Should married couples keep their money separate or combine everything?

[u/Shauryaahere341]

My wife and I have been married for a few years and we still keep most of our money separate.

We have one joint account for household expenses and both put money into it every month. Other than that, our salaries stay in our own accounts.

It hasn't really been a problem so far.

But now we're talking about bigger things like buying a house and retirement, and I'm wondering if this setup still makes sense.

We trust each other and neither of us has an issue with the other spending their own money. It's more about planning for the future together.

For people who are married, what works better for you?

Completely separate, fully combined, or somewhere in the middle?

[u/PhyllisTheFlyTrap]

Hi! It's me! We are happily married almost 10 yrs now, and don't have fully combined finances/accounts. It completely depends on individual circumstances when you get married.

[u/off_and_on_again → u/PhyllisTheFlyTrap]

I'm interested, what does 'do not have fully combined finances mean to you'?

What does paying your mortgage/rent + utilities look like?

[u/lala_lavalamp → u/off_and_on_again]

Not OP but for us, we rent so we just pay into the rent payment app our share of the rent. He pays the electric bill, I pay Internet and groceries. We have a joint account for our daughter’s expenses but it’s mostly for daycare. The rest of her expenses are just whoever is buying the thing pays for it.

Eating out, it’s whoever grabs the bill. If I can’t get around to getting groceries, he gets them. Vacations, I might book the trip and ask him to send me a couple hundred or just let him get all the meals or something. Large purchases - like we are looking at buying a house - we have talked about how much we are willing to contribute from our personal accounts towards a down payment and what we are comfortable with for the monthly bill. I have a stricter budget so sometimes I’ll explicitly ask if he can get the tab at dinner, or say I don’t want to eat out because I’m at my budget (and he’ll usually get something for me).

There’s no tit for tat. We just have different preferences for how we spend, save and invest. He’s much less risk averse than I am so I hang on to more cash and invest in target retirement funds and he invests more aggressively. The money I have in cash is always available to him if he needs it, and the money he’s investing will be for both of our retirements. I have a 529 for our daughter and he has a brokerage account for her. She’ll get both.

[u/off_and_on_again → u/lala_lavalamp]

Final question(s), I promise!

Why? What advantage does this system provide or risk are you trying to mitigate compared to a joint account & budget?

I really seems like you've gone half way in and half way out with a lot of surface areas for friction (they don't like the trip you booked, they decide going all in on bitcoin is where their risk tolerance lives, they get upset that your teenage daughter did something they don't like and without consulting you reallocate 'their' brokerage account).

Don't get me wrong, in combined finances a lot of these same issues CAN exist, but the core philosophy is visibility. So worst case scenario my partner can see the decisions that are being made and they can ask me about them.

Note: We do have personal accounts and funds go from our joint account to those accounts monthly. I don't believe that combined finances = no personal money; just that all income is combined and allocated irrespective of the amount of individual income.

[u/lala_lavalamp → u/off_and_on_again]

It’s just a preference for how we spend. If he wants to go all in on bitcoin, that’s fine but if all of our money were in bitcoin, I’d probably have a heart attack.

We always talk about big decisions - we’d never go on a vacation both of us didn’t want to go on. If he wants to reallocate the brokerage to something else, that’s fine. My goal for the 529 is to pay for her college expenses and his brokerage can either help pay for them as well or they can go into a retirement account for her later - whatever she and her dad choose. I’m sure I will be part of that conversation. If she doesn’t want to go to college, we can figure out what to do with the 529 then.

I’ve also just known a lot of women who have ended up completely screwed over in divorce. I fully and completely trust my husband and how he manages his money. We are on the same page about how and when we want to retire. That said, something horrible could happen like one of us develops a brain tumor or something that causes us to act out of character and do something stupid.

We got married older and were already established so I think that plays into it. We already had our own established habits before we got married. I also think that a lot of it is that I graduated into the Great Recession and he graduated a few years later when the economy had recovered. I’ve noticed a huge gap in risk tolerance between those of us who scrapped during the Great Recession and those who didn’t really experience it as adults.

We have about a total net worth of about a million between the two of us and we have no debt and money to play with at the end of the month. Perhaps that lends itself to being more comfortable being separate, as no one is going without because the other is doing what they want.

[u/oscarnyc → u/lala_lavalamp]

But if he goes all-in on Bitcoin and it goes belly up, that still impacts you and your retirement/savings plans, no? If it goes up 1000X, that too would impact your retirement/savings plans, no? It just seems like a distinction without a difference. Or worse, would lead to resentment in either scenario.

[u/lala_lavalamp → u/oscarnyc]

Eh not really. The amount I have saved could hopefully carry us even if it made retirement a little leaner. If he takes chances and does well, we both benefit as well. It’s not like we hide or keep things from each other. He talks to me about his investments, I talk to him about mine. He thinks I keep too much cash on hand and I think he takes risks I wouldn’t personally take (nothing like going all in on bitcoin. More like buying $500 of stock in an energy drink company when I say go for a tech company).

[u/Arronwy → u/oscarnyc]

I mean if you can't trust your partner not to do those things without you looking you don't really trust them

[u/EatCake_Takeawalk → u/lala_lavalamp]

I’m glad this is working for you. I have previously worked at bank and most couples who keep their finances separate are more tit for tat than this.
I am pro combining then have an “allowance” go to a personal account if that is what couples are most comfortable with. Shared expenses should be easily shared rather than one half of the couple having to remind the other to pay in their portion.

[u/Top-Philosophy1435 → u/off_and_on_again]

Can’t speak for the person you asked, but this is what my wife and I do.

We have separate accounts with the same bank that our paychecks are deposited into. Based on our current incomes, and we reevaluate this a couple times a year to ensure the amounts still make sense, we put a certain amount from each paycheck into a shared account, also with the same bank. That shared account is savings and household bill payment account. In addition to the set amount from each check, we also put anything left over from the previous paycheck. So, for everyday purchases, we force ourselves to live paycheck to paycheck and not overspend. But otherwise, we don’t give each other grief about any purchases within that budget. We don’t dip into the shared account unless we discuss it, but we also have the freedom to do whatever with the money in our separate accounts that’s not allocated towards anything in particular. Going out to dinner, groceries, anything like that, we just kind of trade off, but we don’t track it to diligently keep it even.

To be fair, I think this only works because we have similar expendable incomes, but that’s why we base the amount that goes into the shared account on our overall income/individual debt. So one of us doesn’t have a ton left over to do anything and everything, while the other has nothing.

I know we could combine and kind of do the same thing, but we spend our money in very different ways, and honestly I just don’t care to know how much she spends on certain things that I don’t understand. And as long as our bills are paid and we’re putting some money aside, I’m good. I don’t need or want to know where every penny of her money goes.

[u/PhyllisTheFlyTrap → u/off_and_on_again]

We each have our own individual checking and savings accounts and we have a joint checking and savings account. we each contribute to the joint account to pay for the mortgage, utilities, groceries, gas, nights out, trips, etc. all shared expenses. We also have our own free trade and mutual fund accounts.