Couples - How do you handle finances?

numbersgirl08 · June 2014

KittenGator · June 2014

We have a shared account but we also have our own personal accounts. Because only DH is working, neither of our personal accounts have money in them. While we both have access to the shared account, I let DH handle the money because it gives me panic attacks. I tell him what I need and he budgets for everything and tells if it fits or not and when. I like our system

When I was working I paid all of the bills but we had an excess then. Because we don't have an excess now, I prefer not to deal with it 0:)

bumpuser7846882 · June 2014

In theory, we have equal access, but he never touches anything.

ColieAnn31 · June 2014

I voted SS. My SO makes the money, it goes into one account that both of our names are on, but I handle all the money. I pay all the bills and do all the grocery shopping. Since I handle the money my SO will always ask me if he can buy something to make sure we have the money in the bank. He doesn't need my permission to buy anything and I don't need his permission but since he doesn't pay attention to the account he always asks.

needanustart · June 2014

We have several shared accounts with equal access, but I handle all finances and bills. He asks me about what card he can use if he wants to spend on something. We have completely separate credit cards for secret gifts and stuff (but they get paid off with our joint account anyway) and individual 401(k)s.

dmlk413 · June 2014

We have separate accounts but are in the process of putting them together. Separate accounts were great before we had DD but now it's just not working.

riansmommie · June 2014

SS: hubby makes all the money, we have separate accounts. He pays all the online bills and I write out the checks for the others, giving him a grand total at the end. I also get an allowance of 150$/month for whatever I want no questions asked. Also if I make any money from a side job that I do it counts as extra spending money for me.

numbersgirl08 · June 2014

Everything of ours is shared. I posted in the spam thread about our "allowance" system for miscellaneous purchases. Basically, we both get a set amount each month to spend however we want. Works great for us. Everything is household or LO related and we both spend money as necessary for those items. He pays all the bills and handles investments.

ColieAnn31 · June 2014

@NaChelleBeck‌ we're going to be bestest friends!!

megaroo64 · June 2014

We have separate accounts, but they all filter in to the same Quicken account and so we can see each other's spending. And we both have access to each other's accounts. We take a look at Quicken about once a month to see where we are spending our money and make adjustments accordingly.

[Deleted User] · June 2014

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musicalsilver · June 2014

SS!

We each get paid into personal accounts, and then a chunk of that gets automatically put into our joint checking/savings accounts. So essentially, we transfer enough over to make all of our joint purchases/bills/mortgage/daycare etc from the joint checking account and then our joint savings for things like home reno, travel and whatnot.

What's left in our personal accounts is our play money/personal savings.

When we got married my Mom pushed hard for me to maintain my own accounts (just in case I guess?), which generally speaking I like for my own peace of mind. Now that we've been married for longer, I'm less concerned I suppose. If DH had had his way we would have just combined everything when we got married. That would drive me batty though - I really don't need to know what DH does with his fun money. I'm super frugal and very risk adverse, and so sometimes his spending habits/stock market adventures (with his personal money only) make me a little uncomfortable.

Monkeybutt80 · June 2014

His money is my money and my money is my money.

JK

We share everything; bank account, savings account, credit cards, etc... He is better with finances than I am so he deals with all things financial at our house though. I don't even know what our login info is for our accounts. Therefore, even though I don't need "permission" to spend money, I check with him prior to any large purchases to make sure we have the funds/ it hasn't been a spending heavy month and etc.

mamainVA2013 · June 2014

Jo581011 said:

In theory, we have equal access, but he never touches anything.

