married - joining finances/seperate - HELP!

The way I see it is up until marriage all finances could be kept seperate. Once married, finances should be joined. You are a "joined" couple, so everything should be joined.

Yep! ^^^This

my partner and i are not married (engaged and getting married in november though) i stay at home with our kids, my partner earns the money. from that we pay the bills and anything left over gets split between us 50/50! xxx

I see several ways of sorting finances, all can work depending on the situation!
1 - both partners should contribute an equal amount of their salary
2 - both partners should contribute an equal percentage of their salary
3 - one partner works and pays everything, the other stas home with the kids
4 - all money is joint and it doesn't matter who puts in or takes out what

I would say in your case as A earns a huge amount more than B, A should be happy to contribute more and stop being an *kitten*!!

We have separate accounts and always have done. When we first moved in together Dom earned a lot more than me so he paid most of the bills. Now our salaries are pretty much equal he pays the mortgage and I pay other bills which works out pretty much equal. We're not like 'this is yours and this is mine', we just never got round to switching accounts over. Now its been so long I kind of like our accounts being separate, I can't imagine Dom being too happy seeing the £50 i just spent on makeup, or me seeing all the £££'s he spends on his koi fish on a joint bank statement lol

I love how most people are saying to combine incomes that it should not be seperate. Well I live in the real world and have delt with literally hundreds of married people who combined their incomes and it has cause huge problems. "A" normally makes more money than "B" but there are exceptions. "B" cooks maybe 1-2 meals a day and cleans for about 30 minutes then sits on the couch and watches Oprah and Dr. Oz then goes shopping with "A's" money. What I have found is that "A" is sick and tired of "B's" lack of contribution to the marriage and is lashing out in what they believe is a subtle way to get "B" motivated to do more. "B" uses the excuse that we are married and the "LAW" says.

Marriage is a form of extortion, Divorce with alimoney or awarding a spouse that has done little to nothing to contribute to the financial part of the marriage is nothing more than indentured servitude.

And yes I am married 28 1/2 years and counting and yes we have seperate accounts and we pay our own bills.

I know my way may not work for everyone, but it works for us. I make more than my husband does to the tune of about 40 %. I figure everything that can be counted on every month, buget billing for utilities, mortgage, insurance, gym memberships, etc and divide by 2. That's what we put into a separate account each payday. Then we use what's left to buy a budgeted amount of groceries. The extra after that goes to gas and other expenses. We each take some out for cash spending. I usually take more, just because I'm always the one that says, "oh poo, the cats need kibble tomorrow" and I go buy it, with my money. I handle all our bills because my husband gets confused on bill due dates. Also, we pay every bill the day we get it, so we are never late.

Not saying it works for everyone, but my husband loves to spend on beef jerkey, pretzels, and other snacky type things. He loves getting pizza and breadsticks. So, he uses his money for that. And he is fine with me having a little extra "spending" money, because I take care of the unbudgeted expenses that come up in between paydays, like running out of cat food, or tissues or paper towels, what have you.

Money is a huge killer of relationships. We tried the separate thing for a while. Bills were late we always seemed broker than normal and we had to "borrow" money from each other. Now, everything is much smoother. This system allowed us to learn budgeting and to buy our first house together at 21. That's huge right now. Loans are hard to come by. So, just talk about different options. I liked a PP about figuring out that you make X% of the total monthy income so you contribute that percentage to the total bills per month. Try that.

And IMHO, I bought my car before hubby and I got married, but that didn't mean the car payment was mine alone. We joined every bill, pre-marriage or not. We share everything. Hardships and triumphs. That has made our relationship that much stronger. :flowerforyou:

I find that one thing that stresses a couple is scorekeeping. If partners are shoving it in each other's faces that one is doing more than the other -- whether it's finances or chores or whatever -- it's not a good thing. I think the only way to not keep score is to accept that you're in it together, which means joint finances.

The fairest way is to do it by percentage. For example 65% of his check and 65% of your noth go to pay the household bills. The one who makes less will obviously have less to contribute but its the same percentage of your wages. So its even.

This is a difficult topic in all marriages. My husband and I have always kept our bank account separate and we have a shared savings account (this allows for easier transfers of money if need be plus we can have one savings account). Anyways... he makes more income so he pays most of the bills whereas I help when needed. We work as a team even if our accounts are separate. Having the separate accounts allows us to still have some independence of what we spend without feeling guilty of spending the others income.

I know most people that are married have a joint account, but in my situation we have what works. He never throws it in my face that he makes more, because I still have an income and I help with a lot of little things at home (I do most of the cleaning/cooking...)

I think this is something that you all have to communicate about, and express how you are feeling with them in order to get a solution.

Hope this helps!

Sounds to me like you got a pretty fair deal going with the billing arrangment. However, THE OTHER PERSON SHOULD NOT BE RUBBING IT IN ANYONES FACE WHAT THEY PAY. It's a team effort.

Hubby makes twice as much, but all our finances are combined as well as our bills. I pay all the bills with our combined incomes, he wants nothing of it. We BOTH agree that retirement savings (20% set aside from each of our paychecks) and regular savings ($700/mo.) comes FIRST. After that, paying down credit card debt and regular household expenses and everybody's happy. We don't argue about money and neither of us throws anything up in each other's face. Marriage is a partnership, we've been married 19 years and it has worked well for us from the get-go. You have to find what works best for you and stick with it.

My hubby and I have been together for six years and married for three. We spilt all the bills 50/50 and keep our regular paychecks separate but do combine our refund from taxes into a savings account. All of our bank accounts are joint, but separate in the same means. We each have two checking accounts and one combined savings. It just works for us that way. I make more than my hubby, but we take home about equal pay (because i pay flex, health, life, dental, & vision insurance, plus IPERS -mandatory retirement and taxes out of my pay and he just has taxes, life ins, and his corporate gym membership out of his pay).

Realistically if A is male and B is female, then A will [almost] always make a significant amount more than B. In a marriage, A and B should help support each other in every way they can. B will probably never be able to offer the same financial support A can, and A can't get angry because B wasn't able to find a job that pays as well as his. As long as both are contributing to the household, there shouldn't be any problems. There might be deeper-lying issues causing the out lash over finances. A might just need a reality check. Maybe A and B should communicate more or get some marriage counseling.

I'm going to play the devil advocate and introduce a new point of view. Sounds like A is not happy sexually to be honest. A guy who is getting his world rocked would never have a complain about anything.

My husband and I have separate finances and we are similar A) makes $59k and makes $25k...... My husband never throws it in my face that he pays the rent which is $900 a month.... That's the part of the original post that worries me. We are just fine with separate finances but if anything I feel bad that I can't contribute more, not because of him though. I pay power, water, phone and my bills he pays rent, groceries and his bills. It works out fine. It's not a trust thing either, it's just easier that way. And we are 28 and 31 (I'm older) we got married 2 years ago so I was on my own for 10 years, I got pretty used to doing things my way and so did he. I think it is different if you get married at 21, you've only just started and and combining is easier. So basically your A, needs to stop complaining and just pay up, or you need to find a new A that will be more than happy to help support his family!!!