Married Finances

This is what my fiancé and I do and it works great! We have a joint checking for paying bills and a joint savings for our future home and retirement. We each contribute a certain percentage of our paychecks (because he makes way more than me and I couldn’t afford to contribute what he does)

This is what our plan is as well! Currently our joint account is strictly for wedding and honeymoon money. After the wedding it will be for any joint expenses and then our individual accounts for whatever we each want! It seems the easiest to me.

This is how my husband and I handle finances as well! It's worked out great for us so far.

We did this for many years (long before we were married) and it worked well. When we moved out of state and decided to switch credit unions, we discussed our financial management in depth and decided to just combine everything into one savings and one checking account and this is working just fine. There are many viable options, as long as communication and transparency are solid.

Best advice ever for a couple just starting out!

We did similar to Maggie. When we moved in together, we got a joint account for rent/bills that we would both contribute to. Once we got married, we merged all our accounts because it was easier to keep track of our savings and such when it was all in 1 place. However, we both have similar spending habits and views on our finances, so it's been a relatively easy transition. Each couple is different so what works best for 1 couple may not work as effectively for another.

I agree. i think a joint account makes so much sense for things that are shared like house expenses, etc. it makes it easier to pay stuff out from

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There are other options, but I think this one works well especially for couples starting out. Pooling 100% of our money in a joint account worries me. It would be too easy to lose everything. I trust my partner, but I've heard and seen too many horror stories.

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We also have a joint mutual fund where we put our saving for a house. The earnings are much higher than on a checking account, but it's only semi-liquid.

We're working on something like this too! We have a joint checking account that we're planning to use for bills, rent, dog expenses, etc. that we plan to each pay half of. After the wedding we're going to sit down and decide how much per month we're going to contribute to it once our spending is a bit more normal (hoping not to have a monthly photographer payment once we're married lol). We're also talking about a joint savings account we'd put all of our cash gifts from the wedding into and contribute to for a house and whatnot down the road.

I trust my FH completely, but I don't like the idea of a 100% pooled account just from hearing horror stories. FH and I both have student loans that we're each going to be individually responsible for, and we each have hobbies, interests, and events that we take part in and pay for ourselves. It's no secret that finances cause a lot of stress, and I think having some financial independence helps mitigate a lot of that stress being aimed at a partner.

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I agree completely! If you don't need a fully liquid account for your house savings, you could look into a mutual fund. This is also something that was suggested to me and it has a higher rate of return than savings, but also some more risk because it's an investment.