What's the point of a joint bank account these days?

[blackomen]

I'm just curious if a joint bank account has any purpose given our circumstances.

My wife and I pay for everything using our own credit cards and we pay the balance in full at least like 95% of the time each month.  We already direct deposit our paychecks to our bank accounts and pretty much the only bill we pay from our bank accounts are our credit card bills.

Our savings go into two buckets: our IRA and 401K (retirement savings) and a taxable brokerage account (long term investments in safe index funds that also dubs as an inflation-proof emergency fund.)  We don't keep much in our bank accounts and after the end of the month, most of the cash goes towards either paying our credit card bills or into our investment accounts.

We only opened a joint bank account today solely for the purpose of depositing the Stimulus Check which was made payable to us.

Given our circumstances, does a joint bank account make sense?  My wife is wondering since it seems like everyone she knows has one but she think we're kinda "weird" for not having and using one.

Btw, I personally feel a joint taxable investment account makes more sense here.

What do you think?

[rantk81]

The reason to have (or not have) a joint bank account is more of a social/relationship/cost-sharing issue that you should discuss and work out with your spouse.

With a brokerage account, there is a potential tax advantage to having separate accounts, in each other's name.  That is, if one of you were to pass away, the spouse will be able to do a step-up in cost basis.

[Duke03]

My wife and I have been happily married for 15 years.  Never had a joint account and it's never been a problem.  She even says it would be weird if I could look and dissect every purchase she made. I trust her and she trust me.  I also don't need to know why or what she spent $48 on at Target!!!

[K_in_the_kitchen]

30+ years of marriage, joint account from the beginning.  It works for us as we've always believed in "our" money, which our community property state agrees with.  It also makes things simple.

[Dreamer40]

I've always found it easier to have a joint account where all our income goes and from where all our bills get paid. Our credit cards are shared. Investments accounts are shared. We pooled all our resources at the beginning of the marriage and this works for us. The biggest benefit is never having to split bills or ask whose turn it is to buy toilet paper.

Within our budgeting system, we each have a discretionary personal envelope that gets money added every month. This is separate from any legit household expenses. We can each spend or save it as we wish. No questions asked. There's always enough in it that I feel like I could do or buy stuff I want. Sometimes mine gets bigger than I need and I throw some back in the shared pot.

[Frankies Girl]

Legally, joint bank accounts are an advantage so if one of the joint owners passes away, the account isn't locked and bill paying capabilities aren't disrupted. If the accounts are singly-owned, then they are subject to locking out unless/until the beneficiary/heir identity is established to the financial institution's requirements.

For most of my marriage, we had two joint accounts but one was my personal account, and one was his. We did not check up on each others' accounts, but the ability to do so was there if there was an emergency. We had them at the same bank so the login was the same, just remembered which one was which and mostly didn't worry about things other than making sure the bills were paid and there were no too low balances and the like. We each controlled our own income and paid all the bills from one or the other. After the both of us FIREd, there wasn't a real need to have two of them as there was no income streams other than the investments, so we closed one and both use a single joint account now to keep things simple and easy.

No way I'd do a joint brokerage/investment account as that would lose the stepped up cost advantage. You can make the other a fully authorized user and make sure they are the beneficiary, but the stepped up cost thing is mega important to safeguard.

[Metalcat]

Are you just asking for your circumstances, or are you asking about joint accounts in general still being useful "these days" as indicated in your thread title?

[Morning Glory]

If your system is working, there is no point in changing it.

We set up a joint bank account when we got married but never used it; it seemed superfluous. We use our own accounts to pay our credit cards, and I transfer money to my husband every paycheck now that he doesn't work.

[John Galt incarnate!]

The reason to have (or not have) a joint bank account is more of a social/relationship/cost-sharing issue that you should discuss and work out with your spouse.

Right.

Beloved SO and I decided  we won't get married and we live in separate houses so we have no need for joint accounts.

[MudPuppy]

If it ain’t broke...


