Have any of you started a marriage with separate finances and then combined them when one of you FIREd?
I wore the only mustache in the family until a couple of years ago, when my husband started growing his 'stache. I have a bigger shovel (really mixing metaphors here) and a head start, so my 'stache is much, much larger than his. But he has a good income and a frugal mindset, and he'll get to FI, and RE if he wants it, in about 10-15 years.
We've always kept our finances separate (and we each pay 50% of each expense), but maybe it's time to combine them. I have enough to FIRE for just myself right now (leaning toward lean-FIRE given our taxes, which I hadn't realized would be quite so high), and my plan has always been to FIRE while he continues to work. He's fine with that. But with his income, and our married status, my withdrawals require a lot more taxes than they would if I were single, or if we FIRE together and withdraw only what the two of us need. And I kinda like the guy, so divorce for the tax benefits is not an option!
He loves his job, but he also has a lot of other interests, he likes the idea of rock-solid financial security, and he's starting to see that it would be nice to at least have the option to FIRE someday. If we both live on his income now (which we could easily do, and he could still save, though not quite as much), let my savings (which would now be OUR savings) grow, and add a bit to his retirement account, he join me in FIRE (or continue working if he wants to) in about 5-10 years.
It seems like continuing to keep our finances separate is just going to waste a lot of money on taxes. I'm trying to see a down side to this, other than the fact that although we're very happy now, there's no guarantee that any marriage will last forever. We live in a state where assets are split equally in the case of divorce, though, and we have no pre-nup, so I don't think adding his name to my accounts would really add much risk. Is there something I'm missing?
