NTR: How do you and DH do bills?

MrsBrown2005 · October 2009

Hello ladies. I rarely post, and normally it is only when i really need some answers. You ladies normally give really good advice, so I thought I would bring this to you all for some help.

DH and I are having some really big issues when it comes to money. I must admit that he and I are both not really good with handling money, and so I take some fault in some of out issues also. But not to take up too much of your time, we need some serious help in the financial department. Right now we pay the bills out of one account. My thought is that this probably is not a good way for us to handle our bills. while doing this it seems like we are consistently over drawing our account. I know, seems like we are living over our means. We are sitting down tonight when he gets home and we are going to sit and talk about the bills and how to go about taking care of them. My suggestion is going to be that we split the bills and he pays some of the bills and I pay the rest. maybe this is a better way for US to handle our money, than rather putting out money together.

I love my husband, but I have seen so many relationships die because of financial issues. I do not want to get there with him. I want to fix it before it is completely broken. But I just have no idea how to go about handling this.

So my question is... how do you and your SO/Dh handle your bills? Do you split them up and you pay some bills and he pays the others? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Sam78 · October 2009

What happens when he doesn't pay "his" bills? I think that your potential "solution" is fraught with problems. You'd be better off making a spreadsheet with your income and expenses and looking at places you can make cuts as it sounds like its not a problem getting around to writing the check, but more that you aren't perhaps spending your money wisely.

As for your direct question, DH and I have a joint account, I pay all of the bills out of this account. We do have a budget that we sat down and looked at together to decide what each of us were comfortable spending in a given month.

Alexandra*sMom · October 2009

I am a SAHM. Dh's check goes in the bank, I pay the bills. I grocery shop, if he gets gas, or otherwise spends $$, he gives me the reciept to write it down. I reconcile the checkbook w/ bank statements.

violetvirgo · October 2009

We do automatic bill pay out of our joint account (we also each have a separate account). We both know what it takes every month to pay all the bills and have set up an automatic transfer from each of our separate accounts to our joint to make sure there's enough $$.

aforst · October 2009

We have one checking account and our bills are paid out of that. DH is in charge of paying all bills except my credit card bill. I used to do the bills, then we switched. I think it's important that we both know what's going on with them. At any rate, have you tried having just one person be responsible for them? Also, we sat down and created a spreadsheet of each bill that is due every month. We even over-estimated them. That way, we always have a little left over after paying them. It also gives you a view a head of time to see how much you need in the account.

It can't hurt to try you paying some bills and him paying some. You won't know if it works for you unless you try! GL!

carolinaem · October 2009

One account - all the bills come from it. One person is in charge of the bills. Sounds like you probably need to work on a budget more than split the bills -sit down together and make a list of ALL expenses every month (estimate things like food). Don't include any non-necessities. Figure out what you have left over or where you can cut. Spliting the bills doesn't address the problem of lack of funds.

Amrice78 · October 2009

all of our money goes into a joint account except for a small sum the dh has in his own account (his play money). I pay all the bills from our joint account and make all purchases necessary from this account. If dh wants something big (say over 150) from our joint account - he checks with me first to see if we have the money.

Califlorida · October 2009

we share a checking account. we each have separate savings accounts. we have an automatic withdrawal once a month to our savings accounts. so we are each allowed to spend that money on whatever we want, no questions asked.

the checking account is how we pay our bills. most of them we have online bill pay for. i open the mail everyday, so i make sure he sees whatever bills do come in. and he's responsible for paying them on time.

it seems like you might need to start with the basics: a budget. sit down and figure out how much it costs to run your household. all expenses, the regular monthly ones and the occassional ones. (mint.com helped us enormously in sorting this out). figure out how much is coming into your house everymonth and then figure out if you need to trim back your expenses. gl, it's hard but totally doable!

dstbride · October 2009

we have a joint account that i do everything in. DH doesnt even know when he gets paid Tongue Tied . we sat down, made a budget that we are both comfortable with, and i pay all the bills.

