41–50 of 109 posts
While I’m sure it works for the OP, I’m guessing most other options would work. My take is that this approach just moves the discussion to what qualifies as “fun money” or should come out of the shared account. Maybe it’s because we are too young yet, but me and my SO just have a shared account and contribute to it equally (she insisted, I wanted to do proportional). We make sure to put in there enough to cover the b…
What if one spouse makes seven figures and the other is unemployed and takes care of the household? The income disparity then is too high for this, it seems to me, but maybe it's just me.
At seven figures, you shouldn't have any money problems.
Should be a recipe for disaster, right?
Except it isn't. We just accept that this is who we are, and we're comfortable with that.
The author correctly notes that things can change over time, but they seem to ignore the most important thing to this entire process working: we use our words and talk about things before they become an actual problem.
Since my spouse and I have accepted this scenario as being perfectly fine for us now, our normal doesn't frustrate either of us, even though we are wildly different in our spending approaches. And when things change, we're both comfortable making changes to accommodate those changes.
Some of you might be saying "but yes, averaged out over the year you probably spend the same", and the answer is no. Not even close. I may spend 600$ on a gaming monitor with a 6 month gap on either side, but my spouse ends up spending more like 4000$ on little bits and bobs throughout that same year period. Guess what? This inequality doesn't bother either of us. Why should it? We're in this together and both of us need to be happy with what we're doing. I don't need 6.6667 gaming monitors, and the point isn't to try to equalize our expenditures. Buy what you need to make your life better, and then buy no more.
Or, at least, that has worked for us for the last 15 years. Things could change! Things can always change. But I'm not even remotely worried about that; because that's when we make dinner and sit in front of a couple laptops with a bottle of wine and work out a much more strict budget and emphasize a more restrained approach toward both of our spending patterns. It's happened before, it may happen again, but we'll be fine because we come to a consensus on our financial goals and priorities and neither of us have ever acted in bad faith with regards to achieving those goals and priorities. And if that changes? Well, a more fundamental thing has changed, and maybe we SHOULD have marital strife. And that's okay too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At seven figures, you shouldn't have any money problems.
I am reminded of the statistics on lottery winners...
Someone with a large income probably grew their income over several years (although, if you know of any career paths with seven figure starting salaries...), and have had a chance to learn that even though it's a huge amount of money, it's not infinite money. But if you do overspend one year, you're likely getting a bunch of money the next year, so you can probably work it out.
What if one spouse makes seven figures and the other is unemployed and takes care of the household? The income disparity then is too high for this, it seems to me, but maybe it's just me.
My wife and I have been married 7 years and we just got a joint account last year so we could deposit a check endorses to us jointly. We have two kids together, but sharing finances seems terrifying.
My wife and I have been married 7 years and we just got a joint account last year so we could deposit a check endorses to us jointly. We have two kids together, but sharing finances seems terrifying.
How do you handle joint expenses like rent/mortgage and all the kid stuff?
We pretty much do this, although it's a little subject to the same thing that "unlimited PTO" is - one person may feel guiltier about spending money than the other and it may crop up in various ways. The only thing we haven't quite figured out how to account for yet is that we are occupying pretty 'conventional' roles by choice and by practicality. I can make a lot more money for many reasons, most of them have nothi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you handle joint expenses like rent/mortgage and all the kid stuff?
We split them up, roughly based on ability to pay. It reduces friction, but the downside is that I think it reduces our ability to optimize expenditures. (You don’t have two person sign off on most expenses.)
I find it makes it a lot easier to know that $X thousand/month is my "family expense" and then everything for that is easily accounted for in a way that is totally separate from my personal finances.
I actually have two separate mint accounts, one for family expenses and one for my personal stuff.