Big, Scary Decisions

Big, Scary Decisions

September 9th, 2010 @ 6:31 pm by Mrs. Cardigan
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Mr. Cardigan and I recently took what I consider to be an extremely big step in our relationship, one that was both extremely exciting, and a little terrifying.

I added him as a joint holder to my bank account.

That’s right, he has his own debit card, his own password, and full access to all of my funds…which are now our funds. He is also depositing all of his checks from work into my—I mean, our—account.

Mr. Cardy and I have talked many many times about this decision, and we have decided that when we get married (well really, starting now) we will be combining our finances. I know everyone does this a different way, but we’ve decided that we want to go all in and completely combine our money. Eventually, we’ll probably both have side accounts for personal spending (so I don’t have to feel guilty for spending “our” money on $200 shoes, and he doesn’t have to feel bad for buying 5 new video games in one week. Not that we do that now, but it would be nice to be able to without feeling bad, right?) but for now, what’s mine is his and vice versa.

I can’t really provide you with a concrete explanation as to why we did this, other than it’s just what feels right to us. We don’t like the idea of “my money” vs. “your money” and we don’t want to forever live with the complication of splitting up bills and arguing over whose turn it is to go grocery shopping. We’re so excited to be combining our finances, and it feels really good to refer to money as “ours.”

I will say, though, that it’s going to take a bit of an adjustment in our thinking. You see, I’m very stingy with my money. I don’t spend money on myself very often, and I’m an extremely frugal person. Mr. Cardigan is definitely money-conscious (he is an accounting major, after all!) but he’s not afraid to spend a little money here and there for little (unnecessary) things. So I’m going to have to learn to loosen up a little bit and not freak out over every penny spent, and he’s going to have to learn that maybe grabbing fast food for lunch every day isn’t the best decision ever. Even though it’s going to take work on both of our parts, it feels so good to know that from now on, we’ll be making those big money decisions together.

In fact, last week we made our first big money decision as a team. I’m not gonna lie and tell you it was the easiest thing ever. When Mr. Cardy came to me early last week and told me that he really wanted to get a new laptop, I was NOT happy. I told him that we weren’t financially sound enough to be throwing around money like that, especially when he has a perfectly good laptop already (granted, it’s a laptop that we both hate with a passion, but it’s still in working order at least). I told him that I thought it was a really bad idea, and that we should wait until after the wedding. Well, Mr. Cardy still isn’t quite used to having anyone else tell him what he can and can’t do with his money, so it definitely took some talking and working it out before we came to a solution. Mr. Cardy ended up selling his current laptop for a great price, and we’re going to make it work. But getting to that decision was not nearly as easy as I thought it would be.

It’s still definitely a bit scary to me that we’re jumping in and combining everything, but it’s also incredibly fulfilling and exciting to know that this is going to be a great way for us to learn more about how to cooperate with one another and how to work as a team. For some reason, it makes me feel like it’s one more huge step towards becoming a full fledged, “adult” married couple!

How are you and your SO planning to deal with money once your married?

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30 Responses to “Big, Scary Decisions”

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MissMargie (message) 767 posts, Busy bee

Wow, great post Miss Cardigan! My fiance and I are getting married next August but have been living together for two years already and sharing expenses. We just recently decided to combine our incomes, like you and Mr.C. It’s been great! Like you said, I’m really happy it’s our money now and not mine or his. The only different thing we do is that we created new joint checking and savings accounts and only kept one personal checking account each where we keep our monthly “allowance”, which lets us spend that specific money on whatever we want!

9/9/10 @ 6:51 pm (reply)

Member

LittlestBirds (message) 2,605 posts, Sugar bee

Combining our bank accounts was just about the most natural thing ever for us. We’ve dealt with financial decisions jointly for a long time - I mean, that kind of goes with the territory when you buy a house together, which we did two weeks after we got engaged. Our first challenge was actually the same as yours; my husband wanted his own laptop and I thought it was an unreasonable idea (he already had a desktop PC and his work PC). Eventually, though, it was the right time for it, and he bought it. I keep a few hundred dollars in a separate checking account as well, but even that typically ends up becoming joint money, because we use it to draw out cash when we need it when we go out together. It just makes perfect sense for us to manage our money together, as we manage our life together. I really can’t imagine us going through life as partners in every way, but having to stop and say “Well we paid for this with MY money, now let’s pay for that with YOUR money…” etc. It would feel very petty to me to constantly have those conversations, and it would feel like we were still just dating instead of married, like we were doing each other a favor every time we paid a bill. I love the experience of saving and spending together, and working toward our financial goals as one unit!

