This is what my Wife and I have done since we got married. We have a joint checking account where all the bills are paid out of. Extra $ goes to savings or investements. Anything over $100 that is non-routine (ex. a new Dyson Vacuum) that comes out of the joint checking needs to be discussed between us and agreed to prior to the purchase. Then we each have a 'fun money' personal checking account that gets a set amount deposited from each paycheck. We use this for lunches, music, movies, TF's, video games etc. Neither of us care what the other spends their fun money on. I make roughly 2x what she does but we still get equal amounts of fun money. However, I do admit I get a bigger say in our savings and whether or not I feel we can afford things.
That's part of it, she thinks I spend too much on toys. However, she spends just as much on other "useless" things she likes - clothes, art, books, jewelry - and I don't try to tell her not to do it. Well, OK, I do - but I don't want or need to force her hand into handling over all the money and/or keep tabs on her. I don't want to say I don't trust her, but I can see her pulling little "tricks" here and there and making money disappear unnoticed. She's good with accounting - me, not so much. Nothing would get by her, but she could slip all kinds of crap past me. When it comes to the groceries, we take turns week to week - but when it comes to other things like cleaning supplies, TP, needed household stuff - I'm more often than not footing the bill, and I don't have a problem with that since I make more.
I have had the same savings and checking accounts since I was 16. She has two herself, and we split the bills. I pay for Rent/Mortgage, she pays utilities. We each pay our own car note. We split grocery buying, and I love it because I NEVER get hassled about what I buy. Throw my 401k on top, and all our bills get paid, we are building retirement, and we can pretty much get anything we want or need. Works well.
Being the only breadwinner of the family we have a joint account between me and my wife. I do understand where you are coming from because I like to buy stuff for myself from time to time like Transformers and I don't like my wife quizzing me why I want to spend money on more toys. All the bills are paid on time and we even have money left over each month for savings so I don't understand why she'd be upset if I spend $50-100 once in a while on my own things. Having a separate account with money that I can spend freely without her knowing would be great.
I'd have my personal checking/savings account, she'd have her own personal savings/checking, then a joint account (checking) that we would both put money into, and would be used for the big stuff/emergencies.
As far as toy buying, you can do what I started doing. Sell the toys you don't care for any more to fund the new toys you want.
I've done it both ways, having been married twice. The biggest hassle with the ex, with a combined account, was her lack of ability to keep receipts and turn them in to me. All of a sudden we're down $300 from Target, groceries, her hair and shoe shopping. (And $50 at the liquor store a week, but that was a whole other problem.) That woman was shit with money and still is. I haven't had any flak from the new wife about combining finances. We're both in our thirties and are independent people. Our plan is to keep it seperate for now, maybe open a joint money market account for liquid savings later. I cover her health insurance and she buys the majority of the groceries, and split the rest down the middle. So far so good.
My wife and I took a 4 account approach. Joint savings and checking. Individual checking. All the money goes into the joint checking From there we have automatic transfers to the other three accounts. We both get an allowance that transfers into our individual checking acocunts every week. They are linked to the main account but not to each other. We are free to spend that money on what ever we want. Everything else is "ours".
I started doing this too. I also sold about $1100 worth of TFs to buy my flatscreen. It hurt a little, but now I have more storage and PS3 in 1080p is well worth it.
It depends on the people, too! Certain people who arent controlling you can have a joint account. But having separate accounts with someone who is controlling will be very difficult no matter! Which is why we have separate accounts, though we're not married but been together 13 years!
May have to start a little seperate secret tin can account. Or hide the extra funds in a paypal account. I dont blame you at all, infact I think having your own secret stash would be a good idea. You never know when or how things can go wrong, and they say don't put all your cash in one pot or something. It's good to be prepared for everything. Plus it's your money. A man can never be to safe when there's a woman in the mix Congrats on the house
No. Separate accounts are completely reasonable, and even wise. Your wife may want to combine everything, but I doubt she (or you, for that matter) wishes she was in an old-school marriage where she's subservient to you. To me, a healthy modern marriage (not like I know personally, I'm a fucking trainwreck) is two people who support each other and love each other, but aren't necessarily joined at the waist. ...that's not well-expressed, but it's the best explanation I can give off the cuff.
I thought it was well-expressed. I think I'm starting to see a plan here that will make us both happy. I'm going to insist that we both keep our own checking accounts, but make a joint account that all income goes into to start with. We then each get a weekly allowance portioned out of the joint account, every bill that we each get comes out of the joint account, and every bill that we get together comes out of the joint account. The personal accounts will be ours to do with as we wish with no prying or whining allowed. I'll just have to keep a close eye on the joint account. I don't know if she thinks she'll be the sole proprietor of it (I kinda get that impression), but that WON'T be the case - no way in hell.
Isn't marriage great? No but seriously, as long as all the bills are split 50-50 should it matter what each person does with the rest of the money? I'm not saying blow your account on a new t.v. or something but as long as all of your responsibilities are taken care of I don't see a problem with separate accounts. Perhaps if you do have a joint account each person has a separate credit card and then have a third credit card to pay the bills. As long as all three cards are paid at the end of the month there's no problem.
We had a joint account before we were married. But we had been together for 7 years and had 2 kids already. It just makes sense for us that way. Besides neither one of us is a control freak about the money and she does and better job balancing everything and getting the bills paid on time.
I say it depends on the spending habits of the two people. Don't hide the amount of assets, but if your partner is a bit too free with the money (like mine was), its a good backup to divert some to an account the other partner doesn't have direct access to. Also, you can always start a separate account later. --Moony
You're a smart guy, so I don't think you're likely to do this, but if you're really thinking about it don't. Absolutely not. This is one of those situations where if one person wants it, it should be done. Like many others who have replied to this thread, my wife and I have both joint and separate accounts, and it works great. We both take allowances and we do with it whatever we please, and to make it fair we both take the same allowance.
