? about checking accounts and marriage

[RNMOM]

I was wondering if you and your significant other have joint or separate checking/savings accounts? We joined ours immediately after getting married even though DH owed his former FIL money, which I helped pay off. I also put him through school again and then he supported me when we had the boys and now again since I am not working. I feel that was part of our marriage, to help each other and share our wealths and our burdens. How about you?

I have known several people at work who maintain separate accounts and most had major issues about money with their spouses and many have divorced.

 

[megan4777]

We have a joint acc't. OT:Your dog is beautiful!!

 

[gnbuggy]

DH and I have been married for 10 yrs. We have separate checking accounts although we have a house loan and a car loan that are joint. Somedays I think that it would be nice if we shared and most days I love that I have my money to spend without ?s from him. He was burned pretty bad by his first wife. We dont let money get the best of us. If I am having $ issues he helps and (like he ever has $ problems. He is a saver I am a spender.) I definetly think it isnt for everyone.

 

[daisy58]

When DH and I got married 10+ yrs ago, the topic of course came up, and we decided to share everything...that is what marriage is all about, right?? Now I know of a couple 40 somethings, who have been married quite a while, but they have separate $$$, and split EVERYTHING mortgage, food,
utilities, etc. I always wondered...if the PGE bill is odd cents, who pays the extra?? And several years ago, he was planning to buy a SeaDoo,
and was putting himself through all kinds of drama, saying, well, if I let her sign on the loan too...then it would be half hers!!! My response was,
"welcome to California...it already is half hers!!!" I thought he was going to have an anyurism... Yes...it was a fun day!

 

[Anewman]

We have Joint and Seperate, that makes 3(not counting the kids).

 

[AKLRULZ]

Married with one checking and one savings accout. The only thing individual we've got would be retirement accounts through work.

Trust should be the foundation of any marriage - why bother if you can't trust each other? We don't nickel and dime each other on money - she buys what she wants as do I unless it's a huge ticket item which we'll naturally chat about.

 

[gobnu1]

If you can't share your money, how can you share your life?

 

[YachtClubWoman]

shared accounts but we each have a "fun account" where we have an set ammount deposited and we do whatever with and don't need to account for what we spend it on

clothes,pedicures and books for me, football tickets, etc for my husband

 

[CEDmom]

I couldn't answer the poll because it didn't have a 3rd option, both. DH and I each have a seperate checking account and also a joint one. No $ problems here and no divorce looming either.

 

[CEDmom]

If you can't share your money, how can you share your life?

You can share $ without it being in the same account.

Trust should be the foundation of any marriage - why bother if you can't trust each other? We don't nickel and dime each other on money - she buys what she wants as do I unless it's a huge ticket item which we'll naturally chat about.

Trust and pooling your money aren't mutually exclusive. DH and I share what we have freely but choose to keep much of it seperate.

 

[helenabear]

We share our accounts now, and we have had access to each other's for a long time. When I worked though, we split the bills and paid our half. That way we had our own play money for whatever we wanted. We did get together for big purchase items though. We were fairly well off though, and that worked the best for us since the incomes could vary from month to month (with a minimum earned requirement with his job always there).

 

[crz4mm2]

I couldn't answer the poll because it didn't have a 3rd option, both. DH and I each have a seperate checking account and also a joint one. No $ problems here and no divorce looming either.

Us too. 27 years.

 

[AKLRULZ]

Trust and pooling your money aren't mutually exclusive. DH and I share what we have freely but choose to keep much of it seperate.

I personally disagree - why would a couple choose to maintain separate accounts? Can he access that account?

 

[AllyandJack]

DH and I have separate accounts and one account for bills. When we get paid, we put a certain amount in the main account for the bills and then the rest is ours to spend as we see fit.

We can access each other's account because every account is linked. Since I take a lot of time off of work and, some weeks, don't get paid at all, I often take a dip into his account.

 

[GoofieRuthie]

We have had a joint account since before we got married. To me it only makes sense. Once I got the job that I have now at a bank, they opened an account in my name to deposit my paycheck into. It was in my name only until recently. It was mainly used to pay our house payment, but I found myself dipping into it quite often. We have since switched to "my" account as our main account only using our other (at a different bank) as a savings account.

I have many friends that split bills and they seem to argue over money all the time. I understand that it works for most people, but for us, I prefer sharing everything. Not to mention that there is no way that we could evenly split everything since he makes more than double what I do.

 

[Buckalew11]

I couldn't answer the poll because it didn't have a 3rd option, both. DH and I each have a seperate checking account and also a joint one. No $ problems here and no divorce looming either.

Me too. We have both. All bills are paid out of joint account. We don't do the "you pay this and I'll pay that" deal.
But we both have separate accounts also.

 

[Sherri]

I was wondering if you and your significant other have joint or separate checking/savings accounts? We joined ours immediately after getting married even though DH owed his former FIL money, which I helped pay off. I also put him through school again and then he supported me when we had the boys and now again since I am not working. I feel that was part of our marriage, to help each other and share our wealths and our burdens. How about you?

I have known several people at work who maintain separate accounts and most had major issues about money with their spouses and many have divorced.

We have a joint account, and we also each have our own account. Our joint account is our household money for bills and vacations and all of that stuff inbetween. Our se[erate accounts are for our spending money.
And I just think that is about the cutest dog in your picture.

 

[disneysnowflake]

We've been married 19 yrs and have always had a joint account. We've never had separate accounts.

I'm in the minority among my family and friends though.

Most of my siblings have separate accounts from their spouse. Certain bills are given to each partner to pay.

I have one friend who works part time. Her husband works full time. He gets his check direct deposited into his own account. She can't access the account, but he gives her a set amount of money once per month to go into her account. She must pay all the bills with this money, buy all groceries, etc.
She has no idea how much money her husband has in his own account. They've been married 11 years. She's currently selling on ebay to try to get Christmas money together. I guess that's her responsibility.

 

[SC Minnie]

We have both too. I still have my own checking account and we have a joint account that he uses that is our 'household' account. I think I have written maybe 2 checks out of that acct in the 14 yrs we have had it.

We agreed to seperate accts from the beginning. DH is an accountant and does not feel comfortable with 2 people getting $ out of the same acct. He really doesn't trust that I would write down every check or withdrawal.

 

[ElizK]

Dh and I have seperate accts, but we had a joint acct when we were first married. We seperated after 4yrs of marriage, partially due to his spending. He would go buy whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and I wouldn't have enough to pay all the bills (we were both VERY young... I was 19 when we got married, he was 21). While we were seperated I opened my own acct, and when we reconciled we kept it that way. I work part-time, so the majority of our bill-paying money comes from him. He deposits a set amt into my acct every week. Whatever he has left is his to play with, and whatever I have left after I pay bills is mine to play with. This has worked for us for more than 14 years, and has cut out nearly all disagreements about money. Also, I am a signer on his acct, and as soon as we go down to the bank together (I changed my acct recently to a diff bank) he'll be a signer on my acct.