Hi ozbargainers
I used to think we are the normal ones. Money from our jobs go together to the same account. Money from the account is used to pay for daily expenses , mortgage , kids, holidays etc.
Till I found out my brother and sis in laws, friends. Each person of the couple even when married , manage his/her finances individually.
So for example, my bro puts his pay in his own account, like wise for my sis in law. When they go out for dinner, they take turns to pay. When they need to buy say a fridge, each of them chip in halves etc.
Now I find that concept odd to start with because it feels like they live as flatmates till I found out many of our friends are doing the same . We are actually the odd ones out.
What do you do in your family? Interesting to find out.
Do you and your partner/spouse keep finances apart?
Comments
We also have a joint account.
My brother used to have the separate arrangement with his ex wife for the duration of their marriage. They even squabbled over her hygiene products. She had to pay for their kids Catholic school tuition fees because to him, one pays for his/her choices regarding the kids. Yes, she also had to pay for the girls' feminine hygiene products herself.
Once the kids were grown, she finally had the guts to leave and has now moved on. All this his, hers, mine business cannot possibly be part of any healthy loving relationship. It should be us, theirs and ours.
I had the opposite experience when I was married - all our accounts were joint ones, you wouldn't even think in those days about having an individual account. We were married for 17 years and my (now ex) husband was a "spender", he would waste money on all sorts of stuff like expensive exercise equipment that was only used once or twice, annual gym memberships that he'd use for a few weeks and then not go any more, expensive tools and gadgets he never used, and so many other things - not to mention him thinking he was a financial genius when it came to the stockmarket (which he definitely wasn't!). I would have been a lot happier having separate accounts back then, but it wasn't the "done thing". I'm in another relationship now, we're not married but have been together for 10 years and we don't have any joint accounts. it's not something that's ever even come up as a topic of discussion - we've just always had our individual finances, he pays for some bills, I pay others, and big purchases like electrical goods etc, we pay half each, Works really well for us.
Everything combined in our household.
Combined. Can remember countless times when friends have asked to borrow $20 because their spouse will not lend it to them. Most are now divorced. Seriously if you can't combine your finances you should not be married. What would happen in a near single income family like mine?
Both. One combined account and our own individual accounts. We put in the same amount in our combined account every month and pay for everything for our household using the combined accounts, e.g. rent, groceries, bills, dining out, travel, furniture, etc.
If we go out separately or individually want to buy something, use our individual accounts.
^ I like this one the most. It's nice to receive a gift or something from your S.O. from their own personal account. And going out with the mates won't upset the Missus if you use your own account for your 'recreation.'
+1 This system works for me and my wife too. All money goes into a joint account (mortgage offset) and all bills etc. are paid from that. We each get the same small amount of money going into our own personal 'spending' accounts each month that can be used for anything we want (ie. OZB spending for me!). Given the large difference in our incomes (especially when my wife stopped working while on maternity leave) this seems fairest since we both end up with the same amount of personal spending money each month regardless of who earns more.
We have separate accounts and pay half each for everything. Pay $100 each into joint account for household purchases eg white goods and holidays. No kids so probably easier but the wife would drag me in a financial gutter, she spends more than she earns, always has. She has a permanent credit card debt, I have savings and investment properties, both earn the same.
Her debt is your debt. Better to work through the issue than to have her eventually file for bankruptcy, which will impact you no matter how separate your finances are.
I'm wondering what all these people with separate accounts do when the first kid comes along, and the wife (or husband) is not working for a year?
Also, the "both" answer doesn't make sense to me. Generally one will earn more than the other (usually the husband) and so if both contribute an equal amount to the joint account for joint expenses and are free to do what they want with the rest of their own money, that's hardly fair.
Unless you have some kind of prenup contract (and I doubt many married couples do, and almost no deficit couples do) then everything you earn or purchase during the relationship is 50/50 joint asset anyway, so it really doesn't matter who pays for what.
If one of you is a big spender and the other is not, having joint or separate accounts is not going to eliminate conflict around those issues. It's a core personality and priority difference that will always be an issue.
'Both' generally means combined money for savings and for all nomral family spending including holidays etc. but have seperate 'allowance' accounts which you can use to buy whatever things you like, when you save the money for it. like random fun things that the other spouse doesnt care about / want to spend money on. Both in the relationship get the same amount (eg per week).
Joint accounts here. Would be too confusing otherwise for us. We have an offset account on our mortgage which our joint account is linked to so we would be worse off in that sense if we had separate accounts. As all our money is combined in the offset account which saves us interest on our loan
Separate.
Not married yet but we bought a place together, money goes into our individual accounts and payments are made into a joint account. We both have our work pay go into our own accounts and then when we go out we take turns paying or split it.
No issues doing it this way but I would imagine once we were married it would just be combined as it is easier.Joint for us. I thought about having a separate 'spending' account each when we first got married, but it seemed like a fair amount of work for little benefit. We aren't really spenders, although I'm the bigger spender, and we always stays on top of our bills having plenty of reserve for emergencies so we won't struggle with money.
My better half does have a separate account, but the money from there gets transferred to our main account at big purchase time (car, holiday etc). It is only separate as it was set up as a wage account a long time ago and is now our backup emergency funds. It is also with a different institution, just in case….
Separate. Probably saves tons of arguments. Feels right to us. We have a list of house spending which is added up from time to time to make sure we're about even. Has worked for us for 25 years. No kids though. Of course we know we'd be there for each other if finances became an issue.
Everything joint - when married it means a commitment to each other. When I inherited money from my parents, first thing was to clear all OUR debts ( mortgage, cars ) & give up work ! Invested the remainder in joint accounts but he does still work - because he wants to. Nothing in our household is separate - what is the point in being married if you wish to have a separate& hidden cash flow of your own ? The major words here, I believe, Is trust & love to each other - without this your relationship has nothing. Marriage should be a LIFETIME commitment not an idea of a few years & move on to the next one. ( We're at 34 years by the way before any of you comment )
Everything joint. House, married & no kids.
No Seymour it's the children who are wrong….
Seriously though it's financially beneficial to be joint so why would any oz bargainer not be?
Consolidated debts and compounded offset savings…joint accounts are the only sensible way (but maybe it only works because we are similar in our spending habits) my friends and family are probably 50/50. But those who seem more likely to split or have split are those with split finances. (Obviously just my observation and not true for everyone).
Separate. When your other half starts using the combined funds to pay/buy/give excessively to their families. No need to ask when buying things. (we always ask each other for advice and opinions though)
Combined. Anything else would seem weird.