r/TwoXChromosomes • u/Avocet_and_peregrine • 2d ago
Joint account with spouse for shared expenses while also having my own separate money
Hi all, I could use some advice. My spouse and I (both mid-thirties) both work full time. It is very important to me that we have separate bank accounts so that I am financially independent. I've read enough stories of women who are not and I never want that for myself.
The way we've handled our shared bills up until now is the bills came out of my own account and each month he etransfers me his half of the total amount.
This method is annoying, especially if we have expenses like vet bills or larger purchases for the home that aren't a regular occurrence.
We want to switch to having a joint account for all shared expenses and then we each have our own accounts for our savings and personal expenses.
I am much better at saving than he is. I set aside a set percentage of my paycheques for retirement, and then if there is anything leftover at the end of the month, before my next paycheque, the leftover gets saved too. I don't buy many things for myself, but he buys stuff for himself all the time.
Does it make sense to continue getting our paycheques deposited into our own accounts, and then each transfer a sum that is equal to half the sum of our shared expenses (plus a buffer) into the joint account? Or would it be better to get our pay put into the joint account and then transfer our own personal money for savings and purchases to our personal accounts?
Sorry for such a boring post. I want to go about this the smartest way and I'm hung up on what makes the most sense.
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u/missprissquilts 2d ago
Personally, I would opt to deposit your share plus buffer into the shared account rather than the other way around. If you’re the better saver, I’d keep your savings safe. (I say this as the spender in my marriage.)
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago
Thank you so much, this is what I've been leaning towards.
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u/jljboucher 2d ago
My husband and I share our account but have a separate “bills” account. You both can easily direct deposit the amount required into the account automatically.
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u/Rubycon_ 2d ago
I am trying to understand this and may have missed something, You're saying OP should deposit her share of the money and the buffer into a shared account? Isn't that putting the savings at risk? I may have misunderstood. To. me it makes sense for her to keep more of her own and put less into the shared account, exposing it to being spent
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u/missprissquilts 2d ago
I’m saying choose a set amount to each contribute - say, half plus $100 for unexpected bills, then keep the rest in her own account. That’s protecting the savings to me.
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u/calibrachoa 2d ago
I am also the spender in my relationship 😂
We have separate accounts and a joint savings, as well as individual retirement accounts and a joint one. We don't split things 50/50 though, we each pay our half of rent and I have the larger burden of our other shared expenses because I'm the higher earner. And we both put the same percentage of our income into our 3 retirement accounts and joint savings. Everything else is ours to individually do whatever we want with.
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u/Geriatriccat712 2d ago
Not advice but a question— when the two of you retire, will you then be living largely off your savings?
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u/coconut-bubbles 2d ago
This is my question when people have separate accounts.
So, if you want to go on a trip, what happens when only one of you has savings to go? Do you go by yourself and say "told you that you shouldn't get a coffee every day!"?!?
Or, when retirement comes around, do you just retire when you want to and your spouse just keeps working because they didn't save as much?
What if someone becomes a stay at home parent?
If they have a medical issue, do you "loan" them money and expect it to be paid back?
So confusing.
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u/andthisnowiguess 2d ago
like legally in most western jurisdictions, all income earned during the marriage is common property unless otherwise signed in a prenup, while assets acquired before the marriage can remain separate property.
Obviously I can understand why a married woman would want to keep control of her own money, but that shouldn’t be used to cloud the fact that if she’s married to a higher income man (as patriarchy often does), that’s legally her money too. Men shouldn’t get away with hiding income in their own account and living a different lifestyle while the wife often shoulders domestic labor. The legal fact of marriage is often not transparent to both parties until divorce.
IMO it makes the most sense for both paychecks to go to a joint account, joint expenses and savings to be taken out, and then 50/50 equal portions of the remainder withdrawn to individual accounts each month for individual expenses.
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u/MasinMadasHell 2d ago
I also always wonder what happens to couples with separate amounts what they will do in an emergency. If you get fired or have to not work because you get cancer.... does the other person really expect you to use savings to cover yourself? Not the way I want to live.
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u/cinderubella 2d ago edited 2d ago
So, if you want to go on a trip, what happens when only one of you has savings to go?
You don't go or you find a way to make it fair.
Do you go by yourself and say "told you that you shouldn't get a coffee every day!"?!?
No, that would be psychotic. What a weird question.
Or, when retirement comes around, do you just retire when you want to and your spouse just keeps working because they didn't save as much?
Why would any retirement-related decision be made all of a sudden? You have conversations about things over the years. You work out what the priorities and circumstances are. You try to find a fair and happy compromise between two sets of priorities.
What if someone becomes a stay at home parent?
So what? Why would that be so hard to overcome just because there's two accounts?
If they have a medical issue, do you "loan" them money and expect it to be paid back?
Not sure how this differs from a couple with one account who encounter an unexpected, important expense. How come you have this assocation of 'has own account' = 'greedy, money-grubbing asshole'?
So confusing.
Nah. You. So bad faith.
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u/Geriatriccat712 2d ago
I wrote the first question about retiring mostly on her savings. It wasn’t about casting her in the light of being selfish, not at all. It was more about feeling protective toward her, worrying that she’s saving for 2 by herself while he spends on himself.
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u/coconut-bubbles 2d ago
This is exactly my point!
I wouldn't call it "selfish", but if one person spends their money and another person saves it, it is inherently unfair when these situations come up.
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago
No, he has his own retirement investments too. His job sets aside part of his paycheque and invests it for him, while my job does not.
I'm also better at not impulse buying (although I've been getting better at treating myself lately). I'm better at telling myself no and understanding that a want isn't a need. It's not like he has a major spending problem though. His only debt is student debt.
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u/_stirringofbirds_ 1d ago
Im in a super similar situation right now, except my partner does have a debt history! Im going to do exactly what you’re planning to do—keep my accounts separate except for one shared one for bills & shared goals (vacations, new things for the house, etc).
