Money Management With Spouses

[TheLastStop123]

Curious to hear people's thoughts on this - for those that are married, how do you manage money with your spouses? If you aren't married, how do you anticipate handling it? Joint accounts? Separately? What is considered normal?

Was having a conversation with some friends about this and it seems a lot of people are different in how they approach it. My parents, for example, have been happily married 25+ years and have never had any joint financial accounts. They don't even have the same financial advisor - all their money is handled/managed separately and I've always thought this is a pretty solid way to go about it.

They are funny - they literally break down the credit card bill each month and determine who is going to pay for what.

Curious to see what others do.

[Lee3691]

I have been married a shade under 10 years
• Wife and I maintain separate checking accounts / savings accounts. I hate her bank, but she likes it, and likes that the rest of her family is there. We each have direct deposit from our employers into our respective accounts.
• We have a joint savings account. I usually transfer most of her paycheck to this savings account, and then when bills are due, transfer what I need from there, to my checking account, to pay the bills.

So I guess we are in-between what many folks due where everything is joint, and what your parent are doing, which is basically to keep all $$ separate.

[bradshaw06]

We both have our own account and then a joint account that we put money into to pay the bills.

[YouNeverKnow25]

there isn't going to be a "normal" answer, everyone's mileage varies

for example I think it's really freaking weird to be married to someone while keeping your financial lives separate--I just don't think about marriage in the sense of holding anything back from your spouse, much less something as important as financials. other people see it differently. whatever floats your boat.

[cazzie34]

We've kept it separate so far more so out of laziness rather than any philosophical reason. I pay the majority of the bills and she cuts me a check. Probably not the best way to do it but, again, it is just because we have been lazy with setting up a joint account.

[chadizzy1]

When I was married, we had a master checking account. And sub accounts under that.

We had an account for the bills, which neither of us used for anything but the bills. Then I had an account on my own. She also had an account on her own where her paychecks went into. Then we had a savings account as well.

I usually handled the finances, and have an app called Accounts2 on my iPhone that I use to keep up with all my accounts (like a checkbook register). I don't rely on Online Banking because stuff never clears when you pay it, and I don't like relying on that to know what my balance is. I didn't keep up with hers, that was her responsibility, but she used the same app on her phone.

Then for bill paying structures, I just created an Excel spreadsheet with bills every month, and then have the budget amount, actual amount, then profit/loss for any savings or overages we have against budget. Anything extra over the budgeted amount goes into savings after I pay my bills.

But we both had access to online banking, so we didn't keep our finances where we couldn't see each others accounts. We just kept the separate in general for simplicity.

[M. Steng]

I'm with YNK, wife and I have a joint checking account where our direct deposits go and to pay bills from, and then a shared CC that most of our expenses go onto.

We still maintain our accounts that we had prior to marriage, mostly just for buying gifts for each other so that they don't show up on the statements of our shared account . I also have a few sneaky things like gambling funds that I put into my own account just so my wife doesn't yell at me

I handle all our finances, I don't even think my wife ever looks at our statements or anything. If we go crazy with spending one month I kinda just tell her, hey, take it easy on the online shopping or stop buying the super expensive guac from Whole Foods and she will listen, and it will be a little better the next month. We are fortunate to be in a pretty decent financial situation so it's not this super-stressful endeavor to make sure our bills get paid every month. There was a time prior to marriage where we had to be super careful about what bills we paid when based on when we got paid, fortunately those days are behind us now.

[TheLastPig]

Originally Posted by chadizzy1

When I was married, we had a master checking account. And sub accounts under that.

We had an account for the bills, which neither of us used for anything but the bills. Then I had an account on my own. She also had an account on her own where her paychecks went into. Then we had a savings account as well.

I usually handled the finances, and have an app called Accounts2 on my iPhone that I use to keep up with all my accounts (like a checkbook register). I don't rely on Online Banking because stuff never clears when you pay it, and I don't like relying on that to know what my balance is. I didn't keep up with hers, that was her responsibility, but she used the same app on her phone.

Then for bill paying structures, I just created an Excel spreadsheet with bills every month, and then have the budget amount, actual amount, then profit/loss for any savings or overages we have against budget. Anything extra over the budgeted amount goes into savings after I pay my bills.

But we both had access to online banking, so we didn't keep our finances where we couldn't see each others accounts. We just kept the separate in general for simplicity.

not to get too personal, but did you recently go through a divorce? I swore I saw you mention just back in '16 how you went to alpine with your wife? Or maybe that was your gf?

[dmbolp]

Married 26 years, single checking acct, single MM acct, I manage those accts and the bills. Our investment guy is in our building, we visit him jointly monthly, lots of various joint/separate investment accounts.

[M. Steng]

It also seems a little weird to me that you'd pledge your eternal love to someone and trust them with your life and vice versa, but then be like, oh yeah, you owe me $1500 for last month's bills

Having everything together just makes it so much simpler and way less of a hassle. We did the whole "you owe me X" when we were engaged and it just got tiring after a while.

[aeroshady]

We have a shared backing account that our direct deposits go into. We then transfer money to our personal accounts minus what is needed for bills/savings toward a home. Both of us use PNC Bank, so this is a pretty easy method for us.

[drop2d]

Originally Posted by bradshaw06

We both have our own account and then a joint account that we put money into to pay the bills.

Yup... pretty much this. We basically put most of our money into the joint account for bills/savings and have our own accounts for 'fun money'. It's always fun when we go out together and the bill comes to figure out who's paying... Kind of a little joke that if neither of us feels like using our fun money we'll 'expense' it and use the joint account. Logic being that we talked about the house/bills/lifestuff.

