Money

[WebLady]

Who brings home the bacon in your relationship? Who handles the bills and such?

ETA - Do you have or plan to get joint bank accounts?

Just curious :)

[Dani]

We both work, he makes more. However, we both have separate checking accounts, and write our own bills out. I remind him of when his are due.

[WebLady]

Me; DH and I both work, though he makes alot more money that I do.

He pays most of the bills, but there are a few personal ones that I take care of myself and I usually take care of the groceries.

We have separate checking and savings accounts.

ETA - We have a list of all our monthly bills and expenses and he usually reminds me and/or asks me when I have paid whatever and we mark it off the list to keep track.

He has me spoiled; I use to have to take care of all the bills and such when I was married to my ex-husband.

[KMS]

I don't know if I should be posting here because we're not married yet, but this is what we plan to do! I don't have my own checking account so when Chad & I get hitched I'll get added on to his. He's the only one that has a job so he brings home the soy bacon (OMG sorry, I had to :geek:). He'll make the money and I'll be the one that actually takes care of getting the bills paid. He's far too forgetful for that.

[WebLady]

Oh yes, anyone married or otherwise can feel free to share :)

LOL @ soy bacon ;) Sorry Keely :ginger:

[lizardbnorton]

We both work, but he makes almost twice what I make. I think i keep track of the bills more than he does, but he is really good about keeping an eye on them though.

[ChibiAiChan]

In all honesty... if I had anything to do with the bills we would be screwed! We have a joint checking account, he makes much more money than I do (sadly, I am the one with the college degree, lol) and he takes care of the bills! I only have to keep track of my credit cards, which I don't really use... because I use his! heh! It's worked really well this way...

*really REALLY bad at math!*

[ChibiAiChan]

mmm bacon.... lol sorry :lafhard:

[70707Bride]

We both work, and have a joint account, as well as our own. I need to find a full-time job somewhere soon though so I can start getting things paid off. And there is nothing around here. :(

[Krimangel]

Well Right Now With Him Still In School I Make The Money And He Is Putting Us In Debt, But As Life Goes On He Will Def. Be The One Making More Of The Money. We Will Have A Joint Checking, And Both Of Us Are Pretty Good About Paying The Bills, Although He Is On Top Of It, Has To Pay It As Soon As He Gets It... Im Just Like, As Long As Its Paid Before The Due Date, Im Good.

[SerendipityCrafts]

We both work (he makes a bit more) and we both work at our biz together. I manage the money from the biz. We both have separate checking accounts. I normally handle the untilities and the credit cards and he handles the rent and groceries, gas etc.

[Danielle9608]

We both work full time. He makes double what I make. We have a joint checking account, joint savings, and our credit card is linked. He pays all the bills. Basically he makes the money and I spend it, lol :)

[ikkin510]

He makes the money and I spend it...LOL. This summer I got the chance to quit my job and now with the baby coming I am able to just stay home. So Steve does bring home all the "bacon." We have had a shared account since we got married. I pay all the bills since I'm better with handling more and getting things paid on time. I'm quite the tight wade when it comes to spending money, so I guess it works out for the best for us!

[Diamend]

DH is not good at organization or deadlines.... SOoo, we both work, but I make a little more yearly (which will hurt us when we have a baby and I stay home). We have a joint checking and savings, seperate retirments. I handle getting the bills all paid on time and such; and I balance the checkbook with him watching and approving changes (I feel like he should be involved, what if something happened to me? He'd be screwed! ;)

[SouthernQueenBride]

I plan on retiring from my position once we have kids ... but right now ... I make more money even though he works more than me. He is a resident and it is almost comical what he brings home for working a 15 hour day. All of his money is going to pay off his ridiculous loans. All of mine goes to, Bills, Rent, Groceries, Gas, etc. Right now we both have separate checking accounts but once we are married we are going to combine our accounts into one. Just b/c I pay all the bills and stuff so it would be easier to do have one account to work with.

