Should Married Couples Keep Separate Bank Accounts? Money Love with Della Magi
When Jim and I got engaged we encountered what seemed to be a universal consensus on money: if we were planning on being married for life we would have joint accounts for everything. Anything less than a complete merging of finances would not only indicate our lack of commitment, it would also increase fights about money and raise our chance of divorce.
We took money seriously enough to share credit reports and have many discussions about finances while engaged, but we did not believe that combining finances was a magical elixir of marital bliss. We saw many reasons to combine finances and many reasons to keep separate accounts, and so the decision was made based on something we did not find on a financial checklist: the desire to have enough privacy to be able to surprise each other with gifts. One has to have one’s “own” money if there is to be any significance in spending it on the other rather than on oneself.
So we dared to keep financial accounts separate.
Ironically enough this has meant that we are more financially intimate than any other couple we know. It probably takes more work overall compared to the couples who have one spouse handle all of the money, but by having well-run separate accounts we get two huge advantages:
- We each know what is happening with the money and neither of us has to take the role of “enforcer” telling the other that there is not enough money for a certain luxury. We have separate accounts, but it is our money in the truest sense.
- We each know how the other one views money and all that that means in the intricate balance of priorities, patience, and attention to detail (or lack thereof).
In order to keep things running smoothly we have a few tricks, but not more than anyone managing a couple’s finances by herself.
- We use mint.com to pull in the information from all of our accounts so that we can easily get the “big picture” look at our money.
- We each have an ING checking account so that it only takes a few clicks to instantly transfer money from one of our accounts to the other.
- We check credit reports together.
We do not live up to our highest ideals of a monthly money date when we review Mint together and chat about financial goals, and we certainly don’t manage to check credit reports every four months.
But we do have a system where we are each informed and fights about money never escalate beyond me raising an eyebrow about Jim’s gaming purchases or Jim wondering how on earth I manage to spend so much on groceries.
And that is why we have no intention of ever completely merging our finances.
Do you have a preference for separate or joint finances? How does your financial system work for you? What is the one money tip that you would share with a newly engaged couple?
I am completely with you on this. My fiancé & I have been together for eleven years. Usually I earn less than he does but I always have more money & keep the house (his) afloat. He has kids so I don’t fault him for his finances. Love trumps money when it comes to offspring.
He is wiser now in co-signing things but we know it is my credit that will keep us afloat. I am the safety net.
I wish he would communicate more about his finances before a train wreck occurs but I readily communicate with him and he is wise enough to have Plan B in place. He’ll answer anything I ask but doesn’t want me oy veying, so I don’t ask unless it is getting scary tight. He trusts me enough that I have a password to his most volatile account (his son’s, which he co-signs) while he has none of mine.
We’ve never argued about money. And don’t think I am his Sugar Mama because his net worth is greater than mine. It’s a partnership and we keep it afloat because it is the us that matters, not the money. When we marry, it won’t be different. I’m the shield to his sword and that works for us. It is not other’s perception that matters but your own within your relationship.
When we got married, the standard conventional wisdom was, as you say, joint accounts. We didn’t do it; we have separate accounts. However, not exactly “separate.” We have two checking accounts with both our names on them, but one lists his first and one lists mine first, and those are our separate accounts.
Really, I think the key to financial marital success is trust and transparancy–big surprise, since that’s exactly the same as every other area of marriage. We keep pretty strict budgets, and there’s a lot of “what do you have left in your budget? Can you cover the laundry detergent/water softener repair/diaper-wipes run?”
Speaking of groceries, how do you figure out who buys them? And I suppose that goes for the rest of your shared expenses too, like bills.
LOVE the idea of being able to surprise each other with gifts.
Having two seperate accounts for me and my husband woudln’t work. We have a hard enough time keeping up with just one. Plus a combined account is a symbol of committment that I like. Not that it’s a symbol for everyone else, bit it’s one of many that say “We’re in it for the long run” to my husband and I
We do both, joint account for things that are, well, joint, like bills. And when we were both working full time (ie. before kids) we each also kept solo accounts, which has worked wonders. We make sure we both contribute enough to cover joint outgoings (including a holiday savings pot), but there are also no disputes for individual indulgences after that. When we first married, my mom was horrified that we were keeping separate accounts, but that was over 10 years ago and in the main, we seldom fight over finances.
Jim must eat very well. I do, and the grocery bill is probably the biggest share–after mortgage–of our expenses.
