Baby Showers
Liz4444
member
Estwd2 question nbsr
Liz4444
member
in Baby Showers
After reading the post about you and your H having separate bank accounts, I got to thinking, how do they make that work? How do you handle joint expenses like rent/mortgage, electricity, food, etc? It seems to me like it could end up getting very tit for tat, like, I paid 10 on Tuesday for dinner and you only paid 7 on Wednesday. How do you handle those types of things? Does it cause any type of resentment?
Anyone else in that situation, I would love to hear how you do it. If it were me, I could honestly see myself getting very petty over small things.
If you wouldn't mind sharing, I really am very curious.
Anyone else in that situation, I would love to hear how you do it. If it were me, I could honestly see myself getting very petty over small things.
If you wouldn't mind sharing, I really am very curious.
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Re: Estwd2 question nbsr
We have separate accounts...mostly out of laziness, LOL! We've been married 12.5 years and just never got around to getting a joint acct.
I work very part-time so he makes about 5 times what I do. I buy groceries, pay car insurance and the garbage bill and he pays mortgage and all other regular bills. It is also me that buys clothes and pays school/sports fees (because I read the notes that come home and know what's going on) and so there are times where I will say, "Oh, hey...I'm broke you need to buy groceries this week!" If we're at Target or something whomever steps up to pay pays (usually whomever initiated the trip or is getting the most stuff).
We each stick a percentage into an emergency fund/savings. We never feel like it is our own money it just is in two different places. If one person were to get low on money the other person steps up. It probably helps that neither of us are extravagant spenders and we recognize that we each have our own things we spend money on (for him it is techy-gadget stuff and for me it is fabric and yarn). It really all is a "shell game" and it isn't much different having one or two accounts. When it comes to money, the issues are trust, respect and responsibility.
For me this type of situation only works because we don't get too nit-picky over small things - it's just our personality type, maybe, since this does seem like a plan with a lot of holes in it now that I think about it!
Here's our method: we write each other checks for house payments (that's our only big expense - no car payments, no debt) depending on who paid it. I buy most of the groceries and he pays most of the bills. When we go out, he tends to pay; when we send gifts or need to buy something small for the house, I tend to pay. That's it. We just... divide it up.
Of course, when we moved in together we agreed on what we're willing to spend on bills and on what we want to save every month. As long as we are both meeting our bill obligations first and our savings obligations second, with everything else coming afterwards, we do fine. Neither of us thinks of our money as our own money despite the separate accounts, but rather as our joint money in two different accounts. Whose card is swiped doesn't matter to us.
I should note that there's no real reason we don't do joint accounts, except that we were both well-established before combining our households. I like my bank, he likes his; mine has branches near my work, his has one in his building. So we kept our accounts and decided to agree on money stuff without actually combining it, kind of like a joint account at two banks, I guess.
Curious to see what other reasons come up!
We have joint bank account and we both have separate accounts. When we got married we decided to open a bill account and so that is the joint account. We both put an equal amount in the bill account and then whatever is left over we keep. He makes way more than me so he usually buys dinner when we go out and he has brought ALL the baby stuff.
It works for us.
Thank you for sharing, ladies. The way I was raised, and how my mother, and grandmother, etc were raised, there was a joint account and the men paid all of the bills. At restaurants, if my parents are out shopping, whatever, my father always pays even though both of their credit cards are linked to the same account. So, when I got married, I was more than happy to hand over the reigns to DH and we are the same way (he actually wanted me to pay the bills because his mother did, but I won that one). Everyone has say over everything, no one has to ask to make a purchase, and it's always considered our money.
I had never considered not getting a joint account, it was the first thing we did when we got engaged, and after the wedding, I put him on my AmEx account. It's really interesting to hear different perspectives and how different families make their lives work.
I have a personal account, we have a joint account, DH has a business/personal account (tree service), and we have a joint business account (24 hour gym/health club). The business we own together (the gym) pays our health insurance, IRA's, and Roth IRA's by making a deposit in our joint account on the 1st of the month, otherwise the joint account is never touched. In the winter when the health club is at its peak, it also pays the mortgage. In the summer when the tree service is at its peak, that business pays the mortgage.
Everything else is just paid by who ever has time to go through the bills on the 15th. As far as dinners out, DH has always paid since we started dating, but I usually pick up the tabs for travel because I'm the travel planner. I'm usually the one grocery shopping, so I pick that up as well. I've never once thought about things being equal, and it confuses the hell out of my friends that our system works, but I think it's a personality thing. If things being equal was a big deal, then I guess you could make it a big deal, but it's just not with us. We also didn't live together before we were married, so we were never in a situation where money was involved without the commitment of marriage.
DH and I have both joint and seperate accounts. We have various joint accounts for all household things but then each have our own checking and savings accounts. We get a fixed allowance every two weeks and it is ours to do with as we want. If he wants to go golfing every week, or do a week long golf trip, it is up to him to budget with what he was. If I want to save up and buy a coach bag then I budget my money for that. It's great for the more personal spending, that way the other person very has to side eye what the other person buys. For things like dining out and clothes for work we use the joint account and discuss what makes sense with our budget. It works well for us.
Since I may not be going back to work after LO is born I am glad we have this system in place. We both contribute, him more financially and me more of everything else, but we both make sure we do our share and support each other.
Execellent thread. its nice to see how everyone else is doing it.
My husband and I have our own checking but share a checking and savings account also. We put a big chunk of our income in the joint checking and pay for the household expenses, mortgage, cars, bills, groceries etc. Whatever is left in the checking at the end of the month is transferred into our joint savings. We keep our own checkings so if we want to buy things for ourselves we can wihtout having to get an ok from each other. it works nice when birthdays or holidays come around and we don't share an account where its like i'm buying my own gift.
We do a big grocery run once a week and we alternate who pays.
I'm currently on mat leave getting about half my usual salary, so he took over the car payment. Basically, we work it so that each of us has the same amount left over once bills are paid.