MrsSoapbox · October 2009

We have a joint checking account, a joint savings account and each of us has our own checking account. When we are paid, a percentage goes to savings, we each get a certain amount in our individual checking accounts to spend on whatever we want and the rest goes into our joint checking. All of our bills are paid out of the joint checking. I pay all the bills but DH has access to all the accounts. Everything that we can do by autopay is done that way.

I'm not really sure how spending too much money is the result of you and your DH having your money together unless it's because neither of you knows what the other one is taking out of the account. It sounds like you mainly just need to make a budget and stick to it. If the issue is that you're spending too much on non-essentials you might try allocating a certain amount for each of you to use for "fun money" each week or month and just get that in cash at the beginning of the week or month.

jen_k2 · October 2009

DH works & I handle all of our finances. What about still paying the bills from one account & using the envelope system for everything else ie groceries, gas, clothing etc. When the cash in a particular envelope runs out, you won't be overdrawing your account & it can help you stay on a budget.

avonbride · October 2009

I know this won't seem like sage financial advice, but if you're constantly overdrawing your account, have you thought about paying everything all month with your credit card and then writing one check to pay off the credit card each month?

That way if you do spend more than you have in checking, it will be on the credit card and not overdrawing your account.

It's also a good way to track your expenses. Most cc companies will chart for you online where your purchases are going.

I'm not encouraging you to jack up your credit cards, but carrying a balance is better than overdrawing a bank account. Or you could tie a credit card/savings account to your checking account in case you get overdrawn.

Another option-pull out cash at payday/the first of the month. Leave in enough to cover the "true" bills that you have to pay. Cut up your debit cards. When you're out of cash, no more fun for the month.

GL!

SweetJenna · October 2009

Alexandra*sMom:
Dh's check goes in the bank, I pay the bills. I grocery shop, if he gets gas, or otherwise spends $$, he gives me the reciept to write it down. I reconcile the checkbook w/ bank statements.

This is what we do too.

Janimal · October 2009

DH and I have two joint accounts. Basically when we got married we just added each other to our personal accounts. He handles the mortgage and most of the household bills. I pay insurance, investments, car payment, daycare, and I buy the groceries because I do the shopping. Each payday I put a set amount from my check into "his" account. We each pay for the bills we are responsible for and each manage an account.

If he's running low in "his" account, he just lets me know and gets money from "my" account. Since we each have an account and mostly leave the other one alone except on a rare occasion, we don't have to worry about not knowing about the others expenses and being overdrawn. We each have full access to the other account to see what is going on, and we don't have to get permission for purchases because we each have our own money to spend this way, and neither one of us has to responsible for making sure all the bills are paid, we are sharing the responsibility. I can transfer money from the accounts online.

It's still "our" money but we feel this way like we each have our own money to spend too.

goodgollie · October 2009

We pay our bills out of a joint account, but we each have separate personal checking accounts. All our checks go into the joint account, and every other week on pay day I give each of us X amount of money for allowance. If he makes some money on the side for selling a car, that money goes into HIS account. We buy personal items (my clothes, his stuff for his car) out of our personal accounts and everything that is a household purchase comes out of the joint account. That is what works for us. BTW, the nest has a budgeter to help you figure out how much money you have left over at the end of each month.

jenifairies · October 2009

I am basically the keeper of the account and payer of bills. DH sits down with me and I show him what goes where, but I pay them all. I keep a notebook with all of our bills listed (ie, rent, water, car pmt) and then have columns for the amount, whether it's been paid, and whether it's been posted to the account. When the next month rolls around, I copy my categories over and put in new amounts. I've been doing this for 2 years and it works great.

We also micromanage our accounts. We keep receipts and track expenses that way and we check with each other before doing any shopping. If he wants to buy a drill or I want to buy clothes, we check in first. That way we're not both spending the same money, kwim?

IMO, I think splitting bills in your case would make it more confusing. I'd suggest sitting down together, writing down all your bills and a plan on what time of the month or with which paycheck you pay each bill (ie, we get paid 2x mo, so electric and mtg are with the first, these are with the second) and stick to it.

