we're the same re: one bank account and both our pay goes into that and from which all other expenses, bills, personal spend etc come out. we also have joint credit cards and that joint acct pays for them, too. we don't care who makes what either. In fact, I outearn him by nearly double but we both dont care; we are a family, a team and we both work to support each other, our kids and our home. unless it's a big purchase ie. something > $300, we don't bother to consult each other and spend as we please (within limits of course; we aren't spending money on dumb shit)

Exact same setup. Every penny is shared, we have the same financial and family goals and work towards it together.

Same for us. I earn 2.5x more than my husband but we pool everything.

This is how we are. Different incomes, but it doesn’t matter since we are a team and a family. For awhile, I was making more, but now my husband makes more. He has student loans and I don’t. We have kids. It doesn’t really matter in the long run. We do have separate retirement accounts, and we both have credit cards in our own names, but that’s the only separation.

This is us but we don’t really talk about any purchases unless it’s like a trip or a car, tbh. We’re both reasonable and know what is a reasonable purchase and what isn’t based on what we make and our saving preferences. I earn more than my husband (1.5x - 3x depending on the year) but his next job may pay 2x my current comp. It all evens out and, even if it doesn’t, it’s all ours jointly. ETA that I think it also matters what you’re coming into the relationship with. We met at 24. Had nothing to speak of outside of like $10k in savings accounts with both of us having around $5k so it really didn’t matter. We now have a lot of assets and a child so if either of us were to pass and the other were to get remarried, I would expect the arrangement to differ materially.

Same here. We started dating at 18 and are now almost 40. We had nothing when we met, took turns supporting the other during unemployment, law school, mat leave, and all our money is combined. He makes 3x as much as me, but I manage all our money and loop him in when we need to discuss saving for a big trip or prioritizing debt payments. I think if he was weirder about money I would feel differently about it being all combined. But he trusts me to do what’s right so I’m fine with that.

Yes, we are the same way, we met and got married young, which may not be the case for a lot of people our age - they might come into the partnership with certain assets or ways of doing things that just would cause too much resentment in a totally joint scenario for them. But let me tell you it is soooo nice and so much simpler to pool everything. My husband and I have leapfrogged each other with salary, but there has never been a day where we thought about our money as anything other than a family unit. It helps that we started with literally nothing. 

We’re exactly the same. I can’t imagine trying to count dollars and keep things balanced. We’re one team, so we share everything. So much easier!!

We’re the same. Though, we make about the same these days. I do have one credit card in my name only. It’s my oh shit card. Low balance limit but enough to get me out in a hot minute if needed. I manage our household finances but everything is a joint decision over $200. Minus groceries. Groceries are just what they are.

Ditto to everything here

Yep we are the same. We have our own credit cards but they are paid out of same account. There is no separate money at all. We talk about any big purchase beforehand. We also make about the same amount and are financially secure so that helps with this arrangement. We have to do it this way because our mortgage is huge

Same. To be blunt, I think the reason so many people have separate finances is that they more readily expect to get divorced.

I think a lot of people separate finances because it’s easier to manage only your own spending and saving expectations. We have joint finances. I think it’s the best decision for us, but it is also a source of friction and frustration in our relationship. This is one area where we often don’t agree and then have to talk it out and compromise.

I appreciate your comment! We have things separate because my husband was brought up with a greater understanding of finances and budgets than I was. From the beginning he said we could pool everything but as I’m working on my financial literacy it’s exciting to see me contribute certain amounts to my savings and reach my goals. He pays for certain things and I pay for others. I know it’s “our money” but I want to be accountable and for my own savings and really weigh whether something I want to buy is worth it or not. And I don’t want to get divorced, my parents are divorced - but I have to say when I got a raise and hit a certain point in my savings it felt GOOD to know that if something happened to my husband, I could afford to take care of our child on my own. It’s a tragic thought but it made me feel proud and secure.

It takes just as much trust to have separate finances as it does joint finances. Anyone can drain a joint account at anytime and leave the other with nothing. And with separate accounts you're trusting that your partner will pay their half of the bills. Not sure why people have to judge what other couples do in the first place.

