Weddingbee boards

Before FI and I got engaged we had discussions about how we would handle money if we got married one day.  What we both said right off the bat was we wanted to keep our own separate checking accounts. We have both been married before and both of us had VERY bad situations with our previous spouses and money. We both had joint  accounts with our previous spouses.  My ex actually took 40k out a savings account that had been in my name only prior to our marriage and lost every penny of it day trading.  Then lied to me while he tried frantically to replace it and lost much more of his familes money and then blamed the whole thing on me.  Anyway , Fi and I  pay our own bills - credit cards, car, insurance , gas etc.  For things like the house we split those, I give him an agreed upon amount each month to cover my portion of the house, water, gas, electric etc.  For items such as dog food and groceries we alternate each week.  We have never had an agrument over money.  I can spend what I like on clothes, etc and never get asked "how much did that cost?"  He does his thing with the deer lease etc and I don't need to know how much he spends on his fun.  We are both very good with our money, and are fanatic about keeping great records.  I balance my checkbook every morning, he does his every Saturday morning.  We have paid for entire wedding in cash and neither one of us like credit except for emergencies.  If we do use a credit card it gets paid for in full the next month.  (I might add that neither one of us make a huge income either) But I am surprised the amount of grief I get from people when I tell them we don't plan of getting joint accounts and than we plan to keep our finances some what separate. I have one girl friend who said she and her husband have been doing this their entire married life of 26 years and it works great.  I am courious if anyone else is planning on keeping finances separate even after marriage.

Even with separate accounts, most have a small joint checking account even if just for social reasons, such as writing a gift check to someone from John and Jane Smith joint account. Or for cashing in wedding checks that are written out to "Mr and Mrs John Smith"

As for me and my FH, we are going to have our own accounts and one joint account where we will both put a set amount of our paycheck each month into the joint account and pay bills from the joint account.

I can see that.  I don't think we would use it but I can keep that in mind for the future.  Neither one of us use checks.  We pay our bills on line or use cash.  As far as wedding checks we are not registering for gifts.  Second marriage and all we have two favorite charities and are asking for donations to be made to our chairities in honor of our marriage.

@Moose1209: That won't be an issue. I am 49 and he is 61.  But it is a good point.

@Meowkers: I appreciate your honesty. I guess from what I am seeing here that most will be having joint account or at least both joint and separate accounts.  So I can see that breaking from the norm can seem wierd.  At least now I have a feel for what more people are doing so I understand where people are coming from when I get some flack.  It does feel right for us.  I too lost my job and he of course stepped right in a took over things like food and house hold expenses.  I continued to pay my own personal bills, mostly car related items out of savings and unemployment.  Just because we don't put it in an account that has both of our names on it doesn't mean we don't share.  It just means that we each manage what we earn. 

@Happy2bMrs: No one has ever asked us how we are doing our finances it is more in casual conversation when we talk about things like ...Oh I am dreading all the name changing stuff yadda yadda and people will say don't forget you have to take care of banking stuff too ... I say well we're not doing joint accounts ... people act like I told them we were living in separate houses or something.  Someone even accused me of not trusting him.  I trust this man with my life.  I just want to keep my financial independence and he does too.  Even though I know legally once we are married that it is all considered joint in the eyes of the law.

Since we will never be having children togther there is no need to have an OUR account that I can see at this point but that could change.  I was just kind of courious why people would think it was so odd.  Money they say is such a volital area in a relationship, this for us seems to remove that problem.  We each manage our money very differently even though we both handle money very well.  For instance he is much more of a aggresive investor than I am.  I am far more conservative in my investments.  This way he can invest how he likes and I invest the way I like.  No disagreements.

Thanks for the honest feed back ladies!

@BodyByViGirl:  Ooops, I am sorry if I offended you with this post.  I meant no harm.  I was really just curius if what we were doing was that strange.  Sorry :)