GL we do have our disagreements over money, but we absolutely make sure the bills come first. It ends up costing so much more if you have to pay late fees, overdraft fees, or reconnect fees!

goodgollie · October 2009

Also, I write EVERYTHING down in the little transaction registrys that come with your check books. I check my online bank account every few days to make sure there are no surprises. I think you get into trouble if you just look at what your balance in your checking account. Often, we actually have way less because not every transaction has gone through yet.

jillybean222 · October 2009

It sounds like you need a budget more than you need separate accounts. If you add up your total take home pay and devise a budget based on that, you will be fine. If you just wing it month to month and buy impulsively, you will continue to stay exactly where you are now...regardless of who pays which bill. Good luck!

Oh and to answer your question, DH pays all the bills in our house. I have a good idea of what comes in and goes out each month and what we save, but I am not responsible for making sure things get paid on time (but thankfully DH is really good at bills and he rather enjoys doing them).

jenifairies · October 2009

Oh, and I really recommend mint.com for tracking what goes where. we were shocked to find the first month that we spent like 800 bucks in food (including eating out). That really pointed a big red finger at a huge problen in our spending and that helped us fix it quicker.

Hibiscus2007 · October 2009

DH and I split the bills. I pay for groceries and daycare and he pays for mortgage and utilities. I pay for my car and cell phone and his car is paid for. Our accounts are all separate. When we have to buy something big or spend money on vacations etc, we split it. This works for us but I'm not sure it would work for everyone. We both owned houses and had assets of our own before we married so we kept things separate so we don't ever fight about money.

katater · October 2009

Like the others - out of a joint account except for the "auto" part (we've had problems in the past getting double-debited for large expenses, like rent, in the same month). We keep tabs on exactly what we're spending by both checking the online statements frequently, we know how much our fixed expenses are (car payment, daycare, housing) and ballpark for other bills (electric, water, cell, food). We also have our separate accounts linked to the joint just in case we need to quickly transfer money in. It has worked for us so far.

LoriFalce · October 2009

All our money goes in one pool. He pays the bills, because I'm utterly incapable. Seriously. I can't keep track of mail that comes into the house, and can't mail a bill to save my life. I'm missing a gene somewhere.

And he does them all online.

MrsBrown2005 · October 2009

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. We are sitting down today and talking about our bills and coming up with a budget. I think there are some places where we could possibly cut some of our bills down, especially our cell phone bills and stuff like that.

I really like the envelope idea. Maybe we will try that for a little while and see if that works. IT is not that we do not have enough money, but it is mostly we make stupid purchases.

Thanks again for all of your suggestions. I really appreciate it. Hopefully DH and i can make this work out regarding our finances.

WestCoastMommy · October 2009

DH and I had some Debt about 2 years ago. A lot of debt from being younge with credit cards, college etc. The stress of it all started to take a toll on our marriage. When I was pregnant with DS it started toreally bother me. We use to only pay bills like home mortgage, cars and utilities and let the rest go. I was watching Susie Orman one day on Oprah (I know, stupid) and something just clicked. I got motivated and that day changed our lives. I sat down and wrote down EVERY bill we had along with the pay off amount and APR. I took over paying the bills and put DH and myself on a very very VERY strict budget. My DH hated it but he'll tell you now that he wouldn't change what I did for the world! I have paid off pretty much all our debt except one card. (my goal is to get it done by this year!) It was hard, stressfull and depressing at times but if your serious about getting your life back you can do it. DH and I just kept saying we were doing it for our DS and our family and that we wanted to raise our family and teach our children about financial responsibility.

I hope you guys can find something that works for you!!! As you can tell im very passionate about this because I know how hard it is.

AlwaysMovinMama · October 2009

My husband and I have one checking account, two credit cards, and the house bills (cable, phone, electricity, etc). We don't split them, we just pay them. We don't look at how much each brings home because I've quit work for less than a year now to finish nursing school. And when I get back to working, it'll be back to normal of paying bills, just with two incomes. We've had to make some adjustmants aka sacrifices like no Sirius Radio or things we can reallly live without.. like Netflix, etc. We always pay a small amount to each bill every month so that we're not bombarded with a huge amount of bills at the end of the month. It helped us to downsize on our extra expenses and looking at it now, it's giving us a better, happier marriage.

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