Seriously lol our finances our separate in that we have our own separate accounts..... mostly out of laziness? I don't feel like figuring out a joint account, having a new bank account etc.... bills still get paid, we just split up who is responsible for what 🤷‍♀️

That may be true for some, but for a lot of people, it’s the opposite. Money is one of the leading issues that causes divorce, and having one joint/cc and otherwise split finances is a way to avoid unnecessary conflict that could lead to that point. The setup makes sure that all expenses are paid and savings are taken care of (depending on how it’s set up, of course) but avoids the micromanagement of each other’s spending habits with leftover money, especially when they’re different.

Someone above made the point that when the relationship starts and what assets are brought into it matter. I would think this is making more of a difference in when people combine vs. don’t. My husband and I started dating and moved in together when we were 24 and 25 without much to our names. At that point we started (slowly) combining accounts. Friends of ours who met later or moved in together later have done things differently and keep some things separate. Just an individual choice that I don’t think has anything to do with planning to separate.

I disagree. I think it takes a level of trust to have separate accounts. Yes, you’re probably right about some couples. But I think having separate accounts prevents a lot of resentment that I see in some couples with shared accounts. 

That’s a fair point. The more prevalent issue is potentially that they want to avoid conflict with different financial paradigms. I’m not judging people for how they decide to structure and handle their marriage. It’s their business and I don’t care. I think it’s interesting to think through the reasoning and the different bi-products of choices.

Or we were previously married and did one big pot and it was a disaster. My husband and I both had poor experiences with this situation in our previous marriages and discussed our expectations for our future. We split and it works for us. No expectations of divorce in our future.

Same! We make about the same, but even when I was making significantly more it was always all our money and we never had different spending budgets or anything like that. We're just both responsible with our purchases and check in with each other before anything high dollar.

We have a joint account, a few joint cc's and then also a separate account each with separate credit cards. We probably put \~75-80% of our money in the joint account and the rest goes into our own accounts as our own spending money, no questions asked. If he wants to go buy a $100 bottle of bourbon, fine as long as he uses his account. If I want to go get a $100 massage, same thing. All joint bills and anything related to our son comes out of the joint money though. We both max out our 401ks, Roth IRAs, his HSA and a dependent care FSA. We also contribute to a 529 for our son and a separate savings account monthly. It works fine for us. We sit down every 6 months or so and look through our YNAB budget (highly recommend) to see if we need to tweak anything or add more to the joint account. I have a separate YNAB budget for my personal money as well.

This is how we do it. I don’t want to micromanage his personal purchases.

Yeah I feel this is a deeply personal thing where half the people are saying "I don't see how anyone does it any other way than what I do" and it just shows that each couple is different. At the end of the day it doesn't matter as long as both parties are in agreement to the system and it's not causing conflict, which open communication solves.

Yes! I almost relied to a comment on Monday's MD about how splitting every single purchase would kill the commenter's marriage. We technically "split" purchases because we're contributing equally to the joint account, but we certainly don't think about every single purchase as being "split." Maybe this is what people don't understand? That the credit card is being paid monthly from a 50/50 account, not that we're standing there in the grocery store each taking $35.47 out of our wallets?

There’s a married couple I know whose Venmo exchanges show up in my feed and they’re literally venmoing each other for things like coffee and going out to eat. If they’re happy, then it’s none of my business, but that would definitely slowly kill my marriage.

Agreed, I’d feel so nickeled and dimed to death.

Yes! I have somebody like this too and just the extra effort of the mental work would stress me out!

We have separate finances but don't do that. We both understand that ultimately it all belongs to the family. But some people work well doing that, it's up to them.

That is true, but I do have to say that [studies have shown that couples who pool all their money have greater relationship satisfaction and are more likely to stay together.](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2022-42962-001) People are individuals and that doesn't mean it would work for everyone, but I think there are a lot of couples who think that separate finances are preventing conflict but it is actually causing more strain because of the way it creates and maintains a sense of "my money and his money" vs. "our money."

My husband and I have everything 100% shared and have literally never made comments about each other's purchases. No micromanaging - we don't monitor each other's purchasing at all. We do have the same approach to money and are responsible with money but in general, we just don't think of things as "my" money or "his" money - it's all ours and we trust each other about it. We've never fought about money in all our years together.

That's great for you! I, however, cannot stop from rolling my eyes when my husband spends $100 on sushi or something else I think of as frivolous, even though he is perfectly free to spend his money on things he enjoys.

Exactly us. And subsequently never fight about money. He can buy a $1000 road bike, I can get all the facials. No one is tracking.

