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Did you have individual accounts first?
If so, what did each of you do with your individual account and the money in it.
Yesterday, FI and I were discussing getting our joint account once we are married. He thought that we would each close our individual accounts and put whatever money we have saved in our accounts together into our joint account.
I however, want to keep my individual account and the money I have saved in it. Not that it matters but FI has 0 dollars saved up and I have a nice chunk of change saved up. I worked hard to save that money and I want to keep it separate just incase we need it for an emergency...am I being selfish? I totally view it as our money, everything is equal when we are married but I just can't bring myself to putting my nest egg in our joint account.
ETA: an expanded poll, I hit enter and posted before I was done :(
You should expand your poll. We each had individual accounts. I still use mine (my bills are paid automatically out of there and I haven't switched them to the new account because it's just easier to keep track) and he doesn't use his at all. I only keep enough to cover my bills in there, though, otherwise everything we had/have gets moved into the joint account.
If he agrees, you can open a joint savings account also, and move your cash in there, so that he doesn't feel like it's "your" money. That way it's still saved someplace out of the way, but he won't consider it your emergency-run-away-fund.
You don't have our option so I will just explain. We both have our own account and opened a joint account together. We are both going to keep our own account and use that for our personal bills. However, we will use the joint account for our household things. We are going to have a set amount of our checks go into the joint account and the rest will go in our personal account.
we kept my old account and use it as our long-term savings account. we added his name so he has full access. for our main account, i added my name to his. we use that account for every day expenses and short-term savings.
We kept individual accounts. Our "spending money" doesn't go into the joint account; it just makes things too confusing!
@deliciousappleblue: an emergency run away fund ...huh.. that might be why he gave me a sideways look when I said I wanted to keep it seperate.
I totally didn't even think that he could have viewed it as such.
I think my hubby and I didn't have the typical situation. When we met 12 years ago, I was right out of college and he hadn't started. We had no money so a few months into dating (after moving in together after a month - always said I would never do this, and I'm not religious), we put our money together. I have been in charge of it ever since. It works for us b/c my hubby would NEVER balance anything and that would drive me nuts! Our savings and two checkings are all our money, although I do manage everything and he just uses the check book when he needs to. We don't have credit cards b/c we are still tight on money after all these years. :( He's a teacher and I'm a SAHM.
We have joint checking. We have separate money markets for savings.
However, we plan on combining the money markets.
If you're concerned about savings, you should keep that money as "savings" , not "my savings." I think in a marriage everything should be shared.
@PinkMagnolia: I agree, and he should know that I feel that it is ours. I treat everything as ours now. He was just shocked that I wanted to keep it in that account.
ETA: I guess In a weird way I am scared to give up control of that chunk of money. FI is horrible at money. Seriously, I do all the bills. I am a saver and he is a spender
We are still engaged, but we just opened a checking and savings account last week.
Since we are paying for our entire wedding, we are using the savings account to store the wedding money (for now) and the checking for all of our house bills.
But after the wedding we are closing all but 1 of our individual bank accounts. Our 1 individual bank account will have our individual savings money in there.
We will continue to put our savings into our personal accounts and let the rest stay in the joint checking.
Oh... and we are going to put 10% of our paychecks into the joint savings for house maintenance.
After reading this.... it sounds confusing... but he and I are in total agreement about this.
We each kept our own account, however, we opened a joint savings account. This way we both contribute to our savings while having our separate daily accounts.
We each had our individual accounts at the same bank. He had a better account because his yielded a higher interest payback. So we combined all our money into his accounts and my name was added to everything. I had savings too and a good chunk in checking, but we feel it is our money now. Neither one of us was going to keep money seperate from the other, and our emergency savings is used for just that...our emergencies that if its him or me, it is still ours emergencies togethor.
