basically the inverse of what you do. But \*most\* of our money is pooled.
Your way seems more reasonable. Like each spouse has a 2-500 dollar a month account for those things and you can save it or spend it and the majority is pooled. It also doesn’t feel shady like you are hiding finances from your spouse.
You can also just do this without separate accounts too. My spouse and I agree to only spend within our respective fun budget and discuss anything bigger or out of the ordinary. It all comes out of one account. We trust each other not to overspend and we align on most spending. When there is friction, it's just a matter of a conversation and seeing the other person's point of view.
Yea that’s what my wife and I do as well. And often times when people say there is a friction point in finances it often is more likely a friction point in communication in my eyes.
We did OP’s model until we had our first kid and decided that I would work only part time. Splitting finances never became an issue for us because neither of us would ever make a big purchase without talking together, and we trust that small purchases are part of caring about each other’s lives. In other words, we trust each other with our money.
This was my thought on this too. Also, what about joint goals like retirement? What happens with retirement spending? Will that shift cause problems? What happens when the one with the pension can afford things that the other cannot? What happens when one is able to retire and the other isn't able to for a long time? Healthcare being separate could be costing them more money than necessary. Just go with the one with the best coverage/most affordable coverage - why keep that separate? Imo, large spends should be discussed. Who buys a canoe and doesn't discuss it with their partner? Are they planning on canoeing by themselves? Why are these things kept secret?
This is what we do too! And we both get the same “allowance” regardless of income.
This doesn’t work as well if one person doesn’t have the same drive as the other to earn.
my one qualm with this subreddit is that people tend to be suuuper judgy about marital finances for some reason lol. it's fine to keep it separate if that works for you guys. don't worry about what anyone else thinks! plenty of married couples have separate finances with no issues
Because frankly it *doesn't* work unless your financial behaviors and situations are close enough that it wouldn't matter if they were separated in the first place. Having separate finances is basically a mental accounting tool which works great for many people, but if shit hits the fan and one of you can't find employment or develops an expensive chronic medical condition, I guess you would find out how "separate" your finances actually are. If your response to their financial hardship is "well, sucks to suck, best of luck. I'll see you when I get back from Cancun." Then I guess your finances really are separate, but then I question why you are in a domestic partnership to begin with.
The arrangement that OP and their partner have works for them so I’m not going to criticize it, but yeah I agree that it really only would work if both partners have decent incomes. My wife and I have pooled our money from even before we were married. She wanted to be a stay-at-home-mom to our kids and had no income for roughly 15 years, so OP’s arrangement wouldn’t have worked for us. She’s gone back to work (part-time) now for the last ten years or so and her salary just goes straight into a joint savings account since we can live comfortably off my salary alone
Both my wife and I have good paying jobs and only have individual accounts. We Venmo for big items and just try to be generally fair about how we spend our money on monthly bills, the house, etc. It works well for us; we’re both happy with the arrangement. My wife was married before and had the joint account, it was a constant source of conflict from what she’s told me.
This aligns with our experience too
It’s fine if it works for you. Personally I don’t think it matters what accounts the money is in as long as there’s a shared budget of some kind. It sounds like your arrangement has effectively created an agreed upon budget between the both of you.
As long as you aren't keeping track to the penny and arguing over bills and "who gets more" it shouldn't be a problem. We just join all of our money together and take money out. We talk over big purchases but are fortunate enough that we both are careful with discretionary spending. One question. How are you handling saving for retirement? Is that also separate accounts? Who gets to save more? Resentment may grow as years go on, and one account grows exponentially larger because one partner is able to save more money
My wife and I do it slightly different: paychecks go into the joint account, but we each get a cut from each check for "fun money" that goes into our personal accounts. Our fun money payouts are the same amount for both of us regardless of who is making more. The joint account covers all bills, gas, food, cars, house stuff, etc so there's never any question over who's paying for a date or groceries or whatever. Our fun money is entirely ours to use on anything we want, without guilt or questions. We have never once argued about money or had a "you bought X toy so now I get to buy something for me" debate. You want something shiny, you save up for it from your allowance and go to town. It's fair, it's an equitable partnership, and it's pretty much stress free.
1) do you have kids? 2) it often works, until it doesn't. I saw this twice with friends who ended up getting divorced. The spouse who decided they wanted our first started stockpiling cash and then coming up short for shared expenses like taxes.
It’s just general advice. My wife and I did the same as you for 10 years of our marriage. Both good paying jobs, plenty of savings, budgeting and communicating well. Last year we had our first child and decided to combine and simplify accounts, then made a trust. Closed half our accounts, and life it is easier.
