'his' money and 'hers' money

liftingbro

If youre married, there is no His and Hers. When you have this in a mariage, you have preforcasted youself for divorce

This is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever read on these forums.

Yeah I pretty much disagree with broad sweeping comments like this.
Marriages aren't one size fits all.

Agree completely..how you handle your household finances has nothing to do with the quality of your marriage. Separate accounts works in my situation, but it doesn't mean we don't consider both incomes to be "our money".....we just have different styles of management. All our bills get paid on time and our names are on each others accounts for emergency purposes. Its not about keeping secrets, but it certainly does make things easier.

Exactly. When unexpected expenses come up we pool money to pay for it or if one of us has more on hand than the other the one with more pays for it. It's all "our" money but then we're both good at managing our money. I think having separate accounts can be problematic if of the people has issues managing money, but otherwise it shouldn't be a huge problem if you trust each other.

223730

We just have an "ours" account. Both of our checks go in the account and we pay everything from that. We've never fought about money. I think if both people are happy, do what works - "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

bstamps12

We have never had a fight about money and have all joint accounts, except for our IRA's obviously. On that note, we both put in the same amount to our IRA's but the funds in my IRA aren't the same as the funds in his IRA...right now his is doing better and I'm jealous (playfully) :noway: since I'm the main one who researches the investments and stocks and everything.

Whatever works, but I think this is an issue people don't think about in the case of divorce. Just having a separate checking account means nothing in court in most states, just to remind those of you who have said you thought you were protecting yourself. If there's no pre-nup, it goes by the law in your state, no matter whose name was on the accounts, except in IRAs or 401Ks, but even the value of those has been counted into total assets in a number of cases. Just a little fyi for you guys! :flowerforyou:

boomboom011

When we got married we became 1, including our checking accounts. However, we live our life and marriage a bit differently than most.

solpwr

The safest way in my view is: Ours, His, Hers.
If your spending styles aren't fully aligned, just a joint account can be a source of discontent. Some are "spenders", and some are "savers".

A good way to allocate for the Ours account is this:
Figure out your total family income, and then the percentage that he brings, and the percentage she brings.
Figure out your total household budget.
Use the percentages to determine how much comes from each person, and the amount in excess of the household budget is the amount each person keeps.

Example: He makes $4,000 monthly, and she makes $6,000 monthly. (Take home amounts) The couple makes $10,000 per month.
The household budget, including all the necessary stuff is $8,000 per month.
So he contributes $3,200 (0.4 x 8,000), and she contributes $4,800 (0.6 x 8,000). There's always money in the joint account for all the monthly expenses. Direct deposit the fixed amount either from the paycheck or individual accounts.
The left over is $800 for him, and $1,200 for her, proportional to what they each make. No resentments. If she wants to spend all of her money in her own account each month, she can. If he wants to save for something big, he can.

Any money that comes out of the joint account for other than household expenses is a joint decision.

cabaray

I have a checking and savings, he does not. I figured up what half the bills are per month and he gives me his portion from his paycheck. I always end up paying more than he does, but it's better than sharing an account with him. I love him but he so fiscally irresponsible it's crazy. He keeps the cash he has left from his check and that's what he has to run on for two weeks. We tried a shared account, but after so many bounced checks because he forgot to record debit transactions, that ended. It works well for us, he likes not having to worry about the bills getting paid and I'm neurotic about it and wouldn't let him do it anyway.

wannababyH

how you handle your household finances has nothing to do with the quality of your marriage.

Money is the number #1 reason for divorce.

peripah

We each have a personal chequing account and we share a savings account that requires both our signatures for withdrawls. We each have a personal credit card, with limits that we keep small. Our mortgage is in both names but comes out of his account. He has RRSPs; I don't. Both RESPs are in both our names. He pays certain bills, I pay the others.

