How to manage money as a couple
As January fades and February blooms, we’re going to turn our attention from basic money management to something much more complicated: how money affects our relationships.
In December 2016, Bloomberg published a piece that profiled seven different couples from around the United States. The article — which was essentially a series of short interviews — offered a quick glimpse at how other people handle money in their relationships.
Here, for example, are Rebecca and Ari discussing what it was like to move in together:
Rebecca: So I moved here to be with him, was broke, and was accepting this big loan. But you were like, “I’d rather you owe me the money than owe the credit card company.” I was really impressed by that but also scared, because it was like, “What if we break up?” It definitely felt fraught. But I did accept the loan.
Ari: I mean, I loved Rebecca, and I just really hate credit card companies.
Rebecca: We had totally different relationships to money. Ari had been saving for retirement since he was, like, 17. He had this whole system of personal finance, and I had: Money comes in, money goes out. I think I felt embarrassed that Ari was this unbelievably responsible person.
Some of the highlighted couples have high incomes — over $100,000 per year. Others are barely scraping by. (One couple makes $24,000 per year; both partners work at Wal-Mart.) Some struggle with debt. Others are saving to pursue entrepreneurial dreams. But they’re all discovering how to navigate the murkiness that can come when two people decide to join households.
Here’s the couple that works at Wal-Mart:
Renée: I get a little frustrated at him. Sometimes I get a little bit surprised that he did that when I told him, “Not right now.” I’ve got anxiety over money. I do.
Matt: I do want to go back to school or get a second job. But what it does to you to work that much, I’m afraid I’d be gone all day. My wife would not see me. By the time I got home, it would be too late at night. I’d be way too tired. Not being able to come home, sit down, and say, “Hey, how was your day?” and all that?
Money management is tough enough when you’re on your own. Throw a romantic partner into the mix and things get more complicated! The best way to balance love and money is to maintain clear lines of communication.
Talking About Money
Reading through these conversations reminded me of a 2009 New York Times article in which Ron Lieber argued that couples need to talk about money early and often. Lieber says that couples should discuss the following four subjects before marriage (or before entering into a long-term commitment):
Ancestry
What does you money blueprint look like? What did your parents teach you about the meaning and value of money? How your family handled money has a huge influence on your own relationship with the stuff. If you and your partner have drastically different approaches to personal finance, that can cause friction.
Credit
It doesn’t sound very romantic, I know, but partners in a committed relationship ought to pull up their credit reports and credit scores together and discuss the results. This isn’t a competition. It’s a way to be open and honest, and to see where your team has strengths and weaknesses.
Control
Before marriage, decide the household financial structure. Who’s responsible for which bills and which accounts? Will you have joint or separate finances? Will one person operate as the Family CFO, or will you share the duties?
Affluence
Finally, be sure to discuss your financial plans and goals. As a couple, how wealthy do you want to be? Are you interested in early retirement? What are you willing to sacrifice to get there?
As you have these discussions, don’t get emotional. Stay calm and collected. Remember that your goal is to manage your household finances like a business. If you, as a couple, don’t like how your business is running, then agree to make changes. But make the decisions together, as a team.
The Importance of Teamwork
You’ll always have some financial goals that don’t align with your partner. That’s fine, but put shared goals first. No matter whether your finances are joint or separate, make sure your common objectives are met before pursuing personal passions. Put the team before the self.
Here are a few ways to ensure that both partners are on the same page and that nobody ends up feeling like the bad cop:
Regularly review accounts
I believe it’s important to set aside a specific time and location to manage your money. Some couples do this weekly. Others do it once or twice a month. At each session, look at upcoming income and expenses, and deal with any unexpected budget items. Regular reviews will keep you headed in the right direction while also allowing for minor course corrections.
Don’t be controlling
Remove “you” and “I” from budget conversations. Replace them with “we” and “us” instead. Each partner needs to feel like they’re involved in the household finances. If you unilaterally tell your husband he can’t spend money on his motorcycle hobby, he’s going to be resentful. If your household is struggling to make ends meet but you won’t let your wife work outside the home, you’re handicapping your budget unnecessarily.
Be supportive
Work together to achieve shared and separate goals. If your husband asks you to call him out on his bad behavior, do it. If he wants advice, give it. But don’t lecture and don’t be condescending. Be a partner, not an adversary.
