what's mine is ours and what's her's is her's



waitaminute...

10/10/2008 9:24:33 PM

i agree with ^^ - i think kids changes it to our money for a lot of people and the plan of separate accounts will go out the window when that time comes

10/11/2008 6:41:30 PM

Quote :

"Separate finances are all fine and dandy until someone starts making more money "

Uhhhh, won't someone always be making more money than they other person?

10/11/2008 7:44:58 PM

please excuse my unnecessary apostrophes.

what the fuck was i doing?

10/11/2008 10:51:28 PM

Quote :

"Uhhhh, won't someone always be making more money than they other person?"

I'm talking about changes in income brackets. If you're both making in the mid 30s, it's all fine and dandy. But when job changes come about and there becomes a considerable discrepancy in salary, it's a different ball game.

10/12/2008 2:21:43 AM

Why is that?

10/12/2008 1:37:53 PM

If one spouse makes 30k and the other makes 60k, do they still split the bills in half? Do they pay for things in proportion to the money that they make? What happens to the excess funds? Are excess funds our money or your money? Do you get to spend the excess funds on whatever you want like a motorcycle or is that money spent on joint things like a new roof for the house or family vacation? Does the person with the excess funds now have the responsibility of picking up the slack for unexpected bills? Because I make 30k, I cannot afford to buy our daughter a brand new bicycle or expensive clothes, does that mean that the parent with the extra money will buy it for her? If you make more money and we think of the money as our money, since most of the money is your money, does that mean that you have more weight in decisions concerning that money or are we a team? Etc. etc. It becomes very complicated when there are discrepancies in income between spouses when you have strong feelings about our money and your money and my money.

[Edited on October 12, 2008 at 3:49 PM. Reason : .]

10/12/2008 3:48:07 PM

most, if not all, of those problems can be addressed by properly structuring "seperate" finances.

the way i plan to do it, generally speaking, if i ever get married is to have a joint account that we both contribute to for things like mortgage payment and home expenses, groceries, utilities, dining out as a couple/family, expenses associated with children, etc.

these expenses are fairly consistent, prob on the order of a couple thousand per month or a little more. divide that up either 50/50 or in whatever proportion you agree on, and each contribute that each month (and add $100 or more/month each as padding, so that the account gradually grows and keeps money put aside for expenses that pop up. when enough is accumulated, you can start taking some out for vacations and special occasions to enjoy as a couple/family.)

the rest of your respective incomes are yours to save, invest, and spend however you want. if the wife wants to buy a bunch of stupid purses and shoes, who cares? if I want a dozen motorcycles, that's my business. the "let's not save quite so much this month and go to Aspen instead" problem will be minimized, as well as the opposite problem.

10/12/2008 4:43:18 PM

for the people not married - be sure to update this once you are i'd like to see how far off you were

10/12/2008 4:52:10 PM

Quote :

"the rest of your respective incomes are yours to save, invest, and spend however you want. if the wife wants to buy a bunch of stupid purses and shoes, who cares?"

So, what happens come retirement if you invested all the rest of your income while she spent the rest of her income on stupid stuff?

10/12/2008 5:09:32 PM

Quote :

"for the people not married - be sure to update this once you are i'd like to see how far off you were"

lol
seriously.

10/13/2008 1:19:42 AM

Quote :

"If one spouse makes 30k and the other makes 60k, do they still split the bills in half? Do they pay for things in proportion to the money that they make? What happens to the excess funds? Are excess funds our money or your money? Do you get to spend the excess funds on whatever you want like a motorcycle or is that money spent on joint things like a new roof for the house or family vacation? Does the person with the excess funds now have the responsibility of picking up the slack for unexpected bills? Because I make 30k, I cannot afford to buy our daughter a brand new bicycle or expensive clothes, does that mean that the parent with the extra money will buy it for her? If you make more money and we think of the money as our money, since most of the money is your money, does that mean that you have more weight in decisions concerning that money or are we a team? Etc. etc. It becomes very complicated when there are discrepancies in income between spouses when you have strong feelings about our money and your money and my money."

dont be a bitch about it or anything like that

10/13/2008 7:08:52 PM

Quote :

" If you make more money and we think of the money as our money, since most of the money is your money, does that mean that you have more weight in decisions concerning that money or are we a team"

If you do the "our" money thing, then you have to act as if all income was equally earned.