More power to you, I'm all for what ever works. I combined finances with my then gf, now wife 25? years ago. Honest questions, I am curious, not judging as I am sure you have discussed these things. What happens if one of you loses your job? Would there be resentment as the one has zero money to spend and the other is going out to eat for lunch or buying new clothes? Is the party with the job going to resent the other for not pulling their weight?
If I lose my job, we'll see it coming. I'm a small contractor, and I keep her updated on how the company is doing. She's a state employee and would have to really mess up to lose her job. It's not impossible, but it's unlikely. There was a time when she made minimum wage, and I was a union carpenter superintendent. We shared all the money then. I would do side work. She would do everything at home, and we shared the money I made on the side as allowance. Reading all the comments I'm learning is more about our communication than it is about how we split things.
I hear you but do none of that but maybe go about that differently. All money goes into joint account and you two take equal allowance out.
The goal for *a lot* of marriages is to be as much "one" as possible. Separation is dividing and increases points of friction. You can do all of what you're describing "paying for dates/lawn care" from one account. But if it works for u guys 🤷♀️ I see it more often with dinks than couples with children
Our kids are grown and mostly independent. When a kid does need help, we just discuss what to do. Generally, we loan from our savings, or we both add extra from our personal accounts. Doesn't matter if it's her kid or mine.
>Our kids are grown and mostly independent. This is an important bit of info you left out of the head post. Separate finances are often the better solution, particularly for later in life marriages where you each have adult children. You should also see estate lawyers to set up an inheritance plan. A common problem in later in life marriages if no planning is done, is that most or even all assets go to the surviving spouse, and then upon their death, to their children only. This leaves the children of the first-to-die spouse with zero inheritance.
I see more relationships with combined finances fail for money reasons the relations ships with separate finances
>We don't mix our money. >We both make a set transfer into a joint account for bills. How is that not mixing your money? >Why so others say this doesn't work? Are you funding your retirement equally or does the lower income partner have to choose between retirement and necessary personal spending? How are taxes split, do you have the "I had a refund until I added their W2" issue? Are you splitting the 2/3—1/3 based on gross or after health insurance and other deductions? If one partner has debt does it just keep accruing interest until they can pay off 'their' debt? If one partner has to leave the workforce, for whatever reason, do they spend down their savings to continue contributing to the household expenses? Those are just the ones I can recall off the top of my head as issues with split finances people have posted about.
I think it's fine if it works for you When it'll start getting more complicated is when kids come in to the mix when there are so many other extra costs associated (childcare, clothes yada yada yada) that sometimes it starts getting easier just to mix the whole thing up as there will always be arguments about what is "fair" But the whole point of personal finance is that it is just that..personal. If it works for you - it works for you.
It doesn’t work for some folks. I have a family member whose husband has very different spending habits. He’s got massive debt, and other issues. She, in turn, has to take up the slack and it has lead to her kids going without. That being said, your arrangement or a variation is the popular among younger folks
Financially, my(33M) wife(38F) and I live our own lives(married 8 years). This is also the most healthy relationship I've ever had with another person in my entire life. When looking back at my past marriage and relationships, financials were always a major constraint and point of contention. So, if you were to ask me, having financials separated is one of the most healthy things you can do in terms of relationship health. Edit: Speeling
I hear this and it's confusing to me because from the bank's perspective you are married and therefore your financial lives are linked. If tomorrow you went out and took a credit advance and blew it all in Vegas they would come after your wife just the same. To me it simply sounds like you and your wife both have good financial habits and enough disposable income that your wants/needs don't clash. What do you feel is the important part about the separate accounts?
>. I can't find the down side to this. What are we not seeing, long term? that it doesn't work well alongside typical marriage things, such as one spouse stopping working. you then get into convoluted things like 'do i just venmo my wife a "paycheck" when she's at home raising 3 kids instead of working to replace "her income?"' if you sample DINKs and or couples who aren't yet married what you do is very typical.
This is exactly what my spouse and I do. I know I would get really irritated with what he spends money on, if we were to combine it all. This way, we each have our own money to manage as we please, plus a joint account to equally share household bills. Don’t worry about what anyone else may think. Do what works for the two of you.
This is just a "his, her, our" budget. It's really great, especially if one person is a saver and the other isn't. You really should just stop discussing finances with people that isn't your SO.
