I have met a lot of couples who discussed their money. Perhaps, the most interesting case was one where the wife didn’t work or worked little. The husband was splitting all of his money in half with her, keeping it in separate accounts. They would then pay everything half and half.
Another man I met was earning significantly less dans his wife. They were not combining money nor budget. The problem with this technique is that once all the money of one spouse is out on regular expenses or necessities, and the other wants to take vacations, he or she can leave alone… And no need to say it didn’t last!
I think the first option is a good one where the most earning spouse gives half of the difference to the other, and they then split everything half and half….

I agree with Keith, though. If a couple is keeping their money in separate purely for practical reasons, that’s ok. But if they see it as “my money” vs “your money,” then that’s a problem. When you’re married, you become ONE flesh (borrowing from Dave Ramsey). Cameron brought some debt into the marriage, which we promptly paid off with some of my savings. I try not to think about who brings in what money… we’re both doing what we can, and it turns out to be enough, so that’s ok. I hope that makes sense.

Money is the number one cause of divorce in America. Hopefully, by everything being OURS (income, spending, saving, and decision making), nothing can be “my fault” or “his fault.” We’re both to blame. Make sense?

We had “yours, mine and ours” accounts, and I thought it was a great idea, until I came to learn that they were more aptly called “hers, mine and ours.” If I ever get married again, I don’t think I’d be so trusting and instead have combined accounts.

I’m not sure I understand your first sentence -it looks like it might have been a typing error.

I know a number of couples who do it that way -one big pot, two little pots and open access to each others pots. To me there is not much of an issue there other than pragmatics. Lisa Knight said it quite well when she mentioned the existence of ’secrets’ being the source of potential trouble. (other than secrets for gifts of course…) I am adressing the existence of secrets, walls, and the existence of ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ in a marriage which most commonly show themselves in the attutudes about money. I think the reason money issues are the greatest reason for marital strife isn’t really about ‘the money’, but about what the money represents to the spouses and the attitudes surrounding them. To the point once again- ‘mine’ versus ‘ours’.

When I go out and make a buck, I consider the ownership of that buck to be a co-ownership between my wife and I. One big pot, one big pot/two little pots -I think it’s clear those are not the real issues…

I am blessed by the fact my wife and I are both very frugal. She gets heart palpitations when she has to buy something that is not onsale!

Keith;

In re-reading all the comment threads, I’m getting that you feel that they way my wife and I handle finances. I just wonder if this would have sounded better?

“We combine our finances, but we each set up an ‘allowance’ account that goes into individual accounts for each. This is a ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ account that we mostly use for buying gifts for each other, lunches (when we decide to spend), or other incidentals for the individual (I smoke, she doesn’t: I take my smoke money out of my allowance, I don’t think its fair to ask her to make that SACRIFICE)”

I think that there is a perception that couples who don’t have one big pot of money are somehow hiding something that isn’t there if they have an ‘allowance’. We tried it the other way, but, in an effort to conceal how much money she spent on me one birthday (way too much, but that’s another story), she ran up a huge credit card bill. Because she knew I would question such a large withdrawal to pay it off, she would pay it off in small chunks.

Now, our concern is that we don’t interfere with OUR money with (her or)my wants.

BTW, we are both on each other’s accounts, so we could find out the balances, transactions, etc. if we wanted to, but we have both COMMITTED ourselves to TRUST each other enough to know we aren’t engaged in misbehavior without checking-up.

Trent- You’re accusing me of ‘imposing’ what I think is right on your marriage. How am I imposing? I am voicing what I think are legitimate concerns and issues around married couples keeping their finances separate and potential unhealthy consequences that might arise from that. When you say that married couples ’should’ have monthly discussion regarding these matters. Would you say that you are imposing there as well? I wouldn’t. I would sat you are voicing what you think is a right, healthy and beneficial practice for the health of a marriage in this area. I am simply voicing a perspective that is attempting to do the same. Again, I did not mean to offend.

Lazymanandmoney posits the idea about the messy aspects of a divorce that could have been much less so if the divorcing couple had kept their finances separate. So what’s the goal there then? To keep the money separate so that ‘just in case’ there is a divorce it will be… ‘cleaner’? That is not exactly a perspective that fosters a healthy marital foundation is it not? Is it so hard to see how the commitments and ‘investments’ of the marriage are minimized by this mentality? (not trying to hammer you LMAM just making a point…)

Crankywrench said ‘Successful relationships are made by communication and agreed upon goals by the parties involved, and not necessarily on outside ideals.’ Aren’t the ‘principles’ of ‘communication and agreed upon goals’ outside ideals?!

Folks, when we get married, we ALL aspire to some outside ideal of what a healthy and successful marriage looks like. It is impossible not to do so, otherwise marriage means nothing to those undertaking it. And to achieve that healthy marriage we all attempt to utilize and adopt methods, principles, habits etc. to reach that goal. The questions I am attempting to raise are to get couples to dig a little deeper into the issues and implications beyond and behind the certain mentalities that refuse to let go of what is ‘mine’ and not consider it ‘ours’ and the potential negative effects those mentalities could or can have on a marriage.