[Kirby]

He works full time. I work part time and go to school.

He pays for most of the bills (I pay what I can), but I am the one who actually writes the checks and sends/brings them in. We have separate accounts, so he just gives me cash and I put it in my checking to cover the bills. When we get married I want to join accounts just to make things easier.

[WendyNC]

I make a ton more than he does, I pay all the bills, he just pays his debts. When the baby comes, he is going to be a Mr Mom! :hi:

[ger]

We both work full time ++. I make quite a bit more than he does. Most of the bills come out of my account...then he picks up the extras...like food and gas. We have separate accts and one joint savings. It works for us!

[miranda]

We both work full time, but he makes more than twice as much as I do. We've had a joint account for over a year now, even though we aren't married yet, because he never remembered to pay bills, even with me nagging him. So we got a joint account and now I can write out all the bills. Works well this way :) Within a year I hope to start working part time and go back to school. This no college degree **** is stressful!!

[Nekochanpurr]

Steve makes a ton more than me, which still isn't much, lol. He pays the rent..And a lot of other stuff. I pay electric and cellphones... Sometimes groceries, unless i got some really pooy hours, then he kind of has to pitch in.. But at least we don't have any debt!

We each have our own bank accounts, but i added Steve on mine. I'll also be added on his, just in case... But we plan on using our own checking accounts, and just sharing my savings. :) If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

[TangoWedding]

We both work full time, though he makes more than I do. Once he gets out of engineering school (next year) he'll be able to make a load more than I do. He's the finance guy, so he does all the house bills. He's even recently taken over my cell phone bill. Wheee! I basically pay for groceries...and my personal bills (student loans, etc).

We will always have separate bank accounts and credit cards.

[LoveHim08]

We're not married yet, but at the beginning I will be making the majority of the $$. We already have a joint checking account, so we plan on closing out our own accounts when we are married and using only our joint accounts.

I currently pay the bills (he doesn't really have any!), but when we are married, I think we'll both do them together. I think it's important for both of the partners of a marriage to know exactly what their financial situation is at any given moment.

[s_r_d3]

Well right now Jon brings home the bacon. We really dont have many bills (only like 4) and we both are pretty good and remembering when they are due. Sometimes I have to remind him on the electric but not to often. After we get married I'll get put on his bank account.

[EarlyBird]

we live as a "married" couple as in everything ; house, cars accounts are in both names.
Once we purchased our home together we decided on a joint account. \how it works is that he gives me the cash and i deposit it (he procrastinates and we would be late if i let him do the depositing.) He does this with ALL the bill money. Even though we dont keep "track" he usually pays the mortgage and 1 car and i pay all bills like credit cards, utilities etc etc and one car. It comes out that the amount is SPLIT its just easier with my new job (where i make less) for me to pay things little by little. When i say he PAYS it , i mean that he pays the MONEY not that he actually physically pays it... I keep track of everything and everything is paid by ME :) That way i know everything is done and its done right!!! Im a control freak, but the one time i let him pay things he overdrew one of my accounts by 1800.00 + 600 fees. He paid it out of the wrong account. An account i have not used in 4 years. 0.19 balance and he tried to pay 3 bills.... SILLY!!

[HisMuse]

We both work but Erik makes more. I do the bills because he's never at a computer.

[firespirit]

We both work and he makes more than I do. The house is his, so he pays for that and it's related expenses.

We put whatever bills we can (phones, electric, insurance, cable, shopping, etc.) on my Advantage card for the miles and I pay that off every month.

We put anything Costco on his Advantage card since it's Amex so he gets miles (we try to go there for gas and some groceries) and he pays that off every month.

I actually have most of the bills (student loans, car, old credit card debt that I'm letting sit at low interest rates, etc.) so I pay those. If we ended up spending too much on my Advantage card and I'll have problems paying it off then he'll send a check to them.

We are both Authorized users on each other Advantage cards so we can maximize mile earning, however that means that those cards show up on each of our credit reports, so I certainly can't slip up or it reflects poorly on him.