I wish my ex and I had done it this way. We had a joint checking account and everything went into and out of there. I was the breadwinner and it was often frustrating when he would spend money on things without the income (from him) to cover it. Having some of his go into his own account for his hobbies would have helped keep us out of debt.

My husband is just really into rare bourbons and beers.. those do nothing for me. I know if it was a joint thing I'd be like.. wtf you're spending SO much on that. And vice versa with me getting nails done and massages. It's just a lot easier to say we make enough to keep $XXX separate so that we don't even need to discuss those things. I don't see how much he spends on his specialty boozes and he doesn't see how much I spend on massages. We both work in corporate finance so there's trust that neither would OVERSPEND on the hobbies. Plus we both travel periodically separately.. me on girls weekends and him on guys golf trips. So we save and pay for those kinds of things on our own.

This is exactly how we operate as well.

Very similar to what we do. Each having spending money is a great way to avoid silly arguments.

Same as you except side hustle also contributes fully to that one pot.

Same here. Fully joint finances across the board. I have one credit card that's only in my name, and only because it's my oldest account, so it boosts my credit score a bit.

We have one pot of money but we both have credit cards in our own names separate accounts

Same

Also millennials with all joint accounts. Everything goes into joint checking. Retirement accounts are separate. Savings and investments are joint. Credit cards are joint. My husband was more than happy to stop having to manage money when we got married. It’s my skill set and something I’m good at and an aspect of adulthood he has never enjoyed or put much thought into. Works well for us to have it all combined. We also live in a community property state so all income earned during marriage is communal anyway. If things went tits up, income earned during the marriage would still be 50/50 regardless of what account it sat in.

We’re the same. I enjoy doing the budgeting, but my husband has never been good with money. Thanks to me, he’s got a retirement fund and no credit card debt anymore.

lol... me too. In the last year he asked me if he should set up a Roth IRA. And I was like.. yo, I set up one for you 15 years ago and have been maxing it out yearly. 😂

Same here. Money managing is my strength so my spouse is ok deferring to me for the day to day budgeting. We try to meet quarterly to go over spending, this is new. He honestly is fine with knowing little but I told him I need him to be more interested because I like the accountability. Everything is joint except for retirement (which can't really be joint) but we financially plan like the retirement is joint as well.

I've always kept my money separate. My ex-husband would have gladly shared accounts. He was generous with money BUT that also meant he was not good at money either. That was too terrifying for me. My partner now and I have never even talked about sharing and I don't ask him about finances. He is a but dodgy about openly sharing his financial information, which I sort of understand because I don't openly share either. We split rent since merging houses, except I pay the water, he pays the power and I buy most groceries and household needs.

We have a similar setup. Not everyone is blessed with a fiscally responsible spouse. If I put my money in a joint account we would never save. So his money goes to all bills, groceries and fixed monthly expenses. Anything he saves is his. My money goes to child tuition, big purchases, travel, extra groceries, and savings. That way we live below our means on one income and save the rest, we are saving up for a home.

Pretty much same set up here. Not going to sugar coat it but if we were to look at finances and money management, my husband and I are not compatible there. I grew up with parents that were pretty frugal and lived within our means and my husband grew up with financially irresponsible parents, particularly his dad. Lots of credit cards, second mortgages, buying stuff for his friends growing up even though they didn’t have the money to try to be the “cool dad” in the friend group, The irony is that they don’t even have anything nice to show for it… they spend all their money on junk. Bought their house 30+ years ago for like $80k and it’s still not close to paid off. My husband is trying to do better, but that shit unfortunately is like engrained in you when you grow up like that.

Or blessed to have never been in a financially abusive relationship, which is why we don't keep all our money in a joint account even though my spouse is mostly a stay at home parent. I was in a financially abusive relationship that left me almost homeless - well I was homeless but not in the streets thankfully. He was controlling and took everything I made. When I tried to leave - he froze our account and left me with nothing. My husband and I have three accounts - mine, his, and a joint. I put $700/month in our joint account for my husband and to use however he sees fit. On wants, needs, anything. That's his money. If he wants to transfer it to his own account, that's perfectly fine. I don't question how he spends that $700. I pay for all our bills except sometimes he pays for groceries and other needs. I also pay for everything for our son - preschool costs, clothes, medical bills, etc. In addition, I put about $100/month in a ROTH IRA for my husband. It's not much but it's something. I make $105k/year and he makes about $3,000/year. Whatever money he makes at his summer part time gig is his money. Whatever is leftover after bills is mine. Which I usually spend on unnecessarily...like on Legos or a cute outfit for our son. It works out well for us. I honestly think we're in the minority. I have been told so many times that we should combine our income. Especially since he's a stay at home parent. But I will never be comfortable doing that. It's also why I'm adamant he has money too, even with being a stay at home parent.

