Money Matters
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.
Re: Joint or Separate Bank Accounts?
We have joint accounts but separate credit cards with $500 limits. The reason for the separate credit cards is to purchase things like Christmas gifts without the other person knowing. The $500 limit is good because we are both anti-credit card debt. We both have very similar spending habits and are quite frugal. We enjoy the simplicity of having a joint account.
It depends a lot on your relationship. I know my husband and we have been together since we were 18. I know he is not going to go spend $1000 on something crazy, drain savings, or just up and leave me. We make decisions on money together. For some that sounds naive, but he is my best friend and I have no reservations about those things.
If he were really bad with money or I had reservations I would keep things separate... but, honestly I can say I wouldn't marry someone like that because I am so frugal.
There are a lot of responses so I didn't read all of them so I may be repeating someone, sorry!
I have worked in the financial industry for years, therefore, I have had the opportunity to see what works (or seems to in most cases) and what doesn't. What I have seen to work the best is having a joint checking account that has all of the bills coming out of it (automatically if you can, just to be sure everything is always paid on time). Then have two separate checking accounts that the rest of each of your paychecks go in to after bills and savings come out, this way you each have "your money" and if, say, your husband (hypothetically) over spends, you won't feel like he's spending your hard earned money. Doing it this way still allows some independence knowing you have "your" money left over to do with it what you want, but by adding each other to all of the accounts, it allows for accountability and forces you both to be honest about your spending habits; I would think that it would help to ease any tension with money issues because it marries the best of both worlds.
I think that all couples that are married should share the same bank account and not have their own separate accounts at all. It forces you to communicate about your finances, and finances are the NUMBER ONE reason for divorce. I think both people should help to pay bills or switch off each month. If one spouse dies, then the other understands how to handle the money and pay the bills.
It's important to be on the same page about the things you both are doing financially. Having combined accounts is a good thing, and making budgets makes having the same account super easy. Make sure to set aside a "blow fund" part of the budget each month. A "blow fund" is money that each spouse has that they can spend on whatever they want without having to ask the other before spending.
I, personally, think that when people are married they should share everything, and having separate accounts defeats the purpose of that concept. I just don't recommend it. Go for joint accounts!
I agree 100% with Bumblebee's post.
**6.30.12** I have found the one whom my soul loves.
We are merging one account at a time. We're not used to discussing purchases, since we've never had to before. It felt like asking for allowance at first!
The one benefit to sharing is that you are forced to discuss major purchases, and can't keep secrets. You can have a joint account, and a seperate one (at least so gifts you buy eachother can stay secret), and set a portion of your income to each.
If one of you were a stay at home parent, then the income would need to be shared.
We are still very much newlyweds, but we have both.
We put 70% of each of our checks into our household account. That account is just that: for household expenses.
We also still have our separate checking accounts we had prior to marriage. The other 30% of our checks are ours to spend however we like. For me, nails, hair and whatever else I'm fancy on at that time. If something comes up for either one of us, we can still fallback on the household account, but we get the approval of the other partner first.
My husband and I have joint checking and joint savings accounts, and 100% of our paychecks go into the checking account. We each have our own credit card, but have each other listed as an approved cardholder just in case. This way we can buy our own things without having to clear it from the other. If he goes a little overboard on food one week or if I go overboard on shoes one week, it doesn't really matter. We tell each other when we've bought something large, however. Our individual credit card bills don't really change that drastically from month to month (unless we buy something big, which is why we'll let each other know if that happens). And we pay our credit card bills and school loans from that joint checking account. This way we know how much we can charge to our credit cards. It also gives us a good look into how much we can save each other month after bills are already paid.
This method was recommended by a friend when I got married and it works really well for us.