Let's talk about managing finances when you get married

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

But you don't need to keep it separate. We like to have something close to an equitable consumption of cookies in our house. But we don't split up the cookies into separate bags with names on them. We would only take those measures if trusting each other to be fair and honest about how many cookies we were eating had failed and was causing problems.

Well to be honest my wife has gotten into the habit of hiding away a can of soda or two when we buy a case because I go through it a lot faster. But then I hide some extra devil lettuce since she goes through it faster than me. We both know it, more than anything it causes laughs when we find a stash we had forgotten about. Marriage is all about the compromises.

And now all I want is a coke and a plate of cookies.

[Amethyst]

I like having separate accounts for myself, never mind a spouse, so maybe that's why I'm against pooling. I used to have a Canada Savings Bond account from the payroll deduction plan and that was my travel / fun money. I've been contributing since I started working and never even considered it in my budget for household expenses. If I ever got the urge to go somewhere, I just looked at the account and if there was enough, just booked it. Now that the program is gone, that money goes to the same place as the household expenses, so I have to make sure I figure out how much I really can spend on fun. The old way was easier and never hurt anyone.

The other thing to consider about having at least some money in your own name, is the same reason that people consider pre-nups. Sure, it's all great now, but what if your spouse turns out to be a jerk, becomes an addict, becomes abusive. He/she could quickly dispose of all the "family" income and you'd have nothing left. I'm not sure how it works if the other person on the joint account dies suddenly. Can the surviving spouse have immediate access if one dies in a car accident or something?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Amethyst

I like having separate accounts for myself, never mind a spouse, so maybe that's why I'm against pooling. I used to have a Canada Savings Bond account from the payroll deduction plan and that was my travel / fun money. I've been contributing since I started working and never even considered it in my budget for household expenses. If I ever got the urge to go somewhere, I just looked at the account and if there was enough, just booked it. Now that the program is gone, that money goes to the same place as the household expenses, so I have to make sure I figure out how much I really can spend on fun. The old way was easier and never hurt anyone.

The other thing to consider about having at least some money in your own name, is the same reason that people consider pre-nups. Sure, it's all great now, but what if your spouse turns out to be a jerk, becomes an addict, becomes abusive. He/she could quickly dispose of all the "family" income and you'd have nothing left. I'm not sure how it works if the other person on the joint account dies suddenly. Can the surviving spouse have immediate access if one dies in a car accident or something?

Yeah, that's the point I was making earlier. With a joint account, you have two owners, so if one dies the other can have access. With single accounts, if that person dies, the bank has to freeze the account until the estate is dealt with. I realise that's not top of mind, and perhaps seems unlikely (depending on age/health, etc.), but it would be a bad position to be in if your household spending was in a frozen account.

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by Slava

Yeah, that's the point I was making earlier. With a joint account, you have two owners, so if one dies the other can have access. With single accounts, if that person dies, the bank has to freeze the account until the estate is dealt with. I realise that's not top of mind, and perhaps seems unlikely (depending on age/health, etc.), but it would be a bad position to be in if your household spending was in a frozen account.

Yes, I agree it would be bad for one person to have all the money. That's why I suggested a joint account for household expenses and separate accounts for personal spending money.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

But you don't need to keep it separate. We like to have something close to an equitable consumption of cookies in our house. But we don't split up the cookies into separate bags with names on them. We would only take those measures if trusting each other to be fair and honest about how many cookies we were eating had failed and was causing problems.

OK, my mistake. I thought you meant you had separate discretionary spending. But no, you don't need to keep it separate,or anything I guess.
You don't need separate drawers in your bureau either, but I expect most people do.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

OK, my mistake. I thought you meant you had separate discretionary spending. But no, you don't need to keep it separate,or anything I guess.
You don't need separate drawers in your bureau either, but I expect most people do.

We just throw all our underwear in the same drawer. You get what you get that day!

[you&me]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

OK, my mistake. I thought you meant you had separate discretionary spending. But no, you don't need to keep it separate,or anything I guess.
You don't need separate drawers in your bureau either, but I expect most people do.

You keep separate drawers for the express purpose of making sure your things don't mix.

[Matt Reeeeead]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

How many of the people with shared accounts have a hidden personal stash of cash somewhere ? I call this the gambling , drinking , hidden presents , etc fund

I know at least 50% of my buddies have a hidden stash of some sort! And not for anything scandalas. As an example for betting of the British Open this weekend!