Realistically, if you're married, the concept of "mine" and "yours" should no longer exist.

but in our culture, people are extremely selfish, so...

10/13/2008 9:33:22 PM

For my husband and I, it has always been "our" no matter who made the most money. (There was time when it was me and now it is him.) So, I don't understand couples who have separate finances. Then again, some people get divorced over finances so. *shrugs*

10/14/2008 7:23:44 PM

Quote :

"I don't understand couples who have separate finances. Then again, some people get divorced over finances so. *shrugs*"

10/14/2008 7:37:49 PM

i'm not married yet either, but its good to read all the peoples' responses. when i do get married its definitely going to be "our" money - one account, everything shared. i get the feeling i'll be managing it all however.

10/15/2008 5:25:42 PM

i know i'm biased, but I'm surprised that there aren't more people in the "keep it seperate" camp.

10/15/2008 6:14:25 PM

^ because if you are thinking before hand that you don't want to share finances because the person is irresponsible and you might loose it all, then you probably shouldn't be getting married to them in the first place

10/16/2008 8:35:19 AM

One checking account

Separate Retirement/High Yield Savings accounts

Works out great

10/16/2008 8:54:29 AM

^^ that's only part of it, though. what if, like my parents, things change over time? it's tough to say what someone will be like in 20-30 years.

People have different spending/saving habits.

Divorce is a huge fucked up mess--the best way to structure a pre-nup is to keep things as seperate as possible. Nobody plans on their marraige failing, but it happens more often than not, so it's silly to stick your head in the sand and say "it can't happen to me."

finally, i don't want to have to answer to anyone if I want to buy a sports car, or a motorcycle, or run up a bar tab, or whatever else...I also don't want to have to worry about it if my wife wants to buy a bunch of shoes and purses and shit that she doesn't need.

10/16/2008 6:18:11 PM

So, what happens when your wife spends all of her money and she cannot make her half of the bills? Or your wife of 30 years, spends the crap out of all of her money, does not plan for old age, and you're left with her pittance of a social security check that doesn't even cover groceries?

10/16/2008 10:18:13 PM

see http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=548138

11/11/2008 5:38:54 PM

One account, two credit cards. One is in both names and one is in my name, she gets a stipend of cash to spend every week I get free range cause she knows no passwords or sees no statements. Works out pretty well, we both get whatever we want so theres nothing to really argue about.

11/12/2008 1:08:42 PM

When marriage time comes, my plan would be to do a similar thing to a lot of the responses here--both paychecks get deposited into one joint account, which is used for bills, living expenses, debt repayment until we're dept-free as a couple, and maybe two joint savings accounts (one for X months of living expenses in case of job loss, another for big-ticket items like home down payment, appliances, trips, etc). We would also keep separate accounts into which an EQUAL allowance would go each month, to be used for small ticket purchases that we don't want to have to get approval for, like music, clothes, electronics, gifts for the other person, etc. I'm not really sure what the best way to structure retirement savings as a couple is though...

Of course, this is assuming that the person I marry thinks the same way I do.

11/12/2008 3:58:00 PM

my wife and I keep separate finances although we plan on setting up a joint savings account at some point in the near future.

Quote :

"If one spouse makes 30k and the other makes 60k, do they still split the bills in half? Do they pay for things in proportion to the money that they make? What happens to the excess funds? Are excess funds our money or your money? Do you get to spend the excess funds on whatever you want like a motorcycle or is that money spent on joint things like a new roof for the house or family vacation? Does the person with the excess funds now have the responsibility of picking up the slack for unexpected bills? Because I make 30k, I cannot afford to buy our daughter a brand new bicycle or expensive clothes, does that mean that the parent with the extra money will buy it for her? If you make more money and we think of the money as our money, since most of the money is your money, does that mean that you have more weight in decisions concerning that money or are we a team? Etc. etc. It becomes very complicated when there are discrepancies in income between spouses when you have strong feelings about our money and your money and my money. "

