How do married couples manage joint finances?

View Quoted Comment I’m glad that worked out for you! Obviously most people don’t have multiple businesses while also being caregivers to elderly relatives, so your situation is the exception, not the rule. I’m not here to argue anyone’s lifestyle, I just presented cold hard statistical facts. Again, there are always outlier to statistics, of which you obviously are one.

We are not married yet but own our home together so our finances have been intertwined for a while. For the first couple of years living together (both before and after we bought the house), we would split the house bills 50/50 and switch off paying when we would go out to eat or do things together. And we would each pay our own personal spending. We make relatively similar money so it felt fair to do, although he now makes a bit more. We recently transitioned though so our accounts are all joint and our paychecks just go into a joint pool to pay the bills. We both are reasonable with our personal spending and know to consult each other on any large purchase and so far so good. I will say it's a lot more simple for us to share it all... before we had to move money around all the time to reimburse each other and it was a pain to keep track of.

My best friend and her new hubby have three accounts. a joint and their own personal accounts. idk how that would work but thats what they do because he didn't want a joint account so they compromised. my FH and I have decided to get a joint account and just pay for everything from there with our combined income in one place. Right now all of my earnings are going to the wedding and his are going to bills. After the wedding we will just combine everything.

My fiance and I have had a joint bank account /lived together for 2 years and while we aren't married yet, nothing will change there so I still have enough experience here to have an input haha.

We have both always said that we are a team. What's mine is his and what's his is mine. We pay half our bills at the beginning of the month, and the other half after. We do not split the bills in half. All of our money is in one place and we pay our bills and it has genuinely been that simple since we got the account. We get paid within days of each other, two times a month. I go online and pay all of the bills and whatever is left is our money. He makes significantly more than I do but made clear to me that the way our parents handle money (this same way) is what he was raised to do and we will always share everything. We are obviously very traditional and while I was raised by christian parents who believe that I should be taken care of by the man that I marry, I do believe that I should work and contribute so that's what I am planning on doing whether I need to or not. (I am going to school FT after work to become a teacher so my income will go up significantly in a few years )

I have friends at work who have separate bank accounts and pay their husband's their half of the bills every month OR their husband's pay all of the bills and their checks are all theirs for whatever they want. (i have seen it all) and what we do is what works for us and what makes the most sense to me; as I believe that as husband and wife, we are sharing everything.

Our first goal as a married couple is to buy a house and because this is how we handle our finances, he actually just brought up to me that because he makes more than enough for our bills and extra money each month, we can use my paychecks to save for a down payment for a house. It seems easiest to handle money this way because we aren't splitting each bill, seeing what's left for both of us, and coming up with an amount we can each contribute/making sure it's "fair." It's really simple for us.

Not married yet but I've lived with my FH for 6 years (been together for 10) and nothing will change once we're married so here's what we do:

We have no mortgage (his mom had ALS and in 2013, me and 3 friends moved into the house with FH to help him care for it. They moved out and I stayed. She has since passed away so he owns the house now) so that helps a lot of this. If we had a mortgage, I'd want both of our names on the house and we'd probably split the payment 60/40 or 70/30 depending on how much it was.

He pays for all the household bills (I'd say if we made equal amounts, I'd pick a bill to pay for and he'd pick a bill to pay for) like cable, water, trash, etc.

I pay for all the groceries and anything from the store like cleaning supplies, paper towels, toilet paper, etc.

I pay for everything for the animals because honestly they are pretty much mine (he's not really a pet person). But he pays for the cats (we have 3) vet visits because they were his mom's cats. I pay for the dog.

I pay our cell phone bill

We also kind of have an agreement that he pays for the outside of the house like anything with the lawn, paint outside, mulch/garden, power washing the exterior, etc. And I pay for anything interior such as paint, decor, pillows, towels, blankets, etc. Mostly because I care what the inside of the house looks like more than he does and he knows how to cut the grass and I don't.

I usually buy the furniture for the house and pay for large projects myself but we are redoing the kitchen floors and he agreed to split that 1/2 with me bc I didn't want to spend all the money myself.

I bought a new tv for the living room and he paid for the new couch we got bc my 1/2 of the couch was the same cost as the TV.

When we take vacations with friends, he gives me his part of the money for the room/house/groceries for the week/whatever just like anyone else.

Neither of us want to have a joint account or share money. But we also have no problem asking each other for help with purchases or advice on if spending the money is a good idea.

