Share your budgeting system!

gwendarling · June 2011

DH and I have been keeping everything separate - checking accounts, most savings accounts, credit cards, etc - and basically divide up all bills and expenses. It works out to an even contribution - he'll take care of cable, utilities, half of food (we alternate weeks), etc, and I'll take care of health insurance (via work), car insurance, cell phones, etc.

I'm trying to figure out a system that will combine both our income and expenses so we can look at it from a household perspective now that we'll have his student loans to start paying off and baby expenses (like daycare, etc) on the horizon. Splitting it 50/50 at that point won't be possible - with an add'l loan and possibly $1200/month extra for daycare, he wouldn't even be able to cover 50% of the total expenses (I make 2x more than he does so my contribution should go up as well).

I want to get to a place where we can budget out our combined income and figure out a system to keep track of what goes in and out as well as payment methods (eg i know some couples will have separate checking accounts and then dump an agreed upon amount into a joint account that serves to only pay out for monthly expenses). So I'm curious - how does this work in your households?

lmjt · June 2011

I love my system. My money is my money, and his money is my money.

In all seriousness, we just have a joint checking account. I share everything with my H, both names are on all cars, mortgage, credit cards, etc. We're in this together, I never saw a reason to do anything separately.

PurplePanda83 · June 2011

We also have a joint account. Basically we have an excel spreadsheet of expenses and we try to keep track of all of them and our income. We use our online banking a lot to pay bills, etc, so that also helps us keep track.

We are looking in to getting a rewards credit card to pay all the bills and then paying the card off in full every month. We have friends who do this and if you are disciplined enough not to overspend on the card it works well as you get rewards without paying interest. If you wanted to keep seperate accounts and thought you could handle something like that perhaps you could pay everything on one card and then split the cost of monthly bill. GL!

julygal · June 2011

I would highly recommend mint.com. You can create an account through them and link all your financial accounts and all your DH's accounts in one place. I think it could be very useful for you trying to keep track of all the different accounts and where money is coming from and going.

We mainly have joint accounts with a few lingering old accounts from before we married, but we have found mint very helpful in keeping track of the fact that two people are pulling from the same pool. Plus mint helps DH see what my old accounts are doing, and I can see what his are doing, so we both have a better idea of whole picture.

ohsaysaysay · June 2011

We're horrible budgeters. We try, but always fail. What works for us, is just plain old keeping our monthly costs way below our monthly income, and putting whatever is left into savings. When we want to make a big purchase, we wait until we have enough money in savings to do it! Works for us! We have never carried credit card debt, paid cash for cars, and cash for our vacations!

becasmeca · June 2011

lmjt:

I love my system. My money is my money, and his money is my money.

HAHA!! That is my system too! We do the same thing as lmjt. Everything is joint and paid out of one account. We are in a mutual agreement the account should never go below X amount of dollars and if one of us is going to make a purchase of 500 or more dollars we consult the other person.

lacey0482 · June 2011

julygal:

I would highly recommend mint.com. You can create an account through them and link all your financial accounts and all your DH's accounts in one place. I think it could be very useful for you trying to keep track of all the different accounts and where money is coming from and going.

We mainly have joint accounts with a few lingering old accounts from before we married, but we have found mint very helpful in keeping track of the fact that two people are pulling from the same pool. Plus mint helps DH see what my old accounts are doing, and I can see what his are doing, so we both have a better idea of whole picture.

I was about to recommend the same thing. Love mint.com, and if you would prefer to keep the accounts seperate as they are, this site will allow you to do that and still see everything coming in together in one budget.

MsCrispy · June 2011

We do everything joint. We have similar spending and saving habits, so it works for us.

If we disagreed on how much money we spent on random personal spending, then I think I would set up 3 accounts: a joint, one for me, and one for him. I would put both paychecks into the joint one and then move $x to each account per week or month, whatever works for you.

gwendarling · June 2011

julygal:
I would highly recommend mint.com. You can create an account through them and link all your financial accounts and all your DH's accounts in one place. I think it could be very useful for you trying to keep track of all the different accounts and where money is coming from and going.

Was using mint.com and was a big fan of it, until it stopped working with Bank of America, and rendered the tool completely useless.

julygal · June 2011

gwendarling:
julygal:
I would highly recommend mint.com. You can create an account through them and link all your financial accounts and all your DH's accounts in one place. I think it could be very useful for you trying to keep track of all the different accounts and where money is coming from and going.
Was using mint.com and was a big fan of it, until it stopped working with Bank of America, and rendered the tool completely useless.

We have two bank of america accounts it wouldn't work with for awhile there, but it has been resolved and working fine lately. Perhaps log back in and see if it will update those accounts now.

laurynfaerie · June 2011

We still have everything seperate. Partly because his bank is a PITA, and it's just easier. Since I'm not working right now, he puts money into my account to pay the cable/power with, but other than that we use his bank card for everything.

We don't have credit cards, so we don't need to worry about that.

And until I start working again, he pays for my cell phone as well as his, but when I was working the cable/power, my cell phone, and some groceries came from my paycheck (as well as anything extra I wanted) and rent, his cell phone and some groceries came from his.

It's a system that works for us, and allows us to have some playing money that we don't need to justify to each other.

Also not having credit cards means that we never spend more money than we have. Which I really like.

boxtonmom1014 · June 2011

We've combined our finances since the day we got married. (The only exception was when I sold my condo, the money I made went straight to pay off my student loans- both of those things were from way before I met DH.) I have my own credit card and DH has his, but we pay the balance from our joint checking account.