Play to your strengths
Some folks aren’t interested in crunching the numbers. They don’t care about bank balances, interest rates, or the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Others don’t like the day-to-day nitty-gritty stuff, such as clipping coupons or shopping at sales. Let each partner play to their strengths and handle the stuff they’re good at.
It’s rare that a couple will agree completely on how to handle their money. The key is to find as much common ground as possible, and to find ways to compromise on the rest.
Note: It’s vital for both partners to know what’s going on with the household budget. Over the past decade, I’ve heard too many horror stories about what can happen after a partner dies or asks for a divorce. All too often, the other person is left with no clue how to handle the household accounts. (In fact, I think a Money Boss reader is currently working on an article about this very subject.)
Do What Works for You
When I was married, Kris and I kept separate finances. In the 23 years we were together, we never once talked about merging our accounts. For us, for who we were at the time, it just didn’t make sense. This made a lot of my Get Rich Slowly readers tense — they felt as if failing to join finances somehow showed lack of commitment — but the system worked for us. We never fought about money.
I’ve been with Kim for almost six years now. We too keep separate finances, but we’ve also combined money in ways that Kris and I never did. Before our fifteen-month RV trip around the United States, for instance, we created a pooled account into which we could both save. And in our day-to-day lives, we each take care of expenses as we see them without splitting the cost with the other person.
Neither of these methods is better than the other. Each is right for its particular relationship. For me and Kris, it made sense to keep things separate. For me and Kim, it works better to merge some stuff. If I were with somebody else, maybe we’d pool our money completely.
I just don’t think there’s any one right way to do this. The “right” method is the one that works for you and your partner, the one that keeps your relationship strong while allowing you to pursue your purpose.
Your Turn
When I first read the Bloomberg article profiling how couples handle money, I shared it on Facebook. Each person who commented had a different way of handling money in their relationship. Some kept separate finances; others had joint accounts. Mostly, people seem to use some sort of hybrid system.
For instance, Lauren and her husband do both joint and separate finances:
Or there’s Lane and his girlfriend, who also use a sort of combination system:
But I think my favorite comment came from Stephanie, who manages the household like a business:
What about you? What system do you use? How did you arrive at this setup? Did you try other systems first? Do you have regular household budget meetings? Do both you and your partner know how to handle your household finances? Do you keep joint accounts or separate accounts? Some combination of the two? What do you wish you did differently?
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There are 25 comments to "How to manage money as a couple".
At this point my wife and I have everything combined and it works great for us. When we first got married we had both joint (for household stuff and joint activities) and separate accounts for individual stuff.
Both worked great. I do think having joint accounts helps us work better as a team to achieve our goals. For example, if one spouse is paying off credit card debt and the other is sitting with a pile of cash in a low interest saving account it’s highly inefficient. Combining finances helps a couple streamline their goals and savings.
I am most like the Stephanie person quoted above, and could not do it any other way. We have joint accounts and have had them since day 1. I am in charge of the investments/retirement and my wife is in charge of the day-to-day finances/bill pay. Where there are bills that are in my name (ie accounts that were opened before we were married), I wait to pay them until she tells me to as she knows whats going in/out of the bank account. Almost all our accounts are with the same investment company so, where we have individual accounts (ie IRA/Roth IRA, accounts from before marriage), we each have viewing authority to the other. This way we can each see what is going on within the whole household as that is what ultimately matters.
While we both look at the checking account fairly regularly, my wife barely looks at the investment accounts. However, once a quarter, I prepare a net worth type statement and we have a quick little meeting. Normally, its 2 minutes, where I show her the change from quarter to quarter, answer any questions she may have regarding what happened, and we move on. Once a year (in Dec) we have a little more in depth conversation as we determine the strategy for the year to come as we both receive bonus/raise information around Christmas. Obviously, any time a new big expense comes up (ie we needed a new HVAC system last year), we sit down with that net worth form and the checking account to determine the best strategy for paying.
We have joined finances, and that is sometimes good. Sometimes not so much. Being the frugal-er one, it sometimes irks me when he throws away good money. However, it is not so bad in general.
We met when we were 18, and since then, “grew up” together. I don’t know if that made things easier.
We are combining everything right now. Later today we’ll finally switch my wife’s direct deposit to go into the account we’ve deemed as our shared one (which I’ve had for years).
My thought is: we signed up for marriage together, as a unit, working toward the same goals. It doesn’t make sense to me, with that in mind, to keep things separate. Combining will let us plan more easily, and overall just simplify things as we move toward a shared, single goal.