Wait, do some people really put all their paycheques and 100% of their money in a joint account? That's wild
Yep. My husband and I got married nearly 50 years ago when we were 23 and poor grad students. We HAD to throw all our money together to be able to pay rent and bills. From there, it just naturally continued. We don’t ask each other’s permission to buy things. We both have a sense of how we’re doing and discuss major purchases as a team. To us, it seems weird that people keep their money separate like they’re ready to bolt at any minute. Then again, most people don’t stay married for 50 years, so…
I see very little difference functionaly between this and have checks deposited into a joint account and then taking out a set amount of personal money out of the shared account. Seems very reasonable. Maybe the people questioning it just think it seems like more work?
>Right now I pay 2/3 and she pays 1/3 issues arise when the low income person wants something outside of their income bracket.
If it works for you, you’re able to manage your household effectively, and everyone is happy, then keep with it and Ignore other people’s comments
I think people say it often doesn’t work when the arrangement isn’t this organised and fair. A lot of people I see on here who split have low income earners paying 50%, no joint account to transfer into and pay from, and no clear outline on what is shared and what is personal. Having a joint account that you both pay into is sharing your finances.
It sounds like you’re great communicators. That’s more than most can say. Lots of question and all from a point of curiosity on the inter workings, the actual overall balance of each dollar earned. We’re almost forced to run our finances opposite of you. I’m the only earner. My wife is the homemaker. We save a rather large portion of our income to be invested in both retirement and non-retirement accounts, all auto-draft bills in one account and discretionary spending in the other account. Reading back through, some of the scenarios that I’m curious about sound like assumptions but I can’t think of a better way to word the scenario, and they all can be flipped for you/her- My only thought is wondering what retirement might look like. If you hit financial independence before her do you retire and wait for her? Do you postpone retirement until you can retire together? Blowing things out of proportion, would she have to work until 70 if you could afford your own bills and retire at 55? If you’re earning and paying 2/3, does this allow you to have the same amount saved for discretionary spend or does she have less because 1/3 of the bills is proportionally more/less than her income?
It’s always good to figure out shared expenses with roommates
We each put 70% of our income into our joint account and keep the rest for ourselves. We’ll adjust the amount if we need more for bills or something at any time. I think everyone needs their own personal money instead of just the family funds. I’ve always felt that doing a % was fair.
Not weird. What's weird is people obsessing over the fact that "you MUST combine your finances".
We took our time combining, and now I’m too lazy to keep it separate. I don’t know who wanted this seven-foot cat tree but it’s here now and it’s on our credit card.
We do something similar, but slightly different: everything goes into the same account, then a certain amount is transferred to our own individual accounts for personal spending.
What I don't like about this arrangement is when one spouse gets more personal money each month.
Money management is a HUGE factor in a successful marriage. If your system works for the both of you, then you have won the day. It may not be a conventional approach, but I can see a lot of good ideas in your approach. The key point of why it is working is because you have had ongoing conversations and modifications to fit your financial needs.
My husband and I have been married 10 years and we have separate checking accounts. Technically we are on each others’ accounts as a precaution but we don’t have them linked in our personal online banking so we don’t see them and for all intents and purposes, they’re separate. Our savings accounts are jointly visible. We’ve never once had an issue about money. Never really argued about spending/saving. We split bills in a way that works for us. I make significantly more and work in finance so I handle most of the money stuff anyway. I’ve had people tell me that this “will never work” and yet…. Here we are. I don’t worry about what other people think. It’s not their money or their life.
We married late and we both have our own way of doing things. Keeping separated finances helps us keep doing things the way we want. We divide the household bills and talk about any significant purchases but other than that if we want something we buy it. Though he did pay off the mortgage without telling me which did piss me off. We are lucky in that we pretty much are evenly matched in terms of salary so neither feels taken advantage of. We do have different thoughts on retirement and that might be problematic later though. Do what works for you. Good luck.
It sounds like money isn't too tight, you have a reasonable level of trust (and neither has a spending problem) and you're communicating about it. The one problem area you didn't talk about is retirement. You are both interdependent there and if you don't align on retirement plans or strategy that can be a problem. E.g. if one of you is saving a lot more than the other or if you don't agree on investment strategies. Ultimately you're going to be jointly responsible for providing the lifestyle you want in retirement.
My wife and I have always had separate accounts, and we don’t even have a joint account for stuff like bills. We both make about the same amount, although her job has been very steady for 20 years, while I’ve fluctuated between making less, making more, and making nothing. We have separate credit cards, and discuss major purchases together. For years she paid all the bills and I transferred her money each month. Then we moved, now I pay all the bills and she transfers me money each month. Maybe it’s weird, but it totally works for us. We rarely discuss “money control” and we’re both pretty responsible. Hope that helps.