So basically, we have anything we can set up to be automatic payments our bills to be paid by a credit card, then we just have to pay that credit card once a month. It's actually a lot less to keep track of. It's a shame there are still some bills that have to go through a checking account, so I can't earn the miles.

[thetsakid]

I make all the money...which sucks. My FH just got layed off a few weeks ago and its really hard for him to find a job but he has had alot of interviews...So yeah but he has no bills anyway his grandparents buy him everything...he is so spoiled but as soon as he gets a job again he will be paying for most of our living expenses and car insurance but we don't have to pay rent since our house was a wedding gift from my parents so i guess thats good...

[flyerso6]

I make the most money, by alot, but its ok because I also pay alot in student loans. We live like we are already married. Once we bought our house we just got a joint checking account as it made things soo much easier, no more dealing with paying half of everything every month. I pay all the bills as FH would pay them late all the time just out of lazy/forgetfullness. We also talked about the idea of FH being a stay at home dad once we had kids because there is no way I can or would even want to (i like my job). But now that he finally has his dream job he won't want to give that up as he waited a long time for it (he works in maintanence at an amusement park) and once he has been there 2 or 3 years he will make a whole lot more than what he does now.

[Brianne1114]

We both work, right now I make more.
We have separate checking accounts and a joint savings. Eventually we are going to move to a joint checking account.

[saltyveruca]

I bring home the steady bacon, so I pay most of our regular bills. FH is responsible for most of the income from our photography business, so I count that as "his," but I generally get paid back from it for a lot of the stuff I pay for out of my regular income...it's complicated. :bblol:

[sweetvenus]

We both work, but I'm making a lot more because he's in school. We have a joint checking account (two of them actually) and I take care of all the bills.

[Whitewater]

He works (right now he's working close to 80 hours a week!) and my health insurance is through his company. I'm named as a beneficiary on his 401K and his life insurance (and if/when I ever get those myself he'll be on mine). I work occasionally as a freelance stage manager but the vast majority (so to speak, if left to my own devices I'd be living at well under poverty level) of my own personal money comes from my folks, who give me a monthly stipend, which is just barely (literally, I might have $10 left over at the end of the month!) enough to pay my personal bills -- but he takes care of rent and utilities and the car payment, etc. Since I don't have credit cards my bills are basically the insurance for my car and for the dog, my medical copays including the meds, my cell phone, stuff like that. I pay for a proportionate amount of the groceries. I do also work as a mystery shopper but at best that brings in just over $100/month, so it's not exactly livable income.

Because he works like he does at two jobs, I get to take care of the house and the dog and the cat, which is pretty much a 20 hour/week job all by itself, in this 2 bedroom apartment! It will probably go up to a full time job once we get a house! He and I both figure that it's a fair trade -- he works at his job, I keep the home fires burning.

We have separate checking accounts and I have a separate savings account that's all mine (There's only $40 in there right now, but that's 'cause we had some car issues . . . I do try to save as much money as I can, even on my limited income). We also have a joint checking account which we're currently using as a wedding fund.

He *may* eventually add me to one of his credit cards after we're married, now that he's around to ensure the bills get paid on time (which is why I have such bad credit, my disability interferes with my ability to pay bills on a regular basis). Maybe. That's something we still have to talk about. However, as soon as we get married (our state's laws being what they are) half of the house will legally belong to me, so at that time we'll change the name on the title from just him to both of us. We don't really get a choice about that! But he and I have been acting in concert about this whole house thing from the beginning. He might be paying for it, but *I* am doing all of the work (talking with realtors and banks and going on showings and reminding him about important stuff coming up and setting up appointments and searching MLS listings etc etc), so again, he figures we're splitting the labor 50/50.

After we get married we will each legally own half of each other's lives, both the happy stuff like houses and cars, and the unhappy stuff like each other's debt. Gotta love living in a community property state. . . .


Whitewater