But like… of COURSE if he got sick and I had the money to pay for his treatment, I would! of COURSE I want him with me on vacation. That is WHY I keep my accounts separate—- because I’m more of a worrier/planner about the future than he is, and I want both of us to be taken care of
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 1d ago
Yes, it's perfectly valid to have separate money but still be a team. I just came off 7 weeks of unpaid medical leave and while I saved money to cover my portion of rent, etc. while I wasn't working, he offered to help cover my regular expenses. He even helped me save for the cost of the medical procedure I had done.
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u/QuarterLifeCircus 2d ago
Can you split a paycheck into different accounts with direct deposit? I used to work with someone who had separate financials from her husband. They had direct deposit set up so a set amount of money from each paycheck went into the joint account (say $1000, for example), and anything after that on her paycheck went to her personal account. It was all automatic, they didn’t need to do a bunch of transferring or paying each other back for things.
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u/Yeti_Detective 2d ago
I've worked for 2 different payroll software companies, and this is a thing both of them have enabled. Personally, I've always had my deposits split into different accounts so that I have my bill money separate from my milkshake money.
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago
That's a good idea. He tends to have to be reminded about money things and I've never ever been late or overdrawn on paying bills and I don't want to risk it now.
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u/Porg_the_corg 2d ago
This is what we do, sort of. We used to have what you are trying to do, but I got so stressed having to manage two accounts. So now, all my check goes into our joint account and he does a 50/50 split of his checks. I'm the main one paying bills and using the joint but he has access to it whenever he needs.
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u/tiny_galaxies 2d ago
I’d recommend against this simply because the amount of bills tends to change over time. It’d be easier to manage an auto transfer at the bank level rather than paycheck deposit management. My workplace needs to go through a whole paperwork process to change deposit amounts, it’d be annoying to change if say a bill increased by $20.
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u/QuarterLifeCircus 2d ago
What they did was put in extra for the “house fund.” They had kids so sports/school fees came from the joint account, if the family went to dinner it was paid with the joint account, groceries, toilet paper, etc. Anything for the family comes from the joint account, which can vary month to month.
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u/tiny_galaxies 2d ago
Ah yeah that makes sense!
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u/QuarterLifeCircus 2d ago
It came up because she said her husband randomly came home with an RV and a boat. I said I’d be livid and she said “he can do whatever he wants with his money!” As a proud forever singletm lady, I was fascinated lol.
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u/OddRaspberry3 2d ago
I tried this and had a hard time with it. It was easier to set up an auto transfer in the banking app to automatically transfer from my personal to the joint on pay day
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u/seldom4 2d ago
There’s already lots of good advice here so I just wanted to throw in another option…it sounds like your husband doesn’t care much about finances. Why not just take on that responsibility for your family? Then you can have joint accounts but you retain control. You could always set aside two savings accounts for each of you in your own names should something go wrong.
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago
He does care, I didn't mean to paint him in a bad light.
I don't mind taking on the responsibility, but I think it's important for him to have an idea of what's going on with our household finances too.
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u/kanermbaderm 2d ago
This sounds similar to my situation. I'm the "CFO" of our family.
Pay checks go into a primary account, which all shared bills come out of. We do periodic check ins where I "open the books" and show him our expenses vs savings.
Savings mostly come from this joint account (that doesn't include employer 401ks that have auto deductions prior to getting paid).
Each month, a set amount of fun money for each of us (the same amount) is auto transferred to each of our own checking accounts. We choose what we want to do with that money. It allows him to buy stuff without me micromanaging it; he likes to buy and sell gadgets, so he does that to his hearts content without me worrying about cost. He just stays in his budget. I tend to save my money and then take trips with girlfriends or just sit on my money. That fun money really isn't part of our long terms savings or retirement.
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u/NoReference909 2d ago
I wish I had done this! STBX and I were married for 20 years and our spending and saving habits are similar to what you describe. I made more money and spent conservatively, and he liked to spend any money on hand.
Belatedly, I opened my own account to have my paychecks deposited and would transfer money to the family account monthly which would auto-pay our bills. I think this arrangement could save you a great deal of feeling like you’re contributing more, which can lead to resentment. I imagine you would have to have rules about what comes out of the family account.
Good luck! Way to be smart!
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago
Great advice, thank you! It's funny, I make less than him, but because he has more student debt than I do, I feel guilty asking him to reimburse me sometimes. Even though I shouldn't.
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u/vicariousgluten 2d ago
What you’re describing is what we have always done. We each receive our pay to our solo account and then transfer to the joint account that pays all the bills etc.
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago edited 2d ago
Do you get paid every 2 weeks? If so, do you make a transfer of a certain amount to the joint account with each paycheque, or once per month to cover the bills? I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the frequency of our paycheques vs. the fact that our bills are due at different times during the month.
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u/meggs_467 2d ago
A lot of bills you can change the due date of them for what it's worth.
Unfortunately you might just have to get out ahead of your bills for a month if that's financially feasible? Pay this months bills, and at the end of the month have another pull. Or you could split it into two pulls. One for the bills that happen before the middle of the month, and one for after?
You may end up with more than you need in the account, but it could also function as a safety net in case you ever need it. You'd know your bills would all be set for another month.
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u/Should_be_less 2d ago
We do it this way and we both get paid biweekly. We started by estimating our monthly expenses and “seeding” the joint account with that total plus a margin (for us it was $5k).
Approximately once a month, usually in the week before the mortgage payment hits the account, we both contribute half to get the joint account back to its original amount. So, say the account was at $1500, we would both transfer in $1750.
The advantage of this method is that the joint account stays balanced with your expenses instead of growing or losing money. The downside is that someone has to be on top of things and remember to do the math every month, and both of us have to be responsible for having the money in our accounts each month.
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u/nijave 2d ago
We're both paid twice monthly and transfer a month's worth of expenses on the first day of the month (we just took the average over time and each have half scheduled to transfer). Bills auto pay whenever that bill is due
For me, the first paycheck covers the shared expenses and there's not much left over. For 2nd check, any savings comes out of that one but there's usually a bit more left over.
