The bf and I have been living together for a 7 months and I was complaining last night about how broke I am after xmas gifts and he mentioned combining finances. It was a really casual conversation (also talking about our budget and how we can switch things around so maybe he pays more than he does now since I make a lot lessHe brought up the idea of us creating a seperate account for household expenses that we both contribute to for covering groceries, cleaning stuff, etc since I usually buy most of that because I do most of the cleaning and household stuff.
I don't think I'd ever be comfortable sharing 100% of our finances, but I don't hate the idea of sharing accts for the stuff we do share expenses on, like rent and the above household stuff.
When did other bees combine finances? I think most people would cringe thinking about someone sharing money without being married, but bf and I are on the same page money-wise and we will likely be engaged within the next 6 months... thoughts?
we haven't yet, but we're planning on doing it after we get married.
I voted "when we moved in together," but really, we got engaged 3 days after moving in. We did it since it made sense at the time to set up a new bank account (had just moved to a new state), but we both still have our separate checking/credit accounts as well.
We combined our finances 100% when we moved in together / got engaged, which happened roughly at the same time.
We have a savings account and actually 2 checking..... one that all of our direct debits come out of each month for all our bills and then a 2nd for "living" expenses, which is basically the amount we have decided to use for eating out, grocery shopping, gas, haircuts etc after all the bills are paid and we have moved a bit of money into savings.
This is my 3rd marriage and I said in the middle of my first (when we UN-combined our finances) that I would never ever combine money with anyone. However, this guy is different. So, it works for us. I can't imagine trying to keep everything separate and determining who owed for what. We are married and it's OUR money, OUR debt and OUR fun. But we're older, so we're not much fun anymore!!!!!!!
We haven't really had a "budget", which is what we are working on developing for the new year. Our wedding budget got away from us, so we are going to recover from that, get ourselves out of our debt and develop a savings plan. We're going to do all that together - not separately.
We combined our finances 100% after we moved in together. It just made the most sense for us. We make pretty much the same amount of money, and it just became such a pain for him to be paying me back or me to be paying him back.
We were going to go the whole "household account" and "separate accounts" until he learned that I'm better at balancing/budgeting, so now we joint everything :P.
Overall, I feel like it's a really smart move to have at least a joint "household" account as it is a joint household. I also feel like after we combined accounts our financial responsibility increased, as did our power to make better financial investments, decisions, etc.
Good luck!
Every situation is so different. I have friends who live together and their SO or fiance just transfers money in their bank accounts. I have another MARRIED couple who the husband doesn't even have a bank account and isn't on her at all and they have a business together (we don't understand it at all but we are NOT in a place to judge at all). For My FI and I, when we first moved in together 3.5 years ago he initially just paid a set amount of "rent" to me cause the house and all bills are in my name. I did al the grocery shopping. He paid his own car payment and ins. BUT, right after we got engaged I had him switch his direct deposit into my bank account and added him to my account. I added him to my AMEX which we use for groceries and gas as well. It's soooo much easier for me to just continue to keep track of the house bills that way. We NEVER argue about money! I know what he makes, he knows what I make. He works over time and when he wants to get me gifts he takes out cash. It works for us. :)
We moved in togther May 2011, bought a home together August 2011, got engaged July 2012... and combined finances September 2012.
We have a joint savings account but separate checking accounts and we plan on keeping it that way.
Me and my fiance have known each other for 6 years, have been living together for 4 years. Since we have lived together, our finances have always been put together. We have a system - We throw our money into the pot, pay whatever bills are unpaid, get the things we need [groceries, toiletries, ect], and then we think about things we want. Everything leftover goes into savings accounts.
we got married in June 2012 and will combine finances in January 2013. We both had loose ends to tie up before combining!
We got a joint account a couple of months after we got engaged. I feel that this is important in our relationship because there will be no his or hers, it will be ours.
Of course, this may not work for everyone, so anyone can do what they want. But I do feel this will work for us.
We opened a joint account a few years ago that we both contributed to equally every paycheck. We used that as our savings for our house. We got engaged before moving in together, and once we did, all finances were combined.
We are working on it. Right now we have between us two credit cards, three bank accounts and three sets of checks. It's a process. :/
We got engaged in Feb, moved in together in Sept, and will be married in July. When moving in together we budgeted together-- I buy food, pay for cable/internet, and our phones and he pays for rent. We combined cell phone plans (big deal), but other than that are apart. In August, after the wedding, I will switch over to his checking and savings. We will be added as an authorized user to each others credit card accounts (but won't have a card to use).
My feeling is that I wouldn't want to combine until we have legal protections. He is also really, really private. The only reason we got combined cell phones was his broke and it didn't make sense any more.
We moved in together and six months later, we combined finances. We made roughly the same amount and it was the best decision for us.
@bkrocks13: We merged the money at engagement/moving in. I was not going to move in with him until I was engaged. I had a house to sell if I were to live with him. So after I moved in to his home and the house sale was final (all the utils closed, etc), then I had my paycheck go into his existing bank account and added me.
Would you feel better waiting until you were engaged? or does it feel right now?
"I don't think I'd ever be comfortable sharing 100% of our finances"
It would be good to have a discussing with your BF about why you feel that way. Maybe uncover some truths or myths that you may be having. Not saying it's bad, but it would be good for him to understand why.
Oh I voted wrong - I thought you meant ALL expenses, so I voted for engaged. But for household bills, defintely when we moved in together (many moons ago!). We usually split all the bills and groceries more or less, but one or the other has paid more when we have more income.
