re: Married Men; How Do You Manage Shared Expenses With Your Wife? (Newly Married)

Marriage - a combination or mixture of two or more elements.

Money - one of the top three priorities of married life

Money not mixed or combined - dumb.

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I feel like the right mix is some combination of shared and personal.

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yeah. obviously everyone should contribute to the bills/debts of the marriage (assuming both work, which i think this thread does assume). then out of whatever is left, each person has to keep a chunk for their own desires

the issue is where the sweet spot is on independence, especially when there is an imbalance of salary

however, even in this sort of system, you can have major issues on household spending (houses, cars, etc that are too expensive)

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My fiancé and I live together and put all of our bills, groceries, some restaurants, etc. on a shared credit card that we both pay half on at the end of each month.

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i like this idea. i spend WAY more on household food than my gf b/c my job is more flexible and i insist on cooking almost every day

My wife and I decided early in our marriage that the best way to avoid financial arguments was to keep separate checking accounts.

So her money is her money and my money is her money.

Never been a problem since....

We have separate accounts because we are always rotating credit card sign up bonuses.

We have certain expenses each pays and a joint savings account separate from our main bank that money is automatically deposited into. We also have our retirement savings automatically deducted. The rest is spending money. We always discuss large purchases over $400-500. Neither one of us are very frivolous either, so it works for us.

Not a man, but have the same spouse after umpteen years, as many of that unmarried as married....can remember when we were broke LSU students & barely had $10 between us to pay the Mr. Gatti’s delivery guy.. Lots of years, a couple businesses, some inheritances later, and we still have the following banking structure:
—separate personal checking for each of us
—separate personal savings for each of us
—joint “household” checking and savings accounts (for big stuff like new roof, flood insurance, etc)
—various business & trust accounts, separate retirement accounts (though we are beneficiary of each other’s accounts, obvi)

There is no one recipe or formula. No, you don’t need one single account or pile of money in order to be happily married. You two need to discuss your expectations and goals, and then craft a structure that works for you. In my household, that means quite a bit of financial autonomy on discretionary income after we’ve each made our designated contributions to house, retirement, etc accounts.

My self employed husband does not need to discuss whether he needs a new officer printer or desk with me, nor do I need to have him vote on whether my professional association memberships are “okay” expenses. That’s the sort of day to day BS we, as grownup professionals, can be trusted to manage.

Talk to her about her parents/family money management issues—did they fight aboiut money? Did yours? What do you want to do differently? What seems fair and equitable to each of you? Talk, talk, talk about this. Make a monthly budget that clearly outlines how much you will each contribute to savings, household expenses, retirement, etc.

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Union- the action or fact of joining or being joined, especially in a political context.

That’s including bank accounts. What most people are describing are roommates. The marriage will end the same way it began, separated.

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how many religious retreats have you been on to work on your marriage?

how many dave ramsey books do you own?

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i will bet 100 SFP dollars that the poster you're responding to is very religious and sees it as very bad i'll bet 10 SFP dollars he's a big Dave Ramsey guy, too

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Did you read his post history or are you making sweeping generalizations about Dave Ramsey people? I’m not a Dave disciple, but I think he does a lot more good than bad, and I think his bad rap on this board is completely undeserved

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How do you guys/gals with separate accounts make sure money isn’t being blown on stupid crap?

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That's what the separate account is for if they do choose.

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How do you make sure you’re both saving for retirement?

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That goes in before money goes into the separate account.

Of course they could lie and be doing stuff behind your back, but that's a whole different can of worms that isn't being discussed in this thread.

I watch our spending to make sure it’s reasonable. We share all of our accounts. We don’t discuss every little thing we buy for ourselves unless it’s a big purchase.