Ehhhhhhh, we do it a bit different than keeping every single thing separate. Sure, that's a great idea if divorce should ravage your marriage, or if something else should come up that would cause some type of strain, but in the end we are a couple competing against life as a team.
We compile all of our earning inside of one account. So, for example, if I make $2,500 a month and my wife makes $1000, it all goes into one account. Reverse the amounts, and the same holds true. What about side hustles? The same thing. No matter how much money we make individually, it all goes into one account. From this account, we invest money into each of our Roth IRAs and also put money into an index fund. A savings account is also there too, and besides the Roth IRAs, every single account that we have is jointly held.
Then, we take a certain portion of our pay (right now it's sitting at 8.89%) and we give it to ourselves as free spending money, which is transferred to personal checking and savings accounts that are individually held. This way, if she or I decides to save everything we get for personal money, then great. However, if I want to spend it all and have $0 left over for misc items (computer games, gadgets, workout supplements, beer, etc.) then no harm is done to our joint finances. In the end, we would both retire at the same point, but along the way to retirement be able to spend our personal money as freely as we want. She could buy all the makeup she wants, and I could save it all, but in the end we still hold onto our financial goals as husband and wife.
The only time a discussion might ensue is if she or I believes that the amount of personal money given each month should go up or down, based on income for the year. Generally this is a painless process, as once a year we try to take a look at if the amount we are getting in our individual checking and savings accounts is enough.
