Who takes care of you finances?

[Emily]

Those of you who are established together...Who does you finances? Do you do them together or does one of you do it?

MY DH takes care of all of it and I get a nice allowance. I am truly budget retarded, so this works well for us!

[Melly]

We both do our own. I have my own account that my paycheck goes into to take care of the bills I brought into the marriage, plus I've assumed the cost of groceries and our dog. He pays for everything else out of his paycheck and his account. After throwing some in joint savings whatever is left over is ours to do with as well please.

[*TanyaJeanne*]

Well Chris is an accountant...so I trust him with the finances...hehe
I do NOT like doing that type of thing at all. So we are going to have just 1 account for the both of us :)

[Angela]

I handle everything. In the past month or so, we opened a joint account. Both of our paychecks go in there. Right now, we're saving to move, so the bulk of our checks go to savings for now. The rest goes to bills, and we split some up so we each get spending money. The other person can't comment about what the other person does with their own money.

[Jaime]

My Mom is an accountant, she made our budget and I follow through with it. DH just turns in his receipts to me at the end of the day.

[Aubrey]

We both do it. We came up with a budget together and we try sticking to it as much as possible; he's definitely the one that spends more out of the two of us, though!

[*meghan*]

I handle the finances. We have a joint account for our main expenses and bills, and another checking and savings account at a credit union for major purchases (wedding!, vacations, house, etc.). Our spending money is our individual credit card - we only check with each other if it's something over $100. It works for us :)

[MrsRea]

I take care of all of them. My DH is awful with money. We are now changing banks. I opened up an account and his name is on it but he doesnt have a card or anything. He is going to give me his money for his bills and then I am going to pay them. Whatever he has left is his money to whatever with.

[Carrie429]

We have joint accounts but I handle things for the most part.

[*Ashley*]

Michael, haha.

We have separarte checking accounts right now and I pay my CC off every month in full from that and contribute to our savings then the rest I do what I want with -- lunch at work, drinks with the girls after work, shopping, etc. I'm acutally very good with my money, so it works out well.

We also have a joint fidelity account with all our money and stocks, etc. in there. He handles all that and we recently put almost all of my savings in there so we can start saving to buy a house :) He's VERY good with money and very good with saving, so he handles that and explains to me what I need to know :) He's the math science person, I'm the artsy writing person (he keeps trying to get me to paint for sororities here in Houston to make some extra money because I did it in college, but I don't think I wanna take up that much time again!)

[jrbecca]

We turned his checking and savings account into a joint account. I have my own checking and savings account (the latter which is our wedding fund). I manage all our accounts, but we continue to recognize his account as his, mine as mine. It's kind of nice to be in charge of finances. I carry around both our checkbooks, so when it comes time to pay for groceries, I have the freedom to think, "Hmm...which checkbook do I want to use?"

Mostly, my account pays for the "fun" things--dinners out, movies, splurges. His pays for the big bills--mortgage, natural gas, insurance, etc.

[Deidre98]

We both have our own accounts but I take care of them like pay the bills, reconcile, etc. He is horrible with money so it's better that I have control.

[Christa]

I do. I'm better at it and I like doing it

[smiles]

We have a joint account. We both closed our individual accounts. All money goes into there. We both keep track of it, but he pays the bills and does most of the balacing stuff because I grew up with my dad taking care of the money. I know how to do it all, because I kept track of my own finaces for years.

[KathyandJer]

Right now, we do our own (obviously when we're living completely separately)... but Jer will be taking over once I move! :) He's good at it and well, is a little anal about making sure all the numbers match :lol2:

[kate]

We got joint accounts and I take care of everything. He always forgets to pay things on time, so I just take care of it, and I like being in control. :kimgrill:

[QueenElizabeth22]

Well, we just sort of discussed this...I keep hearing how money is such a big 'issue' in all relationships so I thought it would be a good idea to have some type of plan to try for when we finally do get married and live together.

I was reading a book by Suze Orman "Young, Fabulous, & Broke" (HAHA) and it is for students/young adults who are entering the work force out of school with lots of great advice on how to get out of debt from school, purchasing a house, car, etc. She has a chapter on getting married and her suggestion is to have one joint account in which equal shares (Not equal money) of each person's salary goes into it, the household bills are paid from that account and then the rest of the persons salary goes into an individual account for spending/saving. Her example is something like this: If your combined bills are 3000 for the month and one person makes 1,250 a month and the other makes 2750 a month our combined income is 4000. 3000 is divided by 4000 and you get 75%. So, 75 percent of each persons salary would go ino the combined account. 937 bucks from one person and 2,062 from the other. What is left over (313 and 688) can be put in the in individual savings or checking.

Hope that makes sense! :) She explains it really clearly in the book. I think we are going to try something like this and modify it a little bit, we will also take a percentage of each persons salary and create a joint savings account together.