9/9/10 @ 6:54 pm (reply)

Member

chicagowife (message) 844 posts, Busy bee

Great post Miss Cardigan. I honestly think that this is one of the most concrete ways that marriage is different than dating. You are (or most couples are) truly a team in your financial lives, which is a huge piece of your security and your plans and your future. One thought: my husband and I thought about doing “fun money” accounts but ended up deciding not to. The thing is, each of us recognizes that the other is entitled to fun money. There doesn’t need to be a separation of money or secrecy regarding money to acheive that — there just has to be understanding. And if you truly don’t want your spouse to know about some of your spending, I’m not sure that’s a good thing… yknow? Just a thought. Combining finances is HARD but it really is worth it to be a true “WE” in life….

9/9/10 @ 6:56 pm (reply)

Member

Tralala (message) 113 posts, Blushing bee

I thought that “the talk” would be a lot more difficult than it was because we have such different spending styles, but it was a great experience! We were remarkably easy-going with each other. Our plan is to have joint accounts, but to keep side accounts with about $1500 each in them in case we ever have a fraud or hacking issue. We would hate not to be able to pay bills just because some jerk stole our bank account numbers…

P.S. Our spending styles are the reverse of yours and Mr. Cardigan’s, and I’m an accounting major, too. I wonder if they’re related…

9/9/10 @ 7:05 pm (reply)

Member

canuckthief (message) 41 posts, Newbee

I really like this post, Miss Cardigan. My SO and I combined our finances about 6 months after we started living together, and we actually ended up saving significantly more money, as we had more respect for the fact that we weren’t just spending our own money on silly items, it was ours together, which helped us both cut back. It is a big step but it works for us, and it sounds like it will work for you too!

9/9/10 @ 7:07 pm (reply)

Member

CainnaBee (message) 11 posts, Newbee

We’re combining our finances too, probably right before we’re married. Like you, we’re planning to pay all the household expenses out of a joint account, but allow each other to have a certain amount of “play money” each month in separate accounts.

I think it makes sense for all of the accounts to technically be joint accounts at the bank (you don’t want them to be inaccessible to the other person in an emergency), but we’ll treat them as individual fun accounts. We decided that any time we want to go out to dinner or do something fun, one of us will need to “treat” the other out of our fun account. This way, we’ll limit the frivolous spending to a certain level each month and only use the joint account for necessities.

Another thing we’re doing is treating all loans as “our” debt as soon as we get married. We consider this to be really important to working as a team, so we’ll be paying off the car and student loans from smallest to largest, regardless of who it originally belonged to.

Awesome post, by the way. I’m going to break the trend because I’m the extreme penny pincher in my relationship, but I’m the accounting major, haha!

9/9/10 @ 7:27 pm (reply)

Member

nmeyer01 (message) 130 posts, Blushing bee

Great post! We just moved across the country for him to start a new job where I didn’t have a job to go to so that sort-of forced us into the joint bank account boat a little sooner. But, like you, I totally agree it’s so nice to be able to say “our” money instead of arguing over who gets to pay for groceries!

9/9/10 @ 7:33 pm (reply)

Member

seattlemeg (message) 538 posts, Busy bee

My FI and I also combined expenses, but we created a whole new account to do so. We pay the mortgage out and our joint credit card out of that account. We put the majority of our paychecks in there, but will keep some and put them in our separate accounts at times. This way we can “treat” each other to date nights or special things.

9/9/10 @ 7:37 pm (reply)

Member

JenniB (message) 403 posts, Helper bee

We didn’t have “the talk” until our honeymoon, but we spent almost a whole day hashing out the complex details but ended up with something that works great for us. We came up with four separate accounts we call the Debt, Household, Me and Him. Household is for groceries, pets, incidentals, going out to eat together, etc. Our personal accounts are for individual spending money, but also to keep us on a spending budget. So I can get my hair done, and he can buy a new snowboard without keeping tit for tat. Debt account pays for all our fixed bills like rent, student loan, insurance and stuff. Works great for us!

9/9/10 @ 7:49 pm (reply)

10.

Member

melisandescott (message) 213 posts, Helper bee

This is an awesome post! My fiance and I combined finances after living together for six months (about a year ago) and it was truly the best decision for us, despite all the warnings. I swear I can’t talk about it at all without someone telling me its a bad idea. Well, we put a lot of thought into it; we discussed everything before we did it and even have a complex set of spreadsheets to document everything in and out (I’m a bit anal retentive about it

We don’t have an issue with “fun money” yet, but it’s because we both have a lot of debt that we’re paying down (student loans, CC, car, etc) to the tune of $60k. BUT we’ve paid off over $40k in the last 9 months, which we could only do together. We’re on the same page about our financial decisions, which means WAY more to me than almost anything else.