Things their wife may not be pumped about them spending the shared funds on !

Its not necessary from my end.

We both have separate credit cards that aren't analyzed by each other.

They may get paid from mutual funds, but Im never in a position where I'm like, "why is it so high this month?". There needs to be a level of trust there that when splurges and stuff happen that its done responsibly and within designed parameters and set out budget from the onset.

If at the end of the year we have mutually failed to reach financial goals we can have a discussion and analyze what the reason was and if it made sense. Hasn't happened in 5 years yet. And can comfortably say I have done plenty of drinking, gone to hockey games, and pretty much done whatever I felt like doing (within reason) where I felt like I had to hide a stack somewhere to make it happen.

[tkflames]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

We were married 6 years ago, she was with RBC and I was with Scotia. We never bothered to merge everything, arguing over which bank was better. I make more than she does, but we essentially just split things based on earnings and carrying capacity. I have been paying for her cars in my name, and she paid for my car in her name, simply based on who had the carrying capacity for the cost at the time. I pay the mortgage, she covers the utilities ect. It has been largely irrelevant to us and not a source of friction. TLDR, we were lazy and never merged our stuff, but it's been fine.

Both are horrible....you should have opened a new joint account or two separate accounts at a good bank.

[lazypucker]

Nm

[undercoverbrother]

My Wife and I have 1 account.

Currently I am the only one working, but when it is both we pool the monies.

Everything is 50/50 and discussions are had involving purchases.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by curves2000

Couple #1: Lower income spouse (male) is complaining about the state of his car which is very poor, meanwhile the higher income spouse (female) drives a luxury car and has sizable assets and flat out says "Well, he can't afford a new car, so what should I do about it?"

This is exactly where they lose me. I just couldn't see this attitude sliding into my marriage in a healthy way.

Things will come up that are just hard to square if you are trying to divide expenses.

Our best example is probably my pension, I have a fairly generous employer match offer and my wife is self employed. So all of our fixed monthly savings are going into my pension, while our net incomes are almost the same, she takes home more.

Not having to balance these things that actually become more complicated than you would expect really isn't worth the effort when I my wife and i are not going to deny eachothers needs.

[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.

[dobbles]

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.

I think everyone understands. We are just confused as to why you would add complexity for what we see as little to no benefit. We are confused to why everyone claims they need to have independent finances but as soon as they get push-back, they note that there are also shared resources. And if you are taking the time to make a share pile and figure out who pays what, then you are already doing most of the work of having a shared account. So why not just go for it?!?!?!

For our expenses I ensure we have more coming in than going out and its over. I don't have to take the time to calculate that I brought in 41.2% of the monthly income and she made 58.8% so that means my portion of the mortgage is $586 and hers is $832. And then take the time to transfer funds from each account into the shared pool to pay the darn thing. Even if you automate it, its still just extra steps to account for and for errors to occur.

So far the only downside to shared accounts I have seen is "I want to get my wife a gift without her knowing." We manage that by telling each other not to look at the bank transactions in the weeks leading up to special events.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by dobbles

I think everyone understands. We are just confused as to why you would add complexity for what we see as little to no benefit. We are confused to why everyone claims they need to have independent finances but as soon as they get push-back, they note that there are also shared resources. And if you are taking the time to make a share pile and figure out who pays what, then you are already doing most of the work of having a shared account. So why not just go for it?!?!?!

For our expenses I ensure we have more coming in than going out and its over. I don't have to take the time to calculate that I brought in 41.2% of the monthly income and she made 58.8% so that means my portion of the mortgage is $586 and hers is $832. And then take the time to transfer funds from each account into the shared pool to pay the darn thing. Even if you automate it, its still just extra steps to account for and for errors to occur.

So far the only downside to shared accounts I have seen is "I want to get my wife a gift without her knowing." We manage that by telling each other not to look at the bank transactions in the weeks leading up to special events.

Speaking personally, it took about 30 mins to set up a spreadsheet, and now I put in 1 number and there is 1 transaction made a month. At least that is how my wife and I have it set up. This is also our budgeting spreadsheet and serves multiple purposes.

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by dobbles

So why not just go for it?!?!?!

