Comments on: We Became a Family When 2 Bank Accounts Became 1

By: Keck

Keck — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 01:29:58 +0000

@Limaceous I would like to put in another plug for keeping the finances separate. I know it’s not for everyone, but my partner and I have used this “system” as it were for almost 15 years with no problems. I think it’s made our relationship stronger because it encourages fair play and generosity. He doesn’t begrudge me tampons if I’ll occasionally buy his box of cereal. Whoever is feeling richer on any given day pays for dinner. I pay most of the mortgage ’cause I make more, but he pays the cable bill ’cause I don’t watch tv. I don’t feel like I’m burdening him with my 70K student loan debt. And, most importantly, we both feel completely in control of our own finances. It definitely helps that we have similar financial philosophies. Again, not for everyone – but it can work. Oh, we also RARELY grocery shop together.

By: MissBrew

MissBrew — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 05:53:35 +0000

@Lauren the discretional spending imbalance did stick out to me (and prompt me to create a login to comment). My bf and I own a house together, and he earns about twice what I do. We put his entire salary into the mortgage every week, and I give him half of my salary. We split the bills as they come in with our housemate. The thing I like about it is that we both have our own, discretionary funds, but we both have the same amount. His thinking is, although he earns more than me, he wouldn’t want to be out eating lobster on his own while I watch mournfully through the restaurant window (in this scenario he has a giant bib with a smiling lobster on the front; I am wrapped in newspaper for warmth and am wearing fingerless gloves.)

Anyway, no judgement! We are about to quit our jobs too and travel for a year, so this post double resonated. (I feel like I should disclaim that we are Australian so we don’t have things like crippling student debt, medical bills, unemployment to worry about. We know we are lucky down here, and the Billfold frequently reminds me of that!

By: eemusings@twitter

eemusings@twitter — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 01:02:31 +0000

@readyornot We also have, more or less, joint finances, while I take care of all the bill paying and money management. I make more and contribute more (http://nzmuse.com/2010/10/06/money-for-couples-the-contributions-conundrum/) – we don’t actually have a joint account in name, as such – my chequeing account is basically our de facto joint account. Basically, he transfers most of his money to me every pay day, and then I divvy it up between saving and spending.

By: eemusings@twitter

eemusings@twitter — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 01:00:21 +0000

@Lauren My fiance gets an allowance because he’s a spender and having money he can blow guilt-free is kind of a must.

I hardly ever spend money, so I don’t have any set fun money. When I do want something, I just buy it. (I’m also the household financial controller – does it show?!)

By: BowenAppetit

BowenAppetit — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 16:15:53 +0000

@blair Ha, I’m totally with you on that one! He’s actually more paranoid about it than I am, and will run to brush his teeth or wait until he’s eaten something else before getting anywhere near my face. Back when I was dating I was always paranoid that the person had eaten nuts and how embarrassing that would be to go into allergic shock on a date …

By: BowenAppetit

BowenAppetit — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 16:12:36 +0000

@BornSecular We do have a bunch of different accounts, I guess, when you consider our credit cards and such. But for our joint checking/savings, there are just two – our bank allows us to create a bunch of “sub-accounts,” I guess you’d call them, within our savings account. That makes it super easy to track online and to transfer money automatically into our various savings goals (travel, education, emergency fund, etc.). Hope that’s helpful!

By: BowenAppetit

BowenAppetit — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 16:10:20 +0000

@synchronia @Lauren I love APW! Haven’t been reading much for the last 9 months or so, though, since we’ve been so focused on travel, so I hadn’t seen that post. I love the idea of a “socialist household” – never thought about it that way before! Our personal “allowances” definitely aren’t proportional to income (my income for the last 6 months before we left was actually negative, because I was paying more to take culinary courses than I was making in my couple of part-time gigs – but I still got the same amount I got when I was making bigger money).

By: synchronia

synchronia — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 23:37:41 +0000

@Lauren I love that APW piece too, even though I actually do have an “allowance” that’s half the size of my husband’s (my idea, just like Bowen Close). For me it’s to give myself something to look forward to and work towards, since he currently makes 6x what I do. When that changes in a couple years after I (hopefully!) finish school, we’ll even out the amounts.

We don’t think of it like it has to be a percentage of our income or anything, like if one of us became unemployed that person wouldn’t automatically get $0! It’s just that in this particular situation I think it makes sense to set up my fun money budget with incentives to keep working toward my goals, even while we both think of it all as “our money.” (Socialism, but with better contingency management? Trying to prevent the marital version of the USSR’s empty shelves, or something?)

By: Limaceous

Limaceous — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 23:33:13 +0000

@LO I also have no desire to combine finances and a system similar to yours. (Not written on the fridge, but tracked in Excel.) He pays rent and all the bills, I buy groceries, and at the end of the month we input all the totals into a spreadsheet that counts up how much each of has paid and how much each of us should have paid, and then one of us (usually me) writes a check for the difference. Another thing we do is periodically adjust the proportion that each of us pays to better reflect income proportions. We are freelancers with fluctuating incomes, so it hardly seems fair to split things 50-50 when one person makes three times as much.

By: blair

blair — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 23:32:02 +0000

This was great, and timely, because I was JUST WONDERING about how and when people make this leap, AND, as a fellow nut-allergy sufferer, I have wondered more specifically about how people in my position handle joint-grocery shopping situations. Also about just how paranoid other people get about there being invisible nut proteins in their SO’s saliva that are latent and ready to kill at any time because THAT ISN’T JUST ME, RIGHT