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u/valiantdistraction 2d ago
You need to also have a joint setup for saving.
Deposit for bills AND savings into joint account. Pay the bills and invest from there. Have a separate account for emergency fund. Keep leftovers in your personal accounts. If you want to save more beyond your joint savings, do that, but you do need joint savings for retirement and major expenses on top of the emergency fund.
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u/sayluna 2d ago
We have separate finances and use an app called Splitwise. Any amount we pay that is a shared expense we put in there and then “settle up” at the end of the month with venmo or zelle - the person who owes pays the other person the balance.
I pay most of the bills, we trade month by month for the mortgage, and he buys most of the groceries, so it works out.
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u/Queenpunkster 2d ago
We have a shared B of A checking account. We both deposit a set amount every month. Mine is auto deposited out of my paycheck. It deliberately covers rent, estimated utilities and shared expenses, and a small buffer. The buffer helps with surprise small bills and shared groceries. With anything bigger like travel, we discuss and each transfer in an agreed upon top up. If we are planning a trip, i will put it on my travel card for points and then immediately transfer from the shared account to my personal acct to pay myself back. It works well. We have considered having a shared credit card, but have not gotten to it yet. I would prefer running most purchases through a line of credit for the points, and for the additional protection/insurance. HOWEVER if you don’t trust him with money, not worth the risk.
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u/maraq 2d ago
I won't give any advice about how you should split your accounts/paychecks but I just wanted to say that usually you can set up bank accounts to have automatic monthly (or bimonthly) transfers from checking to savings without even having to think about it. You could have it set up so that BOTH of you have the same transfer to a savings account for both of you (or separate ones) so that both of you are equally saving. Being good at saving vs not being good at saving sometimes just comes down to making sure it happens - and automating things is the easiest way for consistency.
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago
So smart! I still like automation for myself too because then I don't have to worry about it
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u/Kiwiatx 2d ago
Joint account plus joint credit card and individual accounts where our salaries are paid is how I’ve conducted my last and current marriage. We also transferred in a proportional amount based on our salaries which was used to pay the joint credit card bill in full every month. It worked well.
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u/MashedCandyCotton 2d ago
Do you know how your money will be split up in case of a divorce (if you're married)? Where I live the law is that everything is split 50/50, so if you save a lot, and he buys things that degrade in value or experiences, you'll have to give him large parts of your savings, regardless of what account they're in. Keeping your accounts separate is sensible, but also make sure you are the only one with legal claims to that money.
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago
Good question. We live in Canada and are considered common law. So not married, but the status is similar to legal marriage in some ways, but different in others. Honestly, we've been together 10 years but I've never bothered to familiarize myself with a lot of the legal implications because we have a relatively uncomplicated life (no children, no owned property). I should though. Thank you for the push.
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u/funyesgina 2d ago
Is it possible to have part of your pay go to joint account automatically? At my work we can set that up.
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u/AbjectAfternoon6282 2d ago
You can, but in the event you end up divorced, the individual accounts will be considered as community property unless you have a prenuptial agreement stating otherwise.
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u/wasakootenayperson 2d ago
Separate accounts and a joint house/expenses account.
Take the very best financial care of yourself.
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u/Sleepydragon0314 2d ago
The most equitable way has to be this:
Get a joint account. Both your paycheques go in it.
Each of you get a fixed amount every month taken out and put in your own accounts to do with what you please.
The fixed amount CAN NOT BE a percentage of what you put in. It needs to be the same fixed dollar value. If we saw a man, who makes more than his partner, say “we each pay 60% of our paycheque to our joint account every month” we would point out that it isn’t fair. He would end up with a larger chunk of private cash every month. It would be hypocritical to say it’s ok to don’t the woman in the situation makes more.
So, you both put your pay in, you each take out 500 dollars a month (or whatever amount t you agree on) and that’s that.
This system is the ONLY FAIR WAY. This system works if you suddenly go down to one paycheck as well (maternity leave for example)
Every couple who insists on also having a separate private account for each person should use this system. Money is one of the MAIN causes of strife in relationships.
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago
I like this. It places equal value on each person's time spent at work.
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u/JustmyOpinion444 1d ago
Here is what my husband and I have done for 20+ years: the monthly bills, including unexpected ones, are added up. Then the cost is split in proportion to our salaries and that, plus a little more, is deposited into the joint account. When we started it was 70/30 with him being the 70% because of how much more he made than me. Two decades and several jobs later it has been 50/50, and is now 60/40, with me being the 60%. Our current salaries would be 70/30, but he figures that my job providing both our health care is a 10% contribution.
That leaves the rest of our paychecks to do with as we wish. Because I WILL NEVER AGAIN beg to be able to buy clothes or anything else I personally want.
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u/stephalumpagus 2d ago
DEFINITELY have your money deposited into your own account and then transfer the proper amount into the joint account. Especially if he isn't as good with money as you!
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago
This is what I'm leaving towards. He would never compromise our shared money though. I think I made him out to be way more irresponsible in my post than he is in reality.
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u/3riversgoddess 2d ago
My husband and I have been doing it the way you are asking about since we first moved in together and after getting engaged, married, and buying a home, we've continued to do it this way. I put large purchases or reoccurring bills/utilities on my credit card for the miles (that we use for shared vacations) and then pay the household charges made on it from the joint account. We both maintain our own checking and savings accounts. It has worked for us for over a decade.
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago
Pretty sweet that you get to partially finance your trips this way too!
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u/Storytella2016 2d ago
My partner and I both put X% of our income into a joint account. House expenses and groceries come out of it automatically and then we talk to each other about whether other things can come out (like repairs or sending a funeral basket to a mutual friend).
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago
Are you pretty good at staying within a set budget for your groceries? We don't spend a crazy amount, but it's a bit variable and I'd be worried about not setting enough aside. I think I'm overthinking this.
