Couples: Do you seperate your finances?

[Socal104]

I have to agree with some of the other posters. Almost every couple that I know that had separate finances either heads to divorce or at least separate lives. When you get married you create a community pot. If your husband takes on $10,000 in debt because he wants to play the ponies then its your debt too. Each person needs to think about the other when they incur expenditures. When people get divorced they don't go back and look at what separate accounts they had and just say that's yours and this is mine. It gets shoved in a pot and split up evenly, assets and liabilities.

I think what might be helpful is one person, in this case you, takes the lead on the finances, and is responsible for paying the bills, moving the money around etc. But at least once a month you should be sitting down to discuss finances even if its just the exceptions. Marriage isn't easy and a big part of the turmoil can often be finance related. If there is overspending, you don't want to start discussing it when the debt collectors start calling.

If you need to live cheaply and one person isn't doing it, you really want to be having that discussion before it blows up on you. If your husband is out impulse buying then would you really want to find out a year later?

SoCal

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[SilverGlow]

Originally Posted by starshard0

I control all of the finances in my marriage, simply because I'm the one with access to the money, as well as the the investment knowledge to put it to work for me and my wife. As she learns more about investing I'd be glad to split the responsibility with her.

Because you are the one with access to the money, you say.

Hmmm...how come she has no access "to the money"?

She has to earn that access by learning more about investing?

In America, these ideas are provocative.

[Greg Summers]

No doubt, every relationship is different. My in-laws have been married over 30 years and have always maintained money separately.

I'm on my second marriage. During my first only a portion of our money was comingled. We split responsibility for various financial obligations. Discontent and disagreement over money was a primary factor in our ultimate divorce.

In my current marriage we have combined finances. Everything goes into one primary account for our routine bills. We communicate about our money and financial goals routinely. I cannot imagine doing it any other way. Our mutual effort to address and eliminate our debt and then begin our investments has been instrumental in bringing us closer together and building a stronger relationship.

We are a union and working together for our future. We focus on our priorities first, but we are also still individuals, supporting each other when one has an interest or desire to spend.

[SilverGlow]

Here is what I would suggest to newlyweds:

Do not comingle funds for the first 3-5 years of marriage. First give the marriage a chance to prove it has potential, longevity and stability. I would suggest doing the same for making babies too...wait until both are sure things are cool...the worse thing one can do is bring babies and assets into an unstable situation.

This is my 20-20 hindset thoughts! ;-) lol

[Walter224]

With the ever increasing divorce rates, it is wise to separate finances.Make things easier when the home starts falling apart.

Apart from this, it also enforces some sort of discipline in spending.

[Socal104]

I think that the advice here to "see how it works" with marriage is misguided. If that's your approach to marriage, I guarantee that you will see more like a 98% divorce rate instead of a 60% one. Marriages that are thought out before hand actually have a very high rate of success. I would say that 70% of the divorces that I have seen were obvious before they tied the knot. They got married for a whole host of reasons but if you asked the 5 closest people to each the bride and the groom they would tell you that in these marriages, they were unlikely to work out.

I do think that the advice to wait a while to have kids is solid because young couples should enjoy themselves for a little while and learn how to live together. Baby's are sometimes like dropping a bomb on parents and if things aren't solid beforehand, it can get ugly really fast.

If you are worried about joint checking accounts or assets when you get married, don't get married, you are probably not ready for it.

SoCal