how do you keep track of your money?

[Jacobs_Girl]

Well we both still have separate checking accounts and one shared credit card. Well my credit card and his name on it.

We haven't managed to combine our bills yet except housing and utilities.

I have my car payments, credit cards etc he has his phone bill and insurance.

When the bills come I pay it and he pays me half of whatever. For wedding stuff he writes half to vendor from his check book and I write half from mines.

I really want to combine checking accounts but I hate his bank (Bank of America) and he doesn't like mines (Sun trust)

[joeyz_gurl]

well right now i am having a banking issue due to some check fraud that i found out about too late, and until it is resolved i am using an extra account of my mother's to keep my money in. However we do intend to get a joint account together once that is straightened out... we also have a credit card... well it is mine but his name is on it... i have the better budgeting skills so i normally do the budgeting and tracking of household stuff...

[sweetvenus]

All our accounts (except my business account) are joint accounts. We've had them for over two years.

There are three accounts:
- Bills
- Spending
- Savings

All paychecks are deposited into Spending. Twice a month, I have transfers set up to automatically move enough money to pay bills into the Bill account and money into Savings. These transfers occur the day my paycheck is direct deposited so that I know the money will always be there. Having a separate account for bills insures that we will always have enough money to get our bills paid, no matter how much we spend on other stuff.

The money left over in Spending is used for groceries, gas, and whatever else we need. We talk with each other if we want to buy something that's over $20 or $30, just to make sure that spending that money isn't going to mess something up.

I keep track of everything in Quicken as well.

[Jacobs_Girl]

All our accounts (except my business account) are joint accounts. We've had them for over two years.

There are three accounts:
- Bills
- Spending
- Savings

All paychecks are deposited into Spending. Twice a month, I have transfers set up to automatically move enough money to pay bills into the Bill account and money into Savings. These transfers occur the day my paycheck is direct deposited so that I know the money will always be there. Having a separate account for bills insures that we will always have enough money to get our bills paid, no matter how much we spend on other stuff.

The money left over in Spending is used for groceries, gas, and whatever else we need. We talk with each other if we want to buy something that's over $20 or $30, just to make sure that spending that money isn't going to mess something up.

I keep track of everything in Quicken as well.

Wow that sound very organized and a good idea! :grinhappy:

[joeyz_gurl]

I keep track of everything in Quicken as well.

We use Quicken as well... it is an awesome tool! it has helped us keep the savings on track...

[mindi_lynn]

We have a joint acct. I got tired of transferring money between the accounts to cover the bills. We have a joint savings account also. I will have seperate though for my massage after that gets up and going. I feel bad that I don't bring as much as he does but he says he doesn't care but in the back of my mind it bothers me. I have a spreadsheet setup with his salary and a minimum of what I get paid and then list all the bills in due date order figure out what gets paid with the first of the month and what gets paid in the second half of the month. And if he comes to me and says anything about money or paying bills i just open it up and show him what is planned. I hate not knowing when it comes to my money so I try to be as organized as possible.

[brendalin]

He keeps a designated amount to keep in his savings account to spen on whatever he needs to that is out of the ordinary. Then we both get an allounce for each week, for gas and anything else. Then the rest I put into our savings, wedding fund, and vacation fund, then the rest goes into our checking for bills.....

[spuls5]

We haven't gotten that far yet. We currently each have bills we are paying. Once we get moved in Sept. we will have to sit down and combine our accounts. I know I will be the one doing the bills because I'm anal about it and have a spread sheet set up for it.

[Scrwballsgrl]

We don't have combined accts as of yet, but either directly after or a mth or so before the wedding I'll add him to my checking account and savings accts. Fh doesnt have a checking or savings right now, he likes to have his "cash" in hand:grinhappy:
Right now I have direct deposit so most of my check goes into the checking...for bills, gas, etc. & the remainder usually $200 or so goes into savings for a rainy day.

I'm gonna introduce him to the joys of checks & debit cards, and we are planning as long as the bills are paid, checking with one another on amounts over $40 or so.

[SerendipityCrafts]

We learned from our last marriages .... and so we keep our bank accounts separate (ie it's always wise for a woman to retain her own bank account and credit card - and to keep it in good standing of course).

We both have chequing and savings accounts at two different banks and we both do our banking online.

Rather than pay half/half for anything, we divided the bills. I pay all the utilities, credit card bills and miscellaneous bills. He handles the rent, the gas and groceries. If he's short money, I email it to him. If I am short money, he emails it to me.

This way, we can also save up money on the sly so as to buy each other gifts when necessary.

[acidcookie]

Well we just moved in together, but I suspect we'll be keeping separate accounts. I like it that way. I like my credit cards separate of his and the nice thing is that our checking accounts are the same bank so we can transfer money between them online.

For the wedding stuff, we keep my original savings account. I transfer money there, and he transfers money to me to transfer there. When there's something we can pay out of pocket one of us will just pay it, we're really not keeping track of who paid more.

