How do you and your SO split your finances?

[karasue91]

Hubby and I got married in August and so far, all of our accounts are joint. We make almost exactly the same salary, but we have different ideas about how money should be spent. I like to shop and buy things for him, the house, and myself, etc and since we make very respectable salaries, have almost no debt (just student loans and our mortgage), and a good chunk of cash in savings, I think it''s ok to shop every so often. However, he and I have different ideas of what "every so often" means...hahaha.

I have brought up the idea of separate accounts before, but he gets very offended and thinks I want to hide my "spending" from him. I don''t want completely separate accounts, but I''m a professional and I make a good salary and I think I should be able to spend some of it the way I want to spend it without having to defend myself or make a case for why I need or want a new sweater or pair of shoes. I thought maybe we could open our own separate, non-joint accounts where we get a percentage of our salaries to do whatever we want with, but the rest goes into the joint accounts.

So, I''m wondering how you all do it. Do you have joint accounts? Totally separate accounts? A combination of both?

Thanks for your help!!

 

[neatfreak]

There have been a number of threads on this recently...but to answer, we each put a certain percentage of our salaries (the same percent, but might be different amounts depending on whether someone makes more) into our joint account. The exact amount depends on your bills to income ratio, but we are at about 90%. The remaining 10% goes into our own personal account to spend as we wish without consulting the other person. Works well for us and allows each person to buy whatever they want within reason without having to explain it to the other person.

The percent thing is so that it''s fair. If someone makes more they contribute more, but they also get to keep more.

 

[onedrop]

neatfreak: you are right. It seems like this topic comes up frequently. For right now, my husband and I have our check deposited into our joint account, we pay the bills from that, budget for groceries/household stuff and then split the rest and transfer that into our own personal accounts. I say "right now" because we have changed the process a couple of times, and we are open to adjusting again when/if the need arises. I do like the percentage method, but we just haven't gotten to that point yet.

ETA: we have personal accounts for the very reasons you mentioned karasue. If we want to buy something for ourselves then we can do so without getting confirmation from the other first. Although, we have also agreed that if what we are buying is over a certain amount then we consult each other first.

 

[October2008bride]

Date: 12/29/2008 4:24:42 PM
Author: neatfreak
There have been a number of threads on this recently...but to answer, we each put a certain percentage of our salaries (the same percent, but might be different amounts depending on whether someone makes more) into our joint account. The exact amount depends on your bills to income ratio, but we are at about 90%. The remaining 10% goes into our own personal account to spend as we wish without consulting the other person. Works well for us and allows each person to buy whatever they want within reason without having to explain it to the other person.


The percent thing is so that it''s fair. If someone makes more they contribute more, but they also get to keep more.

We almost do the same thing. We have it worked out that for bills/rent (don''t own yet), we each pay 50/50, and then for savings and debt (student loans only), we each put in an equal percentage of our salary. At the end, whatever is leftover from ''my'' pay, goes into my savings, and same for him.

I feel like it is a very fair way of doing things. We haven''t worked out all the kinks (like Christmas presents etc aha) but it is nice knowing I have some money that I can do with what I want - shop, buy a coffee, lunch with friends etc. without him getting upset. He is comfortable as long as our bills/savings/debt are taken care of.

That also means that I pay for my own social outings out of my own savings. So the fact that I don''t make my own lunch and buy it is my own issue. It causes less stress all around.

FWIW, we used to just have all of our money go into the joint account and pay everything out of it. But we both used to hate it when I''d get a Starbucks or something and he''d say "see you went to starbucks today eh?". haha

HTH

 

[steph72276]

To be totally honest, I think having separate accounts is just asking for trouble.....you guys need to communicate and get on the same page with your finances and come to some sort of compromise or else someone is going to feel upset...either him because of your spending or you because you don''t think he is being reasonable. I highly recommend getting Dave Ramsey''s book The Total Money Makeover and reading it together. Money arguments are the number 1 cause of divorce, so couples should really take time to get on the same page...