Why?!?! Why do I have to go the hassle of closing down accounts, with all the attached automatic things just because someone else thinks that's the right way? My current bank has annoyed me in small ways a few times lately, but I have stuck with them just because of the hassle factor of changing to a new bank.

[Nyah]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

My wife and I have separate and joint accounts.

Same with us. We each have our own separate personal accounts, and one joint account. We have budgeted out how much our joint expenses are each month (mortgage, bills, insurance, etc.) and we each contribute our share to the joint account to cover those expenses every month.

We also have a joint Visa for travel points, and that gets reconciled each month where we pay our share out of our own personal accounts.

We've been doing it this way for almost 10 years and I think it works really well. We're also common-law, so I don't know how this may differ legally compared to marriage.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by dobbles

I think everyone understands. We are just confused as to why you would add complexity for what we see as little to no benefit. We are confused to why everyone claims they need to have independent finances but as soon as they get push-back, they note that there are also shared resources. And if you are taking the time to make a share pile and figure out who pays what, then you are already doing most of the work of having a shared account. So why not just go for it?!?!?!

For our expenses I ensure we have more coming in than going out and its over. I don't have to take the time to calculate that I brought in 41.2% of the monthly income and she made 58.8% so that means my portion of the mortgage is $586 and hers is $832. And then take the time to transfer funds from each account into the shared pool to pay the darn thing. Even if you automate it, its still just extra steps to account for and for errors to occur.

So far the only downside to shared accounts I have seen is "I want to get my wife a gift without her knowing." We manage that by telling each other not to look at the bank transactions in the weeks leading up to special events.

Beyond the secret purchases, it's not needing to figure out which auto payments need to be adjusted, contacting each and every auto pay to change payment to the new account, creating extra accounts, closing extra accounts, creating spreadsheets and discussing those on a monthly basis (which we sorta feel like is nickle and dime~ing each other) etc.

The funny thing is that we seem to be looking at the same situation and thinking there's complexity at different ends of the spectrum. Sure, I guess it wouldn't be hard to go full in joint account and deal with a few months transitional pain, but we don't really want to deal with the transition annoyances, though yes, it'll probably be less complex once we sort everything out.

My wife and I had actually sat down with a bank manager, discussed the idea of a joint account with him, then decided it was easier to just keep our old accounts and use a joint named savings account to move funds between the personal accounts. My wife has her employer automatically send a portion of her pay cheque to me, and as long as my account stays at the minimum balance to avoid bank fees, I'm cool. My wife and I don't need to track monthly expenses to see if she's contributing her fair portion (though we've discussed doing so from a personal finance literacy perspective).

If anything, we also think the split accounts force us to have conversations about our finances. Otherwise, we'd both probably just glaze over most of the transactions in a joint account, rather than wonder about the transactions in the other account.

My wife and I have the login information for each other accounts ranging from banking, social media, computers etc. We can literally login to each others accounts whenever we want. But we always ask each other for permission before we do so. This is an extension of that.

I mean, plausibly, this set up is an extension of our understanding that we are a unit as a married couple, but ultimately, we are both still individuals. The roommate comment previous made is worth addressing IMO, beyond disregarding as treating the idea as a way to look down on couples. Sometimes in my wife and my opinion, titles convolute things and make people act differently. We've seen many couples split soon after getting married even though they had been common law for many years. Why? We theorized that the couple started to "play adult" rather than stick with what works. Maintaining a dynamic where two individuals consider whether their actions make them a good roommate rather than "you married me, so you have to deal with whatever crap I dish on you" helps greatly to maintain peace, and not hate one another. Being a good room mate is one important facet of being a good couple in our opinions. Things that a room mate does that pisses you off doesn't suddenly stop pissing you off if you are married or common law.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

Beyond the secret purchases, it's not needing to figure out which auto payments need to be adjusted, contacting each and every auto pay to change payment to the new account, creating extra accounts, closing extra accounts, creating spreadsheets and discussing those on a monthly basis (which we sorta feel like is nickle and dime~ing each other) etc.

The funny thing is that we seem to be looking at the same situation and thinking there's complexity at different ends of the spectrum. Sure, I guess it wouldn't be hard to go full in joint account and deal with a few months transitional pain, but we don't really want to deal with the transition annoyances, though yes, it'll probably be less complex once we sort everything out.