As for bills, he owns his house and I have no bills of my own but my cell phone, all others come with this house. So he pays them and I just pay him a set amount each month that we've agreed on for the mortgage, electricity, etc. So far I've been grocery shopping and I'm fine continuing that and just paying for it. But he's gonna have to pick out the meat himself, blech!

We'll probably never do a half and half split but like Serendipity one of us will take care of some things, and one will take care of others. Half and half is only fair if you make about the same amount of money as far as I'm concerned. Otherwise, splitting it fairly would mean each paying the same percentage of your pay.

[saltyveruca]

We've lived together for 4 years now, and we've always had separate accounts. We each take care of specific bills, and give each other money when we need to. My day job pays "my" bills, our photography business pays "his" bills.

[WebLady]

Hubby and I still have separate checking accounts; there is one credit card we share, (it is his card with my name on it) I have it only for emergencies and I have never had to use it.

DH pays most of the bills since I only work part time. I pay my life insurance and use to pay my health insurance, but now we have that through his job so he pays that now. I pretty much buy all the groceries too.

[spuls5]

I like the idea of two separate accounts. We have the same bank so we can transfer money to each other when needed. I also want to keep a credit card in my name so I can keep my credit score high. My mom never had anything IN her name. The cards were always in my dad's name, with her added to the account. When she want to try to get a store credit she couldn't get anything...even though she had the best credit you can have. So she finally got some things in her name and now it shows she has credit.

[SerendipityCrafts]

When she want to try to get a store credit she couldn't get anything...even though she had the best credit you can have.

Which IMHO is totally unjust - especially since the CC companies will give money to teenagers and students (with no co-signer and no previous bill paying history)! Makes no sense to me :snide:

[Rainbow Brite]

We have a joint checking account and a joint savings account. Then he has a credit card (which I can use, but it's still his) and I have two credit cards that are solely mine. His credit is much better than mine, so I didn't want to bring his down by mingling our credit scores together.

He makes 50% more than me, but we never look at it as who made what. Our bills are OUR BILLS, so we join what we both make together to pay them. In fact, the way we're doing it right now is paying for everything out of what he makes and putting all of my salary into savings. We want to make sure we can live comfortably off of just his salary so that I can be a stay-at-home mom for awhile once we have kids. And it's working out great :)

I put all of our bills into a Google calendar so we make sure to pay them on time each month. Then we take whatever is left over from our checking account at the end of the month and add that to savings too.

[Nekochanpurr]

We have our own accounts. Its easy for us to keep track.. Theres not much to keep track of! :D

[Thalia_themuse]

FH and I have had a joint savings account for a while now. Our everyday accounts are separate, but both linked to the savings. Our accounts have Debit cards (can be used when a Credit card is needed, but you can only use how much is in the account) which are awesome, and I much prefer over credit cards. I used to be with one bank and FH was with 2 - we ended up getting everything in one of his banks becuase of the Debit card deal.

Maybe if you hate his account, and he hates yours - look around for a different bank and get it together...? You never know what deals/options are out there til you look!

Good luck with it :)

[NOTKT]

To manage the time or date we need to pay, there is NOTHING better than GOOGLE CALENDAR.

[Thalia_themuse]

To manage the time or date we need to pay, there is NOTHING better than GOOGLE CALENDAR.

Indeed! Google Calendar is great for keeping track of appointments, interviews, assignments, work rosters... FH ran a small business up until recently, and we used Google Calendar to make bookings with clients. Plus you can share it between people to coordinate things (like between your FH and you too!)...

Wow, that sounded like an ad!

:pompom:Thanks, Google Calendar!! :pompom: haha

[shopmysongs]

My husband takes care of all the bills, I hate that stuff. We've been married 33 years & it has worked so far. I don't work out of the home just my internet business. When I owned a trophy shop, which was also out of the home, that was my only job since quitting to have my kids. When I owned the trophy shop it paid for all vacations & helped pay off our house plus extras. So I have always done something to contribute $ but not nearly as much as him. But then again I take care of the kids, house & yard so he has nothing to worry about when he gets home from work. It's been a good thing. We pay all our bills online & that is a time saver. Most are set up for auto withdrawal. My son got into some trouble with auto withdrawal so he stays away from that but pays everything online too. Now my other son is paying everything online too.

[Kirby]

We lived together before we were married so we already had a system. We decided not to mess with what's not broken so it has stayed the same.

I have my own checking account and debit and credit cards. Jon just uses cash because he has a hard time keeping track of a checking account and they have always gotten him into trouble.

For the most part, he pays the rent and I pay all of the other bills such as cell phone, insurance, and power. It equals out well enough. As for actually getting the bills paid, I do that. He will usually just give me the cash and I will write the checks and deposit the money in my account.

