All we have are joint accounts, although we do have separate credit cards because he wanted a certain kind of rewards and I wanted another.
Our arguments about money have been few and far between and almost entirely about money spent on visiting his family (therefore the fight is not really about money, it's about his family).
I think it's really important to have similar values and goals before you get married. We don't argue because we both are fairly frugal, but not cheapskates, so we have nearly identical spending patterns and never go out and splurge unexpectedly on anything.
When either of us begin to think about spending big money we have a discussion about it and come to a joint decision. The biggest issue is that my dh can take forever to make a decision and recently I had enough of his dillydallying and I put my foot down about some home improvements we've been debating for 8 years and had them done. He told me it was a relief when I finally just made the decision and he's glad we had the improvements made.
I have to say that I hear about the fights couples have about money and I am so glad I didn't marry someone whose view on that topic is contradictory to my own. I know one couple in particular where the wife is a status-conscious spendthrift (who does not work) and although her dh is the highest-paid person in his field in the state, they still have to borrow money from her parents every year because she refuses to adhere to even the most generous budget you can imagine. They have a lousy credit rating and when he wanted to go into a less stressful, more fulfilling, but lower-paying career she verbally beat him up until he surrendered. He has told me several times that if he had thought about her ways before marriage, he would have never married her.
Our arguments about money have been few and far between and almost entirely about money spent on visiting his family (therefore the fight is not really about money, it's about his family).
I think it's really important to have similar values and goals before you get married. We don't argue because we both are fairly frugal, but not cheapskates, so we have nearly identical spending patterns and never go out and splurge unexpectedly on anything.
When either of us begin to think about spending big money we have a discussion about it and come to a joint decision. The biggest issue is that my dh can take forever to make a decision and recently I had enough of his dillydallying and I put my foot down about some home improvements we've been debating for 8 years and had them done. He told me it was a relief when I finally just made the decision and he's glad we had the improvements made.
I have to say that I hear about the fights couples have about money and I am so glad I didn't marry someone whose view on that topic is contradictory to my own. I know one couple in particular where the wife is a status-conscious spendthrift (who does not work) and although her dh is the highest-paid person in his field in the state, they still have to borrow money from her parents every year because she refuses to adhere to even the most generous budget you can imagine. They have a lousy credit rating and when he wanted to go into a less stressful, more fulfilling, but lower-paying career she verbally beat him up until he surrendered. He has told me several times that if he had thought about her ways before marriage, he would have never married her.