@panterapeach: I think once you are married and start merging a lot more things, it will be easier for you to assess your accounts and make the move to one. I totally understand wanting to keep your nest egg separate, even though mentally you view it as both of your money. I was in a similar boat as you - with more of a savings than DH (he actually had debt on TOP of no savings!) ACK! What we did was add each other to our individual accounts. I keep the savings account (and also kept the wedding fund account) of which he put money into (from his account). We still deposit paychecks into our 'own' accounts (even though they are joint) and pay bills out of each. And now he gives me money out of his account for my account (since I pay most of the bills out of that account). I consider our money to be our money. To answer your 'are you being selfish' question - I don't think you are being selfish by wanting to keep a separate account - unless it's a huge deal for your FI. If he really feels strongly about joining all the money into one account, I'd take his feelings into consideration and probably do it. However, what does he say about you keeping your account? Would he be ok if he was added as a signer? Maybe that can be the compromise.
His bank account was with an out of state bank, so he closed it and I added him to my bank account, making it our primary checking account. We added each other to our savings accounts and assigned each savings account to a different goal. We use mint.com to keep track of everything which really helps in the conversion from individual to joint accounts (that way we can look at it together on a monthly basis to see what's going out, what's coming in and how well we are doing with our savings plan).
We chose to go with his bank (we had 2 different banks) because the interest checking rates were higher at his bank. So, I closed my account and took the money out. I deposited the money into our joint checking account. We also each have our own checking accounts that are linked to our joint account and have our monthly spending money rolled into them automatically from the joint account.
We merged our accounts over the summer and had a joint checking/savings and individual checking/savings. Honestly...its way too confusing now. Now I am in the process of just moving everything from my personal account to the joint accounts. I too had personal savings (not much though) but I figured since all our other money is combined anyways it doesnt make much sense.
We moved all of our money in to our new joint accounts and closed all of the accounts we had pre-marriage.
I couldn't vote since I'm an oddball out kinda answer. lol My husband is from Europe. So when he came here to the US, I just added him onto my checking/savings accounts. At some point we may decide to do things differently, but for now this is working perfectly for us!
i'm the same as FutureKMM, we opened all new joint accounts for checking, savings and investment and closed all our pre-marriage accounts.
i don't bother to keep a personal account since any money i saved and currently make now is put into the joint accounts. same goes for hubby's money.
We were at two different banks and decided to get joint accounts at a third, different bank (it had the cheapest options). We both closed our old bank accounts. We just didn't see the money as "mine" and "yours" anymore, so there was no reason to keep any for ourselves.
Our individual accounts are still open, but we don't use them. I actually need to close them, I just haven't gotten around to it yet! We have a joint checking and several joint savings accounts. We spend and pay bills out of the one account.
We each have our own checking and savings account. He also has an accoutn for his kids. Then we have 3 accounts together for (1)bills (2)house needs (ex: diswasher randomly breaking,landscaping) saving for vacations and saving for investments) (3) account we have is for the weddding so in total we have 8 accounts but it keeps us organized and works great. I honestly don't see us changing the way we do it because we have pretty clear agreements on or funds.
We kept it...we deposited a certain amount of funds each into the joint account (at first it was just DH because i was in school) and while he was deployed, i was the only one adding to it every month. But he came into our marriage with a lot more money than me (3 years of working), and most of it stayed in his account. I would feel...moochy asking him to move his hard earned money to our account. If he chooses to do it, he may, but I don't think i'm entitled to ask, so I haven't. We started our joint account off with only a few grand. You could put a few grand of it into a joint savings account.
I feel the same way about my bonus--i got a bonus at work yesterday and DH was like, "Um, why isn't it going into OUR account?" Cuz it's my bonus...from my job. I was surprised he asked for it, since i've never done the same with his money.
We started out with two separate accounts. Then we started our joint account but we also had the original individual accounts
We have our own accounts now but plan on merging all of our money. Since his account has been opened longer, it will be come our joint account (with both our names on it) and i'll move all my money there and close out my checking account.
We made both of our individual accounts into joint accounts (they are at different banks). There are more benefits to banking with his bank so almost everything we do comes from there. The other account is really just a back-up in case something happens or we need to go to an actual branch for something. I also stash money there when we are trying to plan for weekends away, wedding gifts, car stuff, etc.
FH and I have joint a spending account to pay for everything "household" (Mortgage, groceries, utilities etc) and we have a joint savings account.
We also have individual spending accounts into which we pay ourselves an allowance each month. I spend my money on shoes and handbags, he spends his on XBox games and golf! We found that for us it was better to have some separate "fun" money to spend on whatever we want without any discussion or criticism fom the other partner. FH just doesn't understand why I need so many pairs of shoes and I don't get why he needs to much golf stuff!