 

[Mrs Mitchell]

We have totally separate accounts, into which our salaries are paid. We earn roughly the same amount, so we each put half the money for bills, savings etc into a joint account, then everything is paid from there by direct debit. We have no shared values / opinions on money whatsoever. We just don''t discuss it. That way, we don''t fall out. It''s worked well for us through cohabitation and marriage and it''s no biggie. I know a lot of our friends and family are horrified by our approach, but we have never had an argument about money in ten years together, so I''m very happy with it. Our only cast iron rule is no credit.

Jen

 

[fieryred33143]

We had separate accounts and it was a disaster. I tried to be fair when doing percentages. I bring in 70% of the income so I paid 70% of the bills. Problem was that my own personal bills were getting behind. Instead of making big payments, I was making minimum balance payments. At the same time FI was not saving any money at all. He has zero financial skills. But he also has no bills except for a $55 cell phone.

So we joined and it was the best decision we could have made for ourselves. I was able to pay off a lot of debt because there was extra money in there and I took care of the savings. He was amazed at how much more we saved in the seven months than he did in the 1.5 years he had a separate account.

As for spending money, we tried to do the transfer thing into our other accounts which are still open but the joint accounts worked so well for us that we just use that account. I spend as I see fit. He tends to ask me if its ok for him to buy stuff which bothers me so we set a rule that any purchase over $150 would have to be "discussed" (as in just let me know so that I can make sure we have enough to cover it since I keep practically nothing in checking). I say "I" because again he''s clueless.

 

[Babyblue033]

We each have our own checking account, and a joint savings account. We''re each responsible for certain expenses (DH pays for the bills, I pay the rent, etc), and then whatever is left we put into the savings. Any large expenses come out of the savings, but we leave enough in our own accounts for any misc purchases we might make (ie. I saved up for months for a surprise wedding gift).

This works for us because we can both see what we''re contributing, but at the same time we also have the flexibility and freedom to spend our own money without feeling like we need to get permission first or feeling guilty. In 2009 we''re trying to re-evaluate our financial situation and figure out a set amount we should each put into the savings, but we''ll continue to have our own accounts with a bit of "flex" money

 

[karasue91]

Oh man, sorry for the repeat topic, I check PS fairly often but often just read the titles so I must have missed those other threads!! This has been on my mind for a while too, so I''ve kind of been looking...

Neatfreak and onedrop - thanks for sharing, I knew there had to be people doing a percentage method, but I have relatively few married friends and they seem to be on one end of the spectrum or the other. Some have everything joint, and some have everything separate with one joint account for bills only. I''m assuming you created a budget before you decided how much would be fair for you each to keep? We have 2 things where we want to throw as much money in as we can, which are my student loans and our house renovations. 10% seems like a fairly reasonable amount to be able to keep of our own salaries though...

October - Good point, sometimes DH asks me about expenses that are on our credit card. I know he''s just making sure that none of the transactions are fraudulent or anything, but it does still get on my nerves a bit. "You paid for parking downtown 3 times last week??"

Steph - Thanks for your input, I''ll take a look at that book!

Mrs Mitchell - Your situation sounds pretty much exactly the way I would like ours to be. We aren''t at the point yet where we could live the way we want on only half hour salaries (I''m assuming you pay for joint trips and large purchases out of that joint account?) but I think we could afford to set aside 15% for ourselves and pay for all other joint expenses from the rest, including our home renovations.

You also bring up an interesting point: credit. We pay for everything on credit because we like to earn the points, but we never carry a balance from month to month. The problem comes that if we have our own separate credit cards, we won''t accumulate as many points because I don''t think we can combine them. Does anyone else use their credit card for everything to accumulate the points? I do actually have my own credit card because I need to build up some credit history in Canada, but we have both agreed that we will never carry a balance on any of our credit cards, and I only use it for small purchases so I can have something to pay off every month.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

Ummm...we STILL have separate accounts and I am a SAHM. That sounds odd huh? Haha. But it works for us. He pays all the bills (obviously) and I put things on my CC (for points) which he pays off at the end of the month. It actually helps b/c I can keep track my spending. When I did work we split the bills (like he would pay the cell phones, I would pay the cable) and split the mortgage.

