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While I’ve been gung-ho about almost every aspect of marrying Mr. S, I was really reluctant about one thing: combining our finances.
We’ve been living together for about five years now, and we’ve never had a joint back account. And things have always been fine. We split the rent down the middle. We take turns buying groceries. We split the utilities evenly but pay our own personal bills (student loans, car insurance, individual credit cards, etc.) ourselves and have our own spending money and savings.
One of the reasons that I was so reluctant to combine our finances was because I didn’t want to have to check with Mr. S every time I wanted to spend money to buy a sweater or have a drink with friends. I hated the idea of asking permission to spend my own money. Conversely, I hate the idea that I may start questioning his expenses as well. Why should I care if he wants to buy a DVD or a nice bottle of wine? If we combine our money, then every individual purchase becomes an issue.
Basically, it ain’t broke. So why fix it?
After lots and lots of conversations about the best way to go about this, we decided that we’d keep our separate checking accounts (and continue to pay our bills the same way) but combine our savings. We came to this decision right after this past Christmas, when we got a nice sum of money that we’ll be putting towards the wedding. Right now, most of our wedding money is in my ING savings account. So I just added Mr. S as a joint account holder. Until now, he’d been saving some wedding money in his own account. But he’s going to transfer that all over to my, or rather our, ING, and that will be where every penny of the wedding money lives until we spend it.
After the wedding, we will agree on a monthly sum, and make sure that we deposit at least that much (but hopefully more) into the ING account every. single. month. We might create separate sub-accounts out of that if we want to save for big ticket items like home improvement, vacations, etc. But we’ll worry about that when those expenses come up.
More importantly than having a shared account, we have to have some ground rules. And here’s where we’re stuck. Since we’re new at this, we’re unsure of how to proceed. I suppose that the biggest rule is that neither one of us withdraws money from the joint savings account without discussing it with the other first.
But after that? I don’t know. I suppose we need to agree on some goals. How much do we want to save for retirement vs. general savings vs. big ticket items? We’re going to have some long discussions ahead. But at least we’ve taken the first step.
How did you combine finances with your significant other?
My FI and I do the same thing–split rent, take turns with groceries and split bills. Truthfully, we have talked about it and are going to subscribe to the “ain’t broke theory” post-wedding as well. I know it may seem weird to some people, but we don’t care to combine our finances. We were honest and candid about it, discussing the pros and cons. Trust or being honest was never something either of us mentioned (something we brought up later that we were both happy about) so we decided there would be no change and no hard feelings.
Good luck to you!
We’ve been married 9 years and together 11 and have had our money together since we started dating. For us, it was easy bc we were poor. Hubby could care less to manage our money so I’m in charge of it all…bills, balancing checkbook, etc… It works out for us bc I’m super anal about balancing and hubby never cares to buy anything and we are always together when we get food (I get groceries or we are together), movies, shopping, etc…or he takes the checkbook if he needs something (we don’t have credit cards bc it would just make us spend more). He also doesn’t care what I spend bc I don’t spend on much bc we still are tight on money (I’m a SAHM and he’s a teacher).
We don’t have a joint account. Works for us but I know some people who think that’s just the strangest thing. I like having my own money, paying my own bills, and not having to justify going out and buying whatever I want to buy!
i think living together has a much more direct impact on how a couple deals with their finances than being married does. sharing expenses requires you to figure out a way to deal with your finances jointly (not necessarily *combining*, but dealing with it together in some way).
we have a joint account as well as personal ones. for us, that keeps bill sharing simple (x amt. into our account), but still avoids that “permission to spend” issue. we’ve just reversed the system so that all our money goes into the joint acct., and then we each get an “allowance” out - it just happens to be simpler in our case.
i’m not sure i can help you with ground rules, but i would recommend checking out the Get Rich Slowly blog for money related questions - it’s fairly down to earth. also, if you want to save for specific things (vacation, etc.) i think Smarty Pig is a really cool savings account setup (we’re using it for our wedding savings).
Your situation is almost EXACTLY what ours was pre-marriage. We ended up getting a joint checking and savings (but keeping our own checking and savings too!) We do check on big purchases, but we have debit cards and a joint credit card to make purchased that we normally used to split (what a pain). When we get the joint CC bill, my husband gives me his half in cash, and I transfer funds from my checking to our checking to cover the entire bill. We do it this way b/c his own accts are at a diff. bank, & mine are at the back where are joint accts are. We put all of our wedding gift $ in the savings, and try to put any extra (say the check from our joint CC rewards) into the joint savings. When I get pregnant, God willing, we plan to come up with another strategy for adding a certain amt to our joint savings or combining all 3 savings into one.
We do still have separate accounts, but it’s very much ‘our’ money in both of them. Whichever of us has money when a bill comes in, pays it. We probably will set up 2 proper joint accounts after the wedding - one for bills etc and one for savings. Then our individual accounts become solely discretionary. Yikes, they’re the ones that’ll be empty most of the time, then!
I too was apprehensive about that whole sharing money aspect of getting married. After living together for 2 years (when we got engaged) we decided to combine our savings. We also opened a joint checking for the purpose of paying rent/groceries/bills. But, the bulk of our pay goes into our own personal checking accounts. There’s something still kinda weird to me about sharing one account, maybe when we have kids that’ll change.
We follow the same routine..split our bills down the middle, pay our own bills separately, and maintain separate checking accounts. I actually have access to DF’s checking account because I pay the bills and it’s easier to transfer the money to my account than to deposit a check from him to cover his half of the expenses after I write a check. Right now we also have separate ING savings accounts. Mine is for wedding savings, his is for honeymoon savings. After the wedding, I suppose we will maintain a single savings account for our retirement and house fund. The next big goal after the wedding is to buy a house.