I make considerably more money than my wife and also get some vehicle, phone, and computer perks from my company that further reduce my monthly expenses. We still keep our finances separate, and I pay all the bills out of my account. This insures that we'll be able to manage our finances in the event that she wants to stop working when we have kids. It's not a decision we made because we're selfish about the money we make. We both realize that it doesn't make a difference between us splitting our bills, spending money, and savings or if I pick up all the bills and she contributes to savings. The end result will be the same.

We both get fairly large bonuses from our companies, so we plan on setting up a joint savings account to put our bonus checks into once they get paid.

11/23/2008 2:26:14 PM

Quote :

"So, what happens when your wife spends all of her money and she cannot make her half of the bills? Or your wife of 30 years, spends the crap out of all of her money, does not plan for old age, and you're left with her pittance of a social security check that doesn't even cover groceries?"

You don't marry someone like that in the 1st place. If you do, you are stupid.

11/23/2008 8:57:24 PM

The trick is that you have to make it look like you have a shared account, but in reality you need a second personal account that cannot be traced.

So, I have an overseas account that is unnamed, but all of my business money goes there. It saves me from paying anything to the government.

So, while our local savings account is for the wifey and myself, there always that extra stash in case things get ugly.

11/25/2008 3:09:41 PM

WE do not view the money as mine or his, but as OURS.

One of us pays as we go. We know all of the account names and passwords and we both have access to each. Typically I pay the mortgage to the house we are living in and he pays the other mortgage. Should he need money in his account to cover something I just give it to him. The savings account is in my name.

Haven't really had a problem yet. We have been living and sharing expenses for over 2 years. Anything of 200 is pretty much discussed prior to purchase.

The only real trouble we are having is prioritizing major purchases........We need a roof, another car, etc.

11/25/2008 10:17:40 PM

ditto to OmarBadu

if you have separate finances and are married, you're asking for a divorce.

1/4/2009 5:38:14 PM

all of our money goes into the same account. we don't have enough to split it up.

1/20/2009 9:08:31 PM

Quote :

"We make about the same amount and maintain a joint slush MMSA and checking account. We also have personal checking accounts (because I don't want him guessing what presents I've bought him) that smaller chunks of our income go into. We have checks for our joint account for stuff like rent and other bills that don't do direct deposit. He does all the actual bill paying but we get together once or twice a month to go over our budget. We track that on a really simple .xls with income balanced against debt and monthly bills. I also plan out shopping trips, clip coupons and manage the fluid expenditure (e.g. you can get two blu rays or one video game). We did most of this last year when we moved in together. I used our lease to "scam" him into SECU, and maintaining an economic household unit with the intention of getting married, for us, obviated the need to keep our finances completely separate. Before, when we were living separately and our ratios of disposable income were disparate we would've kept closer tabs on things. It's important to both of us to live below our means so even if the other person gets a raise we can just put that much more towards debt elimination. We'll be married by November so to me his student loans may as well be mine."

Married now.

One thing that's changed is that we have new [defined] financial goals, the most important of which is structuring our saving for buying a house. We're also committed to keeping our liquid savings in the MMSA at 6+ months of living expenses.

His health plan dropped flexible spending account options but now that we're espoused we can both use mine. To go along with that more pretax income is taken out of my paycheck that we're guaranteed to spend, and we can both deplete the same pool instead of worrying about getting two separate pools spent with discrete health and medical needs.

The "my money" issue hasn't really been a problem for us because for the most part we have compatible fiscal personalities. We both want to spend disposable income on video games so it's not a big argument every time a new game comes out. But when my old computer died he was really excited about getting something new and shiny so he keeps showing me great deals and builds, but I'm content to use my crappy laptop [read: craptop]. I think the harmony comes from the following: a) we agreed upon budget so we know where money's supposed to go, b) we have our allowances for doing whatever, and c) other big purchases are mutually desired.

