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? about finances...
I just got a new job (yay!) and I had to fill out the W-4 form again which then made me think about how DH and I currently handle our finances. DH gets paid more than me and in the past we've had it so that he claims 3 for federal and 2 for state while I had it 1 for federal and 0 for state. Works fine b/c we usually get something back and rarely pay. But anyway, I am going off tangent... What i am really curious is how do you guys as a couple handle your finances? do you put everything in one joint account and pay the bills straight from there? and do you guys get an allowance? I thought about doing that but not sure how we can quantify how much "allowance" we get. We have our own account and we just transfer money to our joint to pay our joint expenses... but DH pays a certain % more than me b/c he makes over $10k more. Since DH has more take home pay, he gets to put money aside for savings while i usually don't have much leftover and i'm annoyed by that. When we get our refund (if we do), we usually just throw it all into paying down our joint credit cards.
Phew! sorry for being so long winded. I'd love to hear about what makes sense for you guys if you want to share 
Thx ladies!
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Re: ? about finances...
This is pretty much us. for the first 18 months or more of Gs life I wasn't really working, except for the band so it was all DHs money in our joint checking. We both own our own businesses, so what we contribute to our checking varies month to month. And who puts more into our joint checking also varies month to month. We pay our bills, put money into various savings/investments and then what ever is left in this checking account is spendable. Like PP, we discuss if an item or excursion is going to be more than 100$ or so...
The Blog | BirthbyKellyM
I'm actually liking this idea more and more... I like that you guys each get the same amount for personal each month and the rest goes to savings.
We have many accounts. This includes:
- joint checking
- individual checking
- individual savings
- individual credit
- savings account for each child and retirement accounts
Our paychecks get split amongst those accounts. Each of us contributes a proportional percentage of our paychecks (since like you guys, DH makes more money than I) into the joint account. We pay into 401K and other retirement accounts. Any remainder goes into our individual checking/savings accounts. We pay for our own credit cards and manage personal spending out of our individual accounts. However, all joint expenses (house, bills, kids, food) comes out of the joint account.
Photo by Zemya Photography
I'm not working, so I can't speak to that directly, but I can tell you what we do and what our plan is when I go back.
We live off the one salary (obviously), so every account is joint. If we need to buy something for the other- we just tell each other not to check the account online (not super private, but it works). Same rules as others, everything is paid from the joint and if its a bigger purchase (usually over 50) we run it by each other.
And our plan when I'm working again is that we continue to live off his salary and 100% of mine goes into savings/retirement/college. Because now that is being saved, but not at the rate we'd like.
We still don't have a joint account! We keep talking about it, but for some reason have not managed to get it together. I have my own from before (checking and savings and IRA, etc) and he has all his own from before. He pays certain bills (most now since i work half time) and I pay certain bills. We buy what we want within reason and if there is something more expensive or not totally needed, we discuss it first, like a computer size thing or a camera, etc. I find that helpful because even in my head I know what DH will likely say and it helps me control my spending a bit. I think we are not the best model of efficiency though.
I handle my own car and he handles his vehicles, (car and MC), I handle the babysitting, childcare money, all my own health expenses so far,and the house phone and the 529 payments. he pay most of the other stuff, cable, cell phones, PG&E, alarm system, mortgage, property taxes, food. It seems to be working for us, if we get any back from taxes it goes into my account and I try to divvy it up between savings and 529.
We have a joint account and personal accounts. Paychecks go into personal accounts, and then we each transfer $$ to the joint account to pay the joint expenses. Everything else is his or mine to spend, save, whatever we want.
Since DH is in school, I do kick down a greater percentage of the joint expenses, which means that I do have less fun money for myself, but I am prepared to ride it out until he's done with school.
We usually do get some amount of a tax refund, and that goes into the joint account. We typically use it to pay for house-related improvements, or just save it for future joint expenses.
This is pretty much us (minus the kids and we still rent).
Also, we have a holiday club account through our credit union that helps us during the holidays.
we do everything jointly and I'm so glad we do. It really helped when DH was unemployed that it was already "our" money and not that suddenly I had to give up more of "my" money.
We talk about big purchases (more than $100) but we're pretty much on the same page anyway
We have separate checking but it's somewhat joint too. Our paychecks go into two separate checking accounts, mine and his but we can look at and transfer between the two accounts. We have joint savings, kids savings and our own retirement funds. We have 1 separate cc, and 1 joint but we have the passwords for all of them so we are very transparent. Usually we pay as much of our bills with DH's checking, my paycheck goes to savings and daycare and other bills as needed. Right now we're trying to work on living on one salary so we're trying to use my account strictly for daycare costs and that's it, his account pays all bills. We're very agreeable with where our money goes and what we spend on so haven't had to have discussions about spending.
What are we are doing now isn't my ideal because like you I kind of feel a bit jipped, if you will, that DH gets to save more than I do. This is what we do today;
- 1 joint account from which we pay the majority of our joint expenses (mortgage, bills, food, household necessities and wants, furniture, vacations, restaurants, childcare). We calculate what our cost of living was, then I deposit enough to cover approx 40% of that and DH covers 60%. THis percentage reflects the differences in our salaries.We've done it this way since the day we moved in together.
- Separately, I pay for the the baby's health insurance and contribute to a DCAP fund ( used to pay for day care) and DH contributes towards DD's college savings account. The amt of dollrs here is equal.
- We have individual savings account for all the money remaining and indiv retirement accounts. .
It's fiscally "fair", but I would like to see our joint account grow instead of our indiv accounts. Plus, if time is money, I put in way more time into household responsiblities than he does (like 90/10) and I'm not being compensated there! I've discussed with DH the idea that we should decide on a flat amt that each of us gets to put into our indiv savings account for spending as we wish (an allowance effectively) and the rest should go into our joint account. DH was not really thrilled, but I'm goign to work on him some more. If this doesn't work, I'll just declare that he'll only get dinner half the nights,, buy him food for half the week, and I'll only wash half his laundry. He can fend for himself the rest of the days. LOL
We pretty much do exactly what you guys are doing and LOVE that last part about making dinner for him half the nights and half his laundry! SO TRUE.
Here is what we have (and how it was when I was working as well, so - like Boomboom said - it was already "our" money and we don't feel like I'm living off of "husband's money" now.)
Spending Account - this is a debit account that our weekly expenses come out of: groceries, gas, allowance. We each get $40/wk and it pays for "Extras" like lunches out, non-necessary clothing, frozen yogurt, movies, whatever.
Bill Pay Account - also a debit account that pays only for bills - rent, car payment, etc.
And then we have a myriad of savings, one for us that is straight savings, one for baz, emergency and retirement funds....
Doing the cash allowance (we pull it every friday) has REALLY helped. It allows us to save up and pay for expensive "extras" or be a little splurgey without feeling like we're over-spending.