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How to organize..
..spending vs. bill money. All of our money goes into one checking account. Some goes into an ING savings & the rest is left behind. We know how much to keep in the checking for bills to be auto-deducted each month, and how much to set aside each month for fluff money, but I can't put my finger on the best way to organize it. I'd keep it all in one pot but then I'm paranoid of spending too much & then having an oh crap, we can't pay the rent this month kind of issue.
My initial thought was to put fluff money into savings & literally take out cash whenever we're grocery shopping/getting gas/going out to dinner, but this seems prehistoric and inconvenient.
So once again, now that we're married I have to ask - how are you organizing your finances?
It was so much simpler when the money was just all mine 
09.25.10
Re: How to organize..
I think it's a little different for us since we lived together for so long before the wedding, but...
We already had it worked out before the wedding that K pays the mortgage and I pay for the other bills and groceries. After the wedding, I opened a new bank account - mostly b/c TD bank doesn't charge international travel fees and we were going overseas - to be a travel fund. We made that one a joint account and kept our single accounts. After the wedding, we both agreed on a certain amount to put into the shared account from each paycheck, and that is our shared "fun" money - for travel and furniture and whatnot. We still have our own individual accounts that are "his" and "hers" money to pay each of our bills and do what we want with the left over.
We're trying this out to see how it goes. Eventually we may completely merge finances, but for now it works. And if it ain't broke...
No idea steff.
We are still working on this one. Had our biggest fight since the wedding about this very same thing this weekend.
Sounds like you're way ahead of us already anyway. We are still struggling with the very idea of combining finances. And we've lived together for 5 years!
TTC since 2010
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BFP #1 - May 2011 - m/c @ 8weeks
IUI #1 - July 26 2012 - Femara = BFN
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We only have one account because it pays the best interest rate than any other checking or savings account. H keeps track of the ins and outs in the register and that is the total balance. On a spreadsheet we break that balance down into different categories as if they were seperate accounts.
Total Balance $10,000
House down payment $5000
Car down payment $2000
remaining $3000
We think of the remaining of whats in our checking account and think about the others as savings. If I found savings accounts with a better interest rate then I would open seperate accounts.
Hmm...I got nothing other than taking out cash. We haven't combined anything yet. With my account, I take out cash for groceries and fun money. Its helped me to spend a lot less which is nice.
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I don't know what to tell you. DH and I kept our individual checking and savings. We were both already at the same bank, so we just added a joint checking. We both transfer maybe 80-90% of our checks into the joint and pay all bills out of that. We keep the rest in our individual accounts for our guilty pleasures and personal bills (like my credit card, student loan, etc).
If it's not bills, we always check with the other before (ok, sometimes it's right after) removing money from the joint. It's also not perfect cause we don't put the same amount of money into the joint, but we're slowly working it out.
Right now we are on a pretty strict budget. We keep track of all of our expenses in a spreadsheet and our income (it varies so I like to see it month to month) in a separate spreadsheet. Almost all of our income goes into our checking account. Once we have the first of the month paychecks in there I go through and pay as many bills for the month that we can. After the second paychecks and the rest of the bills I leave a $300 cushion in the checking and put the rest of the money in savings. We get gas and groceries as need, but we really don't allow ourselves to spend much more as fun money. If we do spend money it usually goes on our credit card that gets cash back.
Everyone has different ways of managing the moola...it just takes time to figure out what works for you.
Me and H have lived together for years and we still have seperate accounts. I have a personal checking and savings and my main bank, then I opened a savings at a credit union, that I could just slowly put money in for me. H has a checking and thats it at his bank. We have been thinking about opening a joint savings (that doesn't have a card issued to it) so we can save for a house (we plan to buy in about 10 months when our apartment lease is up).
He pays about 70% of rent, and we half all of the other bills(cable, electric, cell phones) and then for "fun" activities he always pays. We obviously make our own car payments, he pays for his student loans, I make the monthly payment for our living room furniture I financed like 2 years ago (bad idea). But if I want anything for the house I always buy it, I can't recall the last thing he bought for the house, except our dining table 2 years ago.
We still have separate accounts right now but we're about to merge into one. We each put 10% of each check into savings (we count that as a bill so it comes out with all the others).
I made out a list of all our expenses and monthly income based on my salary. It's tight but doable. We just have to figure out all the spending money and give ourselves an allowance.
Do a spreadsheet or figure out how much of each check needs to go where and give yourself a set amount of cash (for gas, eating out, play money, etc) and once it's gone, it's gone.
We have a combined savings account via ING. And just this past weekend H and I have a joint checking account. My salary pays my student loans, insurance, auto loan, rent, half of groceries, gas for my vehicle. H's salary pays the utilities, his car insurance, gas, half of groceries and whatever else we have remaining we put into our savings account.We have a separate account for our honeymoon (which i hope we can take in 3 months!).
We've both agreed that purchases over $100-200 (shopping spree for clothes, electronics, massages etc) are discussed between us since we are kind of paycheck to paycheck and trying to save for a house now.
IUI #1 10/12/11 (Bravelle + HCG + Prometrium & acupuncture) = 10/26 BFP! Beta #1=250, Beta #2= 615. 1st u/s 11/8.
We've lived together for a long time and own a home together so we've been doing this for quite a while.
I pay my bills out of my checking account. He pays his bills out of our joint checking account. We pay joint bills out of our joint checking account - I put money in to cover mortgage, electric and gas, he puts money in to cover cable, phone, water, pet insurance (and most of our vacation money/large purchase/household project money) comes from him.
We also each put a set amount into our joint account every week (or bimonthly depending on pay schedule) for household expenses: groceries, household items, dry cleaning, joint entertainment (dates, benefits, etc etc).
For individual spending money (solo outings, clothes/shoe shopping, gas for cars), we're on our own.