SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Am I the only one who thinks that if two people are married their finances should be merged? As is together completely. There shouldn't be "his money" or "her money" but OUR money. And that it doesn't matter who makes more or less but that it's ALL household money. Seems to me the separation can only cause problems.

Am I just old-fashioned and outdated??? In today's society is there a true need for finances to be separated? If you think so convince me because I don't see it.

We do not commingle funds. I can not even imagine doing that with anyone. It works for us and we rarely argue about money..

I used to feel that way, but I no longer see it as a one size fits all. A spender and a saver working with the same account are going to take it in opposite directions. The spenders tend to be more involved if there are multiple accounts and they only have to track, and account for, a portion of the spending. I do think both partners should be involved and agree on a general direction for finances though.

When we got married, we both had nothing, so it was just a natural to combine since we had the same goals, were both working full time, etc.

I think it's more common now that people are waiting longer to marry and may have an "imbalance" of what they are bringing in to the M, to keep finances separate except for the shared expenses and savings goals... maybe?

If one, comingled budget works for you, then that's what you do. It did not work with the X and me. He hid money and felt he was entitled to spend whatever he wanted. This happened early on in our relationship (we were M 33 years) so it was not a result of the infidelity.

He worked a 2nd job as a bartender when we first got M. He made $30/night in salary, which he gave to me as part of his earnings; he also made $200-300 a night in tips, which he pocketed. I tried to explain that we needed this tip money for bills, but he refused. When we started getting calls from creditors, he got angry, saying I was no good at budgeting and paying the bills, so I threw the check book at him and told him to handle it. Within a month, he came back and complained he never had any money in his pockets, but he would NEVER admit that I was right all along. The problem for me is that ALL of my money went into bill paying (my check was direct deposited) so I had to beg for spending money. This went on for a couple of years until I wised up and told him he was paying for X bills and I would pay for Y bills. We got separate accounts, and that was that.

Both DH and I are on our second marriages and so we both have child support coming in or going out, DH at one point had alimony as well, there are some retirement accounts still tied up and other financial messiness to contend with. So it's not as simple as just piling it all together. We each have separate accounts and we also have a family account.

We do combine most of our liquid assets together. There really is no talk of who earns more and who gets to spend more. There never has been, and I wouldn't ever want there to be. We're a team, and our incomes (minus the above financial issues) belong to our family. However both DH and I will often work an extra job in line with our profession, and that "extra money" is really never put into our budget and can in theory be spent by the person who worked their ass off at a second job for it. But that never really happens. We both end up spending the extra on family. Well, mostly!

I used to feel that way, but I no longer see it as a one size fits all. A spender and a saver working with the same account are going to take it in opposite directions.

This is my thought as well. I plan to chose someone much closer to my saving mentality this time around but there will always be some differing spending habits.

My plan is to have three account: my checking, his checking and a joint saving. We will base everything off income percentage, each will have a percentage of bills and contribute a percentage to savings and the rest will be kept individually.

Even if both are savers there are certain items that each may want but the other would view as frivolous. For example, a tablet and ebooks would be more important to me than a giant tv to watch sports would be to him. Or why should I suffer because he eats lunch out everyday while I would rather take mine. This way each person is accountable for their own expenses and neither feels like they are being short changed.

After having lived through a divorce, I won't co-mingle money again.

In my marriage the money was in one big pot. It worked pretty well for us until we separated.

If I ever co-habitate again, I will not mingle money.

NL

Hubby and I are both on marriage #2.

We have our direct deposits go into our own personal accounts, then we each transfer a specific amount into the joint checking account for household bills only and a specific amount to our joint savings account for repairs, vacations, etc.

Our personal accounts are our own spending money, gas, etc. When you run out, you're out of luck.

I can see why people dont comingle funds at all, but this is a good middle ground for us (and we dont worry about overdrafts, etc because one person forgot to mention X, Y, and Z atm transactions).

It would be important to me that my future husband and I share our finances in a joint account (only after getting married) and that we BOTH actively participate in the planning for and managing of that money.

Even more important to me would be that he and I had similar or compatible views on finances...something that should be discovered prior to marriage.

This is going to vary from person to person and couple to couple. Some people may not feel that a marriage is a true partnership if they are keeping finances separate. Others may feel that keeping finances separate helps to eliminate one of the major causes of marital disputes. There are probably even a few marriages that are very satisfying for the couples that would implode if finances were merged.

Lump me together with Crescita and jennie.

XH and I never got around to combining our bank accounts, and it saved my butt in the divorce.

If I ever get married again, there's no way in hell I would combine finances. Shared account for shared expenses, sure, but I'm keeping everything else separate.

I think it is completely up to the couple. In my first M, I was mostly a SAHM. I had access to his paychecks and paid the bills. It actually worked and we rarely fought over money. We only had joint accounts.

In my current M, tension over money started soon after we got married. I admit I had no idea what a "spender" he was until after I married him. Even though he made more than me in the beginning, I saw that he would blow every cent and didn't even seem to realize he was doing it.

Within the first four months of our M, I got my own bank account and started keeping my money separate. I quickly realized that our M was never going to work with him being a spender and me a saver...but he would spend all his and mine too if I didn't have way to show him when HIS was gone...and then he'd tap into mine...

We have had money arguments through the years, some quite serious, he and I both know it would have been FAR WORSE if we merged our money.

Even though we have separate accounts, we still own our home and other stuff together, and we have our system of who pays for what most of the time. We have been married for 17.5 years and this is the way it works for us.

But Rollercoaster, based on your initial question, I think most married couples do pool and share their finances, so no, you are not alone in your thinking about this. I don't have a problem with people who want to pool finances if that works for them, but I see no reason why married couples "should" feel obligated to share bank accounts and finances if other ways of managing things work better for the couple.

[This message edited by Bobbi_sue at 7:31 PM, March 25th (Monday)]

I will never co-mingle money again with anyone. But then I will never marry again, so that will not be an issue.

If my DD ever asks my advise I will tell her to keep finances as separate as possible. I have just seen too much to advise anything else.

Aesir I think this is it for me.

Some people may not feel that a marriage is a true partnership if they are keeping finances separate.

And I definitely was referring to married couples, not couples living together as I do think there is a difference.

I think this has to do with my ideals and I can't imagine doing it any other way. I am thankful it has worked for me in BOTH my marriages LOL!