I do still have about $1k in a savings account from prior to our engagement but I'll pretty much spend that on wedding stuff.
No way are you being selfish. My husband and I have a joint account, and also held on to our own separate accounts. Like you, I also have more money saved than my husband and did not want to put that all in a joint account.
In reality, I know that even if we keep our individual bank accounts our money still will be somewhat merged--for example, when we buy a house I am going to put more of "my" money down than he is, because if I didn't we would not be able to buy for much longer.
we each had joint accounts at two different banks, and i just cancelled my account and put all my money into his. i was planning on switching to his bank anyway. now we have joing checkings and savings, and no accounts that we keep seperate. it's lovely and it has actually been better for our spending habits since we are now both being held accountable.
We each kept ours separate ones in addition to the joint account.
@Nola: ditto! FI and I have the exact same thing - to lazy to type all that out for myself ;)
This has been a work in progress for us for the past year.
We started with our own accounts. We got a joint account and did everything together. But recently I've felt like he spends everything I'm trying to save - so we have a new plan.
We have our joint account that we will both put an equal amount in to pay bills from, then we both have our personal accounts to do our own saving/spending from with the rest of our personal paychecks.
I think this plan will work best for us... as I'm more apt to save up for bigger purchases and he's more apt to spend on little things.
We each have our own bank accounts, in addition to our joint account. The money in our own accounts is for us to spend on ourselves, buy gifts for others, and for personal investments.
I closed all of my accounts because I hated BofA and was ready to move over to his bank. So we just combined it all into his. Neither of us are big spenders and if we do spend we're typically together.
If my husband was someone who didn't know how to manage his money, spent a lot, didn't track his spending etc then I never would have combined accounts. Actually I wouldn't have married him...I think that would create a big problem (for me) if I married someone that didn't know a thing about money.
I'm a joint holder on his checking account. I still have my own. It wasn't really planned when we got the joint account, but when we moved in together and it made the most sense. I pay the bills from my checking account, and transfer his half of the bills because I can transfer money between the two accounts online. It works for us. Right now we have separate savings accounts, and I think we will merge those once we are married.
We'll have the joint checking and savings accounts, but keep our own individual checking and savings we each already have set up. We will likely add each other's names to our indi accounts or put a provision in that empties the individual account into the joint if someone passes, just for ease of access God forbid something terrible happen.
I think it's nice to have a place to keep your fun money, and any money you get for birthdays or gifts.
And one bee mentioned an 'emergency-run-away-fund.' It is not a romantic notion, but having your own money that's not going to get wiped out in a fly-by-night disappearing act by a spouse is not a bad thing to have. I have total faith in marriage, but I have also known women who wake up and they and the kids have $26 dollars in the account and the husband is long gone with the girlfriend. Same in DV cases...money is an important asset and a safety net. *phew, sorry, didn't mean to advocate for 'secret money' but sometimes life isn't what we hope*
we have a joint that we use for all household expenses (rent, groceries, bills etc).
we both also have separate accounts. he puts in half his paycheck and i match it (since my paycheck is quite variable).
in my opinion, i think this is the healthiest thing to do. its important for both of you to feel like you have some safety i think and that you are earning some money that you can use your own discretion with. also because there are things you want to buy that don't have anything to do with him - like drinks with girlfriends, clothing, gifts for him etc etc. if you put all your money in one account, i feel like you put yourself in the position of having to "ask permission" to buy things you have every right to buy and i think that creates feelings of resentment and of being controlled. also, my hubs has debt he working to pay off - its important to him that he pay that off himself and we would both feel weird if he paid it out of a joint account. just my thoughts not only from my own experience but also having worked with couples through my profession.
we each kept our individual accounts as accounts for fun money for each of us. and we added a joint account and all our main money goes in that.
We have a joint account and a business account. All of our money will go in the joint account, a percentage to savings, and the rest will be free game. lol. Our savings for our house, and upcoming wedding is all a part of our joint account so its no big deal to us.
We continue using our individual accounts. We only pay the home-related bills out of our joint account. With other shared costs, we try to trade off who pays (more or less). It works well for us, no reason to change!
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