re: Married folks — do you and your spouse keep separate checking accounts?

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my sister-in-law and her husband keep separate checking accounts and he doesn’t even like her opening his mail or talking about finances … she asked them recently about how much money they have in 401(k) and he didn’t even wanna talk about it, pretty fricking bizarre and sneaky if you ask me ….he’s been a pretty weird and shady character from the onset, but makes a ton of money and she has a pretty nice life as a stay at home wife so she doesn’t pry too much

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Relationships are built on trust and that trust has to go both ways. You don't hide shite like that from your partner unless you are hiding other shite too.

Mrs. Bard and I met later in life (early-mid 40s) so we were already well established in our lives and routines. Since we both banked with the same bank, it was just easier for us to keep our separate checking and savings accounts, add one another to them and then tie them to a joint checking and joint savings account. We each put a certain amount of money into joint checking each pay period (each deposit automatically puts a portion into joint savings), that's what we use to pay things like mortgage, insurance, etc.

We can access the other's account at any time, but don't unless the other asks (which goes back to that trust factor I started this post off with).

We also sit down from time to time with the bank records for all of our accounts to go over transactions to make sure there haven't been fraudulent charges, over-charges, things we've forgotten, etc.

Joint account for us.

Anecdotally, In the marriages of which I'm aware of separate accounts, there's also usually a fair amount of resentment--whether because of or in addition to the split finances.

We keep one and I haven’t seen it in 30 years.

no, and i couldn't tell you how much we have in the bank either....

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Mrs. Bard and I met later in life (early-mid 40s) so we were already well established in our lives and routines. Since we both banked with the same bank, it was just easier for us to keep our separate checking and savings accounts, add one another to them and then tie them to a joint checking and joint savings account. We each put a certain amount of money into joint checking each pay period (each deposit automatically puts a portion into joint savings), that's what we use to pay things like mortgage, insurance, etc.

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Similar for me. We both came into the marriage with separate checking and savings accounts we each kept. We have a joint credit card and HYSA we both use. I pay the mortgage and electric bill with my checking account, but most of our money goes into the joint account. I trust her. She trusts me. We go over our finances together and talk about any bigger purchases.

Same and separate account. But we have side accounts for our personal purchases. We both know and have agreed on how much goes i to our side account.

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If you do, why so?

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why not?


ETA: yes we do


And not once in our entire marriage have we ever had a single slightest argument about money. Never, nada


I make money that goes into my account
She makes money that goes into her account
We both have money that goes into a joint checking account for bills
We both have money that goes into a brokerage account

If she comes home and me and the kids are riding a new dirt bike or if I come home and there is Amazon boxes stacked to the porch ceiling with her name on it, there isn’t anything that needs to be said

Yeah, I pay the bills except her phone bill and car insurance. She always has enough in her checking account to buy a new car. Think we are going to bank and getting another cd for her. again.

No