We have had joint for the last 5 years. The first ~7 years of our relationship we were separate and it was fine, too. For us, married high school sweethearts in a community property-ish state, it just made things easier for home buying purposes. We came into the marriage with nothing but student loans and and enough money for the rent so we don’t have any real property that doesn’t belong to both of us. We do each have a separate savings account with a small amount of “escape” money in case things were to go bad.

[Chris22]

Like others, my wife and I got married pretty much right out of college and we both had no real money. So pushing my $5-10k together with her $5-10k was no big deal, and everything since has been ours. We both will randomly start “slush funds” with random found money to make big purchases or whatever but those are pretty short lived.

But if I were to get married today, having established myself much more significantly professionally and financially, I’d be much less in a hurry to push finances together, especially if my spouse and I weren’t on equal footing (my wife and I make more or less the same money.).

[MoseyingAlong]

No way I'd do a joint brokerage/investment account as that would lose the stepped up cost advantage. You can make the other a fully authorized user and make sure they are the beneficiary, but the stepped up cost thing is mega important to safeguard.

This isn't right for some circumstances.

First, if it's a community property state, the joint account gets 100% step-up in basis when one spouse dies. If it was 2 separate accounts, only one would get the step up.

Second, if it's not a community property state, the joint account gets a 50% step-up in basis. This may be better than if the gains are unevenly spread in the two separate accounts.

I don't see how either scenario of joint account is losing the step-up advantage. Could you provide more details or an example?

[HPstache]

Do you have kids, or are you planning on having kids?  If you are, honestly just go joint now and save the drama so that you can enjoy your first baby.

[Dictionary Time]

Legally, joint bank accounts are an advantage so if one of the joint owners passes away, the account isn't locked and bill paying capabilities aren't disrupted. If the accounts are singly-owned, then they are subject to locking out

Absolutely this. You’re young and healthy so this isn’t on the radar. But if something did happen to one of you, does the other want to be figuring out which bills were coming out of the now frozen account and fixing them?

You can just make each other joint in name only on your individual accounts and act like you’re not. But you’ve got that covered.  You wouldn’t have to do anything different than the current set up.

If there are reasons not to do that, trust issues etc, you could have a joint that bills come out of and two individual accounts (with pay on death to the other spouse). Then if the unthinkable happens, you just shovel extra money into the bill account while you sort out the rest of it.

It’s just a form of preparation like a will or advance directive that you do as a kindness just in case.

[terran]

Our finances are completely combined, so all our bank accounts are joint so the bank will speak to either of us if we call.

[charis]

Our finances are completely combined, so all our bank accounts are joint so the bank will speak to either of us if we call.

Same here. My spouse's daytime schedule is less flexible than mine so it's much easier for me to make financial calls.

Joint accounts are still very useful.

We only have joint accounts (mainly for control if something happens to the other) and rarely look at, much less dissect, each other's purchases. My spouse has never logged into our bank accounts and I do it rarely, mainly to transfer money or confirm the balance, never to review transactions. 

All of our (joint credit card) spending is track on Mint, so the transaction data are there if we need it, but it doesn't tell you who spent what at the grocery store on a given day.

If a spouse has an issue with the other even seeing their spending, for whatever reason, that would be red flag for me. If other spouse, however, is controlling or scrutinizing the purchases, that is another issue.

[Greystache]

Been married 38 years. Always had a joint account for simplicity. Why have two when one will do? If you live in a community property state, there is no his and hers assets, just ours so separate accounts don't really accomplish anything except maybe a little bit of privacy.  If you don't want your spouse to (easily) see what you are buying them for Christmas, just get separate credit cards. There are other reasons to have separate credit cards. Both spouses build a credit history and if one card is lost or declined for suspicious activity, you always have another card to go to.

[Imma]

We have seperate and joint accounts, things that we are legally both responsible for (like the mortgage and property taxes) come out of our joint account, so we can both see that those bills are paid. Plus groceries for convenience. Anything else is seperate (legally as well as practically). We are both authorized users of the other's checking account though, just in case of emergency. We've never actually used that.

