How do you and your SO operate with one checking account?

[MAKmom]

DH gives me all his money & I do what I want with it. I have the debt card to the checking account. I do all the shopping. He has credit cards & a debit for our business. He can walk around with a $20. for weeks.

 

[SpecialK]

This is what we do and BOY does it save tons of headaches and arguments.

We have one checking acct just for household bills that has no debit card attached to it, we also have another checking account with the same bank for spending money- this one we both have debit cards for and we have a savings acct there too.

We took an average of how much of our paychecks needed to go towards bills (with a cushion to account for extras) and decided on how much we wanted to regularly apply to our savings acct. Just to be clear, the bill account pays bills and only bills...not gas for the car, groceries, school clothes etc. That way, we know our spending money is IT...so when the money runs out, oh well!

When we make our deposits, we put a standard amount in the bill acct every week, another set amount into the savings acct and the rest goes into the spending (debit) acct. This system took a while to get used to, but now it works flawlessly.

Sounds like much more work than it really is. Once you get used to it, it becomes second nature.

This is exactly what we do and it works great. It's the modern day version of the "envelope system" that one of my friends uses.

 

[ilovejack02]

DH does the bills and then informs me how much is left. Ill shop for groceries and then let him know i went shopping and we kinda go from there. We only use debit, and he checks account daily so we know how much is in there at all times. If i want to do a big clothes shopping trip i just let him know and he says you have X amount to spend. Works out great. I hate paying bills so i let him have it all. Now if I worked we prob would just put my paycheck in a seperate account and that would be the play money.

 

[mickeyfan2]

Sorry I am not of much help. We only have one checking account but we put all our gas etc. on a CC. DH is great about giving me the receipts. Good luck.

 

[mytwotinks]

We have two joint accounts but one is MINE and one is HIS and they are linked so we can transfer money if needed.

I'm responsible for my account and he's responsible for his.

He is the breadwinner but he has my 'household' money direct deposited into my account when he gets paid. I pay for the groceries, gifts, misc expenses, gas, school stuff etc... He pays the bills.

It has worked great for us. I couldn't even imagine having one account to share.

This is exactly how we do it too. It works great. Dh keeps $150 a week for gas/food money. I pay for everything else (bills, groceries, gifts, clothes, entertainment, vacation........) out of the rest of the money when it is put in my account.

We went to sonic today and I was teasing him saying "sure, make me pay. I have to pay for everything." The joke is that I don't even work outside the home so "my" paychecks all have his name on them!

 

[oxfordcircus]

I tried to read all responses, but if I missed where this was said earlier please forgive... obviously the debit cards connected to the older account need to be collected and destroyed.

Second, my wife and I are trying to do the Dave Ramsey envelope approach. We don't execute it perfectly or even well, but it's a good system. All these debit purchases - except for gasoline - should be cash only. If there's no cash in the envelope, the purchase isn't made.

 

[DMickey28]

My first thought is that this isn't an issue with how to manage one checking account with two people but rather an issue with money responsibility and your husband.

My DH and I currently only have one checking account. We too work on a budget. We use a very large bank and I can see the pendings immediately after they happen. We both agree to X amount of spending a week and we usually do a decent job in staying within that. If we are having a short week I let him know and he is very aware of it. I check our account online a few times a week depending on the "comfort" of the week and act accordingly.

We are working now on getting a nice cushion in the bank for when the baby is born. Once that happens we are going to open two seperate bank accounts. The one we have now will become our household account and I will forward money from it into each of our seperate accounts for our spending money. Our main reason for this is because we do not have credit cards and do not want one other than our Amex for emergencies. As a result DH feels he can't do anything to surprise me or get anything b/c I check the account ALL the time. This was a result of a recent "discussion" of some withdrawls from an online payment company ... I didn't know what it was and it turns out DH is doing something special for me to coniside with Alex's birth and it's the only way he can take the money out without me know what it is!!!!

Again, I think this is more about the responsibility of your husband and not a managing one account issue. IF the money isn't there or he agrees not to use the card, he needs to be responsible and NOT do it!!!

 

[tiff211]

Thanks for all your ideas. We don't use credit cards reg. so that's not an option. We are have a "talk" tonight to resolve this. I may wind up sneaking in his wallet in the middle of the night to confisicate the debit cards. I will replace with spending money until the next payday!

Seriously, I think he will hand over the debit card on his own. As he putting "when he wins, he doesn't really win!"

 

[katerkat]

Well, it's simple. DH doesn't have access to the checking account!

He has a credit card that he just charges to, and we pay that off when the bill comes in.

My parents had a similar set up, Mom would just give dad $20 (or how ever much) a week in cash, and she handled the bill paying. He hardly ever wrote a check for anything, and since he had to ask my mother for the check book, she knew when he was writing one out.

