Staying on last weeks topic of budgeting, let’s talk about how couples go about budgeting and sharing their finances. From what I’ve seen/heard, in the majority of relationships one person tends to be better with money then the other. In some cases they are much better with money and in other cases both parties are not very good with money or both parties are really good with money.
Me and Eric were definitely at opposite ends of the spectrum when we first started dating but we’ve since re-alligned our priorities a bit and now we’re both pretty good at saving. When we lived together in between college we would split all our bills pretty much right down the middle. We made close to the same amount of money and so we’d just each pay half the rent and half the bills and then swap out who paid for groceries.
Last year when we lived together since we were both in school my parents were taking care of rent for us so I paid for the bills and he paid for all our food.
It’s worked well for us over the years but not without a few glitches. Since we are crazy grocery shoppers, we tended to spend a lot of money on food, which obviously wasn’t fair to Eric.
Anyways, I’ve seen around the interwebs bloggers raving about the Suze Orman method of budgeting. I thought this seemed really interesting so last night I decided to do some research.
According to the Suze Orman method, the way most couples split expenses is 50/50, but she argues that doesn’t make sense at all and especially not if one spouses income is significantly higher then the other. Her formula is to split each spouses income by the total household income and that comes out with your percentage of how much each person should pay. There’s a very good explanation of all this here.
Now I’ve never tried this myself so I have no idea how well it would work; maybe some readers have some feedback?
She also doesn’t really talk about joint accounts vs. separate accounts. Me and Eric keep our money relatively separate. We have our own spending accounts and our own savings account. We also have one joint savings account where both of us need to be present in order to withdraw money. This is the account we used to save for Europe and it worked really well for us over the last few years.
That’s not to say that one day we might merge our finances even more, but I think no matter what I will always have my own money, too.
I know that lots of people were *shocked* when me and Eric signed up for our joint savings account. A few of my friends claimed they’d *never* share a bank account with a guy. Never say never 
So, I’m curious to know how you and your spouse deal with money? Do you share money or have your own accounts? Do you split things 50/50 or use something more like the Suze Orman method? And, if you don’t have a spouse, what do you think you will do one day when you do?
Discuss! And don’t forget to check back for my replies to your comments.
{ 46 comments… read them below or add one }
We do 50/50 and have separate accounts. Right now with paying off student loans and saving for the wedding it all works out but I’m sure we will have to do some tweaking in the future. We’ve talked about the Suze Orman method in the past but right now it’s not for us.
BTW, great topic!!!
We split everything pretty 50/50. We have a joint account that we each contribute the same money to each month for rent, bills, food. Then we approximate the ‘fun’ stuff like dinners out, movies, bar tab etc.
We also each have our own seperate accounts, and our own savings accounts (5 accounts for 2 people!) and have thought about a joint savings account for the two of us. But I’m not sure how that will work yet.
We also make pretty much the same amount of money so it works for us at the moment. However if one of us was to become a SAH-parent in the future or self-employed etc. I guess we’d have to re-look at finances.
That being said, there are some things we don’t split. Ex: we split the insurance payments for the car, but the petrol (gas) is all paid for by James. This is because 1-I take public transit to work which is 100% paid by me, and 2- I rarely use the car by myself. Every so often if I’m in the car for a longer trip or using it a bit more frequently I’ll fill it up with petrol, but we don’t see it as fair to split considering it’s not MY car (I don’t own it), I rarely drive it, and given the option I’d probably prefer to be a car-less family.
I like the idea of having a joint chequing account for all the bills and going out and stuff because right now Eric mostly just pays when we go places, haha. That was us last summer - I did all the driving and it was MY car but I did have to drive Eric to school every day and then he’d take the bus home. He’d usually fill the car up every second or third time!
Bryson and I have joint checking and savings accounts. Since I am a stay-at-home mom, he contributes all the money and we budget it each month to where it’s going to go. Before we had kids, when I worked, I would put that money in with his and it would be “ours”. I do most of the spending (I pay bills, grocery shop, etc.) but he is much better at budgeting, so we sit down each month and I let him know what is realistic and what we have coming up each month in terms of bills. This works pretty well for us right now, though honestly I don’t think we’d do it any differently if I worked. Both of our parents do this as well so it’s basically all we know.