My wife and I had actually sat down with a bank manager, discussed the idea of a joint account with him, then decided it was easier to just keep our old accounts and use a joint named savings account to move funds between the personal accounts. My wife has her employer automatically send a portion of her pay cheque to me, and as long as my account stays at the minimum balance to avoid bank fees, I'm cool. My wife and I don't need to track monthly expenses to see if she's contributing her fair portion (though we've discussed doing so from a personal finance literacy perspective).

If anything, we also think the split accounts force us to have conversations about our finances. Otherwise, we'd both probably just glaze over most of the transactions in a joint account, rather than wonder about the transactions in the other account.

My wife and I have the login information for each other accounts ranging from banking, social media, computers etc. We can literally login to each others accounts whenever we want. But we always ask each other for permission before we do so. This is an extension of that.

I mean, plausibly, this set up is an extension of our understanding that we are a unit as a married couple, but ultimately, we are both still individuals. The roommate comment previous made is worth addressing IMO, beyond disregarding as treating the idea as a way to look down on couples. Sometimes in my wife and my opinion, titles convolute things and make people act differently. We've seen many couples split soon after getting married even though they had been common law for many years. Why? We theorized that the couple started to "play adult" rather than stick with what works. Maintaining a dynamic where two individuals consider whether their actions make them a good roommate rather than "you married me, so you have to deal with whatever crap I dish on you" helps greatly to maintain peace, and not hate one another. Being a good room mate is one important facet of being a good couple in our opinions. Things that a room mate does that pisses you off doesn't suddenly stop pissing you off if you are married or common law.

I met a guy like that at a softball tournament.

It was grim.

[dobbles]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

Beyond the secret purchases, it's not needing to figure out which auto payments need to be adjusted, contacting each and every auto pay to change payment to the new account, creating extra accounts, closing extra accounts, creating spreadsheets and discussing those on a monthly basis (which we sorta feel like is nickle and dime~ing each other) etc.

The funny thing is that we seem to be looking at the same situation and thinking there's complexity at different ends of the spectrum. Sure, I guess it wouldn't be hard to go full in joint account and deal with a few months transitional pain, but we don't really want to deal with the transition annoyances, though yes, it'll probably be less complex once we sort everything out.

My wife and I had actually sat down with a bank manager, discussed the idea of a joint account with him, then decided it was easier to just keep our old accounts and use a joint named savings account to move funds between the personal accounts. My wife has her employer automatically send a portion of her pay cheque to me, and as long as my account stays at the minimum balance to avoid bank fees, I'm cool. My wife and I don't need to track monthly expenses to see if she's contributing her fair portion (though we've discussed doing so from a personal finance literacy perspective).

If anything, we also think the split accounts force us to have conversations about our finances. Otherwise, we'd both probably just glaze over most of the transactions in a joint account, rather than wonder about the transactions in the other account.

My wife and I have the login information for each other accounts ranging from banking, social media, computers etc. We can literally login to each others accounts whenever we want. But we always ask each other for permission before we do so. This is an extension of that.

I mean, plausibly, this set up is an extension of our understanding that we are a unit as a married couple, but ultimately, we are both still individuals. The roommate comment previous made is worth addressing IMO, beyond disregarding as treating the idea as a way to look down on couples. Sometimes in my wife and my opinion, titles convolute things and make people act differently. We've seen many couples split soon after getting married even though they had been common law for many years. Why? We theorized that the couple started to "play adult" rather than stick with what works. Maintaining a dynamic where two individuals consider whether their actions make them a good roommate rather than "you married me, so you have to deal with whatever crap I dish on you" helps greatly to maintain peace, and not hate one another. Being a good room mate is one important facet of being a good couple in our opinions. Things that a room mate does that pisses you off doesn't suddenly stop pissing you off if you are married or common law.

You're probably right about the bolded. I guess I just don't see the initial setup as a hurdle because we have switched banks multiple times as we move around the country, taken multiple jobs that require us to set up direct deposit, switched over all sorts of paperwork when we got married related to last names, etc. Perhaps the banking options up there are more limited and stable, but for me, there is fluidity to the process so there is ample opportunity to merge accounts without even having to make a big deal. And even if it took a day off of work to set up the first time, its one time setup versus ongoing issue. That's the rub for me on the complexity issue. Good discussion!