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Couples with joint checking accounts are happier

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Re: Couples with joint checking accounts are happier

#51

Post by technothrasher »

for_i_in_range wrote: post #3

How about each agreeing to contribute to a joint checking account per month. Like $5K each per month to the joint account. For those of us who own our own business or are self-employed, my business account is mine, and my partner's business account is hers.

When we first got married, we had the reverse of this. Both our incomes went into a joint operating account, and we each got an identical allowance paid out bi-weekly into our own separate accounts.

But after a few years of marriage we found it needlessly complicated and now we just have the operating account which we both can withdraw money from, along with various short and long term investment accounts which we both have to agree to pull money from. Perhaps it's because we've never really spent beyond our means that this hasn't caused any conflict in the past twenty years of marriage.

Re: Couples with joint checking accounts are happier

#52

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

DO what's right for your relationship.

There are sooo many ways this can go wrong. Independent-minded types will have a problem with joint accounts, anxious types will have a problem with separate accounts.

Its all over the place. Think outside the box: resort to joint credit cards or open-book bank statements (but not joint bank accounts). Automated payments are your friend.

Any arrangement will tend to put an already strained relationship in the rocks. Unemployment, income disparity, etc will impact you.

Do what makes you and your partner happy. No grudges or resentments. Empathize with the other's needs but don't make yourself a floormat either.

Re: Couples with joint checking accounts are happier

#53

Post by shove »

I was so “never again” from my first marriage that I literally just pay for everything* but I refuse to do a joint account. It’s just extra bureaucratic headache (in our case) and I’m going to occasionally splurge when I want to. I went overboard setting up a shop during Covid and yeah it led to some strife. We worked through it.

* My wife’s a teacher and rather than argue about money, I let her keep her income as our savings, vacations, whatever she wants otherwise; I use my much higher tech income and pay all the recurring bills, handle retirement savings, restaurants, etc.

Re: Couples with joint checking accounts are happier

#54

Post by ryandrake »

dugmartin wrote: post #5

I don't understand couples that keep separate finances. When you get married its "we" and not "me". It seems like keeping one foot out the door. Note: I've been married for 23 years with everything tracked in joint accounts the entire time but we do have a small "fun money" monthly budget item for each of us that is a black box.

It just sounds like so much extra work. Transfer $X on date Y for Z bill, repeat for both partners x each bill. Good grief!

Then, how do you avoid the strife over "personal" spending when one spouse makes much more than the other? I can buy a Porsche for myself because my salary is large, but my partner has to make do with a bicycle because she works at a non-profit? How do vacations and other shared things get paid for? Equally? proportionally? I could see a fight happening in each of those systems.

What if one spouse decides to stop working? You pretty much have to switch to a single, joint account at that point, right?

More power to ya if you've figured this out. It sounds exhausting and would never work in my family.

Re: Couples with joint checking accounts are happier

#55

Post by lolinder »

mulmen wrote: post #25
jrm4 wrote: post #15

Seems obvious. Though, I think a lot of people here think the takeaway is "if you're in a relationship and you do separate now, you'll be happier if you put them together" and NO NO NO that's not it at all. It's "if y'all were already the type to put them together, you're probably happier than the types who didn't."

Correlation doesn’t imply causation and if there is correlation it doesn’t imply the direction .

This link is to a study that was a randomized trial, which means it can theoretically contribute to establishing causation:

> In a six-wave longitudinal experiment, we investigated whether randomly assigning engaged or newlywed couples to merge their money in a joint bank account increases relationship quality over time. Whereas couples assigned to keep their money in separate accounts or to a no-intervention condition exhibited the normative decline in relationship quality across the first 2 years of marriage, couples assigned to merge money in a joint account sustained strong relationship quality throughout.

Re: Couples with joint checking accounts are happier

#56

Post by mandevil »

jrm4 wrote: post #15

Seems obvious. Though, I think a lot of people here think the takeaway is "if you're in a relationship and you do separate now, you'll be happier if you put them together" and NO NO NO that's not it at all. It's "if y'all were already the type to put them together, you're probably happier than the types who didn't."

They try to get at that causation problem with the random assignments: they randomly assigned the couples into three groups: no intervention, must do joint finances, and continue their separate finances (all 230 couples in the study started with separate finances). After two years the joint finance groups were happier in their relationship and less likely to have broken up.

So, if you had RTFM'd, you'd have seen that they are trying to get at causation by doing a randomized controlled trial, the gold-standard for proving causation.

Re: Couples with joint checking accounts are happier

#57

Post by taeric »

theresistor wrote: post #23

My observation of couples with split finances (my wife and I merged ours long ago) is that it doesn’t seem to prevent the kind of problems it nominally solves, and adds extra stress to the mix. If you are married to someone whose financial decisions you are incompatible with, there’s no escaping the fact that you’re going to be impacted by those decisions one way or another no matter what. Hiding them in a for-his/he…

Stated differently, it is a technical solution to a social problem.

I'd posit that it is plausible you could both be compatible with multiple accounts for different uses. Especially as you get fortunate enough to have enough income that you can split where it is deposited, there is no reason "joint account" means a single joint account.

Re: Couples with joint checking accounts are happier

#58

Post by bakemawaytoys »

Scubabear68 wrote: post #20

I think this strongly depends on the couple. My wife and I have had separate checking accounts for 20 years, and a shared savings account, and a second shared checking account we use strictly for transferring money back and forth (we can’t use savings for that due to stupid banking rules). We also have split the hills according to our relative incomes. I make a lot more so I have the mortgage and a few big ticket ite…

Very similar situation with my partner and I, except we use budgeting software - I manage my own personal budget and our "joint" budget separately. My partner isn't interested in using the software for her own expenses, which is fine.

We can both see how much money is allocated to everything, if there's anything one of us wants to spend money on that would be a shared thing - we budget for it.

Re: Couples with joint checking accounts are happier

#60

Post by cafard »

Probably my favorite line in P.G. Wodehouse is "The saddest words of tongue or pen are not 'It might have been', they are 'joint checking account'."

In practice, it is not that tragic. Joint finances do mean that surprise birthday or Christmas presents must be paid for in cash, or if that is not possible I have to have my son make the purchase and then reimburse him.

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