We've heard critisms for our system of keeping money separate but it's worked well for us for the past 14 years. The only thing we fight about is cleaning.

cabaray

I have to say that our marriage only became stronger once we separated our finances. I carried so much resentment against my husband because he would buy things he wanted and then I had no money I could spend because there was barely enough to pay the bills. He truly is a paycheck to paycheck kind of guy and I can't handle that!

Hellbent_Heidi

how you handle your household finances has nothing to do with the quality of your marriage.

Money is the number #1 reason for divorce.

I didn't say money doesn't cause fights...I'm just saying that having separate or joint accounts in not an indicator of the strength of the marriage. In my situation, I suspect we'd probably fight about money if we had to balance our daily expenses together every single day. As a previous poster said there's no 'one size fits all' marriage.

Pandorian

Whatever way you "do' it, communication is probably the most important part. My brother keeps telling me of his new computer gear, $140 keyboard, $90 mouse when I get both for $15 because I just need something that works, key is he's telling me of these expenses while they're on the verge of losing their house over lack of funds to pay for it. If he would pay attention and buy the stuff he needs just to function instead of unnecessary upgrades he'd have the money to keep the roof over their heads... I've done what I can to help them but it's up to them to pull out of it if they can.

significance

As I mentioned above, my husband and I pool everything, but then allow ourselves each a small weekly pocket money amount (about 5% of our take home pay). We have a slight disagreement over how the pocket money should be handled: I think it should be equal, while he thinks it should be proportional to our individual incomes. As long as I earn more than him, this doesn't cause any arguments.

kimmay420

We have a 'his', 'her's, and 'ours', even though his money is my money, and my money is my money.. LOL Just kidding

rosebarnalice

Married 27 years, we sit down once a year during tax season and plan a budget for the upcoming year. Categories include:
long term savings, retirement, short term savings [for vacations & home improvements & car replacement, mostly] regular bills, early mortgage payoff, and monthly "blow" money.

With direct deposit, our paychecks go directly into separate accounts for each of these major categories--all of which are joint with right of survivorship.

We have NEVER fought about money; we both know what the "blow" budget is, and we don't abuse it or give the other lip about how it's spent. If anything requires withdrawing money from the short term or long term savings, we agree on it before the money comes out of the account.

Ocarina

Shared. He makes the money and I manage the finances and hold the debit card. It's basically to keep us sane as for him the plastic really isn't a good thing as he will forget it has a limit. We never argue about money. Overtime is a mandatory thing so usually he gets that or we split it. Easy!

RachelSRoach1

Shared in this house... He's the only one making money anyway!!

Same! A few art commissions here but not enough to warrant my own accounts.

jamiesgotagun

No, we're married...it's all mine

Cristy_AZ

In 25 years nothing has ever been seperate. One account, two direct deposits.

questionablemethods

No, we're married...it's all mine

Haha! Yes.

killerqueen17

We share, and we are very open about what we spend. No secrets here

maserati185

There's nothing wrong with sharing one account if you have a system and it works, but to imply that people who have separate accounts have "secrets" or aren't in a healthy marriage is really funny. People having separate accounts doesn't mean that their partner isn't allowed to access it, that they don't divvy up paychecks or that it was set up to hide "bad" things. In my relationship, one of us is a saver and the other a spender so, although we have a main account, we also have seperate accounts to avoid conflict on how our portion of spending money is spent. Besides decreasing the chance of arguing over finances, it also allows for gift purchases to be a surprise or for us to quickly pull spending money without having to check balances and get the ok from the other. Seperate accounts, in a trusting relationship, can be a wise marital decision for, I would dare say, the average couple... as I imagine the majority (not all) of couples don't consist of two super saver personality types.

yaddayaddayadda

Together... what's his is mine & what's mine is mine... LOL

Seriously. All of our money goes into one pile and all of our bills are paid from that pile. I take care of the finances. He trusts me to do so. We have been married 22 years. That said...what works for us may not work for you.

PS... I get the divorce thing and separate money... but we're past that. Besides, if we divorced, he would have to manage his own money and his credit rating would drop b/c he would forget to pay his bills!! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: