How do you handle finances as a couple?

[mtbny]

My fiance and I will be moving in together soon, but aren't getting married for another year and a half. I don't want to combine most finances until we're married.

What has worked for you before marriage (or after if you still split things)? Should we get a shared credit card for expenses and a joint savings account? I would assume that we would also want one for wedding expenses, though I don't want to be opening too many right now.

Any tips on how to manage money together?

[amisteratwisterandme]

I think it depends on how you guys want to handle things. For me and my FH, we have our separate monies and probably always will. I pay all of the bills and he pays me. If either of us run short we give the other one money, not a big deal.

I personally don't feel like we need to change what's not broken. This is what works for us, I know other people pool all of their money.

[MrsDM]

We have lived together for two years and have had our money combined for over a year now. I am in charge of the finances, paying bills and such. Quite honestly, for us, having seperate finances when we started living together was a pain. The hardest part is that FH is bad about remembering to tell me when he bought something. But, thanks to online banking, of which I check everyday, its no problem.

[Micah's bride]

FH and I maintain seperate checking accounts. He pays our house and car payment and I take care of the rest of the bills. I pay for groceries and he pays if we go out to eat. Once we're married we've talked about opening a joint checking account, but it doesn't really seem necessary since this method works for us.

Plus, he never writes down his debits and I couldn't handle not knowing what was in my checking account. So we'll most likely always stay seperate.

[sweetvenus]

All our accounts are joint. Basically, we have:

Joint Checking for Bills
Joint Checking for Spending
Joint Savings

Our paychecks get deposited into the Spending account and then automatic transfers move enough money for bills into the Bill account twice a month (which are the days I get paid, so I know the money will be there to transfer since I'm on salary and he's paid hourly). I pay bills on those days. Another automatic transfer moves a set amount into Savings twice a month as well. If there's ever a surplus in the Bill account, it gets swept into Savings at the end of the month. Anything leftover in the Spending account is for groceries, gas, and spending money. I routinely check online banking and use Quicken to keep track of everything.

[NurseLau84]

We have a joint checking and savings account, but separate credit cards. All of the bills (mortgage, utilities, my car payment, etc) come out of the checking account. We have separate checkbooks and debit cards, but they both draw out of that combined account. It's just so much easier than splitting everything up. When DH buys me a xmas or bday present, he uses his credit card and then pays the bill so that I can't see where the purchase was made.

[WebLady]

DH and I have been together going on 10 years; we have lived together for like 9 of those years and have been married for going on 4 years. We have always had separate checking and savings accounts.

DH makes more money that me and has better credit, so the house and cars and credit cards are in his name. He pretty much pays all the bills, I mostly pay for the groceries and other little household stuff.

[EarlyBird]

FH and i did VERY terrible with money seperate. he would forget to give me money for a bill and spend it.. so this is how it works.. we each have a "college" card (once agian, this is JUST what worked for us...) it is a card that is preloaded..we put like 50$ on each of them when they get low (they rarely do though) so that niether one of us ever finds ourself with no cash and an empty tank.. then i do the budget monthly..if there is any extra we delegate who can keep what, what goes into savings, what we need to pay for the wedding that week etc..

I HANDLE the cash.. it goes into MY account which is LINKED with our joint account.. i can put money into our joint account any time if fh needs it but unfortunatley, he requested he not have much access to money since he is REALLY bad with it, and im anal about keeping everything balanced.

he still has about 100-200 a week to burn usually, so its not like when we go to dinner it always looked like the girl is paying... and of course he has a debit to the joint account which we keep little money in.

[mitch]

DH earns it and i spend it. :rofl:

Seriously though. We've lived together nearly Six years. Until We met, DH never had a bank account of His own. I opened a new account in both Our Names. (I had a joint account with the Ex-Husband and that was split when We split)

Both My wages and DH's wages gets paid into Our Joint Account and all bills come out of it. No saving account, no stocks, no shares, no nest egg.

We both get paid weekly (Me WEAKly LOL)
The rent is paid by Cash so throughout the month We withdraw X amount each week and pay it once a month. Utilities are paid weekly with Cash. The Car, Cable TV, phone and internet is paid monthly by DD.

My wages don't even match what DH pays in Tax every week. But We still manage to pay all the bills. And go out most weekends to see live Bands. Eat take-out dinner once a week.
And shop on eBay :winktongue:

[RosieAngel]

DH and I have been together going on 10 years; we have lived together for like 9 of those years and have been married for going on 4 years. We have always had separate checking and savings accounts.

DH makes more money that me and has better credit, so the house and cars and credit cards are in his name. He pretty much pays all the bills, I mostly pay for the groceries and other little household stuff.