From a purely legal point of view: divorce happens all the time, people making a mess of their finances happens all the time, people hiding financial difficulties happens all the time. Personally, I feel that any invoice that I am liable for needs to be paid from an account that I have access to, so I can check whether the payment has happened. I have friends who have deals like "husband pays the mortgage and wife pays the car" and while that's their choice and none of my business, I simply don't trust anyone in the world enough to ever do that. Maybe I'm paranoid.

[sui generis]

My husband and I have exactly one joint account and that is to our password manager, Last Pass, where we store absolutely every password ever.

We are each the beneficiary on all of each other's accounts, in case of death. But with respect to the "nowadays" question, if we needed or wanted to make sure a bill was getting paid or some other financial transaction happened, we'd just log in to the other's account and make it happen as if we were them. Presumably there are still some things one can't do simply by logging in online, but through the last few years of changing custodians on HSAs, rolling over 401ks, and all the other usual stuff, I haven't found a circumstance in which it was necessary for any account to actually be joint.

[scottish]

It's useful for estate planning in Canada.    If you have separate accounts, then when one of you dies, her assets/accounts will need to go through a probate process.

This costs about $500 in legal fees plus the probate fees.    Probate fees are determined by province.   In Alberta it's a flat rate of a few hundred dollars.   In Ontario it's a percent of the estate value.

As Frankie's girl noted, it can also take a couple of months to get through the probate process.   And then it can take quite a while to settle the estate.   During this time you won't have access to your spouse's accounts.

[StashingAway]

My wife and I have been happily married for 15 years.  Never had a joint account and it's never been a problem.  She even says it would be weird if I could look and dissect every purchase she made. I trust her and she trust me.  I also don't need to know why or what she spent $48 on at Target!!!

You can definitely have a joint account and not see the other's purchases. We have a joint account. We have separate credit cards. We buy almost nothing with the bank account. It's just there to accrue paychecks and pay off the credit cards.

[StacheDash]

One very small reason to have a single joint account: Some checking accounts require minimum account balances to waive monthly maintenance fees. Fewer accounts means fewer minimum balances to worry about.

[Metalcat]

My wife and I have been happily married for 15 years.  Never had a joint account and it's never been a problem.  She even says it would be weird if I could look and dissect every purchase she made. I trust her and she trust me.  I also don't need to know why or what she spent $48 on at Target!!!

You can definitely have a joint account and not see the other's purchases. We have a joint account. We have separate credit cards. We buy almost nothing with the bank account. It's just there to accrue paychecks and pay off the credit cards.

Also, since when does a bank account tell you what was bought at Target???

I mean, if a couple doesn't want a joint bank account, then that's their business, but that seems like odd reasoning.

[GreenSheep]

In the event of the death of one half of a couple, is there a difference between a joint account and a solo account for which the spouse is an authorized user? My husband and I have the latter situation (he has an account, I have an account, and we're each an authorized user on the other's account), but now I'm wondering if making them fully joint accounts would provide better protection when one of us dies.

I'm referring to checking and savings accounts here, not investment/retirement accounts.

[Sandi_k]

We have seperate and joint accounts, things that we are legally both responsible for (like the mortgage and property taxes) come out of our joint account, so we can both see that those bills are paid. Plus groceries for convenience. Anything else is seperate (legally as well as practically). We are both authorized users of the other's checking account though, just in case of emergency. We've never actually used that.

From a purely legal point of view: divorce happens all the time, people making a mess of their finances happens all the time, people hiding financial difficulties happens all the time. Personally, I feel that any invoice that I am liable for needs to be paid from an account that I have access to, so I can check whether the payment has happened. I have friends who have deals like "husband pays the mortgage and wife pays the car" and while that's their choice and none of my business, I simply don't trust anyone in the world enough to ever do that. Maybe I'm paranoid.

+1 - this is how we're set up as well. Joint for all household bills, but our paychecks are auto-deposited to our "individual" accounts (which are legally joint, but we never look). So, if something should happen to the other, we have legal access to all funds.