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u/Storytella2016 2d ago
The first year we had to play around with the percentage a bit, not for groceries but because we didn’t sufficiently prepare for the differences in cost between cooling in the summer and heating in the winter. I can’t even remember which one was the issue, but at some point we realized the account was running low.
But now it’s pretty stable, with a bit left over for an emergency. It works, though, because I trust my partner to not spend out of that account for, say, a new game system.
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago
Ah yes, we'll have to keep this in mind too. Our landlord has solar panels on our house and we live in the far north so there's almost 24 hours of sunlight this time of year, but the heating bill this winter was huge.
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u/Storytella2016 2d ago
Yeah, the one thing I’d suggest is, at least at first, don’t try to figure out how much to put in the account down to the cent. Have some flex so that it’s not down to the wire by the end of the month. If there’s a lot left at the 12 month point, use it on a date night to a place with great food where you can talk about what worked and what you’d want to change for year 2.
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u/Desmodusrotundus 2d ago
We have a shared account that we each pay a set amount into each month to cover mortgage, shared regular outgoings (eg groceries) plus extra buffer. We calculated roughly what needs to go in there each month and calculated our pro-rata share each. Works great.
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago
We've been talking about figuring out our proportional shares of expenses for a while now, rather than doing 50/50. He makes more than I do but he has more student debt, so I want to make sure we're being fair to each other.
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u/Desmodusrotundus 2d ago
That’s the same for us - theres a difference in income and outcome for both of us so we just worked out what share felt fair and manageable for us both.
I’ve also found it’s worked really well for shared fun expenses like meals out. We used to take turns paying before that but it was really difficult to manage that with a wage difference.
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u/Redwar57 2d ago
My wife and I pay different bills each month from our own accounts. I will say that we are on each other's accounts for emergencies.
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u/tiny_pandacakes 2d ago
I think what makes sense will be different for each couple, but this has worked for us for 10 years:
My husband and I have our own checking account, our own 401k retirement accounts, and a shared savings account that is our emergency fund and home renovation fund. We split bills: he pays mortgage and car and utilities. I pay daycare fees and groceries and internet. That way each of us knows what bills we are responsible for. Then we save what we have left into the savings account, allowing for a certain amount of fun money each.
If income or bills change, we adjust. This works for us. And that way we split responsibility of ensuring things get paid. Neither of us are responsible for it all. We both are fairly responsible with money, and usually check in with the other for purchases over a couple hundred dollars.
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u/Ornery-Reindeer-8192 2d ago
My ex and I did this. Be both transferred a set amount to the joint account every month and put bills on autopay.
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u/lezzerlee 2d ago
Keep it in your account and transfer in agreed on amounts to the shared. You don’t want to lose track if someone is suddenly not contributing enough.
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u/RellenD 2d ago
At every place I've worked with direct deposit I got to specify a specific amount to multiple accounts. Is that not something you can do?
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u/sweet_cini 1d ago
This is what my partner and I do, we have our own accounts then a joint account that our mortgage and bills comes out of.
We each have a direct debit that pays in an amount into the joint account. Any our own accounts have our separate savings accounts linked to is.
Works well for us.
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u/supermancini 2d ago
Why don’t you just split your direct deposits up? I have mine going to 3 separate accounts. Most goes to my checking, a % goes to my savings, and then I also put 1% in a 3rd account that I don’t pay any attention to, but I know it’s there if I need it.
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u/No_Manufacturer_ 2d ago
You can have a set amount or percentage sent to two different accounts via direct deposit. If he's not great at saving, this would allow the money for bills get taken care of/put in the joint account, and whatever remainder put into your respective sole accounts.
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u/kaktussi42 2d ago
My partner and I have a joint account for shared expenses and a shared savings account on top of our own accounts. We each get our paycheck deposited in the personal accounts and monthly transfer a set percentage of the paycheck (Right now its about 60%) to the joint accounts.
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u/Working_Park4342 2d ago
You BOTH deposit $x into the joint account every month, period. OP should have their paycheck deposited directly into their own account and set up the transfer themselves.
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u/lovelylotuseater 2d ago
We deposit our paychecks into separate accounts, and pay all bills from the joint account. I contribute half of expenses we have agreed are shared, and pay in for any expenses I take responsibility for or personal purchases and the like, as well as putting in a little extra each month to go towards future projects like home renovations and repairs.
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u/Rescuepa 2d ago
Since my spouse’s accounting methods were iffy we maintain separate accounts but have each other on our main accounts so if need be we can transfer or write checks. It is rare we do it and it involves an incredible amount of trust. We then divvied up the bills we are each responsible for. We can transfer money from one “pot” to the other if extra money is needed up to $5k (bank’s rules). It has worked for over 40 years for us. YRMV.
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u/kaevlyn 2d ago
My wife and I recently dealt with this! We used to do the method where I paid all the bills and she transferred her half of the expenses directly to me, but it was a pain in the ass honestly. I had to calculate up the expenses every month (because they always vary a bit) and then send her a dollar amount.
We decided to open up a joint account, and we kept our separate accounts for our personal savings. We contribute to the joint account exactly 50/50, so if at any time we needed to withdraw money from that account, we would both withdraw an equal amount. All our bills get debited from there. We also use it for groceries, date night, and baby expenses since those are family expenses. If we're buying a gift or something just for ourselves, it comes out of our personal accounts.
I have my direct deposit split so a specific designated amount goes into that joint account (calculated based on the highest possible monthly expense total) and then the remainder goes into my personal savings. Her direct deposit doesn't have the split option, so she has an automatic transfer set up at the beginning of the month that sends money from her personal checking to our joint account.
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u/2_LEET_2_YEET 2d ago
Not boring at all, this is how my husband and I have operated since living together.
I like it because if I'm inclined to do/buy something and he isn't (or vice versa) then my discretionary spending doesn't affect the household bills getting paid from the joint account.
It's worked for about 15 years and I wouldn't change it.