When Mister and I moved in together up until we got married we paid our bills proportionately to our income, like in the above method. What we did was get a joint chequing account and pay into it for all of our expenses and then pay our bills out of it so all of our shared bills were in both of our names.
This method was been outstanding for us, it means that one person isn’t impoverished while the other is fine, and it means that we’re not paying the same amount of money, we’re paying the same proportion of money towards expenses. The only reason we gave it up is that now the vast majority of our expenses are shared, so it added some extra steps for us that were mostly unnecessary, where as before our expenses were mostly personal.
I’d definitely recommend trying this out!
i know of a couple that does their bills by 64% to 36%. but now they’re in the process of getting a divorce and he only wants to incur 50% of the debt mostly because most of the stuff they owe on is because of her. I don’t blame him. and she’s the one who wants the divorce.
we do 50/50 but I pay for the groceries, he usually pays when we go out to dinner.
here’s an interesting thing though — since we’re not married yet - we still do our taxes independently, but I claim the condo on my taxes, that actually is our money. mostly because we pay 50/50 on the mortgage, and when we get money back it’s mostly because of the fact we own. so this year the money went directly into our wedding fund, he has say over what happens with the money as well, though i basically just tell him, this is what we have, this is what we’re going to do with it, and he’s fine with it.
one thing different this year is since he’s on my work health insurance — he does pay $100 more in terms of mortgage each month. because that cut into my paycheck.
I like the idea of keeping separate saving accounts/checking accounts for incidentals. Like if I want new running clothes, Future Husband shouldn’t have to pay for that. And then having one account that we both contribute a set amount to that is used to pay the bills. I haven’t thought much about how we’d each contribute to said account, whether it’d be 50/50 or some other way, but I like the idea of household expenses being shared and having one account dedicated to that.
Thank you for that last question - I wouldn’t have anything to say otherwise! How money would get split in a future relationship would depend on whether or not I’m working, and how much I’m earning and how much he’s earning.
Scenario 1: I’m not working.
He can support me. I have no problems with that. At. All. Especially considering it would mean that I’d probably take on all the work in the house (cleaning, cooking, etc) and even raising kids, maybe.
Scenario 2: I’m working, but earning significantly less than him.
He can pay for most stuff, I’ll just pay for my stuff. As in, he can take care of the communal stuff.
Scenario 3: I’m working but earning the same as him or near enough.
We split the Suze Orman way. I’d never heard of it before this post, but I like it.
Scenario 4: I’m working and earning way more than him.
I’d pay for most of the stuff, but I’d let him contribute (I couldn’t stand a man who wouldn’t want to at least contribute). If he can’t contribute then I’d expect him to be a bloody brilliant cook!! lol
Note: stuff = groceries + bills + rent + expenses + travel, etc.
Now that we’ve got all that sorted out, would Mr. Right please just hurry up already? It’s not like he has to make any major decisions - I’ve taken care of that!
I’m kidding, btw.
LOL. Sounds like you have clearly gotten all the major decisions taken care of
The Suze Orman way of doing things is pretty brilliant hey? Once me and Eric are both working full-time and living together I think we’ll follow a system like that. It just makes sense! In the past, though ,we’ve both made close to the same wage all the time.
So right now, Eric and I have a joint account that we put equal amounts into for major house stuff. Then I pay heat and electricity, and he pays cable/internet. Thats easier than splitting it for us because we both know what we have to remember to actually pay haha. When we go out to dinner or grocery shop or buy stuff for our house we just switch off who pays. We get paid alternating weeks so its usually who just got paid haha. I agree with the Suzi method for some people but sometimes I’m not sure. For example, I make more than Eric because my district pays slightly more and I have my masters AND I make a lot of extra money from tutoring. I don’t really think it’s fair that I have to pay more for the house when I go tutor after school every day and put in the extra hours, does that make sense? I think this is PROBABLY not a good attitude to have since technically I should be working the extra hours for “our money” and I think I really am (because I happily pay for huge bills such as an unexpected car expense for his car without a thought) but I think I just like to keep the money UNTIL there is an unexpected thing…since I “earned” it. Maybe not the best attitude but it’s hard to make the transition to “our” money I think.