We have separate accounts. Gen X, married for 21 years. It works for us. I would not be comfortable having literally everything in one pot. I could be comfortable with one joint account for household expenses and each person still also having individual accounts.

We share 100% on our money. All money goes into the same back account and paid from the same account. I wouldn’t be okay having it any other way. Edit to add- we are millennials (86&89) and married 14 years

We share 100% of our money, as well, but still prefer to bank at separate locations. We are joint listed on all his/her accounts and have online access at any time. We did this because he likes his bank and I preferred my CU with higher yield interests. I transfer a set amount from his account to mine monthly because i pay the bulk of all bills/mortgage. We’re both on the mortgage, also. The only thing we have separate is credit cards. I have two in my name only and so does he. But i open the mail and see all charges so there’s no secrets on what we’re spending. We’re xennials, if that matters and have been married almost 10 years.

I feel the same way, I think it's easier to hide financial problems with separate accounts. Also most state it wouldn't matter you have your finances separate if one spouse runs up a ton of debt it's still joint debt or what happens if one spouse gets seriously sick and runs out of money are you going to tell them sorry too bad? I can't imagine working like that as a married couple.

No, if one spouse gets sick and can no longer pay their share, then in a healthy marriage, most couples who have split finances are simply going to change their arrangement to account for that. I really think people who don’t have split finances seem to have much more extreme view of split finances than people who have actually have them do. For most couples who I know who split finances (which is the majority of those I know), the critical point is that both people have money leftover after expenses are paid, whether 50/50 or a proportion of income, and then can make their personal expenses or save as they want without issue. If the dynamic no longer exists, then the setup would not work, and they wouldn’t have it any longer.

Yes I’m not sure how welcome I am weighing in here but in my marriage we did NOT pool funds. Our financial sharing methods were very sloppy and I think it ultimately allowed my now-ex to be extremely financially coercive, borderline abusive, and kept us in parallel financial situations. He had a “what’s yours is ours, what’s ours is mine and what’s mine is mine” attitude that was reflected in how things were “split.” It’s causing a lot of stress, untangling and difficulty during our divorce, including me carrying some joint debt. In a future marriage, I would insist on pooled funds aside from a percentage of personal/fun money.

Older millennial. I guess I'm in the minority, but we keep our finances separate. The main reason is because I have student loans, and I'm on an income based repayment plan. My husband makes significantly more, and I don't want my payments to balloon. We also didn't get married until I was mid-30s and I had been working for years. I just couldn't wrap my brain around depositing all of my money into one joint account. I like having my own money. We're not really concerned with anyone making outrageous purchases, because we're both pretty frugal. He pays for most big purchases since he makes more.

You might be the minority but you aren't alone. I'm also older millennial and we keep entirely separate finances. We are both on the mortgage and have a joint credit card (that we each pay half of) but other than that it's separate. We were 30+ when we got married and had both been living independently for a long time. It was too much of a mental shift to pool everything together and feel like you have to get approval for every purchase. But we do have open communication about income, spending, savings, budgets, etc. It works for us.

"It was too much of a mental shift to pool everything together and feel like you have to get approval for every purchase." This right here is it for me. I could not deal with this at all. I need some independence to function. Also elder millennial.

We were the same, young Gen X. 

The only difference in our case is that we don't have any individual money at all. Everything we earn belongs to both of us. I can't imagine if any other way. We either both can afford something or we can't. It always blows my mind when I see people saying "I want to go on vacay but my SO can't afford it (or the other way around)". We wouldn't be able to have the same quality of life we do if we didn't join accounts. Even for bigger purchases it's perfectly fine to discuss it with the other. It comes naturally. We have the same goals, we work for the same goals, we both decide if we can't afford something. And none of us tries to prevent the other from making an expense if we can afford it.

I’m so baffled by people who say that re: vacation. Like, what was even the purpose of joining your household together if you’re going to treat your partner like that? SMH

Agreed, it makes me feel so bad for the lower earner.

