Ask The Readers: His And Her Checking Accounts
Photo courtesy mrbill
If you are like most married folk, you and your spouse have been through at least one discussion about money. Who spent what? That cost how much? You want to buy what?
This week’s ask the readers is pretty straight forward.
Do you and your spouse have separate checking and savings accounts or does everything go into the same pool?
Post your response in the comments. If you care to elaborate on how everything plays out in your relationship, please feel free.
Should be an interesting discussion. See you in the comments below.
Corey is the editor of Simple Marriage as well as a licensed marriage & family therapist. While he has a Ph.D. in Family Therapy, he only occasionally likes to be called doctor. If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe so you don't miss any future posts.17 Responses to “Ask The Readers: His And Her Checking Accounts”
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The hub and I put our money together actually before we got married. Since we knew we were getting married and neither of us had debt, it just made everything easier.
The hub has an MBA in finance so he is in charge of the money. He will tell me what his plans with the money are and I can disagree and we’de stop and work that out, but he knows what he is doing. I totally trust him. He is more furgal than I am anyway. We do consult each other on purchases over a hundred dollars. If we need to tighten it up, he’ll just tell me.
We’ve never really fought about money. There was once that he said, “You now if you want to spend the money on all this little stuff instead of saving for bigger things, that’s your choice.” After that, I watched what I bought much better.
We’ve done a pretty good job of dividing up who is in charge of what. I don’t like the whole money thing (well except for spending it) and he doesn’t know the ropes of education and public schools like I do, so he takes on the finances and I take on the schools for our kids. It works for us. I can see that this would only work if the money person has self control because I have not looked at a bank statement in years.
Separate accounts? Yes and no. We have a checking account in her name and a savings account in mine, each at different banks, but NOT to keep our money separate from each other. We both have full access to both accounts. It’s more of a convenience thing, really. The savings account is located at a small town bank with the nearest branch about 90 minutes away, making us think twice about going to the ATM to get money out and paying a fee. The checking account is at one of the biggies. Why not joint accounts? That’s an easy one: we weren’t at the same place when either account was open. She couldn’t add me without me being there, and I couldn’t add her without her being there. So, it just worked out that way. I do think, however, that having separate accounts — if done for the purpose of having his and her money or for hiding from each other what you spend — could easily be damaging to the marriage. As money is such a powerful force, it can easily drive a wedge between a couple if it isn’t managed properly and jointly. Just my opinion.
The wife would have nothing of it. I like the idea in concept, but the wife liked the idea that we would be together forever and this was a commitment we both could make towards that end.
I am not sure how couples deal with who pays what. I know everyone has a method and can explain it, but still, how do you decide who pays what?
My much-better-half and I have always had a joint checking, but she maintains a separate savings and a pair of credit cards in her name only.
The former is out of sheer convenience, as she is a SAHM, so my direct deposit pay is the source of routine funding. The latter was something she brought to the table even before we married, as her aunt became a widow at a young age, and because everything was in ‘his name’, she had several years of not being able to establish credit.
I share all accounts with my wife. At first we tried to lay down some strict rules about what gets spent and where, but they only led to arguments. After a year or two, I now trust her to spend responsibly, and we learned to discuss any major purchases beforehand.
Right now we have separate checking and savings accounts, and one set for Joint. We set it up this way because we each have debt which we are paying off. (In Florida, as long as you keep accounts separate, the other person is not liable for debt incurred prior to the marriage. The second the other person makes a payment on your debt – BAM!)
It is interesting all the different ways couples do life. My wife and I started with joint accounts, wouldn’t have thought of doing it any other way in the beginning. After years of scrutinizing the account from my CPA (wife), we set up separate accounts that are linked together. We each have different things we are responsible for as far as bills go. Works well for us.
@Hayden- I had no idea Florida worked that way with debt. Interesting.
We have two different accounts that we both have access to. One account his income goes into and the other account my income goes into. The account his income goes into pays the bills and is for basic living expenses. The account my income goes into is a back up account for emergency funds (like the air conditiong unit that just had to be replaced) and any other big items that we want or may need to purchase. As far as making any un-needed big purchases we always check with each other before hand.
However, I do recall a time when I was away for a weekend girls trip and upon arriving back home that a go-kart had been purchased for our two boys. I still think to this day that it was actually purchased for the bigger boy (dad).
We are both pretty frugal when it comes to spending and the hub is the “KING” of researching before buying. With this being the case we have noticed that if we wait long enough we realize that we didn’t need what we wanted to start with or that the newer models are out and he has to start researching all over again.:) This is a great way to keep from spending. The running joke right now is— we have been looking at buying a new car for a year now— yes a year. Our oldest son just laughs at us when we go to look and says—yeah right.
As far as balancing and paying monthly bills we both take turns with this but the hub makes all the descion with the investing part of our finances which I find very boring.
