Joint versus separate accounts?

How do you and your DH handle finances?

What if there is a large discrepancy in your salaries?

Do you have separate accounts,joint accounts or some mix of both?

Are you happy with it?

TIA!

Re: Joint versus separate accounts?

We have one large account where we write the bills from, plus two joint savings accounts. It works for us!

Re: Joint versus separate accounts?

We have joint accounts and I have a separate savings. Dh does not have his own savings since he has been in graduate school and hasnt made any money. I have a decent amount of savings from working before we got married that I plan to keep in my name, to pay for tuition when I go back to school sometime in the future. I Like to keep it separate, not mixed in with our joint "buy a house" savings.

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We have all joint accounts except one which is my loan payback account which I put money in each pay period and then money is directly withdrawn to pay it back. My husband makes more money then I do but it has never been a problem...and I am catching up to him...kinda

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we lived together for years before marrying.... becuase of that, we are accustomed to paying our bills from our personal accounts. Our joint acct (which we only opened last year) sees little activity.... we don't even have checks for it

Re: Joint versus separate accounts?

we have a joint checking and savings but we also have individual checking accounts to purchase things that we want to without having to ask the other one. we put a set amount into every week and thats our "frivalous" money.

it works for us.

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we have all joint accounts with the exception of my retirement accounts, there are in my name only.

Re: Joint versus separate accounts?

Posted by alnem

we have a joint checking and savings but we also have individual checking accounts to purchase things that we want to without having to ask the other one. we put a set amount into every week and thats our "frivalous" money.

it works for us.

Re: Joint versus separate accounts?

We are all joint, mainly because my husband doesn't want to be bothered with finances so it's easier for me to have everything together.

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While unmarried but living together, we had a joint ING account for about 6 years and then had individual checking and savings accounts.

That was until about a month and a half ago when we bought a house and opened joint everything with Wamu. We are closing all the other accounts once we transfer all the bills into the new joint account.

For many years, we had a wide gap between our salaries like you asked. I paid the rent and my car payment since it was only in my name. And he paid everything else.

We don't invest in the "my money/your money" idea and haven't since we met almost 9 years ago. The separate accounts were about convenience. And laziness.

Many people are smart to deliberately keep things in their own name when they first meet someone. Because of the volatility of relationships and all that. If it's purely a trust issue, I would hope by the time you get married, you should trust your spouse enough to put it all together.

Message edited 12/28/2007 7:54:45 AM.

Re: Joint versus separate accounts?

we have had joint accounts since right before we got engaged.

we both like it this way

it doesnt matter if there is a discrepancy in salary it all goes into one pot!

:)

Re: Joint versus separate accounts?

Both of our names are on all of the accounts but we pretty much handle our own money seperately. We have an ING savings and a Chase money market. We each have our own checking and we are each responsible for payable certain bills which is proportional to how much we make. DH makes quite a bit more money than I do but I get large bonuses 2x a year. My husband pays the mortgage, his car payment, his cell phone and the landscaper. I pay everything else. We each have our own "spending money" from what's left after savings and paying all the bills but if one of us is low we go to the other for a "hand out". When I get my bonuses 2x a year, we put that toward savings and paying off any credit card bills we may have racked up or home improvements that need to be done.

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We have mainly joint. Our bills account, stocks and bonds.

I have separate savings, stocks and retirement account that does not have DH's name on it. My mom has been happily married for 40+ years, but told me not to change them - if anything for a sense of autonomy. She gets upset when creditors ask my dad to co-sign for things. Nothing is a secret though - I file my statements right after our joint ones.

DH doesn't want to be bothered with a separate account.

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I have a seperate account and we have a joint account where DH usually puts his paychecks into. I pay my bills with my account and he does with the joint one.

He gives me $$ to contribute to all the house bills and I do it from my account.

It is hard to break habit and it works, so we just keep it that way.

Message edited 12/28/2007 9:00:44 AM.

Re: Joint versus separate accounts?

we have a joint savings (and our mutual funds and investmemts are joint), but then we have separate individual checking. we split our budget up so we each pay the bills and have the same amount left over to save/spend.

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we have a joint checking and two joint savings accounts. i have one savings account in my name only.

We lived together for a long time before getting married and at the time, my salary was signifigantly higher than DHs. We didn't share money at that point and bills were paid to coinside w/our salaries (ie - 70/30 split on rent.) When DH got a better job but we were not married yet, we started splitting everything down the middle.

now that we're married, all of our $$ is shared. there isn't a huge difference in our salaries but even if there was, i'm sure we'd still share.

Re: Joint versus separate accounts?

we each kept our own checking accounts that we only use ourselves (but both names are on each, if that makes any sense!). we also have a joint savings linked to "my" checking.

we had a system for how we paid bills before we got married and it works well, so we never changed it. basically, dh makes more so he pays rent and car payment. i pay all the other smaller bills and usually provide the weekly spending cash.

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We have all joint accts, we both direct deposit into the main acct and it gets split up between various accounts. Our salaries are pretty close, but it really doesn't matter because it all goes into one pot anyway, the $ is all ours.

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We make the same salary and most of our money is in joint accounts. We each maintain a separate checking account although there are some very small amounts in there.

The one thing that's hard to do is buy presents for each other. I'm curious how you guys handle that...we do mostly everything with debit cards so it shows right up in the bank account. If one of us made a large cash withdrawal the other one would definitely ask about it.

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We each have our own separate checking accounts & savings from before we were married. Since we purchase our home before we were married, we got accustomed to paying the bills out of our separate accounts. We do have our joint savings in which we throw the leftover money into.

DH makes considerably more then me but that does not effect us in anyway. Of course, DH will pay more of the $$ bills but I handle the essentials on the house.

It works for us & we don't see changing it until I am a SAHM

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We have one joint savings account for buying a house (which we just started putting money in since the wedding)

Other than that I have a seperate checking and savings and so does DH. I think it's easier. Money tends to sometimes complicate things so I like to keep my expenses just my thing... we don't have any joint credit cards either.

Re: Joint versus separate accounts?

Re: Joint versus separate accounts?

before we were married we had a joint savings and individual checking...now everything is joint...its just easier for us this way.

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All joint. What is his is mine and vice versa.

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we have a joint checking and savings account that we use for the mortgage, bills, groceries, etc...
and we each have our own seperate checking and savings accounts as well. theres no real reason- just that we each like to still have some money thats "our own", to buy gifts for each other- or if i want to buy some clothes and he wants to buy some tools.... it just works for us.
also... theres a pretty big discrepency in salaries- DH makes almost 30 K more than me...