It seems complicated, but it's really easy and works for us. :D

[NurseLau84]

We share a checking account. He does all the mortgage/utility bills/condo fees and stuff, and I take care of keeping track of groceries, cleaning supplies, vet bills, dog food, etc....
We do a lot of online banking and bill pay so it's really easy. Many of our bills come out automatically (car insurance, car payment) so we don't have to remember every single bill. We each have our own credit cards so if I use mine, I just have to remember to pay it when the bill comes. If for some reason our checking ever went negative, we have overdraft protection that takes from our savings account. Luckily that hasn't happened.

[ktmb34]

i used to pay all the bills, but then my honey realized he can't buy anything with out me knowing (including a ring) so for a couple months i don't have access to his. i'm sure i'll end up taking over later on. he just is on an independent skiff right now.

[Jacklynn]

Mint.com is a really good money site. You can put in all of your bank accounts/credit cards and loans such as car loans and stuff. It tells you where all of your money is going (restaurants, groceries, gas yada yada - it does most of this on its own!) and you can also set budgets for various things and it will alert you when you have exceeded your budget in that particular area. Also it reminds us when our car payment is due and when our credit card bills are due. It is a really nice website for tracking your finances.

[Katie-ryn]

We have a joint chequing and savings account. Both of our pays get direct deposited into our chequing account, which we each have our own debit cards to. We also have cheques for that account with both our names on them.

We pay the bills (satellite/home phone/internet and cell phones) with the chequing account online either through our bank, or with my credit card over the company's website (which the moeny for the bill has already been put on before it's even used to pay the bill). We pay rent with cheques from our chequing account.

We only have one credit card that's under my name, and he has an authorized user card. He doesn't have very good credit, because of his/our silliness when we first started college/university.

We have savings come out automatically every week (we both get paid bi-weekly, on opposite weeks), which is going towards the wedding, but I'm going to change it so some goes into a car fund. My student loan comes out automatically too.

We both bring home close to the same amount. I make more but I have more deductions (I carry our health benefits, and I have a computer loan coming out of my pay). We don't keep track of whose money is whose or whose bills are whose. It's all our money and they're all our bills.

I pay all the bills (with our money) and keep track of the grocery budget. I just like doing all of that, and I'm more detail oriented than him.

[Kirby]

Mint.com is a really good money site. You can put in all of your bank accounts/credit cards and loans such as car loans and stuff. It tells you where all of your money is going (restaurants, groceries, gas yada yada - it does most of this on its own!) and you can also set budgets for various things and it will alert you when you have exceeded your budget in that particular area. Also it reminds us when our car payment is due and when our credit card bills are due. It is a really nice website for tracking your finances.

Do you have to pay to use this site? I don't see anywhere on the site that says.

ETA: Nevermind, I found that it is free. It sounds good but I am skeptical about giving out my banking and credit card information. It seems risky to me.

[BingBot]

Do you have to pay to use this site? I don't see anywhere on the site that says.

ETA: Nevermind, I found that it is free. It sounds good but I am skeptical about giving out my banking and credit card information. It seems risky to me.

Yeah, I just recently signed up on mint.com. I like the site, but it seems to confuse the two accounts I have at National City. One is our joint account and one is my personal account. But it will sometimes show a transaction from the joint acct on my personal one, or tell me the wrong balances. Doesn't seem like it works as good as it should.

[KMS]

Mint's been working great for us. Before I started using it I found excellent pro reviews for it so I felt plenty safe signing up though I was quite apprehensive at first.

[spuls5]

Mint.com is a really good money site. You can put in all of your bank accounts/credit cards and loans such as car loans and stuff. It tells you where all of your money is going (restaurants, groceries, gas yada yada - it does most of this on its own!) and you can also set budgets for various things and it will alert you when you have exceeded your budget in that particular area. Also it reminds us when our car payment is due and when our credit card bills are due. It is a really nice website for tracking your finances.

I have started using mint. I have budgets all set up and I can see where all of my money is going. I use my debit card for a lot of things that way I can track the spending.

[Scrwballsgrl]

We lived together before we were married so we already had a system. We decided not to mess with what's not broken so it has stayed the same.

I have my own checking account and debit and credit cards. Jon just uses cash because he has a hard time keeping track of a checking account and they have always gotten him into trouble.

For the most part, he pays the rent and I pay all of the other bills such as cell phone, insurance, and power. It equals out well enough. As for actually getting the bills paid, I do that. He will usually just give me the cash and I will write the checks and deposit the money in my account.

It seems complicated, but it's really easy and works for us. :D
I think thats probably what we'll end up doing as well, its pretty much what we do now. He doesn't have a bank account at all b/c he doesn't like to trust his money to a bank & wants it in his hand at the end of the work week.
We have combined cell phone bills right now & automobile insurance (different policies same company) so he gives me the cash and I pay it. And when he pays his power bill or direct tv bill he'll give me the cash and I'll write and mail a check. It seems to work good for us to.