Sharing bank acounts with spouse
 

Hi All,

Well the time is almost apon me and my future wife and I are discussing money/banking. Right now the debate is over having one main account that both of us have our pay directly deposited to and then pay for bills/mortgage and rrsp from it OR each have their own seperate accounts and then put a predetermined amount into a third to cover the bills (effectively keeping money separate).

What have you all found works best for you? On one hand, sharing one account may cause you to feel guilty for taking money out to buy things for yourself but will "look" like you both have a larger lump of money. On the other hand if one person makes more than the other and you have separate accounts then putting in equal money will leave one holding a lot more on their end and the other may have very little left.

Not sure what the best approach is on this but I'm open to hear others experiences.

my husband and i have a joint chequing account. i'm at home with the kid now so i don't have an income, but when i did we just both put it in the same account. we sat down and did bills together and let eachother know what we had taken out of the bank for incidentals etc. any major purchases were discussed ahead of time.

Money is the root of many many arguments... :)

This spinster (old maid) would tell you that it would be best to:

From each seperate paycheck:
1. Pay into your retirement fund individually.
2. Each put a percentage into the house/bills fund based on what you spend per month and what you earn per month. The one who earns more money, puts in more.
3. Your personal allowances - this is how much money you can be frivolous with per week - for lunches, for shoes, for whatever... the spouse can't question what that money is used for.
4. The shared fun fund... this is your savings fund for a new car, awesome vacation, whatever where you each contribute a percentage.
5. The college fund. When you start to hear the pitter patter of little feet, start to put away a percentage of money aside. Looking into high interest accounts that you won't touch.

If you go by percentages, then it's not to big a burden, and don't forget that allowance-- you still want some monetary freedom to do what you want with a percentage of the money.

we got tired of more than one check book...and moving funds from place to place and who had available cash....Since January we've shared an account and all those nusiances are gone and things have gone very smoothly :)

doneit once n never again!!JMHO-totally trust someone and u may be fine..may get shafted as i did!Lol

LOL ok so it looks like two are for one joint and two are for keeping it seperate and contributing to a third joint.

Just added my girl to my checking account a week or so ago. No problems so far, but I'll post back if I have any bad experiences.

Mal seems to have summed it up quite nicely if you opt for separate accounts.

His and hers accounts. His and hers bills.

We transfer money between accounts regularly, but a joint account never worked for us.

Gone the joint account route. Rarely could even buy a pack of gum for 25 years. Never again. And by all accounts I should be rolling in the equity gain of the houses we had, but somehow it appears I may break a tad short of even-steven when all the mess is finally tidied up. Lesson here is trust yourself and your own judgement before taking the word of another about their competance or reasonable expenditure.

Ok, I'll weigh in here, not just as a married guy (24 years) but also as a former divorce attorney. Keeping the money separate is a recipe for disaster. I understand that many couples make it to their fifty year anniversary doing this, but an extremely large percentage of the divorces I handled had this in common. She'd pay the house payment from her check, he'd make the car payments from his, she'd get the groceries from hers, he'd pay the utilities, etc. Then one would fall behind on his or her debts and not want to tell the other.

The best system I've seen is the one we use--or else we'd change to another. Whatever money comes in, and at the moment, I'm the only one working outside the home for wages, goes into our joint account. We have a joint account at the brokerage house, the house and cars are in both names, and we both write checks from the same checkbook. The wife handles the bookkeeping at home--she pays the monthly and quarterly bills--and I can look at what's going out (I put in what's coming in, so I already know that) anytime I want.

By the time you wed, you should have a pretty good idea about what kind of money managers each of you will be. If you treat the marriage as an equal partnership as though it was a business enterprise, you'll find there are fewer arguments about money. Having to account for those frivilous spending habits, having to cut down on expensives lunches if money is tight, knowing just what the inflow and outgo is in your household can do nothing but promote peace--unless one of you is immature and unwilling to make the adjustments necessary to make the finances work.

If that's the case, then the other adjustments necessary to make a marriage work aren't going to be forthcoming, either, and you might consider (a) not entering into the contract, or (b) keeping close tabs on the finances, even to the point of having separate accounts until such time as you end the marriage. But in most states, the money in HER account will be yours, and vice versa, as will the debts on HER credit cards (with some exceptions) and vice versa.

The VOR bottomline--commit yourself to the marriage, emotionally and financially. Treat your money as going into and coming out of one big pot, rather than two smaller ones.

There is no "his and hers", only "ours". Discuss and set a reasonable budget. Keep a little pocket cash out for each of you. But, anything so expensive that you need to write a check or use a credit card for is something that you both need to agree on ahead of time.

It doen't matter who makes more or less. If you are married, you are equal partners. Period.