I think we will always have our own accounts for Eric’s love of sneakers and my love of purses haha. Even if it probably would balance out if we put it together. It’s still nice to have our own money.
Actually, I think that’s a really good point and one that the Suze Orman plan definitely doesn’t take into account. I can relate because I do pick up a lot of extra work on the side - three part-time jobs + freelance work!! Even though me and Eric don’t split our finances right now since we don’t live together I could see myself feeling a little bitter if we did because I was pulling in extra money by putting in extra hours, you know?
What do other people think of this? If one person makes more money BECAUSE they put in extra effort - i.e. work a second job - do you think it’s still fair to split the bills proportionately?
I found this all really interesting!!
Up until August 2008 my husband and I had separate bank accounts, he paid for the mortgage and I paid for all the rest of the bills, then we had a joint mastercard where we put our groceries/dinners/trips/etc and paid it off jointly, and we also saved jointly.
Now, we have a completely joint account. All our savings are joint, we share everything. We do have separate credit cards for things like gifts and what not (I don’t want him to see where I am buying his Christmas gifts).
I realize some people may not see this as smart, but it’s how we choose to run things. We have always discussed that if we ever split everything would be split 50/50 (and that’s not being negative, it’s not like we talk a lot about splitting up, just to know what’s going on!!)
Nathan and I had separate accounts when we were dating/engaged, but a few weeks before our wedding we set up a joint chequings account. Everything we make goes into it and all of our expenses come out of it, regardless of who makes what. When we got married we “became one” so it only made sense to us that our finances were “one” as well. It makes budgeting a heck of a lot easier, and money’s never been a real point of tension in our marriage since we’re both putting all of our money into that one account - it’s OUR money, not “my” money and “his” money. We set up a joint savings account last year as well, and we put a certain amount in it each month. We have separate credit cards but we pay them off out of the same account so … yeah. I don’t know, it just works for us
It was very important to me when David and I got married to have a joint checking account. Money is a huge area of life and I wanted us to feel as united as possible in every way. All of our money goes into that account, and we budget based on everything combined.
Right now we’re all over the place with how we pay for things. I’m in school (in another country) so Pat pays for the rent at “home,” as well as the other bills. I pay for my rent, groceries, and bills at school. If we make any larger purchases (like new glasses, the dentist, etc), then Pat pays for those. When he’s down to visit me (which is pretty often), I usually pay if we go out for movies, meals, and shopping. I guess we pretty much pay separately at this point. However, when I’m finished with school, I’ll likely be making a fair bit more money than him. So our plan is to basically live off of what I make and then put his salary toward our student loans and paying back my parents for my education. Not positive this will work, but we’ve discussed it and we’re not in a rush to buy a house, we aren’t planning on having children, we both already have reliable vehicles, and we like the idea of living frugally until we can get some things paid off.
In the beginning we had separate accounts. I had my accounts here and his were from Ottawa. Then after a couple of years of dating we slowly merged. By that time we were engaged so we were living together, it made it easier to pay for the bills. But it wasn’t until last year when we got married lol that I considered what i had to be his too. I came into this relationship with two vehicles, a house, a business and everything else. He came in with his suitcase and his car, which wasn’t running. I worked hard for my stuff and didn’t want it to be so easy for him….lol sounds silly but….i worked really hard for everything I had and I did it all on my own. So when we’d get into a argument stuff like money would come up. I’ve always made more then my husband, so i think i felt i was entitled to have more say in things. Of course I grew out of that high school mindset and now when i think about it, its incredibly childish. We’ve been together for four years now and we’re both good with money. I’m the budget creator and let Steve know what we have and what needs to be paid when. We have a joint account on everything except for a few credit cards…..other then that chequeing, savings, investment, and two credit cards are all joint. It works really well for us, if either of us wants something isn’t not like we have to ask permission…..money is just money.
I do know couples, even married, that have separate everything and have said they borrow money from the other…….that to me is strange…..but having everything joint is probably strange for them too lol Each couple is different, do what works best for you.
Hey Amber, this is very interesting.
And he also pays for our travel. For that I help out with farming as much as I can. I think for right now that is fair because he is the ‘bread winner’. Once I start making more money the finances will start to even out for contributions.