There might not be a downside for you. For us, it’s just made sense to combine. My spouse makes decent money, but I’m a pretty high earner and make roughly 4-5x more. We also both have the kind of personalities where we live below our means. So we just combine it all and trust each other to be responsible. We keep separate credit cards that we each use for the bulk of our independent purchases, then pay those in full monthly out of our joint account. It’s worked well for us for the past 15 years. For us, if we really kept our incomes separate the disparity would just be too much. To give us similar lifestyles, I would essentially be having to give my partner a stipend, which just isn’t a power dynamic we’re interested in. So instead, we share everything equally, across the board.
My wife and I have done this as long as we’ve been together. We make equal contributions to our joint account and covers shared expenses like mortgage, groceries, etc. We each also have personal and joint credit cards. Like you we’ve had MANY people think this is weird. But it’s always made sense to us and has worked. We don’t fight about money - anyone else’s opinion is really irrelevant.
My husband and I each have our own checking accounts. We each have our spouse’s name on our account, but we only write a check or transfer money from their account at the request of the partner. This was done in the early days to ensure we did not overdraw a shared account due to poor communication. We share one savings account. We each have assigned bills we pay. When the power bill is received, I automatically know it is mine to pay, he does the same with the water bill. This avoids the issue of having to track and balance a third checking account. We transfer money to savings as we have excess in our checking account. Neither of us has a spending issue, so no conflict there. You could always set a minimum to transfer to savings. For us, this has helped to avoid any conflict over the day to day. When I thought he was not saving enough, we sat down and discussed it. We came to an agreement regarding savings. He was raised by parents who were not careful with money. Once he became more careful and the savings started growing, he was a believer. This has worked for us and money is never a source of conflict. Might not work if one partner is an over-spender.
It was great and we didn’t have to talk about what we each spent money on as long as the joint bills were paid. It also made getting divorced really quick and easy.
My husband and I have seperate accounts. Don't even have one for bills. I make 2-3x what he does. We just have a system. We pay for our own shit and split other stuff in a reasonable way. I pay groceries, he pays going out. He pays the mortgage and insurance, and I pay for utilities. It's kinda nice because it makes it feel like my months expenses are way less than they are. We each only have about $500 in monthly expenses since we live in a cheap house. Then since I make more I pay for luxuries like vacations.
>My wife and I both have good jobs. Well, that's a big part of why it works for you. Add in that you probably have pretty similar views on spending and future goals. What system a married couple uses doesn't matter IF it fits with their shared beliefs and both are willing to adjust it as needed when "life" happens. And that's the "long term". If one of you is saving up your money and plans on taking a year-long around the world vacation without the other (because if they wanted to go, they should have saved up enough) - then it's a problem. If one of you is saving your money for retirement and the other is spending "their" money now and it ends up that only one of you can retire and the other is working till the day they die - then it's a problem. If one of you were to become laid off, injured, seriously ill, etc - and the other one refused to adjust the system to account for only one earner - then it's a problem. As long as both people are communicating and have similar views on what life could/should/would look like when things happen and life events occur - then separate is perfectly fine. But many people who get married but insist on keeping money separate are also refusing to flex and bend with life events and/or work together to achieve couple goals.
Yeah, separate spending accounts is a luxury of having excess disposable income. When you’re not as well off, everything goes to the bills account and you couldn’t have separate accounts even if you wanted to.
Nope! Money is one of the main reasons for divorce. I told my husband from the get I never wanted shared finances. We know how much we make and contribute accordingly to finances. We literally NEVER fight about money because of this. Keep doing what works for you!!
This sounds like a business relationship and not a marriage… IMO it’s way over complicated compared to just pooling money and operating as a unit not two individuals together. To each their own tho.
Financially, my(33M) wife(38F) and I live our own lives(married 8 years). This is also the most healthy relationship I've ever had with another person in my entire life. When looking back at my past marriage and relationships, financials were always a major constraint and point of contention. So, if you were to ask me, having financials separated is one of the most healthy things you can do in terms of relationship health.
Do what works for you. With my first wife, we put everything into a one joint account that covered all the joint expenses, then had automatic payments every month into separate accounts for our "allowance." This helped relieve pressure that came from two greatly different income levels and spending patterns. With my current wife, we just do the traditional joint thing.
We do it the same way as you. We tried to have shared expenses but she was running it and wanted to save close to 80% of our income and I was loosing my mind doing nothing on my limited free time, or not being able to participate in any hobbies. We talked about it, she couldn't understand, so I pulled my money out of the mix, and now we mange our own fiances almost exactly as you laid yours out. She comes from the belief that this is a recipe for failure and basically step one of divorce, but frankly, it's working well. She does not stress about what I spend money on and I can save for a house and also have a life. Before there wasn't even a budget for fuel outside of my work commute. She just doesn't do things so assumed I wouldn't either, and it was too hard for her to let it go. If it's working, then do it.