This is what we do, too! It works well for us. :)

[Moon.Dust.]

this is really something you guys need to figure out.
We split everything, but try to keep it fair to what our incomes are.
Then we're responsible for those items.
Things that we both use like groceries, gas for the truck, laundry, nights out, etc we alternate. One week he pays for it and the next I do.
After bills and savings our money is our own. That way I don't have to feel all guilty because I bought a pair of shoes or something and vice versa.
We speak honestly about our finances -something that was very difficult for me in the beginning- and we let the other know if we're going to need any help for anything.

[sandy03]

Right now we are keeping basically everything separate. We have no joint accounts and each take care of our own stuff.

As a general rule, whoever does the grocery shopping pays for the groceries, which is usually a pretty even split for us. We each buy the gas for our own vehicles, but if we go a lot of places together in his truck, sometimes I'll buy him a tank of gas and vice versa. He pays for the regular bills because I am still a student, but I try to pick up a lot of the "incidental" expenses like getting the carpets cleaned or the like. If one of us has a lot of unanticipated expenses like big car repair or something, we will try to help each other out.

We are using my savings account to help save for the honeymoon because I get a better interest rate than he does and we didn't want to go to the trouble of opening a new one since I didn't have anything in this account to start with.

Since I currently have two checking accounts, after we are married I will probably add him to one of my accounts to make it a joint account and then we will each have an independent account, too.

[Tadswife]

we have a combined checking account. My dh has his money market and money on cd's...He manage's all the money. I keep a certain amount out of my checks for things I need or want. He keeps money in a certain spot for emergancy use and if I just need money or he does, that is easy access for us. If I handled the money I would have a dyson vacuum cleaner by now. But he is much better with budgeting then I am. The more money I see the more I want to spend, so it's best he handles everything

[Katie-ryn]

We have a combined chequing account, combined savings accounts, and we share my credit card (his got cancelled, since someone isn't very detail oriented). Both of our pays get directly deposited into our chequing account, then automatically every week an amount of money gets moved to savings.

We each get $40 a month ($10 a week) to spend on what we want, ie lunch at work, gum, chocolate bars, etc, or we can save it for larger purchases. It's our own money to spend the way we want. I make more than him but that doesn't matter, it's our money, not mine and his.

I pretty much handle everything. I figure out what we should do, then we talk about to see if he has any major concerns with my plan, but usually he just says "do what you think we should, since your better at it". Makes me angry, all I want is input! I don't want total control...

[Nekochanpurr]

We keep our separate accounts. Though i told Steve if his bank ever overdraws again, he has no choice but to get his butt on my account!! LOL
Pretty much, he pays the rent, i pay for DTE and cell phone. He pays his car insurance.. Mom pays for mine, but i pay her phone bill. XD
Um, thats about it. We don't have the income for things to get sticky yet. No house or nothin'. heh.

[candars]

We keep separate accounts. I'm in charge of knowing when everything is due and I keep an eye on his accounts since he doesn't. I pay my cell phone bill, the internet bill, and I make all of his payments for him online. He pays the water, gas, electric, insurance, etc. If one of us ever need/want anything, we talk it over and work it out together.

[BarceloMayaPalaceBride]

I pay my own bills such as: Car payment, Car Insurance, Health Insurance, Gas, etc. My FI pays the mortgage, gas, water, comcast and all of his own bills. He also makes more than twice the money I do so it works out just fine. My parents have been happily married for 30 years and have always had their own seperate bank accounts, and then 1 joined bank account. My FI and I are doing the exact same thing! ;)

[neebelung]

My fiance and I will be moving in together soon, but aren't getting married for another year and a half. I don't want to combine most finances until we're married.

What has worked for you before marriage (or after if you still split things)? Should we get a shared credit card for expenses and a joint savings account? I would assume that we would also want one for wedding expenses, though I don't want to be opening too many right now.

Any tips on how to manage money together?
Prior to getting married, we lived together for a few years, but maintained separate finances.

We just split everything... Most everything (utilities, etc...) was in his name, so on the first of the month, I'd give him my half of rent, midmonth, I'd give him half for utilities. Our gym membership auto debits from my account, the cell phones auto debit from his, so it all balanced out.

When we went out, we would just say "You buying tonight, or am I?" Again, it all balanced out.

Once we got married, we opened the joint checking and savings accounts, but we both maintained separate checking and savings. We both have direct deposit and we both get paid every two weeks, so the day we get paid, we transfer all but $100 into the joint account. We each keep $100 per pay period as an "allowance," (for going out to lunch, etc...). Anything we do or spend together comes out of joint.