I am definitely the one not good with money and Kris is very good with it. Right now he pays the mortgage and I pay the bills = water, heat, phone, electric and groceries. He also pays for all of my fuel with the fuel card.
Amber when you and Eric got a hold of your finances, what kind of plan did you use? Was it a strict budget?
Hey love!
I wouldn’t call it a strict plan at all. I’ve ALWAYS had a savings account and I’m a FIRM believer in “pay yourself first”. So, for as long as I can remember, the first thing I’d do when I got a paycheque is put a portion of it into my savings account. The thing with Eric is he’d never had a savings account before and he’d gotten in the habit of blowing through money as soon as he got it. So, for him, it was just getting in the habit of putting a chunk of money into savings as soon as he got paid!
As for our joint savings account, for the last couple years we’ve each just put in the same amount monthly. It’s ranged from as much as $500 each a month to $25 each a month! Depending on what our financial situation is like at the time. Since we’ve been in full swing saving for our trip we’ve both just been putting as much as we possibly can in our joint account!
As soon as I’m done school and on a regular, fixed income I plan on working out an actual budget for myself but I’ve never done it before because my income varies so much! Hope that helps!
In a sense, my boyfriend and I do the Suze Orman thing. I put a certain amount in his account which became our “joint account” a few months back. I leave the rest in my savings account for my bills and for our savings. We share money 100%. We get rent money from the guy that rents a room from us and if there is something one of us wants, we take that money and spend it. It is always fair. He never says no when I want something. When it comes to extra money, we decide what we would like to spend it on together. For example, he is getting a new fish tank and stand. I am getting a garden and once I am at goal, I am getting a nice chunk of money to shop
We currently split all our home expenses 50/50. We’re renting a place, and though she makes a lot more than I do, I pay 50% of the bills. I have ZERO problem with this. Because she makes so much more money, she is saving to buy a condo - if she were to be paying a bigger portion of the bills that would take away from the condo savings - just wouldn’t make sense. We have of course chosen to live somewhere that doesn’t make it a struggle for me to be paying rent, etc.
We currently split our groceries as well. One of us will pay for the bill & then we divide up what we each bought. This part sounds a little ridiculous, but she is so picky that paying for all the produce, juices, etc that I buy isn’t fair to her as she won’t eat it, just as I don’t drink the gallons of milk, ravioli, etc that she purchases.
Once she buys a condo all of this will change. We don’t know specifics but I do know she will be paying a greater portion of the mortgage. Our accounts will still be separate for the foreseeable future, but who knows what will happen one day. For now, having my own money to buy makeup, clothes, etc with just makes sense.
My husband and I have four accounts (two savings and two checking accounts). I am the primary owner of one set and he is the primary owner of the other, but we own them all jointly. Even though I am currently not working, we don’t think of our money as “mine” and “his” but rather “ours.” Out of our two savings accounts, one is our savings that we don’t touch and pretty much pretend as if we don’t have (the money in that account is a combination of the savings we each had separately before we were married) and a savings that is for spending purposes (like if we are saving up to buy something - like the laptop I want - or for emergencies). My husband’s paycheck is deposited into the checking account where he is the primary owner, and as it is me who takes care of paying the bills each month, I move the money around as needed (i.e. some to savings, some to our savings for spending purposes, and the rest for paying bills.) I pay all of our bills at once, at the beginning of each month; we find that the easiest, as we don’t have to worry about them for the rest of the month.
We pretty much split everything 50/50. He owns the condo and I pay half of the mortage/condo fees to him. We’re not super strict about splitting things, but we’ll go halfsies on trips and things that we both want/need. More often than not we just go by the “it all works out in the end” method. We’ll alternate buying groceries that are around similar amounts, dinners out, etc. We have a vague idea of what we’ve each spent in the month and work it out so things are fairly even.
I thought it was interesting that you focused this only on married couples or couples living together. Erik and I have been struggling to figure out how to balance our budget while simply dating. Right now, our bills are obviously separate because we don’t live together, so we deal with our respective roommates. However, we are both on my AT&T plan, and so we split that half and half. However, because we also have a storage unit and Blockbuster, I pay for the phone bill and he pays for storage and Blockbuster and call it even.