No worries, and it works well.

[OtherJen]

If your system is working, there is no point in changing it.

This sums it up nicely. One size doesn’t fit all.

My husband and I have had joint accounts for our entire nearly 18-year marriage. It works really well for us. It’s been very helpful for our long-term financial planning and shorter-term budgeting, especially because I handle the household accounting and enjoy not juggling additional accounts. We discuss larger purchases, but neither of us is a spendthrift so I don’t need to know why he spent $80 at Home Depot or $40 at a restaurant (and usually he’ll mention in passing that it was his turn to treat his coworkers to a takeout lunch). I just download the credit card statements into Quicken and look for anything suspicious (e.g., unusually large transactions that we hadn’t discussed).

[Frankies Girl]

In the event of the death of one half of a couple, is there a difference between a joint account and a solo account for which the spouse is an authorized user? My husband and I have the latter situation (he has an account, I have an account, and we're each an authorized user on the other's account), but now I'm wondering if making them fully joint accounts would provide better protection when one of us dies.

I'm referring to checking and savings accounts here, not investment/retirement accounts.

You'd need to check with your bank, but I'm basing my experience on actually asking about what happened to a single account, and also seen what happened when relatives died and had to wait for the executor to gain access to the funds (having to open/retitle the existing savings or checking account as a executor-controlled account).

You definitely would want to read any fine print or speak to your bank manager, but it is my understanding (in both bank accounts or financial/investment accounts) in the even a single account owner dies, the authorized user is no longer authorized and should not be allowed to access after the date of death. They are not an owner; they are acting with the authority of the actual account holder, and once that account owner is dead - well, that ends the legal authorization. I imagine that it could get pretty sticky if an authorized user delayed informing a financial institution of the account holder's death and then used that account - it's not legal.

Being a joint owner means it usually by default was set up with "right of survivorship" added in there. It is pretty standard for joint owners on shared accounts like checking/savings/mortgages even. It just means that the account is jointly owned, but if one dies, the other one legally becomes the sole owner, so no heir/beneficiary/probate required and account does not have to be closed out. At most they remove the deceased owner's name as soon as they are informed or given a death certificate, but it legally is still allowed for the living owner to continue to use as they wish.

[GreenSheep]

In the event of the death of one half of a couple, is there a difference between a joint account and a solo account for which the spouse is an authorized user? My husband and I have the latter situation (he has an account, I have an account, and we're each an authorized user on the other's account), but now I'm wondering if making them fully joint accounts would provide better protection when one of us dies.

I'm referring to checking and savings accounts here, not investment/retirement accounts.

You'd need to check with your bank, but I'm basing my experience on actually asking about what happened to a single account, and also seen what happened when relatives died and had to wait for the executor to gain access to the funds (having to open/retitle the existing savings or checking account as a executor-controlled account).

You definitely would want to read any fine print or speak to your bank manager, but it is my understanding (in both bank accounts or financial/investment accounts) in the even a single account owner dies, the authorized user is no longer authorized and should not be allowed to access after the date of death. They are not an owner; they are acting with the authority of the actual account holder, and once that account owner is dead - well, that ends the legal authorization. I imagine that it could get pretty sticky if an authorized user delayed informing a financial institution of the account holder's death and then used that account - it's not legal.

Being a joint owner means it usually by default was set up with "right of survivorship" added in there. It is pretty standard for joint owners on shared accounts like checking/savings/mortgages even. It just means that the account is jointly owned, but if one dies, the other one legally becomes the sole owner, so no heir/beneficiary/probate required and account does not have to be closed out. At most they remove the deceased owner's name as soon as they are informed or given a death certificate, but it legally is still allowed for the living owner to continue to use as they wish.

This is very helpful! Thank you!

[bacchi]

A joint account is also owned differently so it will increase the government protection for deposits.

joint $250k x 2
you $250k
spouse $250k

This also applies for stocks and bonds: https://www.sipc.org/for-investors/investors-with-multiple-accounts

[hooplady]

I have a joint account and I'm not even married or in a relationship. After seeing what happened when relatives passed away, I felt it was a good idea to have at least one small account that could easily be accessed by someone else immediately.