 

[Linda W]

DH and I have been married for almost 28 years and we have always have had a joint account. That applies to both checking and savings.

 

[karasue91]

fieryred- that''s great, it sounds like your FI appreciates having you in charge of all of it!

babyblue - thanks for chiming in!!

tacori - so when you say you have separate accounts, does that mean you get sort of an allowance? I hate to call it that but for lack of a better word....or do you just spend on your credit card and he only sees the final bill amount, not each individual purchase you make? Does your hubby ever make a comment like "whoa that''s a big bill this month", or do you have a set amount that you agreed you wouldn''t go over each month?

linda - thanks for sharing

I wish we could do that but maybe I''m just still adjusting to the whole marriage thing? I just really hate feeling like he has all the control over our money even though I''m bringing in half of it...

 

[Irishgrrrl]

Date: 12/29/2008 6:04:03 PM
Author: Linda W
DH and I have been married for almost 28 years and we have always have had a joint account. That applies to both checking and savings.

Same here, Miss Linda! DH and I have one checking account and one saving account, and they are both joint. We put both of our paychecks into the checking account each week, then I pay whatever bills need paid that week, and put a little into savings. Whatever is left gets taken out in cash and split 50/50, which is our spending money for the week. It works great for us!

 

[Haven]

We just married in July, and we merged our accounts then. We both have credit cards that pay dividends, so we charge all of our little expenditures on the CCs (gas, meals out, shopping trips, etc) and then pay off the total balance each month. This method works well because we can still purchase gifts for each other without the other knowing what we''re spending, and we get cash back from the credit cards. We''re also both involved in the budgeting, so we know how much we can spend without blowing our budget.

Neither one of us are big spenders, though, so we haven''t had any issues yet over spending.

My best friend has a, um, shopping habit, and she and her DH were having some issues about it. They finally decided that she was going to spend only cash, so she pulls out a week''s worth of her spending budget each Sunday and then spends that and only that. This method may not be right for you, though, because she really does have a spending problem. It''s working for them, so far.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

I have a goal every month but sometimes it is impossible not to spend more (diapers are expensive!) DH only sees the final bill but he knows my password so we could "check" it if he wanted but I don''t think he ever does. Of course there have been times where it has gotten a tad higher than he would like (I buy presents for example so last month is higher than normal) but he trusts me 100% and I really don''t spend that much (beyond baby stuff, food, gas...) DH always says he is lucky that I am a pretty cheap wife. Haha. He doesn''t mind that I still have my own accounts. This is silly and I hate to admit it but I guess part of me feels better knowing I have my own money in case something happens (NOT that I think anything will happen). Just peace of mind. Plus it is nice to buy things for him without him seeing how much it costs or paying for it himself.

 

[NewEnglandLady]

I know it''s a generic answer, but you''ve gotta do what works for you.

My parents always ask me why my husband and I don''t combine finances and I always say "I don''t believe in communism politically, nor do I believe in it personally" meaning that just because my husband makes more doesn''t mean he should have to pay more, thus we each pay our 50% and I love it. Even when D took a break from his career for six months, he still paid for his half of everything. We have one joint account for all bills that we contribute to equally and we also have savings (we used to use this for investments) that is joint. The rest is ours individually to do whatever we want with. We are both intense savers, so we never have to worry about each other''s spending habits, which might help. I don''t know, if my husband came home with a sports car one day I might think he was crazy, but at the same time it''s his money to spend, not mine. We both make good money and are completely financially independent, so I prefer to foster that.

