NE1 else have not merged finances with DH?

TX-Bride · June 2010

Reading all the finance posts, got me wondering if NE1 else is in the same shoes as we are?

We have been married for 3.5 years. I really don't know how much DH has CC or student bills, and he doesn't know about mine, we do have ideas but not the exact amount. We only have one shared savings account with no significant money in it! I have my own accounts and he does have his own!! it looks like we both are avoiding money talks!!

lmmckenna18 · June 2010

We haven't merged finances yet but we've only been married for less than two months. We have separate bank accounts. Neither of us have any student loans to pay off. He pays off his credit card every month and I try to. I know he makes more money than me.

risa_4-11-09 · June 2010

DH and I have been married just over a year, and we have not totally merged. We do have a joint checking/savings account and we use it for any vacations etc. Once DH gets new job then we do plan on merging.

We do know about the debt etc and have a plan to get them paid off.

OrangeFelt · June 2010

Well, I never did in my first marriage, and I still think it was one of the biggest mistakes I could have made. After my experience with it, I TOTALLY recommend that everyone at least knows what they are getting into and have visibility to everything, no matter how strong the marriage is. Just keep my experience in mind as a worst case scenario.

We each handled all of our own bills/student loans/ccs, and had a joint savings account. I never bothered to request that he grant me visibility to it, and it really was a big pain through the divorce. Thankfully, lawyers really helped out with it, but without visibility to what he had, I'm pretty sure I got screwed a bit more than I thought I was. End result - he still owes me a five-digit sum of money three years later, and since there are no children involved, I don't have a lot of legal pull on the matter.

Leigha12 · June 2010

Coming up on one year and we still haven't merged. For us it's better for several reasons. One is that I'm a huge control freak and would ask him about every.single.transaction. Another is that he's self-employed and I don't want our finances entangled for purposes of figuring out all of that stuff, at least not for now. We're open with the money talks and discuss numbers frequently. I know how much he has and makes, and he knows how much I have and make (in fact, he deposits my checks for me every week because I work too far to make it). We also let money flow freely between the two of us.

ssinca · June 2010

we merged everything after we were engaged, just made sense since he moved in and started helping with the mortgage.

I know couples who keep everything separate and one pays for the cable bill, the other pays for the gas bill, etc. that just seems really silly to me - he's your husband, not your roommate. but whatever floats your boat!

AustinBride06 · June 2010

I just have one checking account that is separate but it's only out of laziness that I haven't closed it (my paycheck goes there). We do have our own allowances though but they're not actually separate accounts.

I have friends that have separate accounts and they file taxes separately as well b/c they say it works out better that way. Works for them, wouldn't work for us.

MrsAJL · June 2010

We got a joint bank account when we were engaged and contributed to it for wedding-related expenses. Once we were married, that was the account for all our monies from both incomes.

We have a policy of full disclosure in our marriage. That means that we know absolutely every financial decision that the other makes (outside of allowances) and have set a level that is a must-discuss-with-the-other-before-purchase amount. We don't use credit cards unless it's for an emergency.

I guess we decided on this when his father died and left his mom with about $100,000 in business related debt that she didn't know about. In Texas, your spouse's debt is also your debt, so I guess I'd rather know up front what's going on then get blind sided by something like that.

JezcaM · June 2010

certainly just my opinion, but i feel joining finances is part of a healthy marriage. if you have separate accounts, i think you also have separate mentalities, leading to all sorts of problems (to state it simply). husband and wife should share everything, including money. again, just my opinion.

ditzydi_2000 · June 2010

We finally merged our accounts last August after being married for almost 2 years. I wouldn't say we avoided money talks but we just felt that we didn't want to explain our spending to each other that we more than likely would do if we had a joint account but now that we do have a joint account it's not that bad. I still have no clue how much is on his cc though. He is kind of aware of how much I have on my cc and student loans but he's not concerned. As long as they get paid he doesn't care.

AustinMimi · June 2010

We did it slowly over the course of about a year and a half. First we opened a joint account. Then we opened a savings account together. Then we closed our personal accts because we never used them. We have only one CC that we use and it is mine and he doesn't have a card; DH carries an "emergency" CC that he has never used except for one balance transfer that is paid off. I think he also has a business CC, but I don't think he uses it.

ETA: our spending is much better and more controllable since we are accountable to each other for everything. And now I like talking to him before buying anything because I like everything to be above board and I don't get buyer's remorse.

Kinks · June 2010

We've partially merged our finances while keeping our own accounts, because we think it's important for each of us to have our own spending money. We worked out about how much all of our bills run on average, plus a little extra for retirement savings, and agreed on a percentage that we each contribute to the joint account based on income. We also have auto-deductions into our own personal savings accounts (just for the sake of keeping it out of the joint spending account pool) that we invest every so often once we get enough in there.

SaraLouiseBride08 · June 2010

We didn't have joint accounts the first 5 years we lived together. I was aware of all our joint bills (rent, mortgage, utilities, etc) and gave him half.

This sucked because he made more money than me Wink Yes, he shared, but still. Also, we fought about money all.the.time because neither one of us really knew what was going on.

I always knew he had CC debt, but didn't know the extent because he was emberassed about it. He hadn't used a card in years, but always just paid minimums. Then, right before we got married he started feeling overwhelmed and just quit paying them! I don't know WHAT he was thinking. After we got married I took over everything, including his credit cards.I won't say that joining accounts solved all our money problems, but we certainly fight about money a lot less.

Now the only thing that is seperate is our play money. The same amount goes into our seperate accounts each paycheck, so we get the same amount to play with. *This is fabulous. It's helped a lot to not have to know where every penny of your spouses money goes to.

*Must admit ... this also benefits me because he makes more than I do, yet I get the same amount of play money. Plus I control the money. Yet, it works for us 95% of the time.

sandieleeann · June 2010

We've been married for a little over 1 and a half years and still have joint accounts and it works out really well for us. We can have access to each other's account whenever we want and don't hide money or purchases from each other, but we do have our separate bills that we pay and it works out. We moved in together a little before we got engaged and decided who would pay what bills and it worked out great, so we don't see the need to change it since it is still working out for us.

NE1 else have not merged finances with DH?

Re: NE1 else have not merged finances with DH?

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