Originally Posted by DoubleF
My wife and I have separate and joint accounts. Part of this was due to convenience. We also liked the idea of a joint account to hide certain transactions, such as to surprise each other with gifts. The split accounts mean nothing in terms of a shared pool. It ultimately is all our money. In our eyes, rightly or wrongly, joining the two accounts is more work than leaving them split. There's also advantages of split accounts, and since we don't pay bank fees, so there's really no reason for us to merge to save money either.
When my wife and I got married, the idea of having to create a brand new account and then redo all of our auto payments etc. seemed like a hassle. Instead of doing that, we created a joint account that we could transfer money to each other's personal accounts and kept our own personal accounts. We both have similar views on finances. We're both cheap on small things, but splurge on larger things (We rarely do coffee, but love fine dining sort of thing). We also love surprising each other, so it's nice that we can make purchases that the other cannot easily monitor. Lastly, though we do not really have to ask permission for our own spending, we still do if the spending is going to be over a few hundred bucks. Doing so is not necessary, but it shows mutual respect. I ask my wife prior to spending on many things, such as if I can splurge on video games. This annoys her, but she then asks me if she can splurge at Holts or Nordstrom. Usually we ask for a budget for discretionary spending. Split or joint account, spending can occur without asking.
I think the biggest thing that many posters are confused by for many couples with split accounts, is that you can have the split accounts, but still part of the same pool.
My wife and I had a long discussion about finances before we got married. Here's the major sticking point for the two of us. Equal is considered equal if you consider it equal.
In regards to chores, equal does not mean we each must do 50% dishes and 50% garbage. We settled on me fully in charge of garbage, she fully in charge of laundry. From a percentage point, it's 100% vs 100%, but is that equal? The amount of time it takes to tie up garbage and walk it out is not close to the time it takes to sort, wash and dry laundry. But my wife hates touching garbage. I don't care either way, but to us, that's equal. Money is the same way. As long as we deem it equal, who the hell cares if others wouldn't consider it equal in their eyes? Trying to split everything perfectly equal is weird. It's like nickel and dime~ing each other in our opinion.
In the same way, we discussed the idea that as long as the basics are covered (house, home, utilities etc.) it really doesn't matter whose account the money is in. Furthermore, we don't split all the amounts and tell each other to contribute the "fair" percent. As I mentioned earlier, equal is considered equal if you consider it equal.
I pay all the car costs, utilities and mortgages from my personal account. It just happened that way in terms of convenience from how we lived life before our finances were completely joined. My wife sends me a portion of her pay cheque each pay period to help (but we never really calculated if it's a "fair portion"), pays for all the vacation and since she ends up being the saver of the two of us (I'm paying most of our combined expenses from my account), she's in charge of the rainy day fund and the down payment for our next home.
We often chat about finances and on occasion she will transfer cash through our joint account so that I have something extra to put into RRSP, TFSA, lump sum payment for mortgage etc.
She was on a career path where she makes more than me previously and now. However, I will be making more than her starting in the next few years and it will stay that way for the long term.
There was also a comment about the "how do you split if you split"? If you're keeping that type of stuff in the back pocket, that's really not a healthy relationship. No prenup was signed between my wife and I. It has been well discussed that we are going to figure out how to make this work. If all goes to hell, we both are going to attack each other's net worth and we both know that lawyers win in such a scenario. Consider it a form of brinkmanship. I do own a condo that I had prior to our marriage that is solely in my name. However, if I decide to sell, it's going to the "shared pool". I also presume it's fair game to target if we decide to split.
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