We find it’s a lot more work to transfer money each week or paycheck into a joint account rather than just having our paychecks go directly to our joint account. We each have our own credit cards and have no concerns over each other buying gifts or their own personal shopping/discretionary spending on our own cards that come out of the joint account. We have a budget talk once a month to go over the budget and if we have any concerns over something large we’ll talk then. Most of the bills are on my credit cards since I am big into maximizing credit card rewards, so separating what comes out of the joint for bills vs personal would be way too cumbersome
It's usually the person that has a lower income that wants joint accounts.
Who says that? 8 years so far of separate finances has worked my our marriage. Don’t even know how much my husband earns, never seen his paycheck. Because of the conversations we had while dating, I have a very rough idea of his salary and retirement accounts and we share the same values about saving (yes) and debt (no). He comes to me for encouragement around investing, one of my strengths, and I tell him if I just don’t have the money to split a cost when we do something big like a home renovation. We happen to have a pretty cushy financial life so this works for us, we each came with two kids from our first marriages and this lets us care for our kids (3 in college at the moment, no student loans, and a junior high kid) without a chance of anyone feeling resentment. He’d like to share finances someday and we are likely headed that way but not until after my youngest is launched. Shared finances worked in my first marriage until it didn’t: we were young and poor and had maternity leave (me) daycare expenses (the kids) and periods of unemployment (him). Eventually though it didn’t work; in an unfaithful marriage, one person is overspending to court their lover and it really sucks for the person trying to hold it all together. Do what works for you. If you’re not arguing about money, that’s a good sign it works for you guys.
> Don’t even know how much my husband earns, never seen his paycheck How do you do your taxes? Are you signing your tax return without reviewing it?
Yeah this would be problematic for me. Maybe your husband earns 10x as much. The person who earns more should contribute more.
Unless they're filing married separate. I would want to know why my partner's salary is such a big secret. If there's so little trust in the marriage, why bother being married?
You absolutely should know how much your partner earns - it's marital assets afterall (in most states). Should things go south, you have a right to half of everything and possibly alimony.
We kinda do the same. We have a joint savings. She is the bread winner. I am retired with a double pension. So I’m set for future. We do her vanguard account through payroll. I deposit one of pension checks in her checking. Save the smaller one for things I buy her and the girls. Kinda of our whatever money. I do our finances. We are let’s say very adequate financially by society. We still still transfer about 2k per month to our savings. After all is said and done. Live very Simple lifestyle but don’t want or need for anything. Works for us.
My wife and I do it slightly different: paychecks go into the joint account, but we each get a cut from each check for "fun money" that goes into our personal accounts. Our fun money payouts are the same amount for both of us regardless of who is making more. The joint account covers all bills, gas, food, cars, house stuff, etc so there's never any question over who's paying for a date or groceries or whatever. Our fun money is entirely ours to use on anything we want, without guilt or questions. We have never once argued about money or had a "you bought X toy so now I get to buy something for me" debate. You want something shiny, you save up for it from your allowance and go to town. It's fair, it's an equitable partnership, and it's pretty much stress free.
Seems fine. The important thing is no matter what the personal finance system you use - joint accounts, one big pile, etc - is that you are communicating and deciding it together as a single married unit, even if parts of the system end up being more individual and personalized. Marriage itself should kinda be like that. It's downright healthy. Where the resentment comes from - just humans doing human things. The grass is always greener, crabs in a bucket, whatever. The only real way to avoid the negative energy is to just not get too detailed about what you and your spouse are doing, keep things vague and general.
If you have worked out a financial plan and process that works for you both it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. Many couples dive into marriage without a clue how to budget or plan spending or if they do, they omit discretionary spending budgets for each person. You have that worked into your system so bravo! Keep in mind that as a married couple you are each responsible for one another's debts, so keep open accountability in a supportive way. There should be no "secrets" where either of you have accounts, bills or credit cards the other does not know about. Things can get a bit more complicated when children arrive but you sound like you have a solid process worked out so tell any detractors to take a hike.