Our biggest issue comes to going out, whether it’s food or otherwise. We’re consistently debating who should pay for what when and how much. We make about the same (I make a bit more, but I also have more debt) so it’s a constant back and forth. We decided having a joint checking account where we both deposit the same amount of money each week seems like the right course of action. As long as what we are buying benefits us both (food, movies, museums, hotel, etc.) then we can use that card. Otherwise, we’re on our own. We haven’t actually started it yet, but it’s something we’re thinking about doing.
Money while dating is hard too!
Actually, since me and Eric don’t live together anymore I did address what we do now - we have a joint savings account and other then that our money is our own!
With the paying for dinners etc. I think it’s different for every couple. Eric HATES it when I pay for our dinner or movies so 9 times out of 10 he insists on paying. Although, occasionally I’ll sneak one in there
I agree that money when dating can be hard too, though!
I know you talked about what you do now, but your ending question was “what do you and your spouse do? Or what do you think you will do with a spouse?” While it may not have been intentional, it came across that you were only concerned with spousal financial obligations. And everyone who responded was married or living together…
Erik and I decided that he wouldn’t pay for everything after our, like, 2nd date. NYC is just too expensive, even on our incomes which are higher than average for our age group. I mean, we do live in the most expensive city in the country! He would never be able to afford it, even if he wanted to. Either that or we would never do anything, which would equally suck!
After venting to Kyla recently “but I don’t make enough money, this is why it’s HARD to pay x amount for rent!!” I had a conversation with the boy and he thought the percentage option was a GREAT idea. He didn’t want me to feel bad about it at all and now we contribute proportionately to how much we’re making, so about 65/35. Which is way more manageable, and fairer
When John and I moved in together in May 2005 we had separate bank accounts. At the time I was still in college and working between 25-30 hours whereas John was working full time at his post-college job. Although John made way more $$ than me we pretty much split the expenses equally although he would pay a bit more of the rent and might pay for more groceries/ eating out/etc. In June 2006 (about six months before we got engaged) we put our $$ together with a joint checking and savings account — and we’ve rolled with that ever since. John still makes about $12,000 more than me a year (after taxes) but we share every expense 50/50. Each month we have a set equal amount that we can each use for fun $. (Although I usually spend a bit more. Ahh, need to work on not shopping so much!) Oh and I’d like for us to start saving more $$ again!
Interesting topic! as I think money does (unfortunately) become a stressor in relationships pretty quickly! I can’t speak from experience, other than friends who have tried different approaches, but I think having a joint account that you both contribute to equally each month makes sense. You could use it for eating out, groceries, etc, and then know that things are being “split” evenly? Or at least as close as possible.
While I think Suze Ormann has some good overriding principles, I don’t think everything she preaches applies to me. Her advice is for the masses and I think we each have individual circumstances that might render some of her advice useless in our own situations.
My husband and I have always split our mortgage based on our earnings (I earn more than him, therefore I pay more). Not because Suze Orman told us to. Because that’s what made sense. I think, though, the 50/50 thing can work, too … assuming the couple is living as if both people made the lesser of the two incomes. That way, neither person is outspending themselves in any given month.
Well I’m plenty single soooo…. LOL
When I lived with both exes before, we split bills evenly. The first was AWFUL with money (like way into debt with bill collectors after him) so I just gave him his total for bills for the month and he’d write me a check. I wouldn’t let him touch the bills. Maybe not the best way for him to learn but it was the only way they’d get paid! The second one was more responsible and the bills were pretty much split in both of our names and it evened out pretty well.
I like the idea of a joint account for bills only but given my history, I wouldn’t do it unless we were married. I don’t think I’d ever be able to give up my personal account though!
Prior to getting married, my then-boyfriend and I split the finances. We made roughly the same amount of money, so we’d split the mortgage in half, and each paid half of the bills. In terms of groceries, it evened itself out, and we usually just took turns paying for dinner and things when we were out. It wasn’t down to an exact science, but I’m sure that over time, it evened out.