To those who keep their finances separate for purely pragmatic reasons and could care less if they were combined or not- I am not raising these points to you. It is to those who hold on the ‘mine’ mentality when moving into the commitment of marriage or those who think ‘well… I think it’s better… just in case…’ Or anything that lessens the depth of the commitment of marriage.

So why would I raise these points then? Because like Jay accuses -to be judgmental and stick the nose in other people’s business? No, it’s because I care about people and marriage and I want people to succeed from the day they say ‘I do’ until death does them part. Marriages fall apart for real reasons that can be identified. I am just trying to raise points and questions surrounding these issues that I would hope people would consider in their own quest for a healthy, happy and thriving marriage.

I’m not married or forever-committed at this point, so we have separate finances. Our basic strategy can be described this way: we each pay for what we care more about. Just because we’re together doesn’t mean we’re suddenly the same person.

For example, we both care about housing and air conditioning, etc., so we both pay half. But the house is mine, so I pay all repair costs. He likes eating out, so he always pay when we eat out, which keeps me from stressing about how much that costs. But I sometimes take him out for a treat. I pay for our movie watching. Unless it’s an icky movie he wants me to see with him–then he pays. He likes a riskier investment style–he invests his money and I invest mine. Then if one person’s investment strategy is better, we still both benefit. We each pay for our own cars and hobbies and clothes.

Someone brought up the issue of salary differences. For me and my guy, our relative salaries have had drastic changes. When he was unemployed and I wasn’t, I paid for everything, but his part was all a loan. (That sounds creepy, but we had just started dating, so really it was creepy the other way.) The fact that it’s a loan helps motivate the job hunting. Now he makes significantly more than I do, so he gets to spend more. Since I am not willing to do what it takes to get a higher paying job, I am more comfortable spending less without having to drag down his spending. If we ever move to a bigger (more expensive) place because he has more stuff and more space-consuming hobbies, he will pay more than half so I can pay the same amount or a little more.

Obviously, we still discuss quite a few things though we also still have a lot of autonomy. If we do get married, I’m not sure if I’ll follow my friend’s advice and keep everything the same. Things do change with marriage, legally at least, especially since we live in a community property state.

After we were married for a bit it just started to seem silly to us, since we paid almost all our bills from the joint account anyway and neither of us has crazy splurges, nor do we buy the types of gifts for each other where a credit card statement would give it away (a purchase at Borders or Amazon, for example, does not really give the other person much of a hint – plus we’re usually not the type to buy presents far in advance, so it would be unlikely to show up on a bill before the present giving occasion)…

So we combined everything. I take care of the organizing/bills, and we each have a primary credit card we use (it makes it easy to see where the money is going for each of us – we pay all our bills in full so interest isn’t an issue). He is more interested in individual stocks so he handles an Ameritrade account. I am more interested in index and mutual funds so I handle a Vanguard account. We each have our own retirement accounts. As I side note I now make considerably more than he does but that doesn’t bother either of us at all about combining our money.

I think this is an intensely personal decision for each individual and each couple but I figured I’d share what worked for us – money is a big control issue for me largely because of my parents (my dad is a compulsive gambler) and thus I would never be comfortable not managing my own accounts. But my husband is happy to let me do it. If we both felt as I do, we would probably still have separate accounts.

Big purchase decisions are made together. And nobody counts nickels and dimes over who purchased the toilet paper or who paid for the last pizza. Whoever has cash or is at the store just gets these impromptu purchases.

It did take some trial and error at first to figure out our system. It’s really a matter of working within the habits and abilities of each spouse and not forcing a system on the spouse because it’s the “traditional” thing to do.

Keith, trust and commitment takes many forms. For you, trust may mean putting all your tools together, and it’s good that you know that for yourself. For my relationship, I know what we’ve done will work out best for us. Successful relationships are made by communication and agreed upon goals by the parties involved, and not necessarily on outside ideals.

The joint account handles payment of our monthly bills and grocery shopping. We’re pretty habitual people, so we know more or less exactely how much needs to be in there each month to cover everything.

The savings accounts are high interest affairs that we dump money into each month (my wife’s is actually an ISA so it’s tax free as well, where as mine is just a high interest savings account for convenience). We typically use these as and when we need a large amount of money in one go – tax bills, home improvements etc. Usually it’s for communal stuff that we both benefit from but really it’s just for whenever we need a large amount of money for something important (ie, nothing frivolous).

Our own accounts are pretty much just that. We use them for paying our individual bills (such as our cell phones), buying clothes and just general luxury purchases.

This way we are both comfortable that we are contributing equally in terms of finance, neither of us feels like we’re forking out for everything and neither of us feels guilty for not contributing enough. Our finances are easy to keep track off because all the bills get paid out of a single account and we both have our own stash of money so we don’t need to feel guilty about blowing a couple of hundred quid on a new pair of jeans now and then.

“I can’t tell you whether or not you should combine your finances with your signficant [sic] other.”

I get so tired of all the blogs telling couples how they should organize their finances, because that is the way they do it and therefore it must be the only way.

You in the blogosphere, yes you! Get your judgmental nose out of everybody’s business.

Sorry, just had to vent. :) Thanks for clearing up this matter by simply stating there’s no clear answer.