April 2008 Weddings
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.
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.
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.
Finances
I know that we have had this discussion before but I can't remember what everyone said and I know a lot of you had some great ideas!! I think I remember I liked the way Elisa and Lewis did theirs too but I can't remember what they do!
So, how do you and DH do your finances and how well does it work for you guys? or, any other suggestions?
Re: Finances
We each have a personal checking and savings account and credit cards and we have joint checking and savings account and credit card. 1/2 of our paychecks go into the joint account (we'll transfer more in as needed) and all of our household bills/activities are paid out of the joint account. Any personal bills (cell phones, shopping, going out with friends) get paid out of our personal accounts.
It works out really well for us because it's never a question of who is paying or what card does this go on. He can't complain that I bought another pair of shoes because I paid for it with my own money.
We have two checking accounts and one savings.
We put 15% of both of our income into savings (wish it was more), the rest into checking to pay for monthy bills. We both get X amount of money to spend each month. Let's call it an "allowance". You can use you allowance on whatever your heart desires, clothes, lunch, out with friends, entertainment etc...but once you use your allowance, you are out until the following month. Extra money left over at the end of the month rolls over into the next on top of the regular allowance, or you can contribute to savings (never has happened!!!) If we are out together, we use our debit card to pay.
The other checking account is for our rental. Rent check goes in, motgage is paid. That's it. Once we have a little more money in there, we will open another savings account just for that. But we've only been land lords for a few months.
Savings is rarely touched and by rarely, I mean pretty much never. Last we touched it was for our house down payment and when we bought my car but we were saving for both things.
Credit cards are pretty much nonexsistent. We have them and really only use them to by a trip (but we have the money in the bank) or if there is an emergency.
I keep track of all our finances on an Excel spread sheet.
Although DH's dad is a tax attorney my loving husband is not a number's person. (He's and artist
) So, we have 1 checking and 1 savings account. All of our monthly bills, except HOA (I have to write a check,which I hate), are on auto pay. I put 10% of take home into savings, and at the end of the month I put in more, depending on the difference between spent and earned was that month-does that make any sense?
We discuss all big purchases or anything that is a want vs a need. For the most part I just take care of everything. DH and I are really good about staying under budget for things like eating out, or fun purchases.
we have joint checking and joint savings. Everything gets paid out of the checking. We put most of our variable expenses (food, Target trips, etc) on our Amex, which gets paid in full every month. He's in charge of paying some bills (water, sewer), I'm in charge of others (cable, phone). Everything else is paid auto-withdrawal. Whoever drops Katie off at daycare on the days that tuition is due pays that
We each also have personal credit cards that get paid out of the joint account. We use these for things like gifts for each other so that we can't see where the other one is shopping.
We put 60% of each of our paychecks into a joint account. We pay our bills from there. The rest goes into our own checking and savings accounts to pay for cars, motorcycle, whatever we own independently. We each have our own credit cards too but also have a joint credit card for household things and vacations etc.
We each have our own checking and savings and we share a checking account to pay household bills and save. We deposit set amounts into the joint account and we each pay a few bills.
I'm thinking about putting everything together and seeing if we can save more. We are both frugal but I think we spend more than we should. I think we need to focus on saving more for retirement.
~~~MARRIED BIO~~~
Once we got married, TJ rolled all his money into my savings and checking accts and i put his name on them. So those are our primary accts. His accts just sit there. Around xmas time, he'll put money in them so I don't know what he's buying etc.
I pay all of our bills myself. My whole paycheck goes right into the checking. He gets paid cash weekley (yes, he still pays taxes. Just gets cash) So basically my pays go for bills, mortgage and anything we use the debit cards for (food shopping, house stuff, gas). Then we use the cash he brings home for our spending money for going out or small things. Just cutting out the ATM trips part lol. Then whatever is left, gets deposited eventually.
end of the month, I figure out how much we brought in to how much we spent. I break it all down.. who spent what in gas... in food.. in 'leisure' stuff.. I like to know where every penny went so I can tell tj where we're spending to much etc. My goal was that when I do this, to go to the bank and switch the money that we saved from checking to savings. But it doesn't happen as often as I'd like, ah! But in my defense, I like to keep more then the average person probably does in my checking cause we don't have any major credit cards incase something big comes up at the drop of a dime.
I know that our way probably isn't the best way. but its what works for us, for now.
We used to have a joint checking and savings and then our own checking and savings, but when I got sick it was too hard for me to keep up so out of necessity we merged into one checking and one savings. I like this A LOT better. The money goes in, bills get paid and then whatever is left goes into savings. It works so much better for us.
We pay most of our bills on autopay so it's super easy to manage.
Everything is pretty much joint. We each have credit cards in our own names, but we don't really use them, so that doesn't matter.
We have a joint checking, and 2 joint savings accounts (money markets). We have a joint credit card, which we pay all of our monthly bills on to earn the cash back rewards, and then we pay that off each month.
We each get "fun money"-$50/month for each of us. But we just take that out in cash and keep our own. It's pretty low for right now, but I'm in school and don't make much, so it has to be. :-)
We both have our own checking accounts but we have access to them, but Eric pays the major bills (mortgage, internet/tv, water/gas/electricity which are on autopay) and our joint credit card (which is only rarely used but strictly for major purchases). He just transfers the mortgage amount, we are 50/50 with our bills.We both have one savings account.
I pay for the groceries (food and paper goods for the house), cell phone bill, newspaper, my student loans and my gym membership. I don't have credit card bills to pay, I eliminated all my cc debt when we bought the house.
Big-ticket items get disussed before purchased, like my love and dire need for a DSLR, and laptop. Luckily with our new health care plan, we have money set aside for all medical stuff (visits, and medicine) it's almost like flexible spending but it's not.
Little items like clothes, kitchen-house related - we take turns.