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We did 15% of each of our paychecks go into our personal accounts. With the remaining amounts going into our joint checking. At the end of each month we take most of the money left over and put it in our savings.
We make different amounts of money (I'm only working part-time while I'm going back to school), so we contribute different amounts to our joint expenses. We split our expenses on a percentage, based on how much we make. When I was working full time, we split things like 55%-45% because that's what we made. However, now, we're splitting things more like 70%-30%. So I guess, we've set up a budget for the joint expenses, then split that total monthly amount based on what we make--and that's what we contribute to the joint accounts. Everything else stays in our individual accounts for our individual expenses.
Thanks for the responses guys. I'm trying to work some things out with FI, so all your input helps :)
This has been a serious discussion for FI and I. I come from a family in which its traditional for a husband and wife to lump all their income together, with no separate accounts. My mom definitely looks down on having separate money or splitting expenses "evenly" because she thinks it isn't that marraige mentality of "what's mine is yours", and I somewhat agree with her. FI on the other hand comes from a family where expenses are split, his parents pay for their own cars, phones, college bills, etc. His parents are very happily married so its hard for me to criticize this, but for us I don't think its the best plan, because we won't ever have comparable salaries, and I want to be a stay at home mom eventually.
I think our plan as of now is to do sort of what Jessie and her husband do. We'll make a budget of our monthly expenses and based on that, figure out how much we'll need to have in our joint checking account. Then, based on our respective incomes, we'll see how much we each contribute. So basically if my income is 30% of the household income, then I pay 30% of our bills. Anything leftover goes into our own accounts.
The thing that we disagree on is if our "own" expenses should include things like student loans, individual cell phone bills, individual credit cards. In my opinion, all our expenses should be considered household expenses, but I know he'd rather keep those separate.
Something else we are planning on doing is, as we get closer to being ready to have a baby, I will start saving more and more of my income. So say next year, I am putting aside $100 a month in a savings account. After a couple years, I will put $200 a month aside, and the next year, $300. By the time we start trying to concieve, I will be saving the majority of my income. This does two things - it teaches us how to live on just his income, which we will have to do because I'll be staying at home, and it puts money aside as a "baby fund" so things aren't too tight when we do start a family. Credit Mama Daniellemybelle for this great plan!
Oops I voted wrong.
We have both seperate and joint accounts. I budget all the money but we have an amount for spending money. The rest pays the bills. It works for us. But I am a very budgety person
We have one joint checking account and a savings account. My paycheck is direct deposited, and most of the time I have to go to the back to deposit FI's check or else he never would. :) I am the CFO of our relationship, I make sure all bills are paid, food is bought, etc, and if either of us ever wants to buy something just because, we have to clear it with the other person first. I don't mean like "Hi, honey, can I buy a soda at the gas station?" I mean like "Wow, honey, there's this really awesome gun/pair of shoes/small flying device that I want, do we have the money for that?"
It works well for us.
Wow, it's really interesting to see these results, it's almost a three-way tie. If I can get a decisive winner based on a good enough number of votes, I'm going to show him to help us decide how to go forward. Thanks again all!
We have joint and separate accounts. We split the bills down the middle. We may merge our accounts after the wedding (once my name is changed).
We are going to have only joint accounts once we're married, he's still paying off the ring and a student loan right now so it doesn't make sense for us to merge yet (plus I make more than him).
I'm exactly like Flamingo who said:
Oops I voted wrong. We have both seperate and joint accounts. I budget all the money but we have an amount for spending money. The rest pays the bills. It works for us. But I am a very budgety person.
We have both seperate accounts and a joint account. The seperate accounts are for use in our respective hometowns (as the checks are more easily accepted). Our joint account is where we have decided to place most all of our income and what we spend out of primarily. There are also savings accounts attached to the joint account that we use to save up for the health insurance we'll be taking on next year. He is way more money conscious than I am and does alot of the budgeting, but we discuss all the decisions.
If you have more finance questions or have debt and would like to get out of it, I would strongly recommend Dave Ramsey's book "Total Money Makeover" It was given to us during marriage counseling by our pastor and it was a great jumping off point for creating a plan for our financial life together.
I'm european and I guess by default somewhat old fashioned. I really don't understand the concept of separate accounts. Since our engagement my husband and I have had a joint account ... and I was a student at that point. I just got out of school and make a lot less than my husband. We don't hide any purchases from each other .. unless you are doing this what's the point of separate accounts? I don't mean to sound ignorant, I just don't understand it.
We've learned to be open about finances and frankly don't want the hassle of yet another account, so we plan to keep our seperate ones for now and keep paying bills as we have been the last two years of living together - we split the regular household bills, some come from his account, some from mine, and I transfer rent directly to his account as needed. It's been working great for us so far!
We do share some credit cards account, and will probably share more in the future - too many of those kicking around! ;)
I can't vote on this yet because we don't live together so we don't share expenses. We've talked a little and I'm not sure what we're going to do yet. I'd like us to each have some of our own money on the side, but we'll see. I make significantly more than my FI, so I like the percentage idea - it seems much more fair.
We have had a joint account for years. It pays our mortgage, household bills, groceries, and our joint savings (for holidays etc). Up until now we put the same amount in each payday, even though I earn more than him (his salary is topped up by free car and home internet/phone). This weekend we agreed I would start putting more in to cover those things (I feel better about this, it seems fairer). We keep separate accounts for our individual bills (phones, gym memberships) and fun money. We have had separate credit cards up til now but just bought an investment property and as part of that new mortgage will have a joint credit card, but we will keep separate ones too. FH owned two properties when I met him, both of which he has now sold. He has the proceeds from those sales which he might use to buy himself another investment. I don't claim any of that money since I had nothing to do with buying or maintaining or selling those properties - it's all his. I come from a "what's mine is yours" marriage (which feels most natural to me), FH comes from a marriage where his mum basically supported his dad (he was an artist), everything was in both names, they are now split up but she doesn't want to divorce bc he will get half of everything even though it was her money that paid for it. FH lived with a girlfriend before me, two years after they broke up she tried to sue him under de facto laws. She didn't succeed but it definitely had an impact on our relationship. We are very careful with our finances and how we spend our money. I would encourage everyone to keep personal accounts for "fun" - that way you never have to defend your spending habits, you don't have to care what your partner spends their money on, etc. I don't want to fund his video games, and he doesn't want to fund my shoe habit :) We will probably revisit our system when the time comes to have babies, but until then this works for us. Oh, and we'll be getting a pre-nup so all of this is clear to both of us :)
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I was just curious for people who have both joint and separate accounts, how much goes into their joint accounts and how much do they keep separate?
Do you both have the same amount of separate money? Or does the person who makes more have more? Do you contribute evenly to the bills if you don't make the same amount?