That being said we do still keep ‘fun money’ accounts for the time-being. $100/month, nothing crazy. She gets to buy purses or whatever she wants. I get my video games or save up for a new computer monitor. Mostly that’s to ease us into this concept of not being in full control of the money anymore and still let us have a sense of freedom. I fully expect that over the years we’ll get rid of that and just migrate to fully shared, but for now this is the plan.
At the end of the day you’re right; people need to do what works for their circumstances.
I’m really looking forward to this month’s posts!
fab post. My partner and I combine money (which is good as I currently dont earn any) it can mean its harder for me to speak up about going over budget as I feel I have lost the “right” too as it isnt my money anymore.
My wife and I opened a joint account just before we got married. Our paychecks direct deposit equal amounts there toward day-to-day expenses (mortgage, groceries, anything and everything that we do together). We also each max out our 401(k) accounts; I deal with investments, rebalancing, and tracking. I’ll occasionally drop some tidbit like “we’re only a few grand away from where I projected us to be on 1/1/19!” to which she patiently responds “that’s great, dear.”
Whatever’s left goes into personal accounts that we’ve had since before we met. Those tend to be used for gifts to each other, expenses incurred separately, clothing, and things like my new bike or her new guitar.
In the last few years, her salary has gone up while mine has stagnated. She’s now making a good bit more than I do and has amassed a healthy pile of cash — about a year of living expenses. We intend to keep six months’ untouchable and use the rest to replace our HVAC, switch appliances to gas, maybe paint the house or handle unexpected drastic needs. It works for us.
As usual, J.D., you’ve put your finger on a topic that is central to creating wealth and a no-stress financial life.
While everyone’s situation is different, here is what I have experienced:
In my first marriage, my SO and I had separate economies (I was running a business) and we had a joint account to which we contributed, based on our incomes. It was all very logical. But we were young and money still equalled freedom. While the eventual divorce was amicable (and unzipping our finances was a snap), I later felt that not merging our finances allowed us to avoid some tough discussions about our future. We had had plenty of money so that was never an issue, but not having and sharing joint financial goals contributed to not building the kind of wealth (and vision of our future) that might have been possible had we worked more as a team.
The second time around, I married a more frugal SO, whose interests and values more closely matched my own. Once we knew we were in for the long-haul in our relationship, we began to have very open conversations about money, laying everything on the table. While we had no debts, we felt we were behind in where we needed to be. My SO was ready to merge everything and I was ready to try that, curious to see what that would be like to give up my financial “independence.” Would I feel as if I had no control? Would I have to check my purchases in advance?
I knew we were on the right track the day we merged bank accounts and credit cards, and I felt a great sense of excitement about “our” money rather than merely “mine.” We celebrated with dinner out.
Trusting one another absolutely, we became true partners in this joint venture of life.
When we shopped for our first real estate purchase together, we both agreed to the idea of spending “less than we could afford” and paying in all-cash. We developed our investments strategies over the years during regular business meetings when we review our calendars, to-do lists, long-term goals, and finances. Because I am more interested and adept in finance, it became more of my job to research and set the course, while my partner became the sounding-board and equal vote on our decisions. Our shared finances became one mechanism that would help make possible the future we foresaw together, way down the road.
Twenty years later, we achieved and surpassed the financial goals we set for ourselves, and have created the lifestyle that suits us, making retirement comfortable, stimulating and fulfilling.
In “The Millionaire Next Door” (a terrific classic, which probably all of us have read several times), the authors discover that one of the most important factors in building wealth is choosing a partner who is frugal and whose outlook about finances is realistic, one who is willing to work together to build wealth. I could not agree more.
I’ve been married almost six months now, and living together for over year. We have one joint accounts, but most of our accounts are separate. We have joint finances, though. There is no my money/her money.
The biggest difference between my money philosophy and hers is how we manage our emergency fund. I prefer to just have one big emergency fund, whereas she prefers to have many different accounts for different types of emergency funds. I relented early on and let her do her thing because I couldn’t justify my position solely with numbers.
We have been married 37 years. We have always had a joint account- and an allowance. Moving as often as we did, we had to have a large emergency fund (Nine residences before 40- think utilities, deposits and all). We also chose to have a large travel fund (22 countries before we were 40). The allowance has been $100 to $300 a month depending on income. The children each got an allowance as well- to purchase clothing and fun- they learned budget early. BTW- we never hit a very low, six figure joint income until we were 50.