I''m not sure if we''ll combine more when we have kids, I don''t really want to, but if one of us stays home for a long period of time the 50% rule might have to be altered.

 

[neatfreak]

Date: 12/29/2008 5:44:25 PM
Author: karasue91
Neatfreak and onedrop - thanks for sharing, I knew there had to be people doing a percentage method, but I have relatively few married friends and they seem to be on one end of the spectrum or the other. Some have everything joint, and some have everything separate with one joint account for bills only. I''m assuming you created a budget before you decided how much would be fair for you each to keep? We have 2 things where we want to throw as much money in as we can, which are my student loans and our house renovations. 10% seems like a fairly reasonable amount to be able to keep of our own salaries though...

It works for us, and honestly, regardless of what your friends do, you have to have something that works for you. Based on the fact that you guys argue about WHAT you are spending money on, totally joint accounts just seem like asking for trouble with you guys. My DH and I don''t always see eye to eye on our "fun" purchases (i.e., he doesn''t understand my love of clothes and I don''t get his desire to collect drums), so this way, we have a small percent of our money that can be saved, spent, whatever, and allows us both freedom to buy what we want while not having the other spouse feel like it was a worthless purchase with "our" money.

As to how we figured out how much, we combined ALL our bills, including household stuff, cars, student loans, baby gear, groceries, savings, credit cards, basically everything that we need to run our household, added it all up, and determined what percent of our income we needed to cover that amount, and then everything else goes into our personal accounts for spending money. It''s really important to make sure you guys are on the same page about what is a household expense and what isn''t though for this to work.

 

[Pandora II]

DH and I have separate accounts.

He pays all the bills/mortgage and I send him a direct debit every month to cover my half. Other shopping we split 50/50 - for example I bought all the xmas presents so he will pay half the cost into my account.

Once the sprog arrives, we will probably see how much extra they cost and also how things go when I am on maternity leave and earning much less - mat. leave is a year in the UK - and then the cost of child care etc

We would never dream of having joint finances. First, I believe it is important for women to have some financial independence. Secondly, how I spend my money is frankly my business and ditto for DH.

What on earth is the point of a joint account anyway? Banking is now in the 21st century and money can be moved around almost instantly.

Obviously if that meant that one or other of us was ending up in debt that would be something the other had a right to know about, but we are both solvent and other than the mortgage, debt-free. To be honest, we have the same spending habits - he likes shopping

. I never hide purchases from him and vice versa.

 

[coatimundi_org]

We have separate accounts--works great for us. He has his own business, and hopefully soon, I'll start mine. We share everything, but it's easier for me to keep track of my own income with my own account.

We're going to open a joint savings soon, though--for our house rebuild project. Every couple is different--but I think having separate accounts works really well. We have a lot of trust in each other about spending. He doesn't question my purchases--nor do I question his.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Date: 12/29/2008 4:15:37 PM
Author:karasue91

So, I''m wondering how you all do it. Do you have joint accounts? Totally separate accounts? A combination of both?

Thanks for your help!!

always !!

been like this for 22 yrs now. that way we don''t fight over money.

 

[Burk]

we''re also in the separate accounts camp. Works great for us. DH makes a lot more money than me so he pays most of the "big bills" like our mortgage but I have bills that I pay (like my car payment) and I also do all the grocery shopping. Works great for us. We do have a joint savings but he puts most of the money in it.

 

[AmberGretchen]

We''ve got joint everything. We started doing this when we first moved in together after college, and we didn''t have a lot of leftover money above and beyond expenses, so it didn''t really make sense to have separate accounts - too much administrative hassle for too little payoff

I definitely agree with those who say you have to do what works for you guys, but I think its worth discussing why your spending bothers him - I think that communication is key no matter what you are talking about, and no matter what you end up doing for now, things can always change and I think its better to at least talk it out now than to be unpleasantly surprised later if things change.

 

[Elmorton]

This topic came up last year - and I very clearly outlined why DH and I have to have separate accounts and why separate accounts were essential for keeping stability and happiness in our marriage.