Right now I'm paying for everything as I have a well-paying job whereas he's just finishing his last semester of school round 2. Looking forward to having TWO adult sized paychecks for the first time ever! :)
We haven't really combined them fully, but we did open a joint account when we got engaged for wedding related expenses. We still have our own personal accounts as well. I handle most of the bills, and he transfers me money from his account for his portion of everything. Works pretty well for us. I think it's important to always have personal accounts in addition to our joint accounts, even after we're married.
I voted 'when we moved in together', but that's not exactly how it went. We moved in together and kept our finances separate for quite some time. When we decided to 'bite the bullet' so to speak is when we got our first vehicle together. (Well technically it's my vehicle, but he cosigned because I was literally one day out of unversity and didn't make enough for the vehicle I wanted.)
He makes substantially more than I ever have, so I was hesitant because I didn't want him to think I was 'sponging off him'. When he willingly, without question, signed a 30 thousand dollar loan, that's when I knew he'd never think of it that way and we joined bank accounts a few days later. :)
Edit to fix my ridiculous spelling mistake
DH and I got married about a month ago. Shortly before the wedding, I sold my house and moved into this house. We used the profit that I got from the sale of my house to pay for the destination wedding and our at-home reception (which was last weekend).
Up until now, I've pretty much been living off DH - He's supporting us while I pay for the wedding. So, he's still taking care of the mortgage, utilities, etc... I'm still paying for my car payment and cell phone. If I happen to be at the grocery store without him, I'll pay for groceries, but it's not like it's a set thing about who's paying for joint household expenses just yet.
Now that most of the wedding stuff is done and paid and I'll be able to use my pay for non-wedding stuff, we'll actually have to take a better look at our finances. We are planning on setting up joint accounts in the new year.
We've been married 6 months and we are just starting to combine finances. We just haven't had a real need to until recently, when we started working on retirement accounts, etc. We generally each just pay certain bills each month, take turns paying rent, etc. We have one joint account, but still each have indidual bank accounts as well.
We moved in together, combined our finances, got engaged, then purchased a house together. I don't work, so this is just how it turned out for us. I think each couple has to figure out what works for them.
We haven't yet, probably because I'm a full-time student and therefore have no finances to actually combine, but we keep talking about opening a joint bank account or putting each other's names on our separate ones. I just feel bad since I have nothing to contribute to a joint account.
We don't combine finances. Was told by several folks in finance that it's generally a bad idea to merge accounts together.
We combined when we got married / moved in together (we did both at once). I wouldn't feel comfortable sharing all finances with someone I wasn't married to.
we got a joint account a couple of months after we got engaged. we both felt that it was important for things not to be "his" or "hers," but "ours."
We already share finances, however we havnt officially combined them into one account but we have access to eachothers money
we didn't officially merge our accounts until a while after we were married, because we were lazy and it was really complicated at our bank, lol. before that though, when we first married, we added him to my credit card, which is now our main account for expenses. but, we'd combined expenses way before that--when we lived together, we had a spreadsheet of who had paid what for our various joint expenses (rent, groceries, utilities, etc) so we always knew how much one of us owed the other. and we bought a car together, so we had a joint loan/credit, etc, before we were engaged.
@trueblue14: this is what i'd like to do. i'd also like to separate bills or put in half of the bill money into another account and pay bills out of that.
Other - we have a joint savings account and we are not engaged yet and don't live together. We won't be combining all of our finances until we're married, however.
We combined accounts after we got engaged and moved to the same state. We currently live separately but we keep everything in one account to save for the wedding and to work on paying all our credit cards/car payments off before the wedding. Its great because he takes care of all our bills and i monitor our savings. I grew up in a family in which my parents kept separate accounts and they argued so much about money. I think the joint account makes both of us accountable and secure.
We have three checking accounts. One for him, one for me, and one for us For utilities, bills, groceries, etc. We each have our own savings account and we have a joint savings for the wedding and honeymoon. It works well for us. But we buy each other things from our own money all the time. He usually pays for eating out ( twice a month) and I buy him clothes all the time because he has so few.
@jbridea: +1 We opened a joint account shortly after getting engaged. We already shared the costs of everything equally, but decided with saving for the wedding and a house it made sense to finally start a joint account.
all separate accounts and no plans to have joint accounts ever. The mortgage comes out of his account automatically, and I pay him back %50 of the mortgage and propety tax so we both are buliding equal equity. For bills we calculate a percentage based on income. For example, if for the last year he has contributed to 58% of the overall household income, he pays 58% of the water bill and I pay the 42% remainder. That way we both have a fair opportunity to build savings etc. This way we keep finances "Strictly buisness", no emotion. We have never, ever, fought over money.
+1, we divided bills up when we moved in together and then opened a shared acct after we were engaged, but we still have our own accts and credit cards. I think it just depends on what you are comfortable. Suze orman would agree with you. I think it works well either way, just so that you are both honest with what you're doing etc. I have had a few friends that were scared to use their cards at lunch because they weren't sure what they hubby was up to-and thought-geez, that would suck. I mean, it was no big deal, one was buying a new tv and one was having major car repairs I think and one was shorted on their paycheck, so things were tight for both of them, but I think the times have changed, with two debit cards, it could sure get confusing. I have a hard enough time keeping up w/my own purchases.
We combined accounts a year or so after we moved in together...but we moved in together pretty much days after meeting.
We kinda combined finances when we moved in together. I had 1/4 of my paycheck going into my own account, and he has an old account that some of his still goes into. It's kind of an emergency fund, so we force ourselves to make do for the most part on our joint account. We are pretty good with money, but having an emergency fund is something everyone should have. When I went back to work part time after graduating, I just put it all into the joint account, because I am too lazy to create my other account again. Oh well. When I find a job that pays me adult money I'll probably create another emergency fund lol.
Won't officially combine accounts until the wedding (or just before). However we basically considered our money the same after we got engaged.
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