We’ve been married 22 years and this seems to work for us.
We share accounts. Good thing, too. I don’t hafta work this way. If I had to rely on my own account, I’d be broke!
My husband and I got married a little over a month ago. Prior to our marriage, we decided that our finances would remain seperate. We do this for one simple reason; we don’t want to argue about money. We both make good money, but we dont want to ask eachother if we want to splerge on “toys.” We do help eachother out if we get into a bind, and he gives me money for the bills (since that is my responsibility). We find it easier for us.
Hmm, we split the difference. We have our “main” account where all the money goes at the first of the month, then we each get an equal amount taken out of there to put in our separate “individual” accounts (his/hers). No questions will be asked about the individual accounts, your money is your money and do what you want with it, but every cent must be accounted for in the shared account! Oh, and savings is joint also.
ps–Corey, when are you going to get a facebook fan page? That would be awesome!
@Jenni- I just set one up last week actually. Search for Corey Allan and you’ll find me. I’m new to all this social network stuff so there is nothing there yet. Look forward to finding you in the virtual world.
This is a timely question. Up to now we’ve had seperate accounts. With my wages being used to pay the bills and buy the food and his being used for all the “fun stuff”. After 4 years of marriage we’ve finally decided to pool our resources and get a joint account.
We’ve opened a new account which both our wages will be paid into and all the bills and living expenses will come out of. However as we both like to have our own movey we’re keeping a seperate account each which an amount will be going into every month for doing what we want with. I think this is a great solution!
My husband and I have three checking accounts – I know, 3 is a lot, but it creates harmony. We each have our own account and then a “big account” has both of our paychecks go into it. We use “the big account” for all shared family expenses, including bills. We deposit a bi-weekly amount into our personal accounts for individual spending: lunches out, coffee, gifts for friends…etc”. That way we don’t go overboard on the personal spending from “the big account”. This also gives each of us a sense that we have financial control which was a struggle with us when we were first married. BTW – both our names are on all 3 accounts but we never touch the other person’s personal account and make a point not to judge the purchases made with the personal account. We always discuss any big purchases that we need to make before taking any money out of the joint account. We’ve been married for 9 years and are happy with the arrangement.
I just finished reading “Man Up: 14 Ways to affair proof your marriage” and from a personal note, this can fall into that arena.
In my first marriage, we had “seperate accounts”, both savings and checking. I have never been a financial genius, I could maybe even be considered challenged in the area of financial management. Since i felt a lack of something between my (then) wife and I and I had control of an account she didn’t look at, I found it easy to spend needed money to fill a personal void. This wasn’t mad money, it was money we needed to pay our monthly expenses. In my experience, with my own personality, in that situation, seperate accounts were distructive. Just like in the “Man Up” i just read, there is more than one way to cheat in your marriage. “My Money” may as well have been a woman. I snuck around, hid it, and lied about it. It even affected the lives of my children. No, this wasn’t the root of our problems, but it was definitely another wedge.
Now that I am in a new marriage, I know for me seperate accounts extends past my “boundaries”. Obviously having seperate accounts works for those who are disciplined financially, and for couples who don’t have a lot of struggles in other areas or are at least able to work those out together. In my current marriage I feel it could be possible to avoid the dishonesty I discovered in myself in the previous marriage, since i don’t have that void, but when it comes to knowing your personal boundaries, “why take the chance”? We share accounts, which keeps everything ablove board. This keeps me from making those knee jerk personal purchasing decisions without discussing it with my wife, that I feel the need to hide.
We have separate accounts, but are signatories on both accounts. That way failure to consult the other partner doesn’t result in an accidental overdraft. The internet makes it easy to shift money back and forth when needed. It’s a practical thing. Both our accounts are free, I tend to be compulsive about record keeping on a regular basis, she’s a bit more of a free spirit. This way I’m not even tempted to nag her about receipts for ATM transactions.
My wife and I opened a joint checking account some time before we were married, but kept “mine” and “hers” for a good long time after we were married, although I did change my direct deposit from work so that the lion’s share of my paycheck would go into the joint account. But neither of us really had a handle on where all the money was going.
Recently, we’ve started to pare down, closing a couple of accounts as well as a few credit cards. We now have full access to all accounts and all accounts are in both our names. She handles the routine bill-paying, so that’s fine with me. I have a good idea of the big picture. And that pretty much tells the story of what makes us work together well, if you know what I mean.
I’m really glad we’ve merged everything because I find this keeps me much more honest, transparent and accountable. I rarely carry cash, using a debit card for nearly everything and with online access, she sees it all. I never intentionally withheld anything before but might buy something and , oh… “forget” to tell her about it. Since the birth of our first child expenses have gone up and income has gone down, as she stopped working for six months and is now working just 2 days a week. I feel better about the money I spend because I have to decide before I spend it: Is this something I would have trouble justifying to my wife? If the answer is yes, I refrain.