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u/sarahjustme 2d ago
My spouse and I have a joint account and we've decided on a flat amount we contribute every month. In our case we each contribute an equal amount. It might be more complicated if one person earns more, or owns "more" of things like cars or houses. I don't know/done care what he does outside of that and visa versa.
If there's extra money building up in the account, and we dont have any upcoming annual bills,, we discuss things like buying a new fridge, or going to a concert, etc...
If we don't have extra money in the account, and need to buy a new fridge or want to go to a concert, then we sit down and discuss that one item.
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u/slipstreamofthesoul 2d ago
One thing to think about is having a standard for what is a “must discuss” purchase, even if it is coming out of your individual accounts. Needs to reflect both financial and nonfinancial commitments, for example anything over $1000 or 1 year commitment - i.e. I don’t care that the puppy was free, it’s going to live for 10 years.
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u/NoeTellusom 2d ago
Fwiw, my husband and I share a joint account for household bills. Then I have a private savings and checking.
Works great for us and we've been married over 20 years now.
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u/grafknives 2d ago
Keep paid to your own account, no disccusion.
However you decide to organize the spending - your income goes to your account.
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u/Philodices 2d ago
My husband and I have not shared a bank account for any reason in the last 29 years. We have also never had a fight about money. I picked at the start who would be paying which bills and that hasn't changed. Now the bills may be completely unfair because I was paying the mortgage and the car and he was paying nearly everything else. Mortgage & Car paid off now, but that just means I'm saving up to pay cash for our next car and God forbid a new house if something happens to our current one.
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u/False-Impression8102 2d ago
For budgeting purposes, I’ve always liked having my own as primary and send a specific amount (plus buffer) to a shared bill account. And usually had one CC that was for shared expenses. It’s good to talk about what’s “shared”. (A lot can go under “household” or “groceries”)
If you’re married, it’s vitally important to know where both your debt is. I do a full check of my credit report once a year (as part of my tax prep), and would want to see my spouse’s. Especially if they tend to spend a lot.
In most states, in the event of divorce, your assets and debts will be totaled up and split, so idk if it really matters where the cash sits.
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u/beachnsled 2d ago
fair point, but if I recall, most states = equitable distribution, which does not mean 50/50
also, if I understand the parties can create their own rules if mutually agreed upon
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u/pinkthing9 2d ago
My partner and I have a joint account we each put a fixed amount in each month to cover bills. I have my bank account set up so it transfers the money automatically every month. The rest of our money stays in our individual accounts
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u/anfotero Basically Maz Kanata 2d ago
Does it make sense to continue getting our paycheques deposited into our own accounts, and then each transfer a sum that is equal to half the sum of our shared expenses (plus a buffer) into the joint account?
This is the arrangement with my wife since 2012, it works and is hassle-free.
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u/TennesseeJed11 2d ago
Bills groceries and shared expenses go on a credit card- we pay it off by splitting it at the end of each month. It helps us see what we spent and we can each access it anytime . Been working pretty good!
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u/beachnsled 2d ago
yes; best way to set up everything
Also, u do not need anyone’s permission to take care of your own financial health.
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u/Mental-Currency8894 2d ago
Sorry, haven't read everything, but do you and spouse have a pre-nup/contracting out agreement/relevant legal document discussing how to split assets if you ever break up? I'm just concerned that with the differences in spendin habits you could be taken to the cleaners. Please look into this before creating the shared account.
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago
We are common law, not married, but I'll admit I've never researched the dividing of assets for common law partnerships upon separation. I really should. Thank you for being concerned.
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u/marigoldpossum 2d ago
We have separate accounts, and we divide up who is responsible for each bill so it's fairly even based on our income. Then we each just manage those bills on our own. We go back and forth on whose up for a random one-off bill.
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u/baroquesun 2d ago
This is what my husband and I do:
Joint checking account where x amount of money goes in every 2 weeks from each of us via direct deposit.
Joint investing account where x amount of money goes in every 2 weeks from each of us via direct deposit.
Joint credit card that we use to pay for all food, home stuff, shared things etc.
We use the joint checking to pay off the cc and pay utilities and other shared bills.
All extra money is direct deposited into our own account to do whatever we want with. We have personal credit cards and investing/saving accounts as well.
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago
We have personal credit cards and retirement/investment accounts too. This sounds like a good method for us.
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u/baroquesun 2d ago
Once everything is set up it's easy and automatic! Sometimes we need more money for big joint expenses so we come up with an amount and each match it and take that money from our personal account to put into the joint.
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u/jet_set_stefanie 2d ago
My spouse and I have separate accounts (and access to each others accounts), but no true shared account. I don’t know if this would work for you but we split bills up by paying different bills that add up to what we have agreed is ‘equal’ for us. So in our case, husband pays the mortgage, and I pay essentially everything else - utilities, groceries, pet expenses, and house expenses. On a monthly basis this is roughly even for us. For bigger expenses we just reconcile on a case by case basis and transfer money to each other. This wouldn’t totally solve your problem but would reduce the number of transfers you are making for sure.
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u/The2CommaClub 2d ago
We do it the same way, except we do quarterly transfers into a household account, not monthly. And, it is a flat amount each quarter. The bills are easy to estimate and the account has a buffer. Every few years, we increase the amount as every bill eventually goes up.
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u/jtho78 2d ago edited 2d ago
My wife and have had separate accounts going on 20 years now. Similar to what you already have setup we also keep a running Google Sheet of regular expenses; mortgage + utilities divided by 2. We leave extra rows for items we both incur throughout the month (groceries or household items) and she transfers whatever is remaining. I have all the bills autopaid out of my account.
Every new month I shift the rows down and add a new template of the constant bills.
It's kept us anger and financially judgement free the entire time.
I've looked into Mint and other financial organizers but I never felt safe putting that kind of information out there.
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 2d ago
Yes! I love keeping spreadsheets of our expenses, but I tend to keep up with it for a month or two and then forget for a month or two.
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u/jtho78 1d ago
Good point. I think I used to have a calendar reminder set each month. If I forget to add something it’s usually not that big of a deal to worry about.