This is us. I feel guilty because I've been tracking money and where it is going, and realize how much money I spend v. how much he spends. I think the only money he spends is on eating out lunch occasionally.

peachnectarine · June 2014

We have shared accounts. He is the only one working, but I pay all the bills. Since I'm not working, we are on a budget. Unfortunately, my husband does not know what that is, so he does not have full access. This is a guy who opened 10 credit cards, put them all up over the limit, and paid them all late without me having ANY knowledge until we got married. Great wedding surprise. Since then, I have done all of the bills.

kh59 · June 2014

We each have a personal checking account of our own and a retirement account of our own, and then we share a checking account and a savings account. We both contribute to our joint accounts in proportion to our incomes, and all our regular expenses come out of there (groceries, mortgage, etc.). Fun stuff comes out of our individual checking accounts, even if we do it together. I like being able to buy things from my own account without feeling guilty, and it's also kind of fun that one of us always "treats" if we go out to dinner or something like that. My husband is super frugal, so he delights in applying most of his leftover personal money to paying down our student loans faster while wearing the same torn pair of shorts every day. I remind him that we should have fun sometimes and tend to do things like pay for the whole family to go to the zoo or set aside some savings for travel. It works out well for us.

Lizzybizzy80 · June 2014

When we met I was pretty spendy. I did a 180 and got serious about paying down debt and budgeting about a year after we were married. I watch all our transactions/income/retirement on mint. We share checking and savings but have separate retirement accounts. We don't use credit cards. He is not that interested in our finances and is pretty thrifty by nature so it has worked out pretty well.

No longer the best · June 2014

We also each have our own accounts but have access to each others cheq accounts. We have it divided who pays what bills.

Whenever a new payment comes along (like day-care) we look at who can 'afford it' but will also just transfer money back and forth when needed.

Ryanswifey619 · June 2014

DH used to be on my account, but we closed it down so we can switch banks when I go back to work. He has his account, I'm not on it, but if I need some money, he will get it out for me. He's been saying he'll add me to his account eventually.

Lizzybizzy80 · June 2014

Ryanswifey619 said:
DH used to be on my account, but we closed it down so we can switch banks when I go back to work. He has his account, I'm not on it, but if I need some money, he will get it out for me. He's been saying he'll add me to his account eventually.

This would really bother me. I am admittedly a control freak though.

Ryanswifey619 · June 2014

@Lizzybizzy80‌ I'm kinda the same way, there are certain things that I have to have some control over and some days it kills me not being able to get to dh's account if I need to do something or get some money.

Lizzybizzy80 · June 2014

@Ryanswifey619‌ I hope he puts you on soon. Honestly I would be pissed off every day if I had to ask DH for money, even if I stayed at home.

BC&LM · June 2014

I'm in the minority here. We have separate accounts, and we each have certain bills that we handle. (I do have a secondary checking account that I gave him the card to for when it's my week to get groceries, but I don't consider that joint because I am the only one who puts money in there right now.) Eventually, we might get a joint account for bills if we get around to it, but we will never ever not have separate accounts too. We are grown adults, and I don't believe in checking with the other person when you want to spend a reasonable amount of money on yourself. Of course, I would discuss a major purchase with my husband, but I feel like I should be able to spend $50-100 without having to justify it to someone else.

Ryanswifey619 · June 2014

@NaChelleBeck‌ thanks for the info, I honestly didn't know that. We have a small town bank, they know DH pretty good, so I wouldn't have thought anything different, but hearing this, I'm definitely going to be bugging him more about getting me on there....side note, when he first started his account up, he put his mother on the account...and she still is on there..not his wife. This has been a chip on my shoulder for a long time, so I'm thinking I will just drive him there myself and get it done quickly.

numbersgirl08 · June 2014

BC&LM said:

I'm in the minority here. We have separate accounts, and we each have certain bills that we handle. (I do have a secondary checking account that I gave him the card to for when it's my week to get groceries, but I don't consider that joint because I am the only one who puts money in there right now.) Eventually, we might get a joint account for bills if we get around to it, but we will never ever not have separate accounts too. We are grown adults, and I don't believe in checking with the other person when you want to spend a reasonable amount of money on yourself. Of course, I would discuss a major purchase with my husband, but I feel like I should be able to spend $50-100 without having to justify it to someone else.

