Couples and money

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bobomonkey

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A question for anyone out there who is married or living together about money:

Has anyone figured out a good technique for combining your money and not killing each other?

Seems like no matter what each side would need a certain percentage of fun money to spend on whatever the hell each person wants.

Or do you have better luck keeping things separate?

It seems a bit more complicated when one person is running a business...

Any tips out there?
 


bobomonkey said:
...need a certain percentage of fun money to spend on whatever the hell each person wants.
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Exactly what my girl and I found (5 years together, 3 years of formal joint banking together), so we've got joint accounts and individual accounts.

Fortunately, we've got similar incomes and spending habits, so it was pretty simple working out how to divide incomes between the accounts (we allocated amount for individual 'fun' stuff, remainder into joint accounts, with flexibility as needed when discussed with the other). Means noone's "in control" of the money, and both of you are aware of the current financial state so there's no uncontrolled housewife spending. :D
 
bobomonkey said:
It seems a bit more complicated when one person is running a business...

Any tips out there?
Click to expand...
Here is a tip. Never allow your business finances to cross into your personal finances. Keep it separate. When you spend money from your business, it is a wage, bonus or dividend. Do not pay for business expenses from your personal accounts, or dip into your business accounts casually for personal expenses or large purchases.

A business should never interfere in relationship finances. All that should cross over is your income derived from the business. Mixing the two can only create problems.
 
bobomonkey said:
A question for anyone out there who is married or living together about money:

Has anyone figured out a good technique for combining your money and not killing each other?

Seems like no matter what each side would need a certain percentage of fun money to spend on whatever the hell each person wants.

Or do you have better luck keeping things separate?

It seems a bit more complicated when one person is running a business...

Any tips out there?
Click to expand...


Honestly, this sort of thing needed to be talked about BEFORE you get married or live together.

Keep business and personal separate, that's a no brainer.

The "fun" money is bullshit. You both need to sit down and crank out a budget, then allocate funds for whatever expense you wish to incur. If its not on the budget, Its not getting spent unless you can fit it in. Even if you have $5K more a month in income than expenses, you need to account for it all if you're already debating/arguing/fighting about money.


For those of you who are engaged, this situation is as lazy as it comes when it comes to forming a relationship. I suggest you find something like an Engaged Encounter. It's a cheap weekend that really helps bring issues to light.


Bottom line dude, if you can't combine money without killing each other, how the fuck are you going to raise kids efficiently, manage a retirement, manage investments, manage a home, etc.? This is the tip of the iceberg in my book. Do yourself a favor and do the budget. If you already have a budget and still can't work it out, get some professional financial help or do a Dave Ramsay course.
 
I gave my wife a credit card, that's what she uses. We have a 'joint' checking and savings account for personal use, and then I have a business checking + money market account. Either way, I do 100% of the finances. Works out very well.

+1 to what guerilla said, never let your business interfere with personal finances.
 
Thanks for the tips!

I've heard the best thing to do is to direct deposit all of your money in your wife's account. That supposedly solves all problems...
 
bobomonkey said:
Thanks for the tips!

I've heard the best thing to do is to direct deposit all of your money in your wife's account. That supposedly solves all problems...
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That's pretty much right. When you marry, what's yours is now hers and what's hers is still hers!
 
to agree with the above posts, never ever mix personal funds with business funds... separate accounts are the rule. The same thing should go for you and your wife, setup a budget and decide what you will each contribute to the budget and have it auto deposited to the join account. past that, you should each have your own bank accounts and ira's
 
Don't share your bank account and definitely don't mix business / pleasure.

Having gone through the resulting break up 4+ years ago now, it's not fun and likely you could be wiped out (I was literally wiped out, 100k+ in debt, which I've since dealt with and a credit score that will likely never recover at about 430).

If I look back, the key moment where we should have done the right thing and ended the relationship was 9 years earlier when she cried and said: "my friends all tell me if we don't have joint bank accounts it means our relationship has no trust and we'll have money issues down the road, if you loved me you would put my name on your bank accounts/credit cards"...

My correct response should have been, "if you loved me you wouldn't ask me to do dumb shit that means nothing" .. or better "fuck off and don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out".

The wisest thing I can tell you, if your significant other makes a big thing of having a joint bank account or more specifically her name on your assets, find a way over time to get out of the relationship, you'll end up fucked later otherwise.

I've since moved on and my new girlfriend (now wife) and I have completely separate financial identities, I can't think of any credit or bank account where both our names are present. We are very very happy at least in part as a result. In fact, she pays our general bills and monthly I simply auto send her a cheque. And she's younger, smokin' hot and loves sex.

Basically, fuck that, don't do it.

Additionally, in the US, it's REALLY hard to get an account closed or someones name removed from an account once they are added. You'll basically have to close it. The touch of irony in all this, when we first went to the bank to add her name to my primary account, the lady at the bank said "don't do it, you'll regret it!" .. My now ex-girlfriend was fuming/pissed off, face bright red pissed off. That statement stuck with me and if I ever see her, I'll thank her and tell her how much of a dumb fuck I was.
 
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I've been married a year and we haven't merged accounts. We setup a joint account for house payments and stuff. I think as time moves on we'll move to a single identity but that would take a lot of damn work.
 
I agree with everyone here (I think that's the first time I've said that on wf ;) ) With maybe the exception of priority mail, if only because that just sounded like a financially (and possibly other aspects) unhealthy relationship to begin with (no offense intended, priority). And as everyone else has said you need to have really discussed finances to begin with. You have to have similar out looks on spending and saving. I used to do all the finances because I'm a bit of a control freak but then I realized it was really stressing me out (even when we are in a time of surplus) So now I make the money and he balances it and pays the bills. Works for us ;) And that's they key. Every relationship is different as is the money situation in the relationship so one answer won't fit all except the answer of "find out what works for you guys".
 
turbolapp said:
I agree with everyone here (I think that's the first time I've said that on wf ;) ) With maybe the exception of priority mail, if only because that just sounded like a financially (and possibly other aspects) unhealthy relationship to begin with (no offense intended, priority). ".
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No problem, I can see how it may appear that. When we first started out, it appeared to be very healthy (it always does ?). But thinking back to that one key turning point, tears + insistence on joint finances.

Realistically, there are very few reasons for actually legally joining your finances, there is however plenty of downside. Things are much healthier in my new relationship with the financial side never actually being an issue.

Managing finances should be treated as a business, if you need to jointly contribute to something, then make that a monthly/weekly expense that gets auto paid from your individual identity account. You can still have one person "manage" the finances, this doesn't require an changing of the paperwork on your accounts.
 
i love our relationship becuase my money is my money and her money is my money......

at first i use to splurge everything on her and do whatever she want she cheated on me i caught her... we stayed together and i became greedy :)
 
dlester07 said:
i love our relationship becuase my money is my money and her money is my money......

at first i use to splurge everything on her and do whatever she want she cheated on me i caught her... we stayed together and i became greedy :)
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Now *that* sounds like a healthy relationship right there......:eek:
 
Thinking about doing this with my lady... I'm a saver and she's a spender.

What we are going to do is set up a joint checking and a joint savings account, and do automatic deposits to it from our personal accounts every week. We've set an amount that we need to have for our expenses, plus how much we want to save, and what's left over in our personal accounts is ours to spend however we want.

Will it work? Who knows.
 
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