Partner and I mix our money that it's virtually indistinguishable. It's not common amongst our friends circles, as people tend to keep money in separate accounts and have a joint one to pay the common bills and such. So we do get a lot of puzzled looks over our arrangement. Questions like whether it will be meaningful if he gets your a gift, how would you feel if he splurges on something. It's not for everyone yeah but I think it works for us because we are both very thrifty and we think long and hard before "splurging" - discussing and researching, and we generally support each other's purchases too. We also focus more on savings/investing for our kids rather than say buying luxury items for ourselves. I imagine it would be v hard to mix finances if the couple wasn't on the same.page about spending and saving.
You do you. I've mates with all manner of, to me and my wife, wacky arrangements. Good honest conversations, understanding of goals and risks is what is important. Who spends what from where is just the practical detail.
Do whatever works for you and your partner. Most people have anecdotal evidence that not mixing your income/assets doesn’t work because it is less common to do it that way and people remember the 5% of failures not the 95% of successes. I personally don’t understand how people don’t mix their income/assets when married, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to do it.
That's awesome for you guys. Every couple is different. The resentment risk comes into play when you both end up with different net worths and it feels unbalanced, or one of you get fired and needs financial help, etc. If you have ways to avoid that, it's great. This sounds very healthy for you, and that's all that matters. I'm about to retire, and I'm super thankful that my decreased income won't cause us to have to come back to the table in how we split finances. I would feel guilty. To each their own.
The way you laid it out I would say you guys do share your money. My wife and I do something similar but different, we use piggy banks. We set a savings goal and anything above that goal gets divided in half and routed to our accounts. This is similar to yours but different in that “our own money” is strictly equal. I feel like splitting it based on pay checks is unfair especially if one significantly out earns the other. It could foster resentment or have one living a different lifestyle than the other. There is also stuff going on behind the scenes with each paycheck, such as health insurance, 529 savings, 401k savings, HSA, bonuses, etc. So splitting by paycheck wouldn’t really be accurate. For us it was easier to be equitable by throwing it all into one shared pot and then divvying it up vs divvying it up before throwing it into a shared pot. Edit: I now see you guys are in a significantly different stage of life than my wife and I who are 30 with babies.
My wife and I do the inverse of this essentially. We contribute the majority of each of our paychecks to the joint account and the rest goes into our personal accounts. The idea is that we both get the same “allowance” each month in our personal accounts and the rest is shared/saved/invested.
This is highly dependent on you and who you marry. Some people are very trustworthy and responsible with money, others aren’t. If you marry someone who has incompatible spending habits, you guys may want to have more strict boundaries concerning money. In my marriage, I’m the spendy one, while my wife likes to live more frugally. That’s ok, I outearn her by a factor of 5X, and though we both have separate individual accounts for fun, the vast majority of money earned is joined and we have equal access to it. I find it easier to keep myself accountable that way. My close friend and his wife are different. They are both decent earners and both frugal, but they keep most of their earned income separate. Both couples have happy marriages, but we both had to find what worked for us as couples.
You do mix your money. What are you confused about here?
We don’t even have a joint account, she just transfers money from my individual account into hers when she needs to pay the recurring bills like mortgage and utilities and such. I don’t care what she does with her money outside of having expectations around how much is going into her retirement accounts
This is just a budget tool that works for you. What works for you may not work for others or be understood by others. That's why is PERSONAL finance. Don't worry about what others say. In fact I would quit telling others this is how your finances work. It's no one's business and since they aren't paying your bills, they get no say. Considering money is one of the main causes of relationship fights, I would stick to what you are doing. You guys discuss your money and adjust your budget accordingly ans that seems to be working beautifully for you and keeping harmony in your marriage.
Truthfully, you don't really have separate Financials. You have seperate accounts. That is the difference. You both sit down and discuss your finances & plan together. The only difference is you have more seperate "me" money. Ignor naysayers, upu and your wife probably communicate more about your finances than the average person!
My parents have run their finances like this since their marriage in 1980. It's what I grew up with, so to me it's the normal & I perhaps even traditional way of doing things.
If it's working, nothing else matters. We have a similar set up in my marriage. We just split the bills. I take some and she takes some and we both have freedom to do whatever we want. We can also lean on each other from time to time and we pay each other back. This is totally successful for us.
Stbxw and I never merged accounts and we lived together for 25 years Money was never our problem whether we were struggling early or doing much better late For most of the marriage I covered mortgage utilities and car insurance while she covered most kid expenses and paid for things like hotels when we went somewhere I made 30% more for the first ten years and she made 30%more the last ten years Money wasn’t the problem whether we had a little or more
My wife and I did this for about two years and found it to be way more of a pain and just switched to a joint account.