Now that we are married, we have joined our finances. We are both coming into the marriage with relatively the same amount of finances. I actually have more savings than he does (but he did buy me a nice big ring, so he spent a lot of his!). And I get paid more than he does, but we still joined everything. It was important to me to join our finances once married, because we both wanted it all to be “ours.” We actually still have separate accounts, simply because we are slowly changing things here and there after I changed my name, but it doesn’t matter. Coincidentally, he has been paying 100% of the mortgage lately (because the payments are connected to his account), and most of the bills. I haven’t been paying for much, but I’ve been putting my check away into savings each month. And “technically” it doesn’t matter– his account is mine, and mine is his now that we are married- we just haven’t changed the names on them yet.
I am still trying to figure out how to handle all of the finances. I think it would be nice to have our own little credit cards so that we aren’t nit-picking how the other one spends money. He will never understand my clothing and makeup purchases (”You spent how much on bobbi brown face oil?”) and I will never understand his purchases on beer at sporting events and golf expenses (”you had how many $9.00 beers at the game?!?!?!”). So ideally, I’d like to organize our finances so that we have a big account that pays all of our bills, a separate savings account, and then two minor credit cards for miscellaneous spending. I’m not sure if we’d each get a monthly allotment or what, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out!
Good topic!
I am not dealing with this currently but splitting the bills proportionately would be the way I wanted to go. I dont know that I would ever really want to have a joint account, I like having control over my own money.
I love love love monday finance posts! I seriously need to start an email up with you about it! You are on to something and I like the way you think.
Right now I have a savings and a checking… no account with my boyfriend yet but I wouldnt mind starting up a savings together! No matter what I will always have my own money and he will always have his. I would think its fair to use the Suze Orman approach. Splitting 50/50 is great but like you mentioned, what if one person makes more, then its hardly fair. I’m totally bookmarking her site! Thanks for the info!
My boyfriend and I will be moving in together in June. Right now, I know that we’ll keep our accounts separate and just split rent and utilities down the middle.
As far as expenses and everything else, I’m not quite sure. I believe that the best way to work it might be to have individual checking accounts for personal bills, and expenses but a joint checking account for the joint expenses.
I have no idea how it’s going to work out but money’s never been an issue between us.
Both of our paychecks from our main jobs goes into our joint checking. All bills get drawn from there. I have my own savings and own checking. He has his own savings and checking. We have a joint savings. Actually I think we have more than one joint savings, but the money moves throughout our accounts quite frequently. Before we were married, but engaged, I paid our internet and cable, he paid the house and the bills that came with that and my mom bought our groceries and my phone bill. It makes it so much easier to have all the bills come from one place since we have all our bills directly taken out of our accounts. The only bills we have to end up paying our insurance and water. Now his side business money has its own account and we both spend that money for fun, but it doesn’t enter into our accounts just his. When I tutor or babysit or whatever I do on the side, that is my money and I don’t share it either.
My hubby and I each have our own accounts, and a joint account that bills come out of. I am better at saving so the hubby pays the mortgage and most of the bills (anything he has left he spends/ saves/ whatever) and I pay the car/gas/insurance, groceries, and then I save for trips, pay for gifts etc.. We don’t worry about who pays for what … and I typically have more spending money, but I also pay for most of our fun.
It’s not an issue for me yet, but ideally I would want us to split equally all household related stuff, and for us to both save a minimum amount of our own money. After that, what’s yours is yours!
We split things pretty much 50/50. I tend to keep track of it all, and then at the end of the month I tell him how much he owes me. I think the splitting proportionally probably works best is incomes are completely unproportionate, or when there’s kids involved. For example if you have a house note that around $2,000 a month and he makes around $10,000 a month whereas she makes closer to $1,500 a month. There it might make more sense to split expenses proportionally.
Manfriend and I don’t have a shared account, but I think someday we will like you and Eric do just for certain expenses or special trips. Otherwise, I think we’ll keep things fairly separate and just try to pay evenly. I’d say I spend more money on groceries and what not just because I eat more produce and go to the store for baking purchases. But it makes up for the fact that I’m probably not paying equal on bills …he hasn’t calculated what it should be monthly for all the utilities so I just added an extra bit to my rent $. I like things to be even so I guess I’d like both people to make even money, but honestly if I were a stay at home mom then I still would need some spending money. I guess you just don’t know until you’re in that situation.