We got married in November, and just set up a joint checking account a few weeks ago. We are still keeping separate checking accounts, and will probably just combine our separate ING savings accounts into one. We haven’t yet figured out the numbers for how much we will each put into the joint account per paycheck… and other such ground rules. Its all very intimidating. We’ve lived together for 5 years, and have always just split everything 50/50.
[...] Combining Money with My Honey | Weddingbee weddingbee.com/2011/01/09/combining-money-with-my-honey/ – view page – cached While I’ve been gung-ho about almost every aspect of marrying Mr. S, I was really reluctant about one thing: combining our finances. Source We’ve been [...]
I’m going to pimp a book a read about this very topic, I thought it was great:
http://www.amazon.ca/Smart-Cookies-Guide-Couples-Money/dp/0307357988
As for me and my FI, we’ve been living together for almost 5 years now… basically we split fixed expenses proportionate to our incomes, have a joint chequings and savings account that we share, and then everything else is up to our own discression. (Especially since our eating habits are very different- I’m a whole foods, fruit and veg girl, he’s a Kraft Dinner and meatballs kind of guy…) We’ll probably maintain for the first few years of marriage as is, and then revisit the arrangement when we start talking about a family.
I work for a bank, so love be damned, I see the other side of joint accounts. It is soooo easy for one person to innocently throw the account off ESPECIALLY when there isn’t that much to go around.
In addition to that I encourage Everyone that wants to do your plan of Joint savings seperate other accounts to check your account agreement. Just about Every bank reserves what is known as the right to offset meaning if her account is messed up at the same bank THEIR account is fair game to recover funds.
My finace and I will subscribe to the “if it ain’t broke” plan as well.
We’ve done something a little similar to you two. At this point, we have enough in our savings to provide a year-long cushion (rather than the typical 6 month cushion) in the event that we both lose our jobs. Currently, we’re working on saving a set amount for emergencies (buying a new car when the current one finally dies, repairs, etc). The first account will not be touched by us unless there is a job loss. The second is, as said, for emergencies.
Beyond that, we have used a joint version of Mint (we still each have separate versions) that we use to set up different items we want to save for: more schooling, vacations, a down payment, nice furniture items, etc. Basically, anything that will require savings.
The cash that’s left over after our monthly expenses and deposits into the savings accounts, we split between us and can do whatever we want with. We don’t get to judge what the other person does with this money-it’s theirs to do as they please.
So far, this works for us and has kept a nice balance of “our” money vs. the money I get to spend on me!
I had the same fears as you which is why we formed a similar system when we got engaged, with the plan to continue it. But then I realized that he doesn’t really care what I buy. And I don’t really care what he buys. Money has been tight enough in the last year that we’ve both had to stick to budgets and we’ve done it. So, now we are 100% joint. I know it might cause some fights in the future but I feel like thats just part of being married, working through that.
We found that combining finances made things much easier for us. We’ve lived together for 5 years and had joint finances for atleast 3. We’ve yet to run into any issues having combined finances so I promise, it’s really not as scary as you would think. We discuss larger purchases with each other before making them (normally $150+) and are always on the same page regarding how our money should be spent and saved. As long as both parties agree to not freak out every penny spent there shouldn’t be a problem.
We’ve been living together for 2 years, but we opened a joint account when we bought our house. Every other week, there is an automatic withdrawal from both of our accounts for the same amount. That money is transferred to our joint checking account. Its essentially just splitting everything in half, but with the mortgage being bi-weekly and such a large sum, it was easier to have the payments come from one account.
We did nearly the same thing. I was really hesitant to change accounts, mostly because I like my bank. So, we have kept both of our checking accounts (where the direct deposit for work/school is for each of us) and created a single joint account with savings, but mostly for bills. We both put about 30% of our checks into that account (for both bills and savings) and it really works. So, yes, I totally get you.
we decided to link our separate checking accounts (so we both have access to the money which can easily be transfered between the two) and we’ll probably share a savings account but that hasn’t been set up yet. he is going to take care of everything (bills, managing accounts, etc) which is fine with me! at first i had a hard time with that idea b/c when i was managing my own money i kept track of EVERY penny in a little notebook lol… it was an anal thing. like all my bills, receipts, everything. it gave me joy on an OCD level to know exactly how much I had haha, which can be very different than what it says online because there could be upcoming bills that haven’t been deducted yet. but it’s going to release a ton of stress for me to let him just take care of it all and we make pretty good money so i wont have to check with him every time i go shopping or whatever. it’s also better not to have to pay each other back when we need to split a bill or rent cuz all the money is in one place.
I never thought about that when we combined our finances 11 years ago but now definitely agree. If my husband just spent $10 and I didn’t know about it, we could overdraw on our account, just b/c we live paycheck to paycheck since I’m staying at home with our son at the moment.
I think whatever works for each couple is the best thing. For us, it would drive me crazy b/c I know that if we had separate accounts, my husband probably would never balance his and would overdraw on his account. I know it seems like I control all the money and I guess I really do but he’s never complained, so far. 
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Ms. Sloth, Philadelphia Age and Occupation: 35, Account Manager and Fashion Blogger Fiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Design Admin Engagement Date: December 25, 2009 Wedding Date: May 2011 Venue: Bartram's Garden About Me: I'm an internet junkie and music snob with a good eye for a bargain. I couldn't live without thrift store shopping, cheeseburgers, sushi, Coke Zero, websites devoted to silly photos of baby animals, Photoshop, and Mr. Sloth. Speaking of which, he and I are a pair of goofball homebody nerds who love our beagle (the most ridiculously adorable dog EVER) to an embarrassing degree. We're planning a low-key and intimate yet festive and quirky outdoor wedding with DIY details and deeply personal touches, and it's all taking place in the city where we fell in love and call home: Philadelphia.
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