I set up a joint account with a good friend; she is already the executor of my estate and I hers. Yes, in theory she could withdraw every penny but I'm OK with that remote risk. I'd rather know that if something happens to me (death, coma, disability) someone else has funds available right away to keep my household going.

[deborah]

We used to have separate accounts, but after we retired we decided on joint accounts. As Frankies Girl says, you continue to be able to access the account, and it doesn’t need to change when one of you dies. If your automatic payments come out of the joint account, you don’t have to worry about them stopping while you are bereaving, not able to think straight, and inundated with other problems.

But there’s another reason we have joint accounts. We’re not married, but we’ll each inherit from the other. If some relation decided to contest the will, joint accounts (among other things - we’ve been together for about 40 years) show that we’re co-dependant, and the will is more likely to be upheld. It’s amazing who contests wills.

[sui generis]

We used to have separate accounts, but after we retired we decided on joint accounts. As Frankies Girl says, you continue to be able to access the account, and it doesn’t need to change when one of you dies. If your automatic payments come out of the joint account, you don’t have to worry about them stopping while you are bereaving, not able to think straight, and inundated with other problems.

But there’s another reason we have joint accounts. We’re not married, but we’ll each inherit from the other. If some relation decided to contest the will, joint accounts (among other things - we’ve been together for about 40 years) show that we’re co-dependant, and the will is more likely to be upheld. It’s amazing who contests wills.

One of my favorite classes in law school was Estates & Trusts because the case law is the most fun and bizarre to read due to all the kooky stories.  Just unbelievable what some people do.

[hooplady]

One of my favorite classes in law school was Estates & Trusts because the case law is the most fun and bizarre to read due to all the kooky stories.  Just unbelievable what some people do.

Ohhhh...me too! And when I have to do continuing education the E&T is always the juiciest. Second only perhaps to the fraud cases.

[Adventine]

Apart from all the great reasons already mentioned, I have another good reason to have a joint bank account. I don't think it's applicable to OP's situation, but I'm posting it here in case it helps others.

When immigrating to the US through marriage (as I will), I will be obliged to prove to the US government that I have a bonafide marriage.

One of the strongest forms of evidence is financial comingling, such as a joint bank account with my future spouse. At some stage in the future, I will be required to provide the US government with years worth of our joint bank statements.

Again, not quite applicable to OP's case, but applicable to all US citizens with foreign spouses or fiancé(e)s, who wish to move to States.

[billy]

30+ years of marriage, joint account from the beginning.  It works for us as we've always believed in "our" money, which our community property state agrees with.  It also makes things simple.

Ditto, 14 years. I imagine when 1 spouse handles the finances theirs more joint accounts, I also heard having his, hers, and ours is another way.

[Morning Glory]

Apart from all the great reasons already mentioned, I have another good reason to have a joint bank account. I don't think it's applicable to OP's situation, but I'm posting it here in case it helps others.

When immigrating to the US through marriage (as I will), I will be obliged to prove to the US government that I have a bonafide marriage.

One of the strongest forms of evidence is financial comingling, such as a joint bank account with my future spouse. At some stage in the future, I will be required to provide the US government with years worth of our joint bank statements.

Again, not quite applicable to OP's case, but applicable to all US citizens with foreign spouses or fiancé(e)s, who wish to move to States.

What the fuck, really? A joint tax return isn't enough? Lots of people have separate bank accounts after marriage.  Immigration law is just weird.

[Adventine]

Apart from all the great reasons already mentioned, I have another good reason to have a joint bank account. I don't think it's applicable to OP's situation, but I'm posting it here in case it helps others.

When immigrating to the US through marriage (as I will), I will be obliged to prove to the US government that I have a bonafide marriage.

One of the strongest forms of evidence is financial comingling, such as a joint bank account with my future spouse. At some stage in the future, I will be required to provide the US government with years worth of our joint bank statements.