I use Quicken to keep track of it all. I like that I can have a Quicken file for each account (checking, saving, each cc) and I can break all of our expenses down by category to see where the money is going.

MrsChamp11 · June 2011

We currently share everything. All accounts are joint. Prior to doing this, we kept a joint checking account for shared expenses and everything else was separate. I also made double what DH made at the time, so we did everything by percentage. We added up what the cost of all out total bills were and we each put money in our account based on the percentage of total income we each had. For example, 67% of our total income combined was mine, so I paid into the joint account 67% of the total monthly bill amount. This allowed us the same percentage of personal money every month and was completely fair. Now that we are married and making similar incomes, we just combine everything and it's working great for us now!

kenandlaura06 · June 2011

lmjt:

I love my system. My money is my money, and his money is my money.

In all seriousness, we just have a joint checking account. I share everything with my H, both names are on all cars, mortgage, credit cards, etc. We're in this together, I never saw a reason to do anything separately.

Same in my household. Our finances are completely combined and I am in charge of the budget, bill paying etc. We sit down together to balance the checkbook and this keeps DH in the loop about what is going on with the $$. H actually really likes it that I am in charge of the $$ because I'm really on top of it and it is one less thing for him to worry about.

KAK ;-> · June 2011

We each have our separate account and then we have one joint account. I set up a spreadsheet with bills we want to split (we each pay our own CCs and student loans) and then I divide those out. We each put money into the joint account to pay the "joint" bills.

When I divided up the bills I took into account that I make more than him. I just pay health/car insurance and don't include that stuff into the joint amount.

littlecookie · June 2011

We sat down and made a budget with all of our expenses and our savings goals. We each keep out the same amount of "fun" money and deposit the rest into the joint account. Neither one of us wants to have to ask permission to purchase things we just want. This way our joint goals can be achieved and we still have some money to use when our goals are not exactly the same. Works great.

jordinhoran · June 2011

I highly recommend 3 accounts, a joint and each having their own seperate. We each got the same amount monthly into our personal account to spend as we please. This worked out great for a long time. Then about two years ago DH lost his job and we move across country and had to switch banks. At that point it didn't make sense to have so many accounts with only one source of income. Now we use the credit card for all daily purchases as well as fun and pay it off monthly. I'm in charge of all our finances and that does mean he has to run it past me to buy something but its more just our of respect to say "Hey I just spend $xxx on new shoes" - I do the same with him. I make a good amount more than him and I try not to let that be seen since he was the bread winner for so long before and never made me feel bad about it.

elynds · June 2011

We are not great with money, but we do OK. We share everything - joint checking account, everything is in both of our names, etc. We basically took the total that we were bringing home, subtracted all of our bills, and then after that half goes into savings, half goes to spending. We're saving for a house now, so we're saving a lot. From our spending, we decide on a set amount of money per week - we leave some in the checking account, and then we get that much cash every Friday and use that money as spending money for the week including groceries, shopping, etc. We split the cash initially, but we're always shuffling it around. Obviously we discuss major purchases, and anything we have left over at the end of the week, we just take out that much less the next week (say we take out $400 per week, and have $100 left over, the next week we would take out $300). It doesn't ALWAYS work - obviously some weeks we have to spend more and we do have a credit card and debit card for that, but we found (using mint.com) that we were spending money stupidly and when you actually have cash and you can see it running out, it makes you less likely to spend it.

alynjohn · June 2011

All of our stuff is joint. We figured thats what we signed on for when we got married-- a partnership. We use DH income for all our household expenses and then used mine to pay off his student loans; now it is just getting saved for LO and if all is ok when she gets here we'll use it to get a newer vehicle for DH. It works really well for us.

I have an excel spreadsheet set up with a tab for each month and then a column for each paycheck and what comes out of each. Usually I end up just filling it out and emailing it to DH to look at. He'll tell me if there is something he needs or if I forgot to add something so in the end there is a 0 balance. Then we pull out cash for things like groceries, hair cuts, home improvements, clothes etc. It makes it so much easier to balance the check book when the cash just comes out of the ATM and I don't have to track all the little $5-$10 expenses.

SandK042 · June 2011

Because DH deploys with military for a year + at a time, and I travel a lot for work (for another month, anyway), we've done the three accounts thing. I keep my paycheck, he keeps an amount about equal to my paycheck, and the rest goes into a "joint" account to pay household expenses. Kind of a misnomer, though - all our accounts are joint as far as the bank is concerned...this way we both have total access to everything, just use the multiple accounts as a management tool. Since I do the grocery shopping, Target runs, etc., I also pay all the bills so I'm the only one that really touches the joint account and can manage it.

tblauvelt · June 2011

lmjt:

I love my system. My money is my money, and his money is my money.

In all seriousness, we just have a joint checking account. I share everything with my H, both names are on all cars, mortgage, credit cards, etc. We're in this together, I never saw a reason to do anything separately.

This exactly. He's got his own money, his own CCs, his own loans, etc and I have my own seperate money and accounts. But we also have a shared checking account in which we contribute X amount of dollars evenly each month to pay off joint bills. I saw the mint.com posts and am willing to give that a shot now, though.

sozay23 · June 2011

We have three accounts- joint and each has a personal account. They vast majority of our money goes into the joint account and that's where all bills and daily expensese come out of. I pay the bills from a budget spreadsheet and make sure we have enough $ in the account. However a portion of each of our paychecks gets direct deposited into our seperate "fun" accounts. This makes holidays and birthdays a lot more fun to. He makes more then me so he gets more put into his personal account then I do. I really like the way this works. It allows for us to make money and pay bills as a couple but still have an account for guilt free purchases if we want it. Smile

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