I think the talk has the potential to be difficult, but we were on the same page from the beginning. Implementing it was a little harder, and we do struggle sometimes (i.e. staying under $300/month for groceries is really hard sometimes), but for the most part we do it, because we have big things to look forward to in a few years (no debt, a house, kids) which will make it all worth it.

9/9/10 @ 8:10 pm (reply)

11.

Bee

Miss Cardigan (message) 8,645 posts, Bee Keeper

I’m loving all these comments! It’s so interesting to hear how other couples do things!

@LittlestBirds: I feel the exact same way! I hate the idea of constantly going back and forth over who spend what on different things, and it makes so much more sense to me to just combine it!
@chicagowife: I definitely agree with you! For us, the “fun money” accounts will mainly be used for things like birthday gifts for one another, etc. I don’t like the idea of him being able to look in our bank account and seeing exactly where I bought a gift from and how much I spent on it! I’m sure most of our fun money will end up being spent on one another in the end, and we definitely won’t be secretive about it! It’s just an easier way for us to keep track of purchases that are not for both of us!
@canuckthief: I love hearing that it helped you guys save more! I’m really hoping that’s what happens with us, and I’m seeing that we’re both already being much more conscious of what we spend money on!

9/9/10 @ 8:30 pm (reply)

12.

Member

tetorger (message) 138 posts, Blushing bee

Seems I am the minority, haha. My FI and I don’t plan on combining finances until it makes sense for us. Right now we live together and he pays cable, I pay electricity, he pays for dinner out, I pay for groceries. It works for us.

9/9/10 @ 8:34 pm (reply)

13.

Guest

Kaitlyn

almost immediately after getting engaged, my fiance and i combined our checking accounts. We are both great with money and we even have different accounts set up for bill pay and spending with our checks depositing directly into the proper account (we even have a spread sheet with our debt pay off plans). It was def a great decision for us since we had been living together for a year and paying each other half all of the time was annoying!

9/9/10 @ 8:46 pm (reply)

14.

Guest

cutemommie

I’m with tetorger, we got married in July but have been together 4 years and keep seperate accounts. I have bills I’m responsible for and vice versa and it was just simpler to keep that way.

9/9/10 @ 9:00 pm (reply)

15.

Member

emma5w (message) 547 posts, Busy bee

Great post, Miss Cardigan! FI and I are planning a shared savings account but keeping separate checking accounts. This has been working for us for 3 years of living together, and we don’t see why it would change once we’re married. But we’re definitely open for discussion on it in the future!

9/9/10 @ 9:11 pm (reply)

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Member

lemondrop (message) 1,193 posts, Bumble bee

Honestly, combining accounts has been the best thing ever in our relationship! Life is so much easier now, and we get paid on opposite weeks- so now every single Friday is payday! I love not writing out checks any more for my portion of the mortgage and bills- everything goes into and out of one account!

9/9/10 @ 9:19 pm (reply)

17.

Bee

Miss Socks (message) 1,323 posts, Bumble bee

Good post, Cardy! At this point, it’s super annoying to NOT have our finances combined and to try to keep track and spend evenly (”I’ll pay for the dogs’ grooming if you pay for the groceries”). I can’t wait until we combine everything and get it out of the way!

9/9/10 @ 9:27 pm (reply)

18.

Member

jgoulart (message) 1,069 posts, Bumble bee

My sister and husband have totally separate accounts and even pay the bills separately but the hubs and I are joint down to every last penny. It works for us except we can’t decide on checks… grrr. Our first big purchase will be our honeymoon, still haven’t gone on one!

9/9/10 @ 9:31 pm (reply)

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Member

mspitcher (message) 60 posts, Worker bee

Fantastic post, Miss Cardigan! My fiance and I have the exact same plans and you could have written this blog post for us. He was a Business Management major, though! He is a strong advocate of combining all finances and I (as an independent woman) struggle with putting 100% of our finances into just one account. I came up with the idea of having the joint account for all of our mutual expenses (mortgage, insurance premiums, groceries) and also having separate “fun money” accounts for the EXACT REASON you cited: buying birthday gifts for him without him finding out exactly how much I spent and where I bought it! I am so glad that, SO GLAD, to know that there are other fabulous women in the world who know where I’m coming from!

9/9/10 @ 9:52 pm (reply)

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Member

CaitMarae (message) 6,993 posts, Bee Keeper

We have been together for 5 years and lived together for 4. About 2 years ago we opened our joint accounts. Together we have 1 joint checking and 1 joint savings. FI has his own personal checking and savings and I have my own personal savings. I plan to open my own checking after we’re married and I actually have money to spend out of it.

9/9/10 @ 9:56 pm (reply)

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