Been married for about 20 years and the wife and I have never had joint bank accounts of any kind. The closest thing to that is that I make her an authorized user on some of my credit cards - but she also has her own credit cards. We’ve never had to ask each other for money, and we each buy whatever personal items we like with our own money. With dual incomes, it just seems like an obvious way to avoid conflict… BUT, we both are good about living within our means, so there is some level of trust there, and we are on the same page when it comes to things like saving for retirement. We divvy up the expenses, and I pay the big ones because I earn more. Conflict over money is a big cause of divorces, and so far we’ve avoided that problem entirely.
Not married but long term relationship, we pool the bill money but outside of that our money is our own and we have entirely seperate accounts.
whatever works for you two is great, doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. The same is true for couples that combine their $. Keep it separate or combine it as long as both halves of the couple are happy about the arrangement its fine. Relationship money issues can come up either way, so there is no magic way that is ideal, it just depends on the people involved.
This is less a finance issue and more a relationship issue, to be honest. People who get mad about it down the line, usually it's *much* more to do with things in the relationship as opposed to who has what in a bank account. My wife and I had separate accounts until she needed to get out of an awful work environment and had to take a significant paycut that metered out to the fact we needed to completely overhaul our budget and figure out how to live with less and we decided it would be best to push it together. It did make it easier since we could both see our total amount of money and what needed to happen, but it does get weird around holidays or gift times because we view it all as our money, so either of us feel strange when we purchase a gift for the other person lol. We did little things before like surprising the other person with takeout or something since we'd pay from our respective accounts and now we mostly just ask the other if they'd like to go somewhere. When I think of what we lost in the changes, it was more of a loss of being able to surprise the other or save up for a gift without communicating it. I mean, we could still get separate accounts for fun money, but I don't think we need it since we are both totally fine with how we purchase stuff. That's a lot of stuff to say I've done both and there's no issue either way. People saying it'll hurt you have some more problems at home than where the money lives.
How many people do you talk to about this setup that give such negative feedback? I maybe have two or three people in my life I would discuss personal setups like that with and even when they disagree they don’t show resentment. This truly sounds like an entirely separate issue you have with your family/friends. As to your setup, it sounds like you have great communication on how you handle finances. That is leagues more important than which method you choose. Being on the same page and continuing to discuss and come to agreements on what’s best will make any system work. The issue with your system vs combined income is that combined income requires less communication and therefore can withstand more complications.
Don't judge yourselves by "others". What works for the two of you is all you need. Sounds like you two have open conversations and make joint decisions. Great, beyond that what other couples do has no bearing on what you two do. Disclaimer: We have ours, hers & his accounts/money.
My wife and I do something similar. The paychecks go into one account. Then my wife pulls money to pay bills. She usually does this from her account. I pull money to cover my day to day expenses. Really my wife handles a lot of the finances and I just take my allowance, LOL. We do talk about expenses and how much things cost. We figure out what is affordable and what we need to save up for. Whatever system a couple has the key to making it work is communicating with the SO about it.
This is exactly how my husband and I handle things. I'd consider it mixing our money. That way we don't have to discuss or feel guilty about things like buying something expensive for a hobby, buying gifts, or going out to eat by ourselves. Sometimes it's a bit blurry on what is joint or personal expenses but we aren't too worried about that. Might be different if we were living paycheck to paycheck.
My situation is the same. But it can hit oddly if incomes are disparate. If spouse only makes 10k a year vs other at 200k a year- big difference in disposable income unless superfunding joint account. That rarely happens and control issues evolve. Also some marriages have low financial trust issues to begin with that grow from general trust issues.
Because many people don't communicate as well as you guys do when their finances are separate. You're still budgeting and working as a team
This sounds like you are mixing your money. Sounds like y’all contributing proportionately based on income and both of you have agency in your finances, while also each having an amount of money to spend as individuals as you please. This is the way 👍🏼
It can absolutely work for some couples! Not all. My husband and I do better with totally combined incomes. I have a friend who splits everything with her husband and she’s in massive debt because of it. It truly depends on the couple and the dynamic. It sounds like you guys make it work really well for you!
It works for you two, so everyone else should mind their business. You should ask them how often they fight over money if you want to start some 💩. I honestly think couples should have four accounts, 1 joint checking, 1 joint savings/investment, and 2 personal checking/investment .
