Weddingbee Blog

I am old-fashioned, but we believe marriage means we share everything. We put our paychecks together every month and use that money for everything. We obviously talk about all major expenses.

I know that is not common these days but I personally believe in it… total integration as a couple.

Dear Mrs. PN,

Thank you for this article. I think finances is possibly one of the most awkward things to talk to one’s partner about. My fiance and I have been dating for over 5 years, and have lived together for the last 2. Since moving in, we have decided to maintain our finances separate, however, now that we are planning to be married we have decided to open a joint checking account which will be used to pay for our rent, utilities, travel, and hopefully a mortgage at some point. I am a big believer of financial independence though, so I have decided to maintain my own personal checking/savings account as well as my personal retirement accounts. I don’t know if this will ever change, but for the time being, we’re taking it one step at a time. Also, i think by having our own accounts we can continue to spend some of our own money on unnecessary things without annoying each other; I can continue to buy shoes, and he can continue collecting guitars.

I agree with acabride… the hubs and I share it all. He makes much more than me, but even if it were the other way around I would want to share everything. We are married - we are in it for life, and we will share everything. I know people say you need to take care of yourself first, but I believe we need to take care of each other.

We live seperately now, so we have seperate accounts, which is a bit of a pain. Once we move in together, we’ll get a joint account, and keep our seperate accounts, so we can spend from those as we wish. I also like the idea of having two savings accounts anyway. One for fun stuff like vacations, and one for an emergency fund. I already have weekly deposits sent to my savings, so I’ll continue doing that in addition to having deposits sent to our joint account.

We’ve been married since July, living together since August ‘07 and we still have separate accounts. Our incomes are about the same so he gives me money for his half of rent, and pays for the groceries, then I pay for internet, and the power bill. We also have a joint credit card that we are currently trying to pay off. Eventually, we will probably open a joint checking account and keep our separate accounts for when we want to buy something and for our own personal bills.

Hmmm good point Mrs. PN. I guess if we were different like that it would bug me. But we don’t really have issues like that. For the most part we discuss purchases. We are on the same page about lunches for example - we both eat out fridays, and bring a lunch all other days. We don’t really buy a lot of extra stuff but now that I’m thinking about it, there are times when I think to myself “hmm I would LOVE to buy that purse, but hubs will think it’s a waste of money” or times when he wants to buy a video game but I think he’s already got ten shoot-em-up games why does he need another???
Now you’ve really got me thinking!!!!

FI and I have been together for 4 1/2 years, living together for 2. We have about 10different savings accounts, half joint and half in just my name (altho we both put money in it like its joint). WE don’t even use all of them, we have some at a couple of different credit unions just to keep our standing with them. I have a school account(holds my refund checks from financial aid til I need it again), xmas, car, etc savings accounts that I put money into every month, along with separate retirement accounts. I plan on getting put on his group life and retirement accts at work as soon as we get married next year. We each have our own separate checking accounts, and all separate credit cards, with 2 joint. We are currently working separately to get out of our own individual debt before the wedding, then plan on buying a house. Right now, he pays for the car insurance, cell phone, internet, and most of the groceries (he makes a little more than twice what I do). I pay my own health insurance which is ridiculous since its an individual policy, as soon as we get married I will go on his health insruance also. I hope when we get married to have a jiont checking for household stuff, each separate checkings for whatever else, and various savings accounts (I like having separate ones for each category). I am just starting out with Wesabe trying to creat a budget that we stick to, which will be hard since we are still very much individual spenders. Any successful ideas on how to do this and still stay sane??

seperate accounts. we have a joint account for mortgage and split costs. And We still consider it all out money.

We use a credit card to keep it organized. This works by all of the household bills (gas, utilities, cable, cell phone, internet, rent, groceries, and new clothes etc) being taken straight from there and at the end of the month we pay the bill off completely by each paying 50% of the bill. We have a special savings account that we both contribute a set equal amount each month to pay for things like Christmas gift buying, big purchases, and vacation. We both tithe 10% of our own incomes each month, and we both put 10% into a retirement fund, 5% into personal savings. What ever is left of each income after bills and savings accounts are paid goes into a fun account that we use to do fun things together which is usually a fun night out or weekend trip.

Using the credit card gets us travel points or even cash back on certain purchases and we pay it off completely every month so we do not pay interest. We think it is very important to give back and to save as a couple and individually. As far as big purchases (for us that is anything over about $500-$600 in a month so yeah 1 pair of hundred dollar shoes (or for him golf clubs) doesn’t count but if I buy 5 pairs of hundred dollar shoes/clubs in a month there is going to be a discussion) we like to plan in advance and talk about it. Neither of us are big spenders and we have our priorities set. So what ever is left over at the end of the month is fair game to buy things for ourself or put into savings.
I make quite a bit more than he does but I also have a tremendous amount of student loans (in the 200K range) so I use my left over money to pay off school which is the reason I have left over money now. We both have the kind of jobs where if bills aren’t getting paid so there is not enough left over at the end of the month for fun stuff we both will agree to work an extra Saturday each month until we can do more of the fun!

This works for us for now because my debt basically puts us in the situation where we have equal salaries but I don’t know how that is going to work when the debt is paid off.