We talked about just having one account for both of us, but we both use our Debit Cards on a regular basis and keeping it balanced with two people for just the daily types of things (coffee, lunches and dinners, quick shopping trips etc) would be really hard. We will see how it goes! :)

[Ally]

we are keeping seperate accounts. I really got screwed over by my ex and will never have a joint account again. FH feels the same way. the only joint account that we are going to have is just to pay bills with. That way we will know that the money will be there just for the bills. that way we wont have to worry about bounced checks.

[katieandalex]

I pretty much take care of all the finances. Alex is really bad with record keeping and plus if he saw how much money we had all the time, he would find something to spend it all on.

[Winter_Bride]

My DH is technically the one who sets up all the payments the day our cheques are deposited, but we usually talk about it the night before (how much to put on what debt!)

The only finances that we do seperately is our RRSP contributions, but that's only because they're both done through work. That all being said, at some point (when we have kids and I cut WAAAAAAY down on shifts at work) he will open up a spousal RRSP for me, and then we'll be doing those together.

[saraw04]

We have a joint account and I take care of it. DH can do it, but it is easier for just one person to handle it.

Sara :)

[rowanmayfairs]

We have a joint account. I started out taking care of it. Now wish he would take it over. But I am stuck with it.

I hate stressing over bills, but if he took it over, I would probably worry too if bills were paid on time and such. So maybe its just best I handle it :)

[Theresa]

My DH pays our bills, because he loves it. I dread paying bills - so it works out great that way. We make decisions together about what goes into savings, etc.

[carat70]

DH definitely, I suck at it!

[fizbobunny]

I am the head of household, and therefore handle the finances. He did take a lot of accouting in school, so I have him do spreadsheets and such for us every now and then. But ultimately, I make the decisions when it comes to money and other things.

[Beth]

DH is WAY better with money than I am. I have gotten a lot better since getting a joint checking account with him, but he prefers that he handle the bills, and I am more than happy to let him, as long as I have a general idea of where the money situation stands.

**Beth**

[nikkiscott]

We are not married but are working together for the family owned buisness that fh ownes. I do all the bill paying and paychecks, and what not for the buisness but we also have a accountant that does the yearly thing. As for our personal stuff, we each have our own accounts as well as a joint for our mortgage to come out of. But because I am working out of the house the buisness pays for everything, power, phone that sort of thing. I usually buy groceries and that sort of thing and all the little things that come up. Fh has his own money that he does what ever with. We have it pretty good. Better then most I think and its a system that has worked for the past 35 years when fh parents were doing the same thing we are doing.

[Hughto]

I am investment banker... so I am fairly decent in finances. ;) I mainly take care of all of it.

[Sabby12s]

I'm in charge of finances. If there is a big purchase we need to make then FH is in charge of research and development. Its the only way we can sucessfully work as a team together! Oh, and FH gets an allowance also. I put the money in his own checking account and he's responsible for making sure he doesn't bounce any checks. Works well for us.

[rowanmayfairs]

Before we got married I almost hating taking care of our finances. But I have gotten better at it and learned not to let it stress me out.

Now I'm better at it and if something "big" needs bought I research to make sure we making the right decision before purchase. James does NO research,he would just rather buy.

[Kathy]

I'm pretty sure Brian will take care of things once we pool our finances. I suck with money, and I know it, and Brian knows it too. He keeps a spreadsheet of his expenses, and I just go online to see how much money is in my account ... yeah, bad.

[Robyn]

Garth makes the money, I spend it! Muwhahaha. If I didn't get his money, I'd be screwed. I'm a SAHM, you get paid a big fat 0 for that. I don't ok purchases with him, & he doesn't with me. It's OUR money. As long as bills are paid, groceries are bought, then what's there is there. And it's for both of us. Though I tend to spend more on the boys than myself. When the boys are in school & I start working (after I'm done school, which he is paying for), then what I make will go into savings, since we don't really need my income anyway. We pay our bills online, so whoever gets the mail that day, pays. Then we write the date, conf # & file it.

I have a friend, & she is married with 2 kids. They split EVERYTHING. They each pay half the mortgage, half the bills, etc. When she had her first little girl, she was born 6 weeks early. Mat leave here is through EI & takes a good month to come in (you can't claim for the first 2 weeks, then you have to wait for it to get to you). Her truck payment was due & she had to BORROW the money from her husband. She had to pay him back. Maybe I'm weird, but when you are married, everything is mixed together & there is no mine & yours. When she told me that, I was shocked. But, I guess every couple is different. There is just no way I could do that.

[granola]

I've done it since we combined our accounts. DH was working out of town and I sort of had to, because I had to be able to access the money for bills and such while he was away. (This was 2003... he was away for 6 months) Honestly though, when I met him he had A LOT of debts, like collections and such. I worked really hard on paying those off and getting us a good solid foundation of credit. I also worked really hard at saving money, too. As life has gone on and changed, etc I've been the budgeter... I always figure out how we're going to get everything paid for.

Its to the point now where DH doesn't even WANT to know where we are financially. It stresses him out. So I honestly don't tell him anything about finances unless we're really in the hole, or if he asks. Otherwise he's in the dark. :lol: