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Now that all the merry money wasting is over, we have a few realities to take care of. One of the more important ones of course is how to divy up financial responsibility, banking accounts, and general money handling matters. I'm looking to prevent any future mental anguish.
How do you married folks handle your finances? Does everything go and come from one joint account? Or do you still keep your individual ones? What spending amount is realistic to consult the other about?
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I've been married for about five years, and my wife and I have not had a single fight about money in that time. Here's how we do it:
Create a budget for shared household expenses that are (roughly) the same every month, such as mortgage payments, property tax, car payments, insurance, Internet, cable/satellite, electricity, etc.
Create a second budget for shared expenses that vary from month to month, such as groceries or going out together to restaurants and movies.
Once you've figured out exactly how much you're spending on each of these two budgets, go to your bank and setup two joint accounts. The first is your "bills" account, and the second is your "food and entertainment" account.
Next, figure out how you want to divide the expenses. My wife and I have pretty similar salaries, so we split all shared expenses 50-50. If there's a large income disparity between you and your spouse, though, you might want to divide it up proportionally based on percentage of household income instead. For example, if one partner makes 60% of the household income, he or she pays for 60% of the shared expenses. How you choose to divide your joint costs is entirely up to you.
Once you've created your two household budgets and decided how much both spouses are going to pay towards each one, setup automatic transfers so that whenever you get paid, you deposit your share into the two joint accounts.
With all shared expenses accounted for, any money remaining in your personal accounts is yours to spend as you each see fit. If she wants to buy a new pair of $300 shoes or you want to fly to Vegas for a weekend of hookers and blow with the boys, knock yourself out. You don't need to ask permission because all money needed by the household has already been covered.
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Here's a summary of the accounts my wife and I have:
Joint account for shared recurring bills (mortgage, utilities, etc.)
Joint account for shared food and entertainment (groceries, restaurants, movies, etc.)
Personal accounts for everything else (payroll deposits go here)
Personal accounts for RRSP and TFSA contributions
Personal credit card accounts
As I said, we've been married for nearly five years and have never had a fight about money. It takes a bit of initial setup time, but the system has works fantastic for us.