Married/Co-gravitating Ladies - How do you handle household expenses?

[Glib Gurl]

How do you handle household expenses with your spouse/live-in love? My mother always recommended having a joint account for household expenses that each partner contributied to equally (at least percentage-wise) and that they both had access to....

A female colleague of mine recommended that the wife/woman maintain control of the family account ... I really like that idea I imagine that my ideal scenario would be having each partner contribute most of their money to the household AND savings/investment accounts and then each partner has a separate personal account just for little daily living stuff...buying your lunch, putting gas in the car, etc.

Just wondering what you all do....

 

[fluffyforever]

We have multiple bank accounts. We have a joint checking and a joint savings. I have a separate savings, a separate checking and a separate spending/debit card account. He has separate checking.

His work checks from his two jobs get 100% direct deposited in our joint checking. From the joint checking, he pays rent, utilities, his phone, his car, our drinking water, his gasoline bills. I don't use the joint checking. He then transfers money to our joint savings and his personal checking for spending money.

My work check gets direct deposited into my checking, savings, and prepaid debit card accounts. I pay my credit card bills, my student loans, my car, and all food for the household out of my accounts.

I have control over all finances. I make a monthly budget and I sit FH down once a month to let him know if I think we are on track or not with my financial goals. I can't imagine not knowing where our money is, but then again I'm an accountant.

 

[southerncitygirl]

My parents have been married for almost 40 yrs and have never had a joint account they just split the bills, my Dad contributed more cause he made more. Bestie's parents did the same with no issues, her father passed away a few years ago.


On my end I have nothing to add as I am not there yet.

 

[Radianthealth]

I have been married for almost a decade, DH and I never got a joint account. We split the bills based on income, we have never had an argument about finances

Bills get paid and it works really well for us, my coworker has had a similar experience with her husband.

I think it helps that we both lived on our own and learned to budget before getting married

 

[hopeful]

Each couple is different. I think it's best to discuss it with your partner and figure out what works best for you. Revisit ever so often and make adjustments as needed. I really don't think one way is best. So many factors come into play and circumstances change over the years as well.

 

[Nefertiti0906]

We have multiple joint checking and savings accounts. Regardless of where the money gets deposited, I'm in charge of the finances. I pay the bills, distribute the money into our play accounts and our joint saving accounts. I guess we share from one pot of money.

 

[Ganjababy]

I was not good with money, so a joint account was a no no. When we started out he would transfer half the household expenses to my account and I paid the bills.

That was 13 years ago. Now all the bills (mortgage etc) except entertainment (broadband) and phones comes out of his account.

We will finally get a joint account soon as I am better with money.

 

[chelseatiara]

My fiance and I discussed things like that before we moved in together. Basically he pays the larger bills like rent, car related expenses, etc and I pay for smaller bills like electricity and groceries. This is based on our incomes and what I expect from a man lol. After we are married he will pay 70 percent of bills while i take on 70 percent percent of household duties (what he expects from his wife). This has less to do with income and more with traditional gender roles.. we have discussed a joint account but it's still in the air either way.

 

[LiftedUp]

My parents have been married for almost 40 yrs and have never had a joint account they just split the bills, my Dad contributed more cause he made more. Bestie's parents did the same with no issues, her father passed away a few years ago.


On my end I have nothing to add as I am not there yet.

My mother has always warned me to not have a joint account with a man. Man parents had 1 joint account in their almost 30 years married. That was when my father worked abroad for a short period. His salary alone was hooked up to it so that she can pay the bills, living expenses, etc. out of it.

 

[LucieLoo12]

Me and DH have one savings and one checking. There are no personal accounts. We share everything.

 

[Mariaat40]

Each couple is different. I think it's best to discuss it with your partner and figure out what works best for you. Revisit ever so often and make adjustments as needed. I really don't think one way is best. So many factors come into play and circumstances change over the years as well.

I agree with this. It really does depend on the couple. My parents were married for 50 years (until my Dad passed). They had separate accounts and determined who payed what bills. I've been married for 30 years and my sister for 25. We both have joint accounts from which everything is paid. Both our paychecks go in; there is no assigning a particular bill to one person. My husband has a separate "business" account for his extra income: books, speaking, etc. from being a professor. I have one for my consulting business. I'm the one who handles all the bills, etc. It's worked for us. We never fight about money.

 

[naturalgyrl5199]

He added me to his checking and savings accounts that he brought to the marriage. He has "access to" but his name is not ON the checking & savings accounts that I brought to the marriage (meaning his name is not on the checks for the account, but he can deposit $ or remove $ from it).

The household accounts pay the bills and are what we deposit our payroll checks into. He manages the $$ cause he is better at it. All accounts can be accessed by both. My checking account is for grocery, disposable spending, etc. My savings is our "backup savings". The household savings acct is the MAIN savings.

I agree with hopeful that each couple is different. I have seen separate accounts work and I have seen them NOT work. A frank discussion about what your expectations are as a FAMILY for your finances. For us, one of them was at least 10-12K in savings as a minimum regularly. To reach that, you BOTH have to decide together what kind of sacrifices will be made. And stick to them until the goal is reached.
I don't have a "hidden" account that he has no access too.