We have shared accounts for everything, but we don't check with each other when we spend money. We do have our budgets for frivolous spending, but that's really just made me give myself fewer guilt trips when I want to spend money. I'm pretty sure you didn't mean to be insulting when you said "We are grown adults" but my first reaction was "You don't have to have separate accounts to be grown adults".

BC&LM · June 2014

numbersgirl08 said:

BC&LM said:

I'm in the minority here. We have separate accounts, and we each have certain bills that we handle. (I do have a secondary checking account that I gave him the card to for when it's my week to get groceries, but I don't consider that joint because I am the only one who puts money in there right now.) Eventually, we might get a joint account for bills if we get around to it, but we will never ever not have separate accounts too. We are grown adults, and I don't believe in checking with the other person when you want to spend a reasonable amount of money on yourself. Of course, I would discuss a major purchase with my husband, but I feel like I should be able to spend $50-100 without having to justify it to someone else.

We have shared accounts for everything, but we don't check with each other when we spend money. We do have our budgets for frivolous spending, but that's really just made me give myself fewer guilt trips when I want to spend money. I'm pretty sure you didn't mean to be insulting when you said "We are grown adults" but my first reaction was "You don't have to have separate accounts to be grown adults".

-------

Oh I didn't mean it like that! I just lived alone for several years before meeting my husband, and I don't want to have to check with him everytime I spend something. We keep our extra money in our savings accounts and only what we are currently using in checking, so I feel like we would constantly have to check in with each other to make sure that we had enough in checking before making a purchase (or keep more in there all the time instead of putting it in savings), and I have lived too long of my adult life not doing that to want to start. I'm sorry if it came off wrong; rereading it, I totally see how it could have, but that's not what I meant!

ETA: add line between responses; quote box fail

Western Diva · June 2014

The point of a budget, besides staying on track, is that I don't have to check with DH for most purchases. I have a clothing line, personal care, etc and can spend those as I please.

We have a joint chequing and several joint savings accounts. Tfsa and rrsp are separate as they have to be. Two shared ccs and one each that is in only our own name but they really don't get used. Everything downloads into quicken and we try to go over finances weekly to check in. All recurring bills are set up for automatic payment including credit cards.

jennOK · June 2014

We have joint savings and checking accounts. We both pay bills, and we sit down and look at spending once a month. I have a credit card, H does not. I've always been very responsible with money, H has not. Having joint accounts keeps us accountable to each other for our spending,, and it's been a good thing for us.

MorganWP · June 2014

We have our own accounts. My SO makes the money and pays bills and rent but we also get money from the government for DD which comes to me. So thats our groceries and other stuff money.

whitney2302 · June 2014

We have two shared checking accounts and one shared savings account. I pay most of the bills just because he's out of town for work and they'd never get paid if it was up to him. We have a shared credit card and our own. We use our separate ones for birthday/christmas gifts. He also uses his for gas/food while out of town. We're both pretty reasonable when it comes to spending money and trust eachother to not buy anything outrageous without talking to the other person. Our 401k's are separate.

numbersgirl08 · June 2014

@BC&LM Makes sense!

cynthia2007 · June 2014

We have separate checking accts that our checks go into and then a joint checking. H puts some money (im breadwinner so i pay more of our expenses) in there and I handle all bills. We have a joint savings acct that is now LO savings acct and I have a separate savings that he cannot access where I put our savings. H sucks at finances and likes to waste money (gotten better over the years bc we used to fight a lot about finances) but still. We agree its for the best bc he knows he would spend it on crap. He was pleasantly surprised when we just bought our house and we were able to put down a decent down payment. We spend from our accts as we wish minus large purchases that we discuss together. It works for us bc neither of us wants to ask for money and its not a problem uunless he doesn't put in what he's supposed to.
It works for us and we're happy with it.

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