I don't understand this. If you are married, you both have financial responsibility for everything and all financial decisions should be joint decisions.
Yes. If my husband decides to go buy a new 100K vehicle on a whim, then he doesn't pay for it, I am going to be hurt financially as well. Doesn't matter how we've allotted our accounts.
The real issue is making sure you and your spouse are on the same page financially ... so that neither of you will do anything ridiculous as my above example. Side note: I'm amazed occasionally when my co-workers say something about NEVER having really discussed money with their spouses. How can that be?
It's not really splitting the cost either, it's just picking which account to pull from. We use YNAB so it's all one big fund anyways. If we're making a big purchase, we just take from whichever account has more money in it. We don't care about where it's coming from for any other reason than convenience.
Sounds like more work than is necessary. We've always had one checking account between us, and we pay everything from that. We do have multiple savings and investment accounts, but only one "outgoing account", and we both pay into it.
So many people are touting "convenience" as a reason to split expenses, when it looks much more complicated to me. Okay, I can see that for the newly married, it means combining accounts -- but once that's done, you never have to do it again! Whereas, if you're both contributing to the household account, occasionally needing to "bail one another out", or whatever, it's an ongoing process!
How can multiple accounts and the need to move money from here to there be EASIER?
While I agree with your statement that couples need to be on the same page financially, this statement bugs me quite a bit. Do you suggest I comb over everything my wife spends to see what she is spending money on...and her mine?
No, it just means that early in the marriage you should agree upon rough guidelines -- and stick to them. For example, my husband doesn't want to know that I just bought my girls some spring clothes, but he does care that I buy only what's necessary and look for value in my purchases. We've long ago established "our comfort level".
When we were younger, we talked more frequently about money. Now it's just sort of melded into a sixth sense, which we share.
- Funny anecdote, an employee of mine complained to no end when the company decided to stop cutting paychecks. You had to choose between direct deposit or a pay card. Seems he liked to keep a few bucks for himself after cashing the check as his wife had pretty tight purse-strings.
Yep, I can tell a similar story: Years ago we used to have our paychecks directly deposited ... but we got a twice-yearly bonus, which was delivered to us in the form of a check. When that changed and EVERYTHING went to direct deposit, a BUNCH of employees were ENRAGED for just the reason you stated. They weren't 'fessing up to their spouses that those twice-yearly bonuses existed. It seems to me that dividing things up into little "yours and mine" stacks can lead to this type of deception.
Cash savings exist for several reasons. One of them is to serve as a substitute for lost income. There is no reason for me to pay my wife's expenses if she can afford to do so herself.
What I don't get is, Why are they your wife's expenses? Why isn't everything a family expense? When we were first married, I went back to school for a year, then I stayed home with the kids for a while -- I still needed to eat, still needed the occasional item of clothing, still needed a haircut now and then. We pay our older child's college tuition out of our shared short-term savings account, which is technically from my paycheck -- but educating her is OUR shared responsibility. Our needs are OUR needs, not something that we keep separate.
However, if my partner was HIDING seriously important things from me (which none of the above posters have even remotely described their situation as) then there may be something to talk about in the marriage. Like if my partner secretly owed the mob a million dollars, I might be a little upset. If they spent 100$ on a hockey ticket even though I hate hockey, then why would I want to bother myself with this triviality? Who cares.
I agree that I wouldn't care if my husband bought a $100 hockey ticket occasionally; however, if he bought a 2K season pass, I'd be put out. I didn't 'specially think he needed to buy another shot gun recently, but it wasn't tremendously expensive, and he did mention it ahead of time. He might not be thrilled with what I spent on a new bathing suit recently, but it does fit into the overall clothing budget, and I won't buy much else in the way of clothing this summer. However, these things aren't really about separate finances vs. shared finances -- they're more about having SHARED GOALS. As I said earlier, when we were younger and first married, we established our personal boundaries for spending /saving /investing /retirement, and we've both kept to them -- the vast majority of the time.
I think overall keeping money separated INCREASES THE CHANCES that "hiding" could take place.
And I think keeping money separated DECREASES THE CHANCES of having shared goals.
Sharing one's money with a spouse is kind of like having an accountability partner.
Others feel that now they're on the same "team", there is no point pretending that the money is separate - since presumably if your spouse needed money for some good reason, you would pay for whatever it was that was needed anyway, and I believe legally your spouse's debts are often yours anyway.
Yes, I can relate to that description.