Money Stuff

welly01 · April 2012

With the pending arrival of a LO, I have been thinking about money and how we will manage our finances. Currently, we each have individual accounts that we pay our own bills out of and then a joint account that we both contribute to that pays all the joint bills (mortgage, etc.). I have been thinking that it might be easier to just have one main account and then have small individual accounts just for play money. This would make it easier to keep the majority of our money in one place.

I'm curious, how do you handle your finances with SO now and how will it change once LO arrives? For second time moms, did you change how you handled finances after you had your first?

auburnbride2be · April 2012

We do the same thing you do now, but are thinking about pooling all the money together since things will be getting tighter and we've noticed it's hard to reach common goals with things being so split.

Hopeful912 · April 2012

DH and I have had our money together for a long time now. We moved in together in 2007 and found it easier to pay bills that way. There are a few couples in our family who do not have their money together and it seems like they're always struggling getting things paid or arguing. Not fun, but everyone is different Smile

RosePDX · April 2012

We do pretty much the same thing. Husband and I each have separate checking and savings accounts. For our mutual bills (house, daycare, utilities, cable, car insurance) I pay those and he transfers me money when I pay it. I don't see this changing once baby is born. My husband makes more than I do, so for household items and groceries we split the expense 75/25. If I am out and have to pick up something we need (ie dog food, cat litter, medicine) I just pay for it. We make enough money that it's not going to be that big of a deal if one of us pays for something and the other doesn't.

JessaPrimate · April 2012

We still have separate accounts bc we haven't been married that long and when we were getting house financing they told us not to rock the boat by changing anything. Now that we closed on the house we're going to re-eval.

PeridotEyes · April 2012

We have two joint accounts b/c we combined when we were married. Mine is the "primary" since I'm the breadwinner. I direct deposit some funds into his in case he needs it but all the bills, groceries, etc. comes out of mine. When LO arrived, nothing changed and I doubt it will after #2 arrives.

melindam · April 2012

We pooled all money when we got married but it was after a lot of discussions and soul searching. I always had assumed prior to getting married that we'd do what you do and have separate accounts and pool for joint expenses. It honestly came down to convenience. Having all money pooled means we never miss paying any bills and we both know where the cash is going. It also makes saving for joint goals a lot easier as we decide together what we want to save toward and how much and just set up automatic transfers into savings for that.

I don't see anything changing for us after the LO arrives except we'll likely set up a 529 plan and automatically transfer money into that each month. Only time our system feels weird is during gift-giving time. We both know what the other spends on our presents.

mnieciecki · April 2012

DH and I pooled money together after we bought our house. We keep a few separate accounts since some have to deal with investments but we keep 3 main accounts, 1 savings acct and 2 checking accounts. The reason for the 2 checking accounts is one is for actual bills to be paid from and the 2nd on is just for spend money for eating out and shopping for wants instead of needs we put about 10% of DH check in there. We prefer this route vs using credit cards. Cash is king and you make smarter decisions if you see how much money you have in your wallet instead of swiping a credit card and building a balance. I make a bit more than the DH so my full check goes to our checking account for bills to pay all our needs. DH's check goes directly to savings (other than that 10% "play money")

I am hoping my check will still be able to support my families needs and we can still save all of DH checks in savings. If not we will re-eval if we should break it down differently.

Jena503 · April 2012

We had his/hers/ours accounts for several years after we got married but just before DD was born we pooled our money. We still have the other accounts, but they are rarely used.

clock84 · April 2012

Our checks go into our joint account and DH pays everything. We each get play money into joint accounts but we each have our own (joint). If I need something and DH still has play money I just move it over and he does the same. We have USAA with free transfers so this hasn't been a problem yet. When I go grocery shopping I transfer from the joint to mine same with gas. All needs come from the big account all wants come from our individual.

SLHurst11 · April 2012

We pooled all of our money when we got married, and I manage it. We have one "Bills Account" that is tightly budgeted to pay off our recurring expenses. We have one "Misc Account" that covers everything else (gas, groceries, etc.). This way, we never accidentally dip into money that should be reserved for bill-paying.

CarolinaGirl82 · April 2012

Everything is in joint accounts, we share a credit card and I pay the bills/keep the budget. We each max out our own IRAs and have some other investment accounts as well. I've never seen a reason to have separate accounts. We buy whatever we want, if there's a big purchase we talk about it in advance, and if one of us thinks the other is spending too much we just have a talk about reigning it in. It's really completely uncomplicated.

bangos13 · April 2012

After DH and I got married we opened a joint account and no longer use our individual accounts. It works for us, and seems to make bill paying easier and more organized, since everything is just in the one account.

Prior to getting married we each had our own, which was annoying because we'd always have to figure out who was paying what.

ChristinaDawn · April 2012

We still have separate accounts for checking and I have a savings account. We have two joint credit cards. We've split the bills in half so I pay half and hebpays half out of our own accounts. We didn't change this after our son was born nd don't plan on changing it any time soon because it works just fine. We both have all of our accounts loaded in a financial ap so we're able to track our combined income, expanses and debt.

AnnieH32 · April 2012

DH and I combined our accounts years ago and it has been much better than having separate accounts. Easier to pay bills, save, and know what the resources are if something comes up.

I am not quite sure yet, how we are going to manage to afford 2 in daycare. I am sure there will be some belt tightening, but the basic set-up will stay the same.

I make more, but I don't feel like that entitles me to spend more (other than bonus time when I always take a small part of it and spend on whatever I want), since we are both responsible adults putting our $$ toward things we both want/need for ourselves and our family.

laurny · April 2012

Joint accounts since getting married, when we had our son we made the change to me being a SAHM, so DH is the sole provider for our family, which made it even more important to account for every dollar, but it has been totally worth it for us!

jazzyexpo · April 2012

Nothing changed for us. We've always had a joint account and use it for everything.

mccrazy · April 2012

We have a joint checking/savings and another online joint savings for our sinking funds. Honestly, I don't get why people use separate accounts when married. It seems a little shady to me. We think of it as "our" money, not his and mine. The only thing we don't share is our fun money, but we use cash for that and each have the same amount for the month. I'm in charge of making sure all the bills are paid and that we're putting money into savings each month. We both make household purchases, and both use the debit card for the joint account when we eat out together. Anything we buy on our own (new clothes, lunches out with friends, music, etc.) comes out of our fun money cash. That way we don't go over budget. This works really well for us. If we make a big purchase we always discuss it first. That said, while our method for budgeting won't change with the baby, our actual budget definitely will. Daycare is going to eat our budget up!

Jess082111 · April 2012

We put all our money in a joint account when we got married. We work on a budget together each month and agree to stick to that. This is how it will be when the little one comes along, too, except that we'll have a few new categories in the budget for baby

For "play" money, grocery money etc (basically anything we spend while we're out and about), we track that using an app called EEBA. It has virtual "envelopes" for each spending category. This has really helped us stick to the amounts we budget.

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