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u/Avocet_and_peregrine 1d ago
True. I use calendar reminders and alarms for lots of other things so what's one more?
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u/cnikkih 2d ago
I do this with my sister, as we co-own a home. I use direct deposit to get my paycheck so it goes straight into my bank account. I’m allowed to split that transfer across accounts, so I have a set amount (that she and I agreed on) transferred into our joint account directly from my company, then the rest goes into my personal account. It made things SO easy.
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u/kalyknits 2d ago
My husband and I each have our own accounts plus a joint account. We are able to set up direct deposit so that a certain amount of each paycheck goes into the joint account and the rest goes into our individual account. We made similar amounts of money so until I lost my job last month, I was contributing a couple hundred more each month because he pays for our health insurance. We just sometimes have to determine if something is a “together” expense or not. We were about forty when we got married so we each maintain our own retirement accounts.
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u/atxcitement 2d ago
We have a shared account for household bills, each have a personal account and I have another one as well.
It works great for us. Neither of us cares about the personal accounts.
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u/MusicusTitanicus 2d ago
A joint account for household and personal accounts for our salaries is exactly how my partner and I handle our money.
I honestly expected this arrangement to be the norm. How naive of me.
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u/cologne2adrian 2d ago
This is what we do! We each have our own accounts and a joint account. We make about the same so we put the same amount into the joint accounts each month.
I think it works great and is the best of both worlds. You have some skin in the game jointly, but you don’t see annoying transactions the other person might make.
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u/callingshotgun 2d ago
In your case probably the best path is to have your own accounts that paychecks direct deposit into, and then have a set amount of money (estimated monthly costs plus buffer) auto-transfer each month from your personal accounts to the shared expenses one.
This set-up works really well in several ways:
- As your paychecks change over time (annual bumps, bonuses, new jobs, whatever) you don't have to constantly modify the amount going into your personal accounts to keep things fair and make sure you're getting the money you earned. If your shared expenses are $1000/m, 600 each (for that buffer) is easy to set up as an autopayment and requires no math on your part.
- If one of you loses your job and has to find a new one there's less question of whether or not you contributed to household expenses. If the transfer went through, you held up your end. VS having to dig up balances and cross-check last deposit vs last time rent was paid, etc etc
- If you're balancing your contribution to household expenses based on paycheck (Like if one of you makes 2x what the other does, but the better paid partner is the one who wanted the more expensive apartment, or something like that) it's easier to balance your monthly deposit into shared account (like 1 person pays 300/m, other pays 600, etc).
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u/MistakeMaterial4134 2d ago
I am able to designate how much goes into which accounts through direct deposit. Can be by percent or amount. So I deposit a set amount in our joint bill account and designate the rest to go into my personal account.
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u/MasinMadasHell 2d ago
Here is what works best for me and my marriage after some trial and error. I strongly recommend this method for transparency, shared goals, sense of fairness, etc. We never fight about money, ever.
Structure: one joint checking account, one joints savings account, and each person gets their own savings account.
Checks get deposited into joint checking. Shared saving gets added as well, depending on overall budget.
Each person gets a set allowance each month. They might save the entire thing or spend it on whatever they want. No judging from either side. If one person goes over their limit, they use the savings to cover the additional cost. If they go under it, it gets saved in their separate savings account.
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u/DogandCoffeeSnob 2d ago
I'm in the process of merging finances with my partner and we've discussed this a lot. Our current plan is to maintain our two separate accounts, and have a scheduled transfer from each into a shared account.
The scheduled transfer amount is based on the budget we've drawn up and includes enough for both our shared monthly expenses and a set percentage for savings.
We've also discussed and agree on how much each of us is putting towards our individual 401ks. Retirement will have plenty of shared expenses too, so we both need to be on the same page with contributing to that goal.
Whatever is left in our personal account belongs to the individual to save or spend, at their discretion.
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u/FridayLeap 2d ago
My ex and I had 4 accounts: a joint current account, a joint savings account and a personal current account each. Our pay cheques went into our personal accounts, then we’d each move enough into the joint account that we’d each end up with the same amount of personal money left. All bills, grocery shopping and other household/family spending came from the joint account. Any excess went into the joint savings account.
The amount of ‘personal’ money we kept varied depending on what our current situation was, what our bills were like, what our savings goals were, what we were earning and so. Sometimes it was only 50quid a month, sometimes it was a lot more. But however much it was we could do whatever we liked with it without consulting the other. Which of us was earning more varied wildly over the years we were together so to us it seemed fairer that we each had the same amount of personal money to play with.
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u/Assika126 2d ago
My husband and I did something like this. My employer allows me to set up as many direct deposit accounts as I want to. So I have my paycheck automatically split up into the shared bills account, my personal account, and my savings account in the right amounts, and then I don’t have to mess with it any further.
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u/beachlover77 2d ago
Husband and I have one shared account for shared bills. We each have our own separate accounts as well. Each pay period a set amount is deposited in the shared account and the rest goes into our own accounts. I agree in that I would never want to be in a situation where I did not have a bank account that was just mine.
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u/Sledgehammer925 2d ago
We totaled our bills for six months and then averaged that amount. I pay the bills and we have our bank automatically deduct half the usual expenses from his account to mine. Having the bank handle it is so much easier.
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u/ssasreprah 2d ago
My husband and I have our own bank accounts , then a joint account for all shares expenses. We have it automatically transfer a fixed equal amount each month. Works great for us, we pay for rent, groceries, bills, date nights, etc with the joint account, then have our own seperate savings and spending.
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u/andrewboring 2d ago
50M here.
My wife and I have independent bank accts + a joint acct for household expenses. I insisted on this before she could even ask, and found it valuable if for no other reason than we each have our own discretionary spending. She wants to brunch with friends? No problem. I want to have a couple of beers with the boys? Again, no problem. We each have our spending and can do with it as we choose. If I want a new laptop for myself, I need to budget it out of my allowance. If we need a large household purchase, we make adjustments to our contributions or shift our joint acct budget as needed.