We, each, took years “off” to stay home while raising our children. The “at home parent” took care of the day to day running of the accounts. The out of house parent always deferred to the current budget. Now that we are retired all accounts are in a book, which I keep and he reviews in his leisure. We meet twice a year to really go over them. Our last meeting he said, “You have it covered, I am good.” I love the job!
Our “children” (35/33)now follow our example. Both started marriages with separate accounts (debts), but found that arguments erupted when the first child arrived. Trust was built and now both families have children and a parent at home. At home parent does the budget and books. They have shared accounts and an allowance. They talk WAY more often about money then we did. Their couple strategies are moving them, both, to be in a place where they can leave work young if they wish. Personally, I think they all will end up with their own businesses one day.
I think it’s also important to poke YOURSELF. Very often we know what we think, but we don’t always know why we think it or where we’re willing to compromise.
The likelihood of two people with the same philosophies getting together is rather remote, though you will likely start to think more like each other as time goes on. But when you talk about money you should consider what your hard lines are and what you are willing to compromise on.
My SO is significantly less frugal than I am. I knew that going into our marriage and we have made adjustments so that both of us are comfortable with our plans and decisions. It could have easily led to lots of fights, but it hasn’t because I was clear about my lines (ex. nothing other than cars or house are purchased on credit) and his (ex. the grocery budget is large enough to accommodate his tastes). When things were tight that meant giving up on things that neither of us prioritized, and as things loosened we compromised on where the money would go (Sometimes extra money gets put aside. Sometimes we go to Disneyland).
Then as we’ve gotten older we’ve moved toward each other. He drives his cars well after they’re paid off, and I don’t expect him to do car repair (he’s capable, but not interested in spending his weekends as a mechanic). You don’t need someone who agrees with you on everything, in fact as long as you listen and compromise you can be better for being pulled out of your comfort zone.
Regarding the money relationships, i think there are valid reasons to not merge finances. These include second marriages where heirs should be protected, or if one person has significant personal business interests or otherwise complicated finances.
On the flip side I wouldn’t say I think more couples should have merged finances as much as I think the reasons many people don’t merge finances isn’t good for relationships or society. I think separate finances when you plan on having kids is a horrible idea and can lead to more problems than it solves. I know moms who work when they would rather stay home or work less because their relationship is based on 50/50 finances and childcare, even if she wants to work less and THEY can afford it, she works her half. I think too much focus on careers and income (for both people, but I admit more for women) can really take away from what is best for their kids and what is best for their family.
I also think people have a hard time committing to relationships and this is born out with deciding to keep money separate. Many think it’s easier, but really it can be all part of not wanting to fully merge into the relationship and wanting to keep themselves separate rather than committing fully. It’s all part of not becoming a team but staying two individuals who have similar goals, at least for now.
With that being said, people should definitely have personal money for which they aren’t accountable to their SO (as long as it’s spent legally and morally. No drugs or girl/boyfriends, lol). But that should be a small amount. And personally I think it works better if it’s linked to good behavior. For example we don’t have any allowance, but we each take cash for lunch. If we pack lunch we can spend it on whatever we want. We are therefore encouraged to pack lunch. And if you tend to disagree on specific spending you should have someone who has a bigger vote. In our house if it’s about building supplies or car care/repair, he wins. If it’s about almost anything else, I win.
My girlfriend and I have separate finances, but very similar goals regarding saving and investing. We keep our annual budgets side by side on the fridge. For now, she pays rent like a roommate which is about 1/3rd of the housing costs. The difference is well made up in groceries since she gets home a couple hours before me and does most of the shopping. My grocery bill has dropped significantly. If our relationship status changed in the future, in either direction, we’d both be in good positions.