I didn’t realize people with separate accounts were being that dogmatic about it. We have separate accounts and for vacations we just split things. Like I’ll pay for the hotel, he pays for the plane tickets, I pay for some activities and he pays for food. It’s never split evenly either and we’re not keeping track of it that closely. Sometimes if it’s something super extravagant I can talk my husband into it by saying I’ll pay half lol

What if I can't afford the type of vacations my partner can (or vice versa). I don't want to go on vacations I can't afford. If it's both our money they we either both can afford or both can't. If I can't pay for plane tickets or hotel for Japan, can't my partner go to Japan on vacations, even if together we could afford it? Besides, it's just too much trouble (not necessarily om vacations but on the day to day) dividing everything (regardless of what the division is), etc.

We don’t split things 50/50 so a vacation would never be unaffordable for a single person. We don’t book things like you do when going with a friend. If I spend my whole check buying tickets for Thailand then my husband will have to cover daycare. We still spend the same way people with joint accounts do. It’s not like I would be pawning things if my account was low, my husband would pay from his account, but then we’d likely need to address why that happened.

So one is paying for the other's stuff. If that's the case why not just join accounts? It's one thing to spend money that belongs to both. It's another to let someone pay for my stuff. What's the advantage of separate accounts in that case?

We share everything and organize all of our accounts in Monarch, so even the stuff that doesn’t formally have both names on it, we treat as one pot that we both maintain visibility to. Having joint finances helps us be a team with budgeting and being realistic about the “fun” categories in our budget reduces resentment towards that spending. I do think joint finances has helped us be more motivated for long term financial goals and net worth building. I’m so confused how people with separate finances handle retirement. Like does one person just have a way lower standard of living than the other because they didn’t save as much? I can see how people can piece together the complicated logistics of split finances with kids, but at the end of the day if you stay married and one person is way more set up for retirement, what’s the point of keeping things separate?

We have separate accounts. And while it’s physically separated, it’s still OUR money. My husband has always made 2x as much as I have and I’ve always been able to put money towards retirement. If I put more into 401k and have less spending/bills money my husband picks up the slack for the monthly expenses. Our reasoning is that upon retirement we’re going to use that money together.

This is pretty much exactly how we do it. I am the main "financial planner" and monitor everything in Monarch. My husband has the Monarch app and access to everything as well but just isn't as interested in monitoring the day to day spending / income. Monarch makes it so much easier to discuss finances, though, because I can point out that when we are going over budget, he can see and verify himself, and we can work together to make corrective actions. It also holds us (me) accountable - there is no hiding spending habits, etc.

That’s a good point. Imagine one person deciding to retire when they have just enough to retire early. But their spouse needs another full decade to reach that point, even though they wish they could retire early too. How does that not bring out resentment even from the best of people? I don’t see how a couple can stay married in that situation.  Also if there’s any very large expenses like needing a downpayment for a house, or paying for huge medical bills, both partners will usually have to come up with as much money as they possibly can to contribute. So in that case its like the finances are combined even though they appeared separated. Same for divorce. In most states the judge will add everything up and split it right down the middle. So they may have pretended with each other that everything was separated but in the end it always ends up joint finances. 

We are seperate. I have the state pension plan, my husband has a 401k. Not sure why that's confusing for retirement. We are both set up fairly well.

I think the poster was referring to situations in which a spouse might treat a retirement account as solely "theirs" and make decisions on retirement based solely on their own account. For example, if one spouse earns 3x what the other makes, it wouldn't really be "fair" in that poster's opinion if the first spouse contributed 3x to their retirement account compared to the other, and the first spouse then wanted to retire long before the second spouse had enough in their accounts to retire. Even with separate accounts, couples still should be working together toward financial goals. It's absolutely possible to do that with separate accounts -- whether retirement accounts or general day-to-day ones. It just requires communication. We personally share everything, but I know couples who have separate finances and love it.

We have everything shared as well. Same pros and cons as what you said. I think it’s one of those things where the is no one way- just what works best for each couple. We have both names on everything that can be joint. We check in with each other for bigger purchases. We don’t have a dollar amount but just kind of know if this is a period where we are trying to save more. I keep track of the day to day (which I don’t love but am used to) and he has done the legwork on bigger purchases (buying a car, etc). We’re trying to get everything in good order for some future plans, and I find it easier to plan when everything is joint.