When we married, my wife insisted having everything joint, mostly because she really hadn’t had that with a responsible partner before. The downside of that is that she has intimate knowledge of all our finances, while I retain the details I find interesting from our frequent discussions. The upside is that she, having an accounting background, loves “handling the money”, as it were; and she is very good at it. I don’t have to worry. Neither of us is really big into luxuries. We usually “splurge” a few hundred dollars each at Christmas, but most of the time we live with what we have.
I guess my only point is that each couple must find what works well for them. There’s no reason they can’t try both approaches for 6 months or a year each, and then choose the one that suits them.
Noting that I rarely spent money on myself out of fear it would somehow bring down the entire budget (it really wouldn’t; just grew up on welfare and am a bit of a miser to overcompensate) my husband insisted that I have my own account that I can use to save or spend as I wish. It is also where I deposit payments for writing and childbirth classes.
Most of our accounts are joint, with the exception, of course, of corporate accounts.
Like the author, we use Mint and ING
Regardless of joint or separate accounts, one should be familiar with their spouses finances.
Yes married persons should keep separate accounts. Marriage is a partnership…relationship….business??? The very nature of marriage and business is to trust, to thrive. Each partner in each relationship should be well protected. In business there are many regulations each partner must follow in marriage there is the same but no regulating officials. If your partner left your marriage what would you do? Dissolve liquidate, file bankruptcy? Marriage is the the second most important relationship you’ll ever be in. Each person should be able to stay or walk away with the exact same amount of self respect and dignity.
Separate accounts for all!
Mr. Graves and I too have separate accounts. At first it only made sense because when we met we were both career minded individuals with our own car payments and bills linked to our individual accounts. Once we became married however and I became a full time SAHM we decided to remain separated. We did this because it simply works for us. Even though *technically* it is “his” money in my bank account (because I stay home), we each have different responsibilities within our home: I get the groceries and other home/family/recreational items with my account, and he covers bills. This makes perfect sense to us and keeps us from bickering over spending. I can not honestly remember the last time we fought about money. Maybe that’s just us and we’re some of the lucky few but I like to think it has a little to do with our decision to keep separate accounts.
Loved this read, and the compromise! Perfect harmony
We have been married for 14 years and have had separate accounts from the beginning. It’s perfect for us. We both have totally different methods for “balancing” our accounts and it would drive me crazy if we shared an account, so having separate accounts eliminates any fights over money. We did finally (after 10 years) add each other to our accounts in case either of us becomes incapacitated but we each still manage our own accounts. We also share a lot of the “tricks” you mentioned in your story, which makes it all very do-able!
We have both, like Julie above. The joint account is for the mortgage, the groceries, the bills, and other things that we do together. We also have joint savings accounts (ING makes this easy). But we have separate checking accounts for personal expenses. That way, I don’t have to pay for fantasy football magazines or Scotch, and he doesn’t have to pay for violin strings or vegetarian lunches with my coworker. I find that this arrangement makes our relationship that much easier.
There is no right or wrong answer that fits for all. Couples should work together to determine a system that works best for them.
The husband and I treat money a bit differently than the rest of you.
He works from home, and I help him in his business, also from home, and neither of us goes out except for grocery shopping or running errands or the like – we’re very firmly happy homebodies. 
So we’re together pretty much 24/7/365, and we like it that way. We do our shopping, including groceries, together. So the end run is that we’re both fully aware of everything that money is spent on, and we don’t have anything remotely approaching an extravagant lifestyle.
The one rule we have is that we both have full veto rights. One of us thinks that something is too extravagant or unnecessary? Veto! No arguments, although there’s occasionally some whining, usually from me, but it doesn’t last long.
In the end, it works for us. Very very well. And we can save money this way, too.
We do the three account method, too- one joint account, and each of us also has an individual account. (Actually, there are multiple joint accounts with our various types of savings, but that’s another story.) Our paychecks go into our individual accounts, and then an agreed upon percentage gets transferred to our joint account. All bills get paid from the joint account. The individual accounts are used for gifts to each other and the occasional splurge that we don’t feel we can really justify from the joint account- for instance, if I buy an extravagant pair of shoes or he buys a bunch of DVDs that he knows I’ll think are silly. But most things come out of the joint account.
We’ve been happily married for more than 5 years and we pretty much never argue about money, so I think this system is working well for us.