[drop2d]

Originally Posted by M. Steng

It also seems a little weird to me that you'd pledge your eternal love to someone and trust them with your life and vice versa, but then be like, oh yeah, you owe me $1500 for last month's bills

Having everything together just makes it so much simpler and way less of a hassle. We did the whole "you owe me X" when we were engaged and it just got tiring after a while.

Aren't you kinda contradicting yourself a little bit here?

Originally Posted by M. Steng

I'm with YNK, wife and I have a joint checking account where our direct deposits go and to pay bills from, and then a shared CC that most of our expenses go onto.

We still maintain our accounts that we had prior to marriage, mostly just for buying gifts for each other so that they don't show up on the statements of our shared account . I also have a few sneaky things like gambling funds that I put into my own account just so my wife doesn't yell at me

I handle all our finances, I don't even think my wife ever looks at our statements or anything. If we go crazy with spending one month I kinda just tell her, hey, take it easy on the online shopping or stop buying the super expensive guac from Whole Foods and she will listen, and it will be a little better the next month. We are fortunate to be in a pretty decent financial situation so it's not this super-stressful endeavor to make sure our bills get paid every month. There was a time prior to marriage where we had to be super careful about what bills we paid when based on when we got paid, fortunately those days are behind us now.

[Lee3691]

I think when there are divorced, step children, etc - that is when some money matters can get complicated.

[mandy18]

All our accounts are joint.
If one of us wants a major purchase, we just give the other a heads up first.
We joined accounts when we started living together.

[Ascf33]

Personally, I feel the way we do it is the simplest and most transparent. We have one joint checking. One joint savings. and then we each have individual checking accounts for personal stuff. From each of my paychecks, I have a set amount go to my checking, a set amount go to joint savings and the rest goes to joint checking for bills and day to day purchases. We do the same with her paychecks. Usually anything extra in joint checking at the end of the month after we pay bills we move to joint savings. That we we each have our own "spending"money and the joint accounts are only for bills and family/home purchases.

[Ascf33]

We also have 529 college funds for the kids that we each put $200 a month into that gets auto debited from our joint checking account.

[M. Steng]

Originally Posted by drop2d

Aren't you kinda contradicting yourself a little bit here?

I see what you mean, but my gambling stuff is nothing significant, at all (I stink at gambling on sports).

[cjstinelli]

Originally Posted by mandy18

All our accounts are joint.
If one of us wants a major purchase, we just give the other a heads up first.
We joined accounts when we started living together.

This. She handles finances. Only problem is gifts. I will use cash or buy last minute and ask her not to check the acct.

[snow1868]

Originally Posted by mandy18

All our accounts are joint.
If one of us wants a major purchase, we just give the other a heads up first.
We joined accounts when we started living together.

This is what we do as well.

[scrock25]

Everything is together besides work managed 401(k)s for obvious reasons.

[scrock25]

Originally Posted by YouNeverKnow25

there isn't going to be a "normal" answer, everyone's mileage varies

for example I think it's really freaking weird to be married to someone while keeping your financial lives separate--I just don't think about marriage in the sense of holding anything back from your spouse, much less something as important as financials. other people see it differently. whatever floats your boat.

[chadizzy1]

Originally Posted by TheLastPig

not to get too personal, but did you recently go through a divorce? I swore I saw you mention just back in '16 how you went to alpine with your wife? Or maybe that was your gf?

Yeah, in the final steps of it right now. Going back to being a full time single dad again - but this time to 2 kids instead of 1. The adventure begins!

[Lee3691]

Originally Posted by chadizzy1

Yeah, in the final steps of it right now. Going back to being a full time single dad again - but this time to 2 kids instead of 1. The adventure begins!

Sorry to hear about that Chad. Hope you get custody of both kiddos.

[chadizzy1]

Originally Posted by Lee3691

Sorry to hear about that Chad. Hope you get custody of both kiddos.

Oh I did, we're not even going to court. We worked it out between us without it getting too messy. Once the papers come in all we have to do is sign them, then my lawyer will take care of the rest.

[TheLastStop123]

I appreciate all the responses. seems like a lot of variations work for you guys, which is good. I've been with the same girl for about 2.5 years and she's likely the one I'm going to be with, so all of this has recently crossed my mind in terms of figuring out what to do. I can definitely see it both ways, and it is interesting how different everyone does things.

[Beefsteak1138]

All income gets dumped into a shared account. We each budget ourselves some personal spending money to do whatever we want with. Any larger purchases we usually give each other a heads-up about.

[TheLastPig]

Originally Posted by chadizzy1

Yeah, in the final steps of it right now. Going back to being a full time single dad again - but this time to 2 kids instead of 1. The adventure begins!

Sorry to hear man. Stay strong.

[Route_2]

My wife and I keep all of our accounts separate. May seem weird to some, but works well for us. I maintain a spreadsheet where I reconcile all of our assets at the end of each month so I can keep track of our household liabilities and net worth.

[GSUdawg521]

Originally Posted by Ascf33

Personally, I feel the way we do it is the simplest and most transparent. We have one joint checking. One joint savings. and then we each have individual checking accounts for personal stuff. From each of my paychecks, I have a set amount go to my checking, a set amount go to joint savings and the rest goes to joint checking for bills and day to day purchases. We do the same with her paychecks. Usually anything extra in joint checking at the end of the month after we pay bills we move to joint savings. That we we each have our own "spending"money and the joint accounts are only for bills and family/home purchases.

I don't have anything against thinking that kinda thing works better for you, but I dunno how you could argue that something like that is the "simplest" way, with all those accounts and transfers versus just... one account, essentially.