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Ask HN: How do you structure your shared finances with your spouse/partner

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Re: Ask HN: How do you structure your shared finances with your spouse/partner

#71

Post by dagw »

jonah wrote: post #24

Our finances are quite simple at this point. We both work but my income is higher than hers. We each maintain our own accounts and credit cards and generally pay for our own personal purchases. For shared things, we either split them proportionately or 50/50 and one of us pays the bill and the other uses Cash App to reimburse for their portion. (We're also new at this, having been married less than a year and our str…

We started like this as well, and almost 20 years later we still haven't gotten around to doing anything different.

Re: Ask HN: How do you structure your shared finances with your spouse/partner

#72

Post by JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B »

whateveracct wrote: post #36

All money in joint accounts. We are always each other's beneficiary. I make enough that we don't have to think about small-medium purchases too much. We are frugal in the big areas (e.g. 16yo Honda Civic). But we do periodic spending temperature checks and as we have gotten older, we have become more mindful of that. Leisure spending over like a hundred or so we always tell each other about it beforehand and try to s…

Unless one is or becomes not frugal at all and that can create problems. I have a joint account because my wife doesn’t work, but it would be different if she had a job.

Re: Ask HN: How do you structure your shared finances with your spouse/partner

#73

Post by ryandrake »

hmcfletch wrote: post #62

Like a bunch of folks are saying, the most important thing is that you are both on the same page regardless of what you choose. As far as all joint accounts vs having individual accounts, I think if has to do with how you view marriage. Is it a single whole, or is it a joined pair of individuals. For me personally, I view my wife and I as single team. Everything is joint (outside of a few super old accounts like othe…

> To me, having separate individual accounts, feels like you aren't committing fully to marriage and are keeping your money yours "just in case." If you are already feeling like you need a "just in case," why are you get married to begin with.

And even if that's not true, keeping track of everything separately just seems so... exhausting. Like, you pay the electricity, I'll pay the water bill, you pay 75% of the mortgage, I'll pay 80% of our vacation, but we split meals 50/50... And then you have those cases where I can afford to go to Disney World, but my spouse only has enough for Six Flags because she makes less or hasn't been saving--now what? OMG that just sounds like so much work to manage, all for what?

Re: Ask HN: How do you structure your shared finances with your spouse/partner

#74

Post by ryandrake »

whateveracct wrote: post #36

All money in joint accounts. We are always each other's beneficiary. I make enough that we don't have to think about small-medium purchases too much. We are frugal in the big areas (e.g. 16yo Honda Civic). But we do periodic spending temperature checks and as we have gotten older, we have become more mindful of that. Leisure spending over like a hundred or so we always tell each other about it beforehand and try to s…

Same here, except I use Quicken instead of a spreadsheet. The only accounts we keep separate are the ones where you literally cannot have a joint account, like IRAs. Everything else is joint--it simplifies so much. We don't have to worry about those "I can afford this, but you can only afford that, what do we do?" conversations. One joint checking account with a credit union that has physical branches, for cash in/out, one joint checking account with Schwab for the "normal" banking. We don't have a traditional savings account anymore--I just buy short term treasuries now which are currently paying over 5%. Single joint credit card, and we just make sure we have enough in the checking every month to pay it off, and that's it. Pretty simple setup.

Re: Ask HN: How do you structure your shared finances with your spouse/partner

#76

Post by fallinghawks »

We have a joint checking for bills and a joint credit card for everything else we're both doing (groceries, plane tix, dining out etc). Everything else is separate; the spouse might be the TOD beneficiary, but we both have relatives that are beneficiaries. My mom always emphasized the importance for a woman to keep her own stuff separate.

Re: Ask HN: How do you structure your shared finances with your spouse/partner

#77

Post by darreninthenet »

ryandrake wrote: post #73
hmcfletch wrote: post #62

Like a bunch of folks are saying, the most important thing is that you are both on the same page regardless of what you choose. As far as all joint accounts vs having individual accounts, I think if has to do with how you view marriage. Is it a single whole, or is it a joined pair of individuals. For me personally, I view my wife and I as single team. Everything is joint (outside of a few super old accounts like othe…

> To me, having separate individual accounts, feels like you aren't committing fully to marriage and are keeping your money yours "just in case." If you are already feeling like you need a "just in case," why are you get married to begin with. And even if that's not true, keeping track of everything separately just seems so... exhausting. Like, you pay the electricity, I'll pay the water bill, you pay 75% of the mort…

I've lived with my (now) wife for 18 years and been very happily married for 14 years, and we've managed our finances exactly like this. It's just been much easier for us, and we both have very different approaches to balancing and managing our accounts and budgets... a joint account would be a nightmare for us.

We also have always had and still do have a significant disparity in salaries (I've basically more or less always earned twice what she does, even as our salaries have increased over time) and we've always managed to make it work very simply - I pay the bulk of the costs of joint things and she pays a contribution to me each month. We have some separate things (eg mobile phones, online subscriptions that only one of us uses etc) and we pay for those ourselves.

When we go out sometimes I pay, sometimes she pays, sometimes we jointly pay, it all works out in the end.

It's often said money and financial management is one of the most stressful part of a relationship... it's almost never been an issue for us and it works very well.

Re: Ask HN: How do you structure your shared finances with your spouse/partner

#78

Post by carlosjobim »

Most of your wealth should be in offshore accounts or buried in places that neither friends, family, the government and least of all your spouse knows anything about or can touch. That's called sleeping easy at night. If anybody starts to nose about your money, it's time to start becoming very suspicious.

As for how to split expenses, that's according to your personal preference.

Re: Ask HN: How do you structure your shared finances with your spouse/partner

#79

Post by fallinghawks »

hmcfletch wrote: post #62

Like a bunch of folks are saying, the most important thing is that you are both on the same page regardless of what you choose. As far as all joint accounts vs having individual accounts, I think if has to do with how you view marriage. Is it a single whole, or is it a joined pair of individuals. For me personally, I view my wife and I as single team. Everything is joint (outside of a few super old accounts like othe…

> If you are already feeling like you need a "just in case," why are you get married to begin with.

Because people change, and sometimes those changes lead to financial troubles. One spouse starts making risky investments, or spends joint money in an inequitable manner. Maybe separation happens and one spouse wants to move out, but if the money is gone, they're stuck.

Re: Ask HN: How do you structure your shared finances with your spouse/partner

#80

Post by renewiltord »

We use Copilot. I review that daily. Everything else is joint where it can be. I check in on any spending that's more than a certain amount but that's only to make sure it's not CC theft etc. We're on the same page for most spending so we don't talk about it explicitly except in terms of stuff over $10k.
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