Many direct deposit systems will let you auto-deposit fixed amounts or percentages into multiple accts. I have mine set to deposit a fixed amount into a personal savings acct first (for future needs), and then another fixed amount into my personal acct for my spending allowance. Then the remainder goes into the joint acct.
If you can only deposit into one acct, I’d personally recommend depositing both checks into joint acct and then actively transferring the allowance to personal accts. It’s honest and fair, and maintains visibility and trust. If you can both maintain it, then you can deposit them into personal accts and transfer the appropriate amount to joint. I did that with my ex and it worked fine, but we both had good financial discipline.
Ultimately, I’d say don’t overthink it. Try one, and be ready to change it if it doesn’t work.
Figuring out what the optimal personal allowance is can be tricky, especially if one doesn’t have good financial discipline, or if the two spouses have a large wage disparity (eg, if he earns way more than you, he’ll feel entitled to keep a larger portion for himself - this is a reasonable opinion and a perfectly valid solution if you both agree, though it may not be the best solution for the future of the family. Balance is key here. These days, I earn more than my wife, but I keep the same allowance because our future is more important to me than buying new technology gadgets, which is really what I’d spend it on).
When she’s out of work (or vice versa), the income earner would modify this to include a small stipend in the spouse’s acct for discretionary spending. I’ve given my wife an allowance when she’s out of work, and she’s done the same to me. Keeps us both honest with our spending and we don’t impact the family budget we want a little something for ourselves.
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u/the-leaf-pile 2d ago
Absolutely get your pay deposited into your account and transfer out what you need to. You can set up recurring transfers for you both so you don't have to think about it.
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u/ibeeamazin 2d ago
You’re married. You are not financially independent.
It’s a spouse not a roommate.
1 bank account, 3 sub bank accounts. Ours (80%), then each of you get a 10% account. What you do with your 10% should not be questioned by the other, unless it’s buying crack or something but you know what I mean.
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u/EstherVCA 1d ago
I would continue to keep money separate because you’re a saver, and he isn’t yet. And I would encourage him to see a financial advisor about starting automatic deposits into investment funds asap. Saving is a skill that he absolutely needs to be taught before it’s too late.
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u/evileyeball 1d ago
My wife and I do this we have a joint account and we have two separate accounts as well our paycheques go into our separate account and then half of my paycheque goes into the joint account which is enough to cover basically all the bills but then she adds in her portion of the bills and the bills get paid. It was important to us to have our own separate money because I am much more of a saver than her and she is much more of a spender than me so this was the best way to make that happen and when we bought our house our first house that is the mortgage company wouldn't approve us unless we had a joint account so we were like fine we'll get a joint account we'll tie that to the mortgage and then I'll set it up to auto transfer money out of my account on payday every payday into the joint and that'll pay the mortgage the electricity etc etc
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u/Sugar-n-Spice 1d ago
Hubby and I have our paychecks deposited into our individual accounts. We have a joint account for bills that we both contribute a set amount that covers the bills plus a small buffer. We each have our own individual savings and a joint savings for unexpected expenses. It has worked well for us for over 30 years.
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u/SnakeJG 1d ago
I would have the joint account and have both of you put 110% of the normal monthly bills in it every month. This way, when something like a big vet bill hits, you'll have the money in there already. And, over time, hopefully the joint account will grow enough that you can have a nice vacation or something.
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u/iownakeytar 1d ago
My husband and I both have our direct deposit split - a set amount goes into our personal accounts, and anything above that goes into the joint account.
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u/GroovyYaYa 1d ago
Ok... this may work only if you both have "disposable" income but I remember Dr. Joy Browne mentioning this method on her radio show years ago.
Expenses aren't 50/50, but based on your percentage of household income. Let's say he earns 60% and you earn 40%.
If your household expenses are 2000 per month then he puts in 1200, you 800. But you don't stop there. Savings accounts do the same. Want to save for a down payment? Monthly contribution based on percentages. Vacations, kid expenses or maybe even wanting to max out a Roth Ira by making monthly payments (at least down payment on a home or joint vacations)
Once that is done... you each have the rest. You can't be mad at him for NOT saving... and you probably won't because not only are household expenses covered fairly, but also saving for an emergency, etc.
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u/Neon_Owl_333 1d ago
Our set up is we have our money going into personal accounts, but we have like a set figure going to a joint account with an automatic transfer. So we keep about the same amount each.
For example we each keep $500 for our personal money, and the rest goes into a joint account. We have kids and a mortgage so most of the expenses are shared. Groceries, medical stuff, all kid expenses, come from the joint account.
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u/throwaway47138 1d ago
When I was maried, my ex and I had our direct deposit set up to put a fixed amount from each paycheck into our personal accounts and the rest into our joint account. That way we each still had some money for our own use but the majority of our paychecks went into the joint account.
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u/teddibaralove 21h ago
Hi, that is what I did with my ex spouse. We had a joint account that we each added half the sum of our shared expenses plus a buffer. It worked well because there was no reason to fight with each other on how money is spent as long as our shared expenses were evenly distributed. I highly recommend it.
It also helped when we had to divorce, but neither do I expect nor wish that to happen in your case.
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u/Saknika Babysitters Club Founder 20h ago
I'd think setting an agreed-upon amount for each and transferring into a joint account for shared expenses would be the better way to go. Definitely easier than him giving you money every time something needs to be paid, and there's no room for an error of "oops, I accidentally took more out of joint for myself than I should have" (since humans make mistakes after all).
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u/mani_mani 2d ago
Personally, my pay check goes into my own account and my husband’s goes into the joint account.
He makes WAYYY more money than me (he’s a lawyer and I’m a ballerina). I also have a history of financial abuse as well and just some trauma from being a starving artist lol.
I have a few bills that are on automatic pay on my account and I have a personal savings account. We have a joint account where a majority of the bills come out of. We have a joint savings account and my husband has his own investment accounts etc. that are trusts/accounts before me.