We have a joint checking and joint savings. All of our paychecks go to these accounts. If we get a tax return, that goes to our joint accounts as well. We also have individual checking accounts for our "fun" money (any work bonuses that we get, birthday/Christmas money, basically any gifts that people give us individually go in this account).

You also mentioned splitting responsibilities, and this is what we do: I clean the inside of our house. H takes care of any outside maintenance (mowing the lawn, watering the grass, trimming trees) and the garage (basically an extension of the outside lol). H also cleans the showers. We both do the dishes, but I do them more. H does most of the cooking, but I cook sometimes too. We each take care of our own laundry. We each work about the same amount and will both continue to work when we have children.

Hubby & I lived together before we got married, and we decided that he would pay the majority of the bills (I paid our cell phone bill & groceries) while I worked hard to pay off my student loan debt. Now that my student loans are paid off, we talked and we continue to have the same arrangement, but instead the "student loan payment" is going to savings. We are currently looking for land to build a home so the savings will go towards that as well as new furniture/decor. If you guys are able, I highly suggest trying to live off of one person's income and save as much as you can with the other persons. Once we build our home, we will add up all our bills and split it proportionately to our incomes since we each don't make the same amount. I agree with others that said it shouldn't necessarily be split 50/50 if there is a large gap between your guys' incomes.

We lived together and owned a home before marriage, but we have our own seperate accounts and a joint account. We get paid for our jobs into our personal accounts then we transfer money into the joint account. We split mortgage and car insurance down the middle, but I pay certain bills and he pays certain bills, and we pay for our own cars. I also buy all of the groceries and our health insurance comes out of my paycheck so he may pay more bills monthy but we both spend about the same amount all said and done.

This is just what we are comfortable with, I make more than him and I do spend a little more than him in bills and groceries but overall we keep it fair and we agree on everything. Just all personal preference.

I agree, it is very different and takes patience. Personally my fiance and I sat down and figured out what our household takes each month to keep up and running. He makes 20k more than me and has less bills in the fact that he doesn't have a car payment or insurance or anything like that (its paid by his work for him). So he does pay a little more on monthly bills than I do and he picks up groceries more often as well BUT we try to split things as even;y as possible(i.e. to keep house going with all necessary and unnecessary bills its about $2100 I pay $950 he pays remainder). I have a phone bill, car payment and car insurance and student loans and childcare expenses for my son (from a previous relationship) and he has none of those bills so it works out pretty much. Usually I get him cash at the beginning of the month (my first pay period of the new month) and he likes to keep it in the safe as a savings fund cause hes less likely to spend it that way. We have a joint savings account though that we each contribute to as we can for trips and things like that. We also share money as needed (he gets paid 1st and 15th of every month I get paid every friday) he had a drs appt 2 weeks ago (between his pay periods) and it was a $100 copay and I just gave him my debit card.

Hubby has a detailed spreadsheet that we use to keep track of who pays what Bill's. He pays most of them as they come, then come rent time he sends me the difference in Bill's paid vs owed for his half. If that makes sense.
It's just easier for us. We have no desire to have a joint account and with zelle, it makes the splitting of bills so much easier.

We both have our own separate accounts but do have a joint savings & joint checking.

The joint checking is for all of our bills (mortgage, utilities, etc.) and the savings is our emergency/house savings so that we both have access to some money if one of us is gone and something happens at home.

We both work full time so we split the bills 50/50. We both have a specific amount that we put into the account each month and then I just initiate all the bill payments. I'm a Personal Banker so I like seeing that the bill is paid and like seeing it come out of the account lol.

The way we do it is we calculated our shared bills like mortgage, utilities, joint credit card, food, etc and figured out how much it would be per person every 2 weeks. We rounded up a bit and have that direct deposited into a joint account that we only use for shared bills. We then have the rest of our own money put into our own accounts to pay things like our car loans, credit cards that were from before we met etc. I actually 4 accounts. So I have X amount going direct into the joint, X amount towards an account to pay just my bills, X amount going into my savings and then the rest goes into a spending account. So whatever lands in my spending account is mine to spend as I wish outside of gas for my car. We both basically do it the same so we don't have to ask each other about buying things we want or getting gifts for each other. I love it because we share finances but we also can be a little independent with our spending

I was against being fully joint while my FH was all "one team" but I am now leaning towards completely joint. It just seems wayyyyy easier. We split everything 50/50 and it is starting to get out of hand keep track of how much the other owes. (I put everything on my credit card for travel points, 1st class airline ticket to honey moon anyone?) but its getting hectic keeping track. I am just ready for joint at this point. He does make slightly more than me but its never set because he is a tattoo artist. Probably be a lot easier to pay off each others student loans too! We have been together for 9 years so we are completely ok with helping each other. We have been doing it for years

My husband and I have a joint savings account and a joint checking account, in addition to our own individual checking and savings accounts. We each put an equal amount into the joint accounts every paycheck, and then we pay our bills with the joint accounts.