Married 20+ years. We’ve always had a joint checking account and shared everything, but we’ve also always had separate credit cards. This enables both partners to build individual credit histories. It also allows us some independence and the ability to buy presents for each other without spoiling the surprise. Our credit cards are paid in full every month, and are automatically deducted from the joint checking account, so we can see how much each other is spending, but not what they’re spending it on. We’re both pretty frugal, so extravagant spending has never been a problem. We meet periodically to discuss our goals and our progress. I have always been responsible for the investing – selecting investments, monitoring them, etc., but I present my recommendations to Spousal Unit for discussion before taking any action (buying, selling, etc.). Sometimes Spousal Unit has a better idea, or has a perspective I hadn’t considered. Together, we are smarter than either of us individually. Our mantra has always been that joint decisions require two yeses, or one no. If either partner is uncomfortable with a proposed action, we either wait, consider, and discuss it later, or we come up with a different idea. I hate coupons – I always forget to take them to the store – but Spousal Unit is really good with them. Spousal Unit also files the taxes every year – I review them before filing, and sometimes catch something that was missed – teamwork! When one of us traveled a lot for business, the other one was in charge of maintaining the accounts and making sure the bills were paid (usually through auto-pay). This role has changed several times. If either of us were to die, the other would be up to speed on our finances, and hopefully have little difficulty accessing accounts. We still don’t agree on where our assets will go after we both die, though. Depending on your background and history, you may be more or less comfortable talking about money (or death) or sharing your finances with your partner. There’s no one right way to do it. Spousal Unit and I were both about 30 years old when we got married, so we were somewhat set in our ways about some things. As we built trust, we became more comfortable talking about things, combining our finances, and relying on each other. I think we’ve come much further together than we could have separately. (We’re FIRE, and have been “retired” for 5+ years.)
We combined everything when we married. We are FI, no debt and left the work world years ago for early retirement. We could spend a lot more but we have everything we need. We have never had a single money fight or serious disagreement in over 30 years of marriage. It baffles me when people find they have serious disagreements on money after they marry. Why weren’t they talking about it before they tied the knot? If you don’t agree largely on money you do not need to get married to each other.
My husband was poor. I come from a very wealthy family. When I first met my husband he had $1000 cash in his pocket. He also had holes in his shoes. When my dad met him, the first question he asked my future-husband-to-be was how much money he had in a BANK? My father was not interested in the wad of cash in his pocket. When DH answered he had zero, my father just brushed him off. Why did I date someone like this? Because I knew instantly this man had a talent and if used correctly, he could earn a lot of money. Fast forward to today…..he is a great money maker. He just needed guidance and direction.
I handle ALL our money….jointly. I make all the investments, purchases. We have A LOT to show for ourselves. All paid for in cash. Did we have financial troubles along our 36 so-far years together? You betcha. But my husband’s ability to earn money has gotten us out of every scrap.
Do we live high? Nope. I’m as frugal as they come. Thanks to my multi-millionaire parents. Those two knew how to shop! For like income producing properties and repo-ed yachts!
DH and I are retired now, live on $25 to $35K a year. (I’m a master at living small) Own two vacation (beach and mountain) homes, two newish luxury cars and a smallish RV. Our primary goal for the rest of our lives is to simply enjoy it and have fun. I still handle ALL the finances but have weekly/daily/monthly meetings with DH and discuss with him everything. If one of us should die, everything is set up so that either of us can continue onward and NOT suffer. I’m a long term planner. Already have our assisted living plans in order. Don’t mock it. You’ll be surprised at how fast life is going to pass you by.
DH and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to save money. It makes us so happy. We feel good about it. When you can buy a home at a great price, get a good deal on a car, take a vacation (week in Paris: air, hotel, meals for just $1800 complete! for example) buy brand-named furniture for a steal. We buy ALL our clothes at upscale Goodwill, household & kitchen supplies and some decorating pieces at Goodwills in rich neighborhoods (i.e I bought a watercolor parrot painting for $9.99 at Goodwill. It appraised at $1084!!! Gotta know your stuff people)
DH and I enjoy our money together. And I am certain there are a few ladies out there who refused to date my DH because they thought he was a loser and a horrid provider. Gotta see the diamonds in the rough people. That’s where the money is.
Has anyone ever heard of a money boot camp? My husband & I are doing Whole 30 right now and its been great to spend the month focused on our diet and bodies. But I really want to do the same thing with our finances! I’m looking for some sort of framework to give us some steps to get organized.
MeganS, check out the Lola Retreat. It’s not EXACTLY a financial boot camp, but it’s similar. I’ll write more about the next session next week. For now, though, you might want to check out their website.
Recently a close friend gave me a strange look as I explained how my fiancé and I manage our money. We have joint expenses that we have both agreed to pay. For example on January ‘s list was camp moustache, pet food, and wine.
At the end of the money we add up all the expenses, divide by half and whoever paid more gets an e transfer from the other.
I like everything to be fair and equal but sometimes I really wish I had a stash of money to buy something nice to benefit the both of us. Maybe I’ll do that once I hit my FI goal and work a few months more.