This isn't to say that DH and I (or my parents) don't make joint spending decisions, we do. All most everything major gets talked about prior to purchase. It's just that day to day, only one person has "access" to the bulk of the money. It's just what works for us.

Pretty much, that's exactly how we operate. Neither of us use the debit card - I use the credit card and he uses cash or the credit card. He usually takes his money out a couple times a month and lets me know. I pay the bills and check the online accounts weekly. I know he has no idea where the checkbook is. (I only vaguely do, since everything is paid online.) I don't use much in cash, so when I need $1 for Russ's swim class or $3 for my latte, I rob his wallet. Deployments are hard since I have to remember my PIN and get my own cash!

We've never had a problem with money in our marriage.

 

[Brianne]

I am the finance person in our house.

Both of our pay checks are direct deposited.
I take care of the bills.
One of us takes out money for each of us each week.
I always check our account online, but I always have a running tab in my head (and in excel).
DH rarely ever buys anything without telling me, and he always leaves me the receipts for my records. If he wants to buy me a surprise he uses his credit card.

It works for us.

This is us exactly. It's worked well for us for years--DH's sister thinks we're crazy to do it this way & says so quite often (not that I really care what she thinks anyway) but we've gone this long without any issues so I'll stick with this method!

Definitely talk to him. Show him the statements & what the NSF fees are, etc. Then show him what those fees could've bought him.

 

[Jpgirl]

Take his debit card away. Seriously dh did the same problem years ago and it almost ruined us. Do a budget and give him the money he needs every week/month whatever. Then he see the money he's spending and he'll be more careful and when he's out he's out. My dh was out of sight/out of mind but it only took 3 months of doing a budget with cash only and he saw the light. We still do cash only and sometimes it's a pain but it works. Also he has a business account and he watches it like a hawk since learning to budget. good luck

 

[antmaril]

There is no way we could handle our finances with one checking account.
We have several accounts (both checking and savings).

 

[clh2]

One checking account. 2 pads of checks w/ duplicates, 2 debit/atm cards, No traditional check register. Many automatic withdrawals. Really good (I mean GREAT) overdraft protection.

DH uploads all checking account transactions just about every day, the "data dump" goes right into our money management software. He balances the "computer check register" against the bank statement. He manages the bills (I on the other hand manage the mom-taxi), We've not filled out a traditional check register for probably 10 years.

Now - about the overdraft protection - we've got enough available from our bank to cover the largest checks (with a little cushion) that we would ever write, which happens to be our main credit card. There is no charge at our bank for this the coverage to kick in, and the interest is literally pennies a day. (I don't think think the interest comes to more than $5.00 per year for the times we've kicked into the overdraft protection.)

We've been operating under the above scenario for probably 15 years or so. Works great for us. I get paid every other week, and DH gets paid the "other" every other week, so we have a pretty steady cash flow.

 

[disney1990]

We have 2 different checking accounts. One account is basically mine and the other account is basically his. Although both names are on both accounts "just in case".

 

[Disney Doll]

Our ATM card has a checking and savings account attached to it. I got DH into the habit of taking $$ from the savings account, so that the checking wouldn't be overdrawn. It did take him a couple of times paying the overdraft fees before he really got the idea, but he got it eventually,

 

[Nancy]

We have an account for just household expenses, no fun money comes out of that. I have a card for it, but he doesn't. I have the card cause I am the one that does all the shopping and pays all the bills.

We have another checking account that we both have cards for and that is our so called fun money. Those accounts are in 2 seperate banks (because we swithced banks but because there were auto withdrawels I didn't want to bother changing over) and each bank also has a a savings account too. DH has no access to either savings they are in my name only. I control all the money in the house. He has a say in how things are done, but I handle it all. (and I hate doing it BTW)

 

[denisekayt]

I'm with some of the others on here...DH doesn't get to use the debit card from the checking account

I pay the bills and balance everything, and that is just too hard for me to do if I had to worry about him going out and spending money when it's not expected. DH has 2 credit cards, if he goes shopping he uses one of them (preference to use the Amex for our points, but he has a Visa as well if he's somewhere that doesn't take Amex). I pay the credit cards off every month as part of the monthly bill paying.

Now, luckily DH isn't a big spender and doesn't go crazy with his cards...if you have a DH who consistently spends more than he should (meaning you would have trouble paying off the credit cards at the end of the month) then this solution might not work for you.

P.S. DH does HAVE a debit card, but it's put away at home and not in his wallet. The only time he would ever get it out to use would be if he absolutely needed cash and I wasn't around for some reason. This has never happened in the 7 years we've operated our finances this way.