1/20/2009 9:31:18 PM

Ganked from jezebel:

Quote :

"Can Separating Your Relationship And Your Money Help Both? [Monied Relationships] from Jezebel by Megan Yaran Noti writes on Details' blog about couples who opt to lead separate financial lives to minimize arguments over financial affairs. But can it help? Noti writes: Purchasing decisions-involving everything from toilet paper to a vacation home-are common flash points for spouses, and as the economy falters, discussions about them only become more fraught. "The No. 1 thing couples divorce over is money," says Leah Hanson, director of the Harmoney program, a Boston counseling service that teaches couples how to communicate about finances. "Recessions and rising prices result in divorce." It might possibly be more apt to say that selfishness and inflexibility around issues related to money cause problems in relationships, but that might just be me. Noti explores two types of separate financial arrangements between couples: in the first, couples split expenses evenly without regard to income; and in the second, couples proportion their shared expenses based on each person's income. Kevin makes more money than his wife but they split their expenses evenly and Kevin tends to drop money on luxury items. During the six years he's been married, he's surprised his wife, Dawn, 37, by coming home with purchases-power tools, shoes, and even a Nissan Pathfinder-that he neglected to mention to her beforehand. "She was out of town and I just bought the new car and picked her up at the train station in it," he says. ... "She wasn't too thrilled about the car," Kevin says, "but I paid for it, so she didn't have too big of a problem." They don't even save for retirement together, which one expert identifies as a potential problem. [Eve Kaplan of Kaplan Financial Advisors in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey] says, "If one person has enough money to last them to 95 and the other is going to run out at age 70, what happens then?" That assumes, of course, that both people are really planning on staying together that long. Christian and Rebecca, the other 50-50 couple in the story, make the same money and split expenses but have different things that they splurge on. "My wife likes spending on vacations and trips more than I do," Christian says. "But we don't fight about money, because most of the stuff we buy we individually control." Control is, after all, the issue, right? No one likes giving it up. Other couples in which there is one major breadwinner have that person take a larger responsibility for shared expenses. Marc Bliss, 40, a research-deployment manager for IBM in Knoxville, Tennessee, makes significantly less than his wife, Jerilyn, 40, a vice president of communications for a cable-television company. She brings in around 65 percent of the total household income, and so she pays 65 percent of the expenses. "It doesn't make sense for us to split things evenly. We've used a percentage system for our entire six-year marriage, and we never really argue about money," Marc says. That, too, seems like as equitable an arrangement as Christian and Rebecca have. Other dudes, however, seem to be going into such financial arrangements to avoid being nagged by their partners, much like Kevin and his Pathfinder. "I'm not going to drink cheap beer," [Chad] Randle says. "I'm going to drink Guinness. It's not like I have 10 cases of Guinness in the garage, but even if I did, to hell with her." Randle pays the mortgage while his wife pays the utilities and their child care expense by the way. He's got company in his random bitterness in John Hall "a fitness professional in Chicago who pays the mortgage and utilities while his wife takes care of her own incidentals and credit cards": "My wife works at a mortgage brokerage, so she's been financially strapped," he says. "But I'm like, 'Hey, that's on you. Those are your bills. Don't bitch to me about your bills.'" Um, that doesn't exactly sound as though they're in a partnership as much as a power struggle. The thing about financial mingling is that money is a proxy for other power struggles in a relationship: i.e., it's never really about money. No matter how you choose to split or spend your individual money (in the absence of pre-nuptial agreements, of course), you're both kind of on the hook legally for one another's credit cards, for the entirety of the mortgage (if it's in both of your names) and all the rest of it, and you'll both be living off the sum total of your retirement savings at the end. But if naming the income stream "his" and "hers" stops him from whining that you bought another pair of shoes and you from bitching at him about the big screen TV he bought, great. And if it doesn't, then it's not really about the shoes or the TV anyway and you should probably spend some of your joint funds on therapy to figure out what it is about before one of you says "to hell with her," or "Don't bitch to me." The Rise Of The Financial Divorce [Details]"

2/18/2009 9:42:32 PM