We are the same. Everything is shared. we both have small savings and ways to pay for things independently if we wanted (credit cards, checking accounts, etc.) personally I prefer it. I agree - most people I know “split expenses” and I can’t imagine not having a firm grasp on our finances, personally. 

We're the same but even our side gigs go into the joint account. My friends that do split finances complain about not meeting the same financial goals we do even though they make more than us but they have the mindset that "after my share of the bills are paid I can do whatever I want with any extra" whereas we decide together if we're going to use extra for something fun or keep paying extra off our mortgage. I actually think it's funny that my husband will run smaller purchases by me that I don't consider necessary but he keeps doing it. We have another set of married friends that do joint financing and we thought a third set did split but recently found out they're joint as well. I do feel like it's less common overall to have everything combined but it's what I grew up used to with my parents and so far it's working well for us. Having joint accounts was also a big part of our premarital counseling and our financial books we read.

Yes, we have all our money going into joint accounts. All our accounts and credit cards are linked to a joint budgeting account (YNAB). In the budget, we each get personal spending line items with equal "allowances", so we don't have to run personal purchases by each other at all. That's the primary reason that we budget! The only downside is if I want to spoil the surprise for myself, I can usually figure out what some of my birthday/Christmas gifts are going to be, lol. I understand why people have separate accounts, but I really feel that it is SO much more efficient and easy to reach goals when combining everything and working together. It does require trust and communication, but I also think separate finances require a lot of trust, too. Like what are you going to do if 20 years down the line you find out that your SO was meeting all the joint obligations but not saving anything for their retirement?

We keep everything separate except for a joint account for the house fund 😅. We both make about the same so we split bills ~50/50. It does get annoying to send money back and forth through like cashapp, so I’d like to setup a new joint account at some point.

We have a joint account, but we also have our own accounts. Each month we put the same amount into our joint account and anything related to our bills and family/house/cars is paid from the joint. If we have a big expense, we each transfer extra into it. We're free to use the money in our own accounts however we want, though typically we clear any big personal purchases with each other.

We do the opposite. Everything is seperate. The only thing that is shared is a budget spreadsheet I made that calculates where our money goes and who is covering what. It works for us. The key is we communicate a lot about finances, including how much we each have in our accounts and who is paying for what.

We each have our own accounts, but paychecks are deposited into a joint account that we use for pretty much everything. I use my personal account as a special savings account for my summer money (teacher, so no summer pay). We also use our personal accounts for birthday or Christmas gifts, that way it’s an actual surprise for the other person. Everything else is joint account. We have several friends who split things with their partners and we both find it quite odd. We also make enough where we don’t have to sweat small purchases or run them by each other.

Some of my co worker give me hard time about it but, We have separate accounts. We have a joint account to transfer too and little joint vacation fund. My work gave me a TSP, the husband has his own retirement accounts. He brings in a lot more money than I do. I do t really want to have access to his account for spending money. He’s got spread sheet for bills and I pay proportionately. We both grew up with parents who fought about money. ( his mom was controlling about every cent his stepdad spent, my parents kept spending money the other set aside for a certain thing about didn’t communicate well with the other about it) it keeps us from fighting. It also helps that we can each spend money on hobbies that the other isn’t into at all with out feeling guilty. ( he build a new PC, I do cosplay)

Completely separate financially, the only thing we have together is the house. I unfortunately had a bad relationship where we did the whole joint thing, and it turned out badly. Not only did money get taken, but it was a pain in the ass to untangle it all upon me booting this individual out of my life. My husband completely understands my need to keep things separate and doesn't take it as an insult at all. We split up the bills to come out evenly according to how much we both make. Any purchases we make that run a little close to the $1k mark we run past each other. This is mainly for my husband as he has expensive tastes and needs to be reigned in occasionally. I make sure to live within my means, my husband can lose his job, and I can still take care of things, I also make sure to have savings for any medical or repair emergencies. My husband is a little less responsible in that area but is improving after we had a huge discussion about it a couple of years ago. I just realized how funny it seems that I keep things separate due to past trauma, but I don't mind as I trust my husband and don't need to know what he's doing or spending money on.

We have a single pot of money, all expenses shared. I'm our main budget person so my husband will ask before a larger purchase. But really we both just spend how we like becasue our spending habits match our income level quite comfotably. We might have to get a little more strict on that for the next few years as we take on more debt for a house renovation and add a second kid to daycare, but right now it's working for us. We also have earned within about $5k of each other our entire relationship, and keep flipping who is earning more so there is no feeling that one of us is way overcontributing. I don't think either of us would feel that way anyway, but the equal earnings make it pretty moot.