I'd been married for ohhhh 4 months or so??

Fast forward a year and we now have joint accounts. I'm bad at math, we couldn't keep track of our joint bills, and it was a mess when they were separate. Also, I found out that I really didn't need the financial independence from my partner - it was actually more hurtful than helpful. DH handles our bills, I check in every now and then so I know where we are, and all of our $ goes to the same place. Both of us check with the other before making a purchase. For some people, this might be suffocating, but in our relationship, it makes us accountable to the other - which is a really powerful thing.

 

[karasue91]

Wow, thanks for all your responses, they are all so helpful.

I certainly agree that it''s important to discuss why my spending money bothers him, which we have done. I''ve determined that we just have different ideas of how and why money should be spent. From speaking with family and friends, I don''t think that the amount of money I spend on clothes and house is outrageous, he just doesn''t understand why I enjoy spending money on those types of things. Lately we have been able to agree to disagree, but there are still remnants of hurt feelings from previous arguments and I think separate accounts for a percentage of our salaries will help avoid any future disagreements...I guess basically what I mean is that I feel pretty comfortable that at this point we aren''t just masking the problem, if you know what I mean?

 

[pennquaker09]

We''ve had joint accounts for a long time now. Like Tacori, I am a SAHP so obviously I don''t bring any money into the house. When I was working, we set up our accounts to deposit into savings and from there the bank would transfer a designated amount into our other accounts. We had automatic bill pay set up and we never had any issues.

The thing is, Nate is not the shopper in our place. I''ve always been the one to get things. If I see a shirt or tie I think he might like, I would just buy it. He knows that I like my home to look nice, so he doesn''t really care what I spend as long as I am making an informed decision. The only thing that he''s asked me to do is not open ANY credit cards. And, honestly, I probably should at least have a Banana Republic card because I shop there a lot for us and at Babygap for the twins.

 

[Mrs Mitchell]

Date: 12/29/2008 5:44:25 PM
Author: karasue91

Mrs Mitchell - Your situation sounds pretty much exactly the way I would like ours to be. We aren''t at the point yet where we could live the way we want on only half hour salaries (I''m assuming you pay for joint trips and large purchases out of that joint account?) but I think we could afford to set aside 15% for ourselves and pay for all other joint expenses from the rest, including our home renovations.

You also bring up an interesting point: credit. We pay for everything on credit because we like to earn the points, but we never carry a balance from month to month. The problem comes that if we have our own separate credit cards, we won''t accumulate as many points because I don''t think we can combine them. Does anyone else use their credit card for everything to accumulate the points? I do actually have my own credit card because I need to build up some credit history in Canada, but we have both agreed that we will never carry a balance on any of our credit cards, and I only use it for small purchases so I can have something to pay off every month.

We both had credit card debt to pay off in the past, not a huge amount, but still, we didn''t want to go there again. We''re both quite impulsive and not great at sticking to a budget, so the credit cards were there to use for treats etc or to top up our salaries when we earned less. Totally stupid and we agreed never, ever to use credit in any shape or form again. If we don''t have the cash, we don''t buy it. We lose out on points, airmiles, special offers, opportunities to win prizes, all sorts of things. I can live with it, on the basis that I''d be in debt again within the hour if I got a credit card again!

Neither of us has used credit for years, so we''ll have zero credit history. That''s probably a good thing for us, it will stop us using credit in the future!

Big purchases don''t come out of the joint account, because we don''t keep a balance in there, just enough to cover the outgoings every month. We''re pretty random about who pays for what, it''s probably roughly equal in the long run. If we want something big, we either pay half each, or one of us buys it as a gift to us both. So, for example, while I paid for a new bathroom, DH paid for... um, the house actually. Ok, so maybe not entirely equal.

Point is, that while we require independence, autonomy and privacy in our financial affairs, we''d each give the other our very last penny and not grudge it for a moment, so it doesn''t cause resentment.

