money squabbles with spouse

Those of you that have seperate bank accounts, do you have children? Who is responsible to that? We have a joint account and most of the money I spend is on our girls and what they need. He eats out at lunch, I don't. I pay all the bills, food shop and clothes shop for everyone. We don't fight about money however, I am in charge of most of it. He does make more. Just wondering.

I pay for most of the things for our child. My fiance pays for games, hot lunches at school, haircuts, toys and frivolities. I pay for clothes, sports and sports equipment, favorite food, and toiletries

This is a very complicated topic for so many reasons.
1. The relationship between the two partners and their skill level with managing money.
2. Your financial goals and your ability to fund those goals.
3. The structure of your finances for current and future needs and possibilities.

I have been married for 24 years and my wife is an accountant. I at one time was a financial advisor. We have a number of accounts and all of them are joint. It is just smart in case something happens to one of us. The other has full access and no hassle in case of death or other emergency. Joint with rights of survivor ship is the best way to set them up. Second I manage certain accounts and she manages certain accounts. We have budgets for each account and a purpose for each account. The accounts I manage I make an effort to be efficient and I get rewarded for the effort by have extra that I can spend any way I want and vice versa. If she goes short on the budgets for the accounts she manages that means she nothing extra to spend and vice versa for me. One bank account is set up for household expenses for example. Another is set up to pay for any debt that we decide to take on. That is usually only car or house. We carry no other debt. Everything else is cash and carry. We have short and long term goals and accounts for each goal. We both make good money so the only time we argue about money is usually on the estimated taxes I should be paying. I like to pay the least I can and she thinks I should pay more. I say it does not matter as long as all of the taxes get paid at the end of the year.
We have an emergency fund that no one touches unless there is a true emergency. You get the point. I don't care how she spends the money for the accounts she manages as long as it does not require me to fund a budget shortfall because she did not manage her budget correctly. That pisses me off and it does happen and if it is not something is required for both of us we just go without. I know it is a very complicated process but we are never broke and our bills get paid and we rarely do without things we want or need. Yea and we have two very expensive kids. Both are in college.

I recently implemented an allowance for my husband, as he has a serious spending problem. I take care of the finances, but we had the joint checking account, and if he saw money was 'available' he would often spend it without thinking it might be for a bill.

Needless to say, money has been an issue for us for a few years, and I got so angry with him on so many occasions for what I considered frivolous personal spending when I never spent anything on myself because there was never extra money in the budget after my husband spent whatever he felt like.

So starting at the first of this year, I opened a checking account that was only in his name, he gets a certain amount of money transferred to it every week from our joint checking account. He gave me the debit card for the joint checking account, so he doesn't spend any of the money from that account. It is his responsibility to manage his allowance, and he can spend or save at his discretion. All purchases that involve only him are to come only from that account.

So far it has worked out really well. He's happy with it, and I'm happy with it. In fact I'm thrilled, because now I have a non-varying amount that I can account for each month in my budget. Something similar might work well for you and your husband.

Those of you that have seperate bank accounts, do you have children? Who is responsible to that?

Our daughter will be 19 in March. She has always played sports, and played competitively so it was pretty expensive once you factor in "equipment", clothing/tracksuits, etc through the club or schools, and trips/tournament fees. My husband always paid all the sports related fees, and I basically covered everything else (hair, nails, clothes, entertainment $, etc).

Every year we go on an all-inclusive vacation. We each pay our own, and split our daughter's cost. Weird - I know. But it works:)

Sign up for Dave Ramsey's FPU class, and go to every session. Best $100 I ever spent.

Seriously, just go. Now.

If you hate it, I will personally send you a check for $200.

^^^ THIS!!! Absolutely right. My wife and I had constant arguments about money until reading Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. Now, the last week of the month we sit down and write out next month's budget. We each have an agreed upon amount of 'Free Money' to do whatever we want like lunches, football pools, etc.
I'm reading a lot of people talk about separate accounts. I know that's all the rage right now but here's the cheese: Intamacy extends beyond the bedroom! Intamacy is 'oneness'. You and your spouse should be 'one' in everything you do. Money, disciplining the kids, goals for your family, etc.
Go through a Dave Ramsey class or book. Put it in action. You two will probably argue even more in the beginning. That's okay. As long as you both are in it with common goals (i.e. what's best for the other person and your family as a whole) you will get through it. And when you do, you will most likely find yourselves even closer than before! :-) Good luck and God bless.

While we didn't ever argue about money, it is a stressor in all lifes (unless you have more than you know what to do with I guess).

What works for us is a budget.

I created an excel spreadsheet that lists absolutely EVERYTHING. I have it broken down into sections - things that are automatcially withdrawn, and their dates, groceries, gas, fun money, kids activities, day care, debt repayment, mortgage, car loan etc.

We have been using this system since we started to save up money for our wedding.

We each get an "allowance" every 2 weeks, we withdraw the cash and are done at that. Obviously things come up from time to time, that we figure out, but we are in a pretty good position overall.

We each get 120 bucks a week for spending money. The bill money for February is saved from paychecks in January. So February 1st, all bills are paid. You have to get ahead and stay ahead. They say to get ahead 6 months..We might be two months ahead of the bills.

I agree with having a joint as well as separate accounts, some SOs end up not being the best choices...

Personally I have a budget and allowance, I think it's the best thing!

I know other people, like some people here, where Hubby pays for A and B, Wife pays for X and Y, so long as it's figured out, that's fine!

To me the key is communication and budgeting.

When first married we had a joint account and it was TOXIC!!!! I'm a saver, when I do spend I want to make repairs to our home and get new windows and get new carpet and things like that!

My husband on the other hand wants Xbox games, movies, stereo equipment for his car, to go to comedy clubs, etc.

I have no trouble doing fun things, but I think they should come last.

Finally, we got seperate bank accounts, he pays certain bills and I pay certain bills. It works, except the last few weeks he's been bumming me for money and I find that extremely irritating!

Edited to add: We have also watched some of Dave Ramsey's seminars online and he has a ton of good advice! That too has helped us.