DH/DW wondering if we should have our own separate brokerage accounts

[deek]

Are there cases for or against holding our brokerage investments in the same account vs separate accounts? Once it comes time to retire, what if we don't want to retire at the same time? Would things be easier with different accounts if we were to pull $$ out of said brokerage account if one of us is still working? I would say that we have very similar financial goals and both want to have our freedom sooner rather than later. I have an account set up, but DW does not yet. We would either have her set one up or join mine. How do you all have yours set up?

[classicrando]

I'm not making a case for either way, but what my partner and I do is have a single joint checking account for household expenses (groceries, utilities, gasoline, home supplies) that we put money in on a monthly basis and everything else is separate. 

We each have our own brokerage accounts, Roth IRAs, 401k, etc. that we fund separately and on our own preferences and schedules.  For example, my partner front loads their Roth at the beginning of the year, and I contribute monthly to mine.

[Ron Scott]

There are advantages to having separate accounts—and even having both separate and joint accounts—but it’s really dependent on what you guys are personally trying to achieve.

The devil is in the details and a blanket yes-no answer won’t be helpful.

[lhamo]

We set up separate accounts way back in 1999 because even then our investing philosophies were very different.

I bought Worldcom (ugh!), Microsoft and Intel.  Sold Intel in 2024 at a small loss.  Still have the Microsoft

TheX bought a bunch of random stuff, Nokia and Ebay.  I got his accounts in the divorce settlement.  Sold the Nokia at a slight gain (though we should have sold it at a big gain before the Iphone took over the market...).  Going to sell Ebay this year.  Hanging on to the Paypal that split off because I have more confidence in that longer term.

Hopefully you will never have to deal with the issue of divorce/splitting assets, but we found Schwab to be very easy to deal with when transferring ownership of TheX's account (which was in his name only) to me, and taking him off my account (which I had actually set up as JTWROS).  Just had to fill out a bit of paperwork and then the funds were moved into my name only.

[TimCFJ40]

For retirement investing, you'll need two brokerage accounts as IRAs can't have two owners.  This includes any rollovers from employer sponsored 401ks etc.  If all of your investing is standard non-retirement investing, then I'd try to keep it all together to keep things simple. 

My wife and I do all of our non-retirement investing together in one account, and have a joint checking accounts, but IRA rules pushed us to have separate IRAs when we rolled 401ks out of old jobs. 

[charis]

For retirement investing, you'll need two brokerage accounts as IRAs can't have two owners.  This includes any rollovers from employer sponsored 401ks etc.  If all of your investing is standard non-retirement investing, then I'd try to keep it all together to keep things simple. 

My wife and I do all of our non-retirement investing together in one account, and have a joint checking accounts, but IRA rules pushed us to have separate IRAs when we rolled 401ks out of old jobs.

Yes.  Designed retirement accounts are individual anyway (IRA/401k/403b, deferred comp).  I don't see a point in having additional separate investment accounts, personally.  The issue of retiring at different times would not lend itself to separate accounts, in my mind, unless you have separate finances in generally.  My spouse and I operate financially under an umbrella that includes all of our accounts to support our household as a whole.   For instance, if I retire while my spouse continues to work, their employment income still supports the household, while any distributions I take from a retirement/brokerage account does the same.  We wouldn't start paying our own separate expenses upon one person retiring.

[Ron Scott]

I don't see a point in having additional separate investment accounts, personally.

There are several personal reasons for separate taxable brokerage accounts. 2 examples: a) keep prenup/inheritance $$ separate (not for everyone obviously), b) designating TOD or POD beneficiaries at brokerages, like Vanguard, that don’t allow them on joint accounts. There are other reasons too.

I think setting up and maintaining retirement financials is a no-brainer for most. But dialing in the details may become important to many.

[Laura33]

The "separate brokerage account" question is the tail wagging the dog.  The first question you need to answer is how do you intend to manage your joint finances?  There are a bunch of different ways to do this -- completely joint, completely separate, some combination of the two?  What is your plan for if one person wants to FIRE and the other wants to keep working?  The answer to that question is entirely different if you are planning on completely separate finances (where different accounts will be critical) vs. joint finances (where the question is more a discussion of the overall finances and timing vs. individual decisions completely independent of the other's plans/abilities).  What about kids -- do you plan on having them, what if one of you wants to stay home with them for a while or takes a less-demanding/lower-paying job for the kid years?  Did one of you bring in more assets or debt than the other, and if so, do you plan to keep those separate even if you combine things going forward?  You need to agree on the overall plan before you can move to figuring out the best way to implenent that plan.

For us, we started out with separate accounts, because we both had savings/IRAs/etc. when we got married.  We put all of our earnings into a joint account, and transferred scheduled savings from that account into a joint VTSAX account.  But we also budgeted for c.$200/mo. of "fun money" that went into our individual savings accounts -- long story, but he's a spender and I'm a saver, so that kept me from losing my shit over every little stupid thing he bought.  We also kept our prior savings separate (obviously necessary for the IRAs/401(k)s).  That also worked, because I am naturally more a value investor and he is more growth-oriented/tech-focused/interested in individual stock-picking. So we chose a low-cost index fund for joint savings and used our existing savings to explore our individual interests.  But now that we're approaching retirement, we basically count all of those individual accounts toward the communal "pot" in figuring out our retirement spending -- we're not at the point yet of figuring out what to withdraw from where, but when we do, it will likely still be from the "it's all one bucket" approach.  Oh, and it also took us probably a decade to get a joint credit card; we each kept our existing ones, and just had payments withdrawn from the joint account, except when the expense was coming from our fun money.

Obviously YMMV.  My SIL and BIL do the "all one pot" for everything, including pre-existing savings.  My mom and stepdad, OTOH, kept entirely separate accounts and budgets until the day he died.  Each of us chose different approaches, but they each worked equally well for the parties' own styles and priorities.  The only question is what works for you.

[charis]

I don't see a point in having additional separate investment accounts, personally.

There are several personal reasons for separate taxable brokerage accounts. 2 examples: a) keep prenup/inheritance $$ separate (not for everyone obviously), b) designating TOD or POD beneficiaries at brokerages, like Vanguard, that don’t allow them on joint accounts. There are other reasons too.

I think setting up and maintaining retirement financials is a no-brainer for most. But dialing in the details may become important to many.

Yes, there certainly are reasons to keep them separate, I was just reflecting my personal opinion.

[jrhampt]

I don't see a point in having additional separate investment accounts, personally.

There are several personal reasons for separate taxable brokerage accounts. 2 examples: a) keep prenup/inheritance $$ separate (not for everyone obviously), b) designating TOD or POD beneficiaries at brokerages, like Vanguard, that don’t allow them on joint accounts. There are other reasons too.

I think setting up and maintaining retirement financials is a no-brainer for most. But dialing in the details may become important to many.

Yes, there certainly are reasons to keep them separate, I was just reflecting my personal opinion.

We also maintain separate taxable brokerage accounts since we have different investing strategies.

[Loren Ver]

When we have gotten small inheritances DH and I keep them separate as they are handled separately legally as long as we don't mingle them.  Since we never expected them, they are not part of the FIRE plan so we have left them as his or hers to be invested and then spent at the owners discretion.   This works well for us, but YMMV.

Loren