I ask this in a totally respectful way, as it just isn’t how I think and I’m truly interested in the answer:
What does equal have to do with fair? And what do either of those have to do with a romantic partnership?
Okay, I have some serious questions for those of you who keep separate finances:
How do you divide children equally? What is the fair division for carrying a child to make sure the mom’s side is “fair”? Would either of you want to scale back your career for a child? What would that do to your finances?
Is it assumed that both partners have equal earning potential? If they don’t, is equal fair? Or is fair more important than equal (and do you have to agree on the definition of “fair”)?
Do all chores have to be divided equally as well? What if one of you wants something more (like a cleaning service)? Do you negotiate who pays what? Do all expenses have to be negotiated? Do you resent it if you pay for something and your SO takes advantage of it?
These are all serious questions and I know they get worked out. But it seems like you are changing the nature of the relationship from partners to house mates.
Hmmm, most people that posted about separate finances did not say it was “equal”, just separate or a hybrid.
I will be married 30 years next month. From Day 1 we combined our accounts/money completely. About 10 years ago, we ended up separating things a bit. The reason had nothing to do with any conflict, it was because he was using our checking account for some work expenses and it tripped me up a few times (being the bill payer).
Our arrangement is that we each have a checking account but a joint savings account. He xfers money into my checking each time he gets paid and I pay all the bills (as I always). What’s left in his goes to his hobbies or travel to see his aging Dad or a guys fishing weekend. I do the same with disposable funds in my checking account.
The most interesting thing about doing this is discovering that he is a much more natural “saver” than I am. But now having the freedom and responsibility of my own funds has made me more aware of my disposable spending too.
We make decisions on our savings account together, what kind of things get paid out of that, etc. If we have an unexpected expense come up, often we both decide to “pitch in” from our own accounts to avoid using savings.
I couldn’t begin to figure out (or rather, don’t care to) how “equal” it is, because our salaries are different, our benefits are different (I pay for health ins for whole family), our employers 401k matching % are different, on and on and on. We’ve just made the cashflow and management work for us.
I wish we’d done this much longer ago.
Just to address one of your examples.
Say we need to get our house windows washed. I want to do the project ourselves but he is less interested. Sometimes I’ll say “I don’t feel like spending that kind of money … we can do it”. And sometimes he’ll agree, or sometimes he’ll say “it’s worth it to me to pay someone to do that”. And that’s the end. No one is annoyed or pissed, it’s just a decision that’s made.
Our system allows both of us to decide if we want to spend our disposable leftovers monthly, or save up for a medium range fun things (a trip or a camera or whatever). In our old system, those goals often went unmet because we had 2 people dipping into the same checking account after the bills were paid. I could go out to lunch 10 times in a month and that would be equivalent to a fishing rod he had his eye on.
As a full grown adult, I’d rather not have to have monthly discussion about how many times I go out to lunch or if he should buy a fishing rod.
It’s SOOOOOO much easier.
Ugh – to clarify. In the windows example…if one of us wants to pay someone to do something, then *that person* pays for it, rather than both of us. If we both agree, we’ll split it. If one of us just bought something and are lower on disposable funds, we come up with contributions that make sense. If I have the funds and want to pay someone to do a yard project…..I just arrange it and pay for it.
It’s not hard. I mean we like and trust each other and want each other to be happy. We just don’t have to trip over each other touching the same disposable/middle range funds.
My fiancée benefit tremendously because we are on the same page financially. All of our goals are the same, and our habits are the same in terms of saving towards what we want. None of this could have happened if we didn’t have the discussions early on about our finances. Because we laid out our dreams on the table up-front, we were able to come to strong financial resolutions early in our relationship.
Excellent post!
We’ve had joint finances since we married 15 years ago. In that time we’ve moved across the country and had three children, so respective salaries have changed, expenses sure have changed, and I’ve been a stay-at-home-parent for 10 years now. For us, joint finances have made things easier as we always know exactly how much we have where. It also helped ease the guilt I did feel when I was first staying home with our oldest and “not contributing” as “our money” was still “our money.” I handle most of our finances, which we’re both happy with, and my husband and I frequently talk about where we are financially. Now that we’re starting to teach our older kids (7 and 10) more about finances and budgeting, joint accounting makes the real-life examples easier–not that that alone would be a reason to do so. For us, it’s just always made sense to have joint accounts. But I do understand there are very valid reasons for operating separately sometimes, too.