I’m single, so don’t have to worry about this.
Which I guess is a perk of being single. But when/if I get married, I would do joint checking accounts, but I would have something like 10-15% of our paychecks go to personal accounts for ‘fun’ money or money for CHristmas shopping, etc.
I don’t really believe in splitting expenses based on the split of income. I think that would sort of cause problems in a relationship potentially? Plus, I think for me, I do make a higher income but I also have ginormous student loan payments, so you’d probably have to split it based on after-student-loan-payment income!
My husband and I have a joint chequing and savings account, as well as individual “mad money accounts”. We pay our bills, mortgage, etc. out of our joint account, but then also “pay ourselves” a set amount of mad money each pay for things like eating out, clothes, music, movies, sports tickets and gifts for each other. This works SO well for us! We got married in our mid 20’s so we were both used to having our own money. We wanted to make sure we could make smaller “fun” purchases without having to consult the other. But it’s great to set joint goals and save save save too!
Amazing how this question, well, wouldn’t be one a century ago. Times have changed…
Right now we split everything in half. I think when things become more official (ahem…wedding) then we will open a third account for household items. I am a big believer on have three accounts. That way you can do whatever you want to do with your own money and he can do what he wants.
I think if there’s much of a difference in the income levels, a proportional basis is fairer.
We have one joint account (well, technically it’s only in my name cause it’s a graduate account and he’s not a graduate). He has one in his name which he gets paid into. All our money goes into the joint account and gets divvied up from there. He’s only just started working FT again, so as for whose money goes to what, is kind of a work in progress. The general idea is we share everything, but we save differently. He’s focusing on debt payoff so isn’t saving as much as I am at the moment.
The husband and I have one bank account. And one credit card (we are both on the same card). All our money goes into the one account, and all purchases on the credit card (if possible). Currently, I am working and he is a student. Previously, he was working when I was a student. We have never split bills down the middle since we started living together - everything goes into the same pot and all expenses comes out of the same pot. Even before living together we did it more like whoever had money would pay, or we would each take turns.
We do have separate debt. But we accrued it together as a couple, not before we met. Although that wouldn’t have matter for us anyway. Our debt is both in student loans and in lines of credit. My student loan is bigger than his, and his credit line is bigger than mine. (and keep in mind we were/are both in professional programs, so that’s 8 years of university each which equals a LARGE amount of debt). But all payment for every loan come out of the same pot. The sooner we get all of our debt paid off, not just mine or not just his, the better both our lives will be.
Eventually, we will each open up a personal bank account, into which an equal amount will be deposited weekly for special personal things and gifts for each other. But our paychecks will always go into the same account, and expenses and debt will always come out of the same account. We look at money and debt as not his or hers, but as ours.
In my opinion, fussing over dividing bills and transferring money to each other makes paying for this not only a hassle, but could lead to arguments. And working out percentages would make the other person feel resentful, or emphasize that one person makes more than the other. (Just my opinion).
hey amber! I just saw on facebook that you were interviewed about this post by the Globe & Mail so I thought I better come over and read it
as for my situation, the boy and I have separate checking accounts. I don’t think it is “crazy” that you and Eric have a joint account– I think if you’ve been with a guy a long time and you trust each other, why not? especially when it is used to save for “joint” expenses, like your Europe trip. and since you both have to be there to withdraw, there’s a safeguard…
anyway, back to me and my boyfriend. we don’t split costs 50/50 because he does (did, he’s unemployed now) make much more money than me. double, in fact. this is mostly because he is also 12 years older than me! haha. but because of that, he pays much more in rent. now that he is unemployed it has become a bit tricky though. I had to pay a lot more this month and “loan” him $300 for his part (still waiting to be repaid!). he was getting upset that he had to pay so much because he is unemployed and I had to (gently) remind him that I didn’t suddenly start making more just because he lost his job. so yeah, things are a bit stressful right now when it comes to money.
but that’s my situation. I think everyone’s is different and you have to do what’s right for you. if a couple makes about the same amount, 50/50 is good and fair. if not, then figure out what he can afford. and I am sure I will have a joint account once I’m married! but a separate one, too.