joint finances (or not?)

April 21, 2009

in budgeting,money

Low Tide at Crown Beach
Creative Commons License photo credit: Free Quark

In my last post I mentioned that we have joint finances. I recently caught up on The Personal Finance Hour by Jim Wang and J.D. Roth, and in a recent episode they discussed how couples handle their finances.

There has never been a time we kept our finances separate. I have been a stay at home mom for over 11 years, and from the beginning our finances have been combined. With only one income (for the most part), this was the only way to go.

I suppose if we had started out as a dual income family things might be different.  I did (and do) most of the shopping for the family, and he earns the money, so separating the finances never made sense.

Now that we have smarter financial sense, I realize that there may be some problems with having a joint account, but so far the only challenges we’ve faced are making sure we check in about what we are individually spending. This is less of an issue now since we track our spending on our bank’s site, and Wesabe.

When we have more cashflow in the future, maybe I will create accounts for each of us for our spending money, with a savings account attached so we can save for larger purchases. Of course that makes things more complicated and I’m all about simplification, so we’ll see.

Do you have combined finances, or do you have separate accounts? If you don’t currently have a partner have you ever had combined finances?

Kelly

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About Kelly


Kelly Whalen is the founder of The Centsible Life, a blog where motherhood and money meet. Her goal is to help readers live well on less. Kelly is a mom to 4, and loves that she can stay at home with her kids, and still pursue her passions for writing, personal finance, and social media. You can often find her on twitter and Facebook talking money and motherhood.

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  • http://www.misformoney.net/ Miss M

    We just combined finances last month after 6 years together (not married quite yet). My account became the joint account and his became his personal spending account. His paycheck goes into the joint account and then he gets spending money out to transfer into his personal account. He is not a good money manager, this method gives us the power and flexibility of two incomes without him accidentally spending the bill money. I don’t spend much on personal items and just include it with our regular expenses. We’re still adjusting but so far I think this is the best method for us, the details are a work in progress.

  • http://www.misformoney.net/ Miss M

    We just combined finances last month after 6 years together (not married quite yet). My account became the joint account and his became his personal spending account. His paycheck goes into the joint account and then he gets spending money out to transfer into his personal account. He is not a good money manager, this method gives us the power and flexibility of two incomes without him accidentally spending the bill money. I don’t spend much on personal items and just include it with our regular expenses. We’re still adjusting but so far I think this is the best method for us, the details are a work in progress.

  • http://www.standoutblogger.com/free-niche-blog-ideas/free-niche-blog-idea-cakes-traffic-search-stats-inc/ Tom – Free Blog Niche Ideas

    I am getting married in 2 months and this is something that we have talked about, and we have decided to just get joint accounts. We believe that as a couple we are one person and our money does not need to be separate. This also keeps us accountable to any budgets that we set. :D

  • http://www.standoutblogger.com/free-niche-blog-ideas/free-niche-blog-idea-cakes-traffic-search-stats-inc/ Tom – Free Blog Niche Ideas

    I am getting married in 2 months and this is something that we have talked about, and we have decided to just get joint accounts. We believe that as a couple we are one person and our money does not need to be separate. This also keeps us accountable to any budgets that we set. :D

  • http://rainydaypennies.net Cathy

    I actually find that having accounts for specific purposes makes things simpler for me. Account just for bills. Account for new car savings. Account for whatever the heck I like. It’s like having a pre budgeted limit. Since I try to limit my credit card usage these days, I check my spending account to see whether I have enough to buy what I want.

    Having everything in one pool made it hard for me to track down certain spending items. But, that’s just how my mind works. When I have a large collection of data, I want to organize and group it. :)

  • http://rainydaypennies.net/ Cathy

    I actually find that having accounts for specific purposes makes things simpler for me. Account just for bills. Account for new car savings. Account for whatever the heck I like. It’s like having a pre budgeted limit. Since I try to limit my credit card usage these days, I check my spending account to see whether I have enough to buy what I want.

    Having everything in one pool made it hard for me to track down certain spending items. But, that’s just how my mind works. When I have a large collection of data, I want to organize and group it. :)

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