Again, not quite applicable to OP's case, but applicable to all US citizens with foreign spouses or fiancé(e)s, who wish to move to States.

What the fuck, really? A joint tax return isn't enough? Lots of people have separate bank accounts after marriage.  Immigration law is just weird.

It's to prevent immigration fraud, such as green card marriages.

Some of the strongest evidence of a legitimate marriage is financial comingling, and some of the best examples of that is a joint bank account. Strictly speaking, I could choose not to submit the statements, but my legal presence in the US depends on how much evidence I and my future spouse can present. And that is not something that either of us wants to gamble on.

From the USCIS website:

Evidence of the Relationship
Submit copies of documents indicating that the marriage upon which you were granted conditional status was entered in “good faith” and was not for the purpose of circumventing immigration laws. Submit copies of as many documents as you can to establish this fact, to demonstrate the circumstances of the relationship from the date of the marriage to the present date, and to demonstrate any circumstances surrounding the end of the relationship, if it has ended. The documents should include, but are not limited to, the following examples:

[snip]

3. Financial records showing joint ownership of assets and joint responsibility for liabilities, such as joint savings and checking accounts with transaction history, complete joint Federal and State tax returns, insurance policies that show the other spouse as the beneficiary, joint utility bills, or joint installment or other loans.

[Morning Glory]

It sounds like you don't have to have all the things, but I agree that more is better in your case. You can have all of those things except the tax returns without being married so I don't know if it proves much.

We have both names on our house and mortgage. everything else is one or the other (credit cards, vehicles, utilities, bank accounts). We each have access to each other's passwords in case something happens, and we set each other up as beneficiaries for insurance, investment accounts, and pensions.

[Adventine]

@Morning Glory
Yes, exactly. Perhaps I should have been more precise. Among all the possible forms of evidence listed on the USCIS website, I know that for my particular situation, the best evidence will be our joint bank account. Other couples with different circumstances will be able to provide other many of the other listed types of evidence.

Anyway, back on topic, a joint bank account has so many practical advantages well beyond my niche case.

[StashingAway]

If your system is working, there is no point in changing it.

This sums it up nicely. One size doesn’t fit all.

My husband and I have had joint accounts for our entire nearly 18-year marriage. It works really well for us. It’s been very helpful for our long-term financial planning and shorter-term budgeting, especially because I handle the household accounting and enjoy not juggling additional accounts. We discuss larger purchases, but neither of us is a spendthrift so I don’t need to know why he spent $80 at Home Depot or $40 at a restaurant (and usually he’ll mention in passing that it was his turn to treat his coworkers to a takeout lunch). I just download the credit card statements into Quicken and look for anything suspicious (e.g., unusually large transactions that we hadn’t discussed).

Preface: I'm not suggesting you change course or anything. Do what works.

With that said, nothing you listed can't be done just as easily with a joint savings/checking account (if not easier). You don't appear to have listed any benefits to the separate account. And from your description you seem to imply that a joint bank account is the same thing as a joint credit card account. I think when most people talk about joint accounts, they are using separate credit cards.

Unless there's some kind of long term planning things I'm misunderstanding.

[WhiteTrashCash]

My wife and I have a joint checking account that we use as a bucket to hold money for shared bills. That's pretty much all it is used for.

[Dicey]

A joint account is also owned differently so it will increase the government protection for deposits.

joint $250k x 2
you $250k
spouse $250k

This also applies for stocks and bonds: https://www.sipc.org/for-investors/investors-with-multiple-accounts

^^This.^^ plus, DH and I trust each other, so everything goes into the same pot. This is great for me, as I am RE and he's still working, lol. We each have separate CC's, but they all get paid out of the joint account. If we don't find another house to flip, we're going to need to start another joint account at another bank, because we're getting close to the FDIC limits. MPP for sure.

[ixtap]

We established a joint account when I became the family CFO. Up until then, we each paid certain bills from our own accounts, but DH became too stressed out to keep up with silly little things like bills. It is still our only joint account, unless you also factor in authorized users on cc's.

