Canada Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Separate Bank Accounts or Joint?
What do you and your DH have?
Currently we have all join accounts but I would really like to each have separate accounts in addition to our joint accounts because we really disagree when it comes to money and I think it would be a good solution.
So what do you have? Why? If you have separate accounts how do you manage your bills and household expenses?
Re: Separate Bank Accounts or Joint?
Discussing your financial goals should help with some of the money disagreements. We discuss spending in terms of how it will affect those goals and when we get things like bonuses usually we agree to put the money towards those things.
Then when we created our budget we went:
$$ coming in each month
fixed expenses (mortgage, loans, etc)
high estimates of flucuating expenses (utilities, phones, etc)
From what was left we decided how much we wanted to put towards retirement, emergency fund savings, general savings, travel - our goals. Then we set these up as automatic deposits into those accounts and added them to the fixed expenses (we treat them as bills).
Then we estimated how much we needed for the variables - food, gas, household items, entertainment, etc. From what was left we agreed on an amount for fun money to each of us and then upped our savings deposits. Anything left at the end of the month goes into one of those accounts and we start over.
We have a joint account our paycheques go into and household spending/bills comes out of.
We also have two other joint accounts we've designated as his and mine. They're joint so I can easily move money into his. This is where we put our fun money. Fun money is our money to do whatever, DH can go golfing, save to buy video games or electronics, I go to Starbucks, get a manicure, go out for lunch, whatever. And if we've gone over one month in entertainment but want to go out for dinner we pool our fun money to do so.
It cut alot of arguements for us - if one person thinks something is a waste of money then the other can still do it if they want to use their fun money. That way it doesn't affect the household budget or our goals.
we have all joint accounts except 1 savings account each, mostly out of laziness we didn't bother to switch.
We are both pretty thrifty though and we generally consult each other for big purchases (unless we know we're on the same page and there is a great deal). We have our chequing account where most of the action is, "high interest" savings account where our medium term savings is (home renos, vacations), my own savings account is where I have payroll deduction and company matching, and DH's savings account for a new car (it's easier to keep track when it's in a separate account). DH does roll his eyes if I get a drink at starbucks, but whatever, I only do it every couple of months :P
We have a joint chequing and savings account and then we each have a separate account too.
We only did this about a year or so ago, we decided that our pay cheques would go to one account which is where all of our purchases come from, we pay our bills from etc. We have a savings account for the desiganted amount we decided we would want for emergencies, travel. Our RRSP money come out directly from our pay cheques.
We then each have fun money each month (which is where the sep account comes in) so we can save for things we want and the other doesn't, and so we can buy things that the other has no interest in - pedi's, dinner/lunches/coffee with friends (that doesn't include the spouse).
So far it seems to be working fine. If there is a big purchase that needs to be made that is over a monthly budget (requiring dipping into savings account) we always talk to each other. Having the fun money I also find has really helped as I'm the more social one who tends to go out more often - cuts out any arguments that once existed on our sepding habits.
We have a joint chequing and savings and then seperate accounts as well. The difference is that our paycheques go into our individual accounts and we have determined an amount that gets transferred into the joint accounts for all of our household expenses. Anything else that we need to pay for is discussed in advance.
It's a little strange but it works for us.
We have one joint account and then we each have our separate accounts as well from before we married.
We set up an automatic withdrawal from our personal accounts into our joint account which covers all household expenses (mortgage, property taxes, utilities, phone, insurance...). DH has his RRSP withdrawals from his paycheck, and mine from my bank account.
For things like groceries, daily spending, etc...we use our personal accounts and typically it's 50/50. If I pay one day, DH pays another time, etc...it tends to balance out. We don't have a specific amount we allocate per month for this sort of stuff. If it's something we want, and we're not tight for cash, we'll get it.
If we are saving up for something in particular, we'll usually wait for DH's bonus and also start putting aside extra $$ in the meantime to work up to that goal.
We have joint chequing and savings.
I also have an old account from before we got married that has the tiniest amount of fun money in it.
Our paychecks go into the joint chequing and we throw a bit into savings. DH's extra pt time summer job money we use for things we want done around the house (spent it this year on garden and windows), and he uses some for fun money for himself (buying beer for post soccer parties, having the boys over for UFC, ordering pizza/wings, etc). My part time job money gets divied. I get paid 2 times monthly. The first cheque goes into our joint savings, the second goes into my fun money account (for pedis/coffee with the girls/my headband obession for DD LOL).
All of our accounts are joint and all of our spending decisions are joint. It makes sense for us because we are almost always together. We work today, hang out together with friends and travel together. He "technically" works harder than me business wise but that's because I take on more household duties. So ultimately we work the same amount.
As for "fun" money, we discuss it and thankfully are always on the same page. He takes guitar lessons and plays tennis and I go to yoga and coffee dates with friends. It ends up working out to about even. I get my hair and nails done in part for him, so I don't consider it just for me. hehe.
Only thing he spends more on is camera equipment (HUGE COST!) but it's partly a business cost and I get the benefit of great pictures when we travel.