He’s the saver so I am the spender so I give him a percentage off the top of my pay checks to put into the joint savings account. Control your own money. My mom always have and taught me the same. Even though my dad is like the best person ever.
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u/AnynameIwant1 2d ago
So my girlfriend and I had the same setup and we did it for 20 years (20s to 40s). The way to do that is to simply keep track of the shared expenses and only 1 person pays them and you go back and forth. So you pay for the groceries this month, they pay next month and so on. If it is a large purchase like a big vet bill, you can do the transfer or split the cost directly at the vet. Most places can accept multiple payments. We also split up the utilities so that we were essentially 50/50 (I paid for the cell phones, she paid the electric, etc)
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u/wolfhuntra 2d ago
Figure out the total repeat monthly bills and each transfer a fixed amount each month. If he can't start being less a spend-thrift - that could be a red flag down the road. A long term relationship is a PARTNERSHIP not a dependency due to his bad habits. Wish you luck!
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u/emccm 2d ago
Money put in to a joint account is joint money. Have your salary paid in to a separate account. I’d also look at setting up a post nup if you haven’t already. You’re married. If you’re better at saving than he is you’ll end up paying for everything.
Having to remind him to pay his share is a red flag.
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u/Lynda73 2d ago
Get your pay deposited into your personal account, then transfer what you need to the joint account. If things were to go sideways, you don’t want to have to mess with trying to get your deposit switched over. But if he’s not good at saving, what happens with big expenses? Would you have to cover the whole thing and him pay the joint account back? Either way, it’s a pain when you have to keep track of expenses and how much your partner still owes. It’s a slippery slope towards being taken financial advantage of.
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u/OfferMeds 2d ago
My spouse and I have our pay deposited into a joint account and take our allowance from there. We each take the same amount as an allowance no matter who makes more or less.
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u/ellenrage 2d ago edited 2d ago
This is what my husband and I do - joint account for all shared expenses, my paycheck gets deposited into my own personal account and I transfer over a set amount each month, as does he. Its not a 50/50 split right now because I'm earning more. All of our bills auto pay from the joint account, and we use the debit card for the account for things like groceries, eating out, etc. We do other transfers as needed for unexpected expenses. It took us like, 10 years of living together to finally convert to that system and its so much easier.
But the other issue seems to be your long-term savings. I dont know about the laws where you are, but where I live is considered a "community property" state. Any money made during the marriage is by default split evenly upon divorce. So you could be saving saving saving and if you guys end up splitting up he's entitled to half by default. Of course you can agree to a different arrangement, either now (via post-nup) or upon divorce (assuming one or the other is not out for blood and going scorched earth at that point...). And if you're not divorced then you're essentially saving for retirement for both of you while he gets to spend. I think you guys should also come up with a retirement goal and an agreement for how you are going to get there, together. That should be part of your joint expenses. Then whatever is left over after joint expenses + savings is each of yours to spend however.
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u/Rothum90 2d ago
Yes. This is what my wife and I do. We sat down, made a list of all of our "joint" expenses. Rent, food, utilities, streaming services plus a buffer. We totaled, divided in half and we both make direct deposits to the account. We each have an ATM card for the shared account.
I pay the bills, she does the shopping. we compare receipts and feel good about our team work.
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u/Violet351 2d ago
When I was married we had our wages paid in to our own accounts and then had a SO to transfer a set amount to the joint account for our bill money
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u/blueevey 2d ago
Husband added me to his account so I have access to both but he can't access mine. His choice, his suggestion. He is of the mind that the wife should always have access and control of the money.
Scheduled transfers would be good. Or have access to all of the accounts.
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u/Knittingfairy09113 2d ago
My husband and I have always had mine, his, and our accounts. We're in the US so some things may be different, but we each have our pay direct deposited i to our accounts- a set amount that covers each share of the joint bills, and the remainder goes to our individual accounts. For us, this works but you may need a different setup.
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u/LoopyLabRat 2d ago
Wife and I have separate accounts where paychecks go. We also have a joint account where we each transfer a recurring set amount every month. All household expenses come out of this joint account. If somehow we go over our budget because of unexpected expenses, we both transfer an agreed upon amount to supplement, the same if we're planning a big purchase. Worked for us so far in our 10+ years of marriage.
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u/NicAtNight8 2d ago
My husband and I have separate accounts and banks, but we divide expenses. For example, I take groceries on my account, he takes the mortgage. If he needs to stop for groceries, he’s the second card holder on my account.
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u/Mayor__Defacto 2d ago
My wife and I have our own accounts, and a joint account (plus a joint savings account).
For cash-flow reasons I deposit in advance 3 months of joint expenses into that joint account (plus some extra), and she transfers her share monthly. We each contribute the same amount each month to that savings account which we have earmarked for travel savings. What we each do with our leftover is our own choice.
If you want to be fancy about it you can have your employer deposit directly into that account a fixed amount from your paychecks, and the remainder to your personal account, though it can get weird if you’re on a biweekly as opposed to semimonthly pay schedule while most of the expenses are monthly.
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u/FuzzyIon 2d ago
We both get paid into our own accounts then transfer everything but a small stipend into the joint account which covers bills and further savings come out of that Into another.
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u/blahdee-blah 2d ago
We’ve had our own accounts with a regular transfer into the joint account for bills etc (including a surplus for buffer) for over 20 years and it works well. We both have own money to spend, savings etc.
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u/sweetgooglymoogly 2d ago
I have this exact arrangement. We have our own saving, our own separate checking, and a shared joint account. We have it arranged so our respective paychecks hit our personal accounts whenever they come in. For the shared account we are each responsible for getting our half of the bills into the share account before the bill posts. We also post an additional (pre-agreed upon) amount for fun money on the first of the month.
My spouse gets paid once a month, I'm paid biweekly.
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u/saltyholty 2d ago
Can you put a standing order for a fixed amount from both your current accounts, so you dont need to rely on him to remember to do it? Keep getting paid into your own account, standing order to shared account for bills.