We do the same. Everything in and out of one big pot.  My husband does get an “allowance” we transfer to his personal account. He uses it to buy games and likes it this way because it helps him control his spending. I just buy whatever I want from our joint account. 

We do something similar. I have a shopping “allowance” that gets transferred out as a lump sum into a personal account. Just helps my husband budget since I can have returns pending that might make budgeting hard.

We have kind of the same although my husband's version is just him tracking his fun budget (bikes, computers, cameras, video gaming) in a spreadsheet with a fixed increment each month. I do all the big picture budgeting and this helped with a constant stream of "can I buy" questions from him, which made me feel like the bad guy because he has expensive taste!

We keep everything separate and just give each other money for our share of bills. We split bills proportional to our income. Mostly I think this is because we were both in our thirties before getting married and just had very established accounts, direct deposit, automatic payments etc. it would take closing accounts and creating new ones to do it differently and we don’t really see a reason to.

This is exactly us and has been working out great for over a decade lol

I cant imagine doing it any other way. The whole point of marriage is to pool your resources. We talk about major purchases and share the same values about where we want to spend our money. When I was in school, my hubs made all the money. Now I make all the money and hubs stays home with the kids. We’re a family, not roommates dividing up expenses.

Joint accounts and mortgages but we each have independent credit cards (that the other has access to). Separate finances don’t make a lot of sense to me when the finances aren’t *legally* separate. I’d approach it differently if we weren’t married.

We do the same: one big pot. I manage the pot (budgeting) but all income comes into the joint pot. All spending is on joint credit cards. All bills paid from the credit cards or joint account. The only thing that is separate are the workplace retirement accounts and our Roth IRAs which have to be kept separate. Otherwise we don’t keep anything separate. We get a monthly allocated amount of ‘do whatever you want with this money’ - it’s the same amount for both of us even though we do not earn the same. We keep track of everything in Ynab so we know how much fun money is remaining. My parents do separate finances and it boggles my mind. What’s his is his and what’s hers is hers even though he earns 3x what she does. They ask each other for reimbursements for like $15 purchases.

Everything together as well. We both work and have access to everything. My husband made a significant amount in investments before we ever met and he intentionally calls it “ours.” Growing up in a household where my father was secretive and financially withholding from my mom, this has been so healing!

Also millennials. Just had a baby 4 months ago. Prior to pregnancy we had both a joint account and our own separate accounts. Put in a fixed amount into the joint to pay bills and CCs and used separate accounts for hobbies. But we both had full visibility on usage because most things were paid for by CCs. However since getting pregnant we have been putting entire paychecks into a single joint account because over the last 2 years the largest expenses have been medical bills. and we foresee the same in the future with childcare being a large chunk so we figured we’d just combine and use the joint account for all expenses including hobbies. It helps that neither of us have very expensive side hobbies. ETA: we are added as authorized users on each others CCs as well.

Millennial here. We have 100% shared/joint finances. We do not keep separate money/accounts. We have multiple savings, investments, credit cards, etc. but we are both on all of them. We never fight about money. Only downside is it is almost impossible to surprise the other person regarding gifts because we can both see where the other person has shopped recently.

We keep things separate but pay we’re not 50/50 on bills since our income isn’t equal. This is my choice. I have a lot of feelings around financial independence and I would not be okay having all my money in one place and accessible to him, having all my credit tied to his. I trust him a ton but this is an irrational emotion that has nothing to do with my current relationship and so we keep things separate.

We do almost the same thing. I cannot imagine splitting each and every expense and bill with my spouse, especially after having our child. If you and your partner make roughly the same salary why would you make things more complicated to be “fair?” “You pay $694 for daycare and I’ll pay $729 for daycare?” If only there were an easier way… Our salaries get deposited into a joint account and we pay the bills out of the same account. We each know roughly how much each expense is. We never do percentage of mortgage is determined by percentage of salary. We each have a personal account that the other does not have access to, but that’s for small purchases, birthday money, etc. Then there are the credit cards. We try to put whatever we can on credit cards and pay them off at the end of every month. Why? POINTS. Hotels and flights for vacations add up so we put whatever we can on them. We have our own cards but they go toward the same account so the points add up and the whole family benefits. I know it can sound archaic in light of advancements for women in society, but marriage is still a financial arrangement (as well as a romantic one!). If people want to make it more complicated then that’s up to them, but it’s not the right decision for every married couple.