This has worked for us so far because he makes more money than I do, but he also had student debt to pay off and I don't, so we'd end up taking home about the same amount of money. His debt is paid off now but since I never had any, I have much more individual savings than he does. Though like I said, he has a higher income and also with his job he has potential to make a lot more money than I do in the future, and I will likely take a step back from my career when we have kids... so when/if it gets to the point that he is taking in a lot more money than I am, we will probably change how we handle finances, but we haven't thought that far in advance.

It does seem though, like the longer we are together the more the lines of finances get blurred honestly. I wouldn't be surprised if, 10 years and 3 kids later (or something), everything was just completely merged lol

We are living together, and getting married next May. We opened a joint checking account, and both of our paychecks are direct deposited there. FH knows that I'm better with money and paying bills, so I do that. I pay the mortgage, all the bills, and whatever is left we spend on food and whatever.

We each take a weekly allowance in cash. That is our money to spend however we like. It usually ends up being for buying lunch during the work week, or other small things. This way, we're not dipping into what we call the "house" money, and we don't overspend. FH always says that if he were in charge of the money, we'd always be broke! lol that's because he likes to spend money. I'm way more frugal, having grown up really poor, so only want to spend money on necessities. So, how we do it works for us. We don't always agree, but that's what a mature relationship, and eventual marriage is about. Working it out.

My FH and were in a unique situation and are in a point of transition. We were teachers that started at the same time so we made the exact same amount. We have also lived together for most of our relationship. So we split almost everything 50/50. The only exception is I have slightly more utilities in my name because the internet bill went up and I just dont feel like trying to shuffle it around. We will be making joint accounts when we get married next year. Between now and then, though, my FH is leaving teaching so who knows how much he will make. The plan will still be 50/50 unless something crazy happens because it's just shy of a year and a half left till it doesn't really matter.

We each pay for our personal expenses, such as credit cards, and extra things. But the rest we divided up by the amount each of us makes, since he makes considerably more than me. We also take turns paying for groceries and entertainment.

My FH and I have a joint bank account. Any bills just get paid with whatever money is there regardless of who put it there.

We're not married yet but we've been living together for 4 years and will manage our finances the same once we get married. We have a joint checking account that we each put an equal amount into each month (I have an auto transfer set up from the account where my direct deposit goes). This is used for our bills, rent etc. and joint purchases like plane tickets, furniture, etc.

Most of our money is kept in our own separate checking and savings accounts because we come from very different socioeconomic backgrounds and as a result have different approaches to how money should be spent/saved. I think this has helped us avoid some arguments other couples have because if either of us wants to "waste" money on hobbies the other doesn't get, we don't bicker about it because it's their money to spend as they choose.

This method has really worked for us, in part because we don't worry too much about who paid for what. Sometimes we'll make deals like "if you call to order the Chinese, I'll pay" but who's turn it is to pay is not something we keep track of. Other personality types might not be comfortable with this, but we've never had a problem.

We are fortunate enough to both be making similar amounts of money now, but a couple of years ago, I worked as a contractor and between jobs I didn't make any money. During those months, my fiancé just put more into the joint account to make up the difference, and I'd do the same if he were ever out of work.

You'll figure out what works best for you, don't worry. Whether you decide to put all your money together or not, discussing your monthly budget and big savings goals (paying off debt, vacation, down payment for a house, etc.) is a great thing to do before you move in together. Best of luck!

When we started out living together we split everything 50/50. Like saved receipts and whoever paid more that month the other owed them. Anything shared (groceries, bills, cat food) was split. Now that we’re engaged and saving for the wedding we see it as “what’s mine is yours” so if I pay more towards bills this month he’ll be contributing more to our savings and vice Versa. I’m actually at the shop today with HIS car but I’ll pay because it all evens out.

when we aren’t so heavily saving our plan is to make sure we each are allotted equal amounts of fun money to spend on our own personal things.

when we have kids if I choose to stay home for a few years our plan is for us to have an equal amount of fun money still even though he will be the sole provider.

i know that’s a lot of info lol but I hope it gives you some ideas! most important is to just be on the same page with each other. Also, if you’re both working I see nothing wrong with you each having your own bank account for personal things and a joint account for the shared bills.