[fuzzy math]

We have a joint account and use credit cards for everything.
It makes life much more simple when the mortgage, all utilities and some other random stuff is due. I can't imagine having to wait to transfer money from one individual account to the other just to be able to pay bills.
I'd be curious to know how often married people with separate accounts have to do transfers and wait for funds to clear. It seems like unnecessary work.

[sui generis]

We have a joint account and use credit cards for everything.
It makes life much more simple when the mortgage, all utilities and some other random stuff is due. I can't imagine having to wait to transfer money from one individual account to the other just to be able to pay bills.
I'd be curious to know how often married people with separate accounts have to do transfers and wait for funds to clear. It seems like unnecessary work.

Never? I literally never have.

Whereas it does take time to set up all these joint accounts in the first place, presumably. It's been easier for us to just not do the extra work of settig anything up, and we've never had to do extra work of not having anything joint, either. It's been seamless!

[NotJen]

We have a joint account and use credit cards for everything.
It makes life much more simple when the mortgage, all utilities and some other random stuff is due. I can't imagine having to wait to transfer money from one individual account to the other just to be able to pay bills.
I'd be curious to know how often married people with separate accounts have to do transfers and wait for funds to clear. It seems like unnecessary work.

It never occurred to me that transferring money between accounts was something to be avoided.

When I was married, I managed all the finances, and we had a mix of separate and joint accounts.  We kept our DDs going into our original accounts after we got married, just due to inertia - sometimes bills got paid from separate accounts, sometimes I transferred money, it was never onerous as a person who enjoys things like paying bills and tracking spending.

Before we were married but had shared expenses, we transferred money by writing checks to each other.  Imagine that!  Before mobile deposit days, when you had to actually go to your bank.  Never had any issues with that either.

Heck, now that I'm single I have a whole mix of accounts, and have to make transfers sometimes.  Its never been a problem at all.  I have buffer in my accounts, and transfer way before the money is needed, the 3 days or whatever it takes is never any concern, and I'm never "waiting" on the money.

[waltworks]

Look, it mostly depends on how the relationship works. If you're essentially just long-term friends with benefits (which is fine) and you don't have kids or other dependents, then it probably makes sense to keep accounts separate, because your lives aren't really that tightly tied together.

If you have kids, elderly dependents, etc, and your lives are tightly tied together by shared responsibilities, then having separate accounts is at best potentially annoying, and at worst a legal catastrophe if one partner is incapacitated.

-W

[moneypitfeeder]

Legally, joint bank accounts are an advantage so if one of the joint owners passes away, the account isn't locked and bill paying capabilities aren't disrupted.

Absolutely! It can also let you avoid probate if you have a simple situation where, for example, everything should transfer from one spouse to the survivor. My mother and father had "almost" everything in a joint status, so most things were easy and would not have required probate when my dad passed away. She had to pay a lawyer a couple grand to open probate just to get the house in her name so she could sell. Unconscionable, when they bought the house they were not told there was an option in their state to indicate a transfer on death deed (was available when they bought) and they simply put it in dad's name, mom wasn't working at the time. Every other account, annuity, everything was joint.

[Chris Pascale]

Well, Dave Ramsey says.......okay never mind.

[GreenSheep]

Look, it mostly depends on how the relationship works. If you're essentially just long-term friends with benefits (which is fine) and you don't have kids or other dependents, then it probably makes sense to keep accounts separate, because your lives aren't really that tightly tied together.

If you have kids, elderly dependents, etc, and your lives are tightly tied together by shared responsibilities, then having separate accounts is at best potentially annoying, and at worst a legal catastrophe if one partner is incapacitated.

-W

Wow. So married couples who don't have children or other dependents "aren't really that tightly tied together." Maybe I'm just overly sensitive and you happened to strike a nerve, but I'm so tired of people thinking that ours isn't a "real" marriage since we've chosen not to have kids. We have plenty of shared responsibilities that don't involve small humans, and we certainly think of our relationship as much more than "long-term friends with benefits."