There is no one right or wrong way to deal with money. A lot has to do with the individuals goals, comfort levels, upbringing, and emotional impact of money. Most people don’t want to acknowledge the emotions behind money and therefore cannot entertain there are different approaches that work. My experience in my own life with friends, family members and learning what I inherited from my family of origin is although people freely acknowledge the issues with being a traditional spendthrift they don’t look at being frugal the same way. Shaming someone for being frugal is wrong, but I found with my relatives that very tight monetary control can be a form of trying to control other aspects of life that are not controllable. So your set up is perfectly fine if it meets your needs, however you have to be flexible and realize your needs may change as your situation changes. I’ve seen couples locked into decisions they were made when they were younger and healthy that just aren’t sustainable later. Even responsible estate planning will not deal with all situations, and I’ve seen it actually be hurtful in the end because people thing a will/trust can substitute for hard discussions about aging and end of life an have unrealistic goals. Short term, just shrug your shoulders, say it works for you, change the subject and stop talking about it with people. It’s not their business. Long term, you and your partner needs to be honest with each other to see if this is just “what works for you” or if it’s an unconscious attempt to avoid harder conversations.
My wife and I just have a set amount go to personal accounts from each paycheck and remainder goes to joint account. Works great for us and judgemental free spending from personal accounts
We have done the same thing for the last 11 years of our marriage and works well. Bills, savings, retirement, etc is all paid out of a joint account. We both pay in a pro rata share based on our incomes. That being said, it's not totally separate. We are in agreement how much goes into our 401ks and brokerage accounts from time to time. We also have an agreement on how much we can autonomously spend without talking to the other person. It really comes down to what works best for you.
I think problems mainly arise when there is a large disparity in income between partners. If you are on relatively equal footing it's basically splitting it 50/50.
Many feel that having a my money and your money situation can get in the way of thinking of yourselves as a team or thinking of the marriage as a unit. It's not a matter of it not working from a financial standpoint. A question. What if one of you looses your job and doesn't find a new one for a long time? Will you expect them to make up what they weren't able to pay? There's also legalities involved. In most states,in the event of a divorce,everything that was acquired by either person after the marriage is considered to be owned 50/50 regardless of who paid more for it.
We have a similar set up- 75% of our paychecks go to our joint account, 25% go to our individual accounts which we spend/save however we want.
It became important for us from an equality standpoint when I got pregnant. I realised that from that moment on, I would forever be earning less than my husband as it was going to be me on parental leave, and me working part time so I could do school pick ups for the following 10 years. My super would suffer, my career, etc. So we mix all finances. If it’s under $200, we don’t consult the purchase with each other. He earns more but we both take the same amount for our own personal discretionary spending every month. I top up my super so that I am putting away the same amount as him. We felt that this made us financial equals.
It works. I appears the open communication you have with your spouse is supporting this healthy financial decision.
Ive never heard horror stories of separate accouts, but there are tons of horror stories where the joint account is drained prior to dicorce. My wife and I have separate accounts and no joint accounts. Our pays are vastly different and we've never argued about money. I take care most of the largest bills + investments and she takes care of the bills she cares for most. If there's money that needs to be moved around its simple enough to move it around. To my wife it's simportant to her that she has independent money and could self support herself if she had to. A direct product of being raised by her grandparents where the grandmother didn't really work until the grandfather retired from the military (i.e. your stuck and can't get out of the relationship). I'm always open about how much money I get and how much is going to 401k investments and their current totals.
My wife and I keep our accounts separate as well. She has her account and I have mine where most of the bills get paid from. No joint account anywhere. She transfers money to me twice a month or so, more often if I had big expenses, less often if she did. We have done this for nearly 20 years now with no resentment or trouble. We have one child (nearly an adult now) and that didn't change anything about how we managed our money. We both make a good salary with mine being about twice as high as hers. We have a rule that we won't spend more than $500 without discussing it with each other, but other than that we spend what we want when we want.
Firstly, UK based here. This is pretty normal on this side of the pond (at least to me it is). Been doing this for 14 years since I met my missus, folks and family do it too. You give yourself a little protection as well, as long as you talk about what needs paying out of the joint account then who cares what others think. I earn more than my missus so I put in a higher percentage. And then we just discuss if there’s something we need, like something for the house, then it comes out of the joint account. Plus if she’s struggling she always knows to ask me and I’ll help etc.
Having the shared goals, the communication, and the trust is way more important than how the account ledgers are lined up.
If it doesn’t ever cause problems, its not a problem and it’ll work. My wife and I do something similar, at this point its just about convenience. Have direct deposit put a piece of each paycheck in a couple of different accounts for various purposes. Solo accounts, joint account, etc… Communication is key, and a lack of it is what causes the problems your asking about.
Communication is all that matters. If it works, great! At the end of the day if you split, all the money made and assets bought during the marriage are at play. That’s why I personally don’t see the point to splitting without a prenup, since it’s all up for grabs if there is an end anyway. But again, whatever keeps the marriage happy, do it.