Money

Fiantas

Now that the moneysuck of the wedding is behind us, we're trying to figure out our finances.  Up till now we've have seperate checking accounts and a joint account for family expenses (rent, utilities, groceries etc) We have the monthly budget amount directly deposited into our joint account and the balance (which can vary) into our personal accounts.  We pay our own credit cards, car loan etc out of that. 

 Anyone else have it set up a different way - what's your savings plan?

 Any tips would be much appreciated as we're planning on spending some time talking about our financial goals this weekend.

 Thanks!

sarah-belle

We have one joint checking and two joint savings (one "brick and mortar" and one at ING).  Everything gets paid out of the checking (his/mine/ours) and I have automatic deposits set up for both savings accounts (more to ING) twice a month. 

ChefSarah22

We merged everything. ?Before the wedding actually. ?It just worked better for us. ?We do talk about all purchases before they are made. ?We currently have accounts at 2 different brick and mortar banks (we are in the process of switching) and a seperate savings account at ING.

B2bFall2005

For us we found it easiest to just have one joint account and pay everything out of it.  Why does this work for us?  We sat down together and created a budget that we both agree to.  Its not divied up as to say you can spend X amount per week where I can spend Y amount per week.  In total we have a set weekly amount that can be spent without naming names.  It works.  As well, we pay our individual car payments from this joint account too.  At the end of the day what's "his" and what's "mine" is really "ours".  I'm not going to go tit for tat about him spending more b/c he has a larger car payment.   This may not be ideal for everyone - you have to both share common financial goals.  If you found something that works - stick with it!  : )

If you need a budgeting tool - check out my bio.  We've been using that for years and it allows you to forecast into the forecast.

 

B2bFall2005

Ooops - guess the links are busted in my bio.  Just holler if you need the spreadsheet.  : )

Fiantas

I would love it!! fiantas0808 at gmail.

 Thanks!

 

 

ann11/11

we have a similiar set up to you.  we have a joint checking where we pay our bills from and we have a joint savings where we get an automatic transfer from our checks each week.  We also have our own checking accounts.  our checks get deposited to our own accounts and we just put in enough for the bills in our joint checking.  it works for us.

kimberlykenya

We're in the process of adding me to his checking account since he gets direct deposit from work and pays most of the bills out of it.  We have a joint savings account too. I have 2 credit cards in my name but we both work together to pay the balance and use them for both our needs. 

Mrs.Darah

We have two joint accounts at a brick and mortar and one joint savings at ING.  We also have two brokerage accounts for retirement and college savings that are self managed (not through an employer or anything like that) at Fidelity.

We have one credit card, it is joint.

We (and by we I mean I) pay all our bills out of our "bills" account at the B&M. The other B&M account is for DH's personal spending and I give him an allowance each pay period.  I used to have a spending account, but I closed it because I never buy myself anything anyway! So I just take cash out of bills when I need it.

Our savings, retirement, and college funds have automatic deposits on the day DH gets paid. So it's mindless.

I am considering opening up a second savings account at a B&M (not our current bank) for an "emergency" fund kind of thing, since now that DH is the only one employed, we seem to dip into savings a bit more often than I would like, esp. as we approach this time of year. I'd like to have one account that acts as a "christmas fund" kind of thing.

Victoria808

I'm a checking/savings account addict   I'm a fan of having a certain account for a certain thing.  So, we have it set up that we have a main checking account where DH's check is deposited. To pay bills, I transfer the money from main to bill account as needed.  Then we have a few assorted savings accounts at b&m and ing for different things (never touch fund, baby's account, fun money, emergency, etc).  I do still have a solo account at a different bank, but it's mainly just for show. As for spending, we tried budgeting for many things, but what worked for us is a cash "allowance"- each week, we each get the same amount of money.  It's up to each of us how to spend or save it.  We do the same with Christmas gift money for buying each other's gifts.  It works for us and neither of us can be unhappy with the way the other spends their weekly cash (ie he can't complain that I needed yet another purse   ).  GL! It took us a few attempts at different set-ups before finding one that seems to work.

JustCallMeMrs.P

DH and I have a joint savings at a bank and an ING account that gets money automatically deposited every month. We have a joint checking and separate checking for each. Both of our checks get deposited into the joint for bills and household things and weekly we transfer into our personal checking for spending money.

I have another savings and checking separate from DH that is used to pay off a loan and the savings is for just in case.