 

[merrymunky]

My FI and I have individual accounts, into which our wages are paid. We also have a joint account which is used for bills etc.

He pays the rent from his own account and I pay the bills. I transfer the money to the bill account each month.

It works well that way. He earns more than I do and the rent is the bigger share of the monthly outgoings so that''s fair.

The rest of our money is our own.

However, he pays fpr the grocery shopping and most of the car finances. I pay for my store cards etc myself.

It works for us. He alwas has more left than me but recently we have evened off in terms of how much we have left after the outgoings have gone! He has more outgoings now and I rarely have much left from my wage anyway,

 

[radiantquest]

i dont want anyone to think that i am a free loader, but he pays for almost everything out of his account. we have seperate accounts. i pay my cell phone bill, car payment and insurance, my student loans and family health insurance. he pays everything else. i dont even know how much the mortgage is. he prefers to do it all on his own. i think it makes him feel like the MAN to handle it all on his own. i shop when i have the extra cash and feel like it. he never shops, maybe because he doesnt want stuff like i do. i dont know how much extra he has at the end of the month, but he doesnt complain so it cant be nothing. i brought up the subject of joint bank accounts after we got married and he said that it wasnt necessary so i have mine and he has his. it works for us.

 

[LauraBabe08]

FI and I graduated college in May and live together in a townhouse that we rent. We have no debt and we are both professionals and make the same amt of money.

Right now we have separate accts and split all the bills 50/50. This works well for us. We have similar spending and saving habits (ex. we both will splurge on a new pair of designer jeans from time to time, we both contribute 15% to our 401K).

Splitting everything with separate accts is a little annoying though, b/c we each pay our respective bills, then whoever spent more, writes a check to the other for the difference. (if that makes sense?) To simplify things, we plan to have a joint acct after we are married that we will both contribute a portion of our paycheck too. We will use the joint acct for bills, groceries, eating out, etc, and use our own accts for personal purchases.

 

[brgirl]

My husband and I make the same amount. We each have separate ''fun'' money accounts where we get $200/month to do whatever we want with. I put most of my purchases on my Banana Republic CC so I get points for something, then pay from that fun account. He puts most of his personal charges on his amazon card, so he gets points. We also both use our ''fun money'' bank accounts for cash withdrawals for the most part. We needed separate accounts so we don''t have to justify all of our personal purchases, and also for gift shopping for each other. We both monitor our joint cc each month for fraudulent charges.

The rest goes into our joint account. All bills either come out of there or go on our joint cc for rewards. (and paid off each month). We run any ''joint'' large purchases by each other...and pretty much anything that isn''t for our own personal use is considered ''joint.'' (except for Maternity clothes..I was originally putting them on my personal account, but then we decided it wasn''t MY fault I needed new clothes!)

We also put a big chunk in savings automatically, and the rest just sits in our joint checking account until I look at it and say ''we can move more into savings.'' Our main disagreement is how much we need in our checking account as a ''cushion''. He thinks we need more than I do. I like to ''hide'' my money from myself..I don''t want to login to our main checking and see a huge balance. Because then I might go a little crazy and think we''re rich. I prefer it to be over in our ING savings account where I don''t even think about it.

I also have a Suze Orman ''save yourself'' account that I transfer $50/month into from my personal account, but I did that for the free $100 after the first year! But it''ll be nice when I get that $700 out of there that I never think about! I save way more of my $200/month than he does, plus I do some mystery shopping and sell things on ebay to give myself some more money. I think I also have a Kohl''s card that I put some personal things on cuz you always need that Kohl''s card to get discounts and free shipping!

Of course we''re having a baby in June, and I plan to stop working after that, so who knows how things will change...I am a HUGE bargain hunter, and hope that being home with baby will give me even more grocery savings than we have now...so I''ll be able reduce our expenditures since I''m not bringing in any more. (plus the last car will be paid off and we have some other income in the works...)