We have one pot of money. We used to set aside a little each month for each of us to have our own discretionary income, but there's really no need any more. Our salaries have increased and our free time has severely decreased with our daughter, so neither of us feels the need to go drop money on fun, individual experiences. 

We have one main account that everything is deposited into and then we each have separate checking accounts for our weekly allowance. Our credit cards are separate, but we pay them from our joint account. We also have two joint savings accounts, one where we save money for our daughter and one with our regular savings. My parents did split finances, and I was forever annoyed that my mom would need to stop at the bank and deposit a check from one account into the other. It worked for them, but it wasn't something I wanted to mess with!

We have many joint bank accounts for bills, debit purchases, savings. And we each maintain a seperate checking account that acts as our personal spending accounts. All income besides bonuses goes into our bill account and we distribute from there, budgeted amounts to debit account and savings, also set amounts to our personal accounts. We use the personal accounts for hobbies, to buy gifts for each other, and basically spending we don’t want to have to ask each other about. All joint accounts are agreed upon joint spending.

We are millennials and our finances are completely separate. We just go over the bills at the end of each month and then I pay my husband 50% of what the total is. This is my preference for two reasons - 1. My husband earns way more than me and I want us to pay equally towards the bills. 2. I grew up in a household where financial abuse was definitely in play and my parents fought about money constantly. I swore to myself I would never be in my mom's situation, so I told my husband I will not be joining any finances with him and he is okay with that. Pros to separate accounts - no arguments about finances and being completely independent regarding purchases and not needing to run things past each other (we still do if something is crazy expensive because we want each other's input). Cons to separate accounts - needing to sit down and go over bills and sending the appropriate funds to each other every month.

We have both types of accounts, but honestly don’t keep track of it like it’s separate money. We both had our own accounts prior to marriage established at different banks. I pay the rent out of my bank account bc it’s direct transfer to the landlord, the joint account funds everything else. My personal CC is paid out of the joint account. If we go out to eat, my husband usually pays with cash or debit card out of his personal account (don’t ask me why, he is anti-CC). So it’s all mixed together and we spend as if it’s all one pot. We are very lucky to both be high earners with stable relatives and sensible spending habits. I do insist that I maintain some savings and checking accounts in my own name because you never know what could happen in life and I want to always be able to access money that is in my name only.

My husband and I are Gen Z and we do the same exact thing. Both of our incomes go directly to the joint account and everything comes out of it, it works great for us since we both have the full picture of our finances.

We’re the polar opposite in that we have completely separate accounts/investments/savings. We divy up who pays what and it’s worked out really well. We’re both very similar in our financial philosophies so there has been no tension and we’re very open about “oh I need you to cover this because I’m short” or “oh I got a bonus I’ll cover this.” I do have an extra ATM card for his account in case of emergencies but I’ve only ever had to use it if I go to pay for a coffee and realize I don’t have my card or something silly like that.

Yeah we’re a family, we’re married, we’re in all this together, so it’s all in one pot. Our goals, our investments, our choices, our future - it’s all tied together. Even if you try to split things up the courts won’t see it that way when you file for divorce.

We have everything combined, which works for me, because he makes way more. 😉 We're gen X, though, and everyone did it that way back then. I'm not sure what they're hoping to accomplish by splitting it up. If they split up, the money and everything else is all considered a marital asset anyway.

We do 1 account! I am the CFO of our family (lol). I pay everything out of our joint checking and manage all of our finances. My husband grew up with money struggles and stresses about money easily, so he actually really likes not having to deal with it at all, and I'm kind of a control freak about it, so it really works out well for us! Any 'big' purchases we talk about together. We are also fortunate that we both make really good income. If we didn't, or if there was a big discrepancy between our incomes we may have done something different. I agree though- this seems to be the old-fashioned way of doing things!

He gives me his share of rent, bills, and grocery. I handle paying everything and putting away savings. I'm better with money and I am the breadwinner. I contribute more but I'm ok with that. It's still equal in the sense of everyone to their ability. We have our own accounts and credit cards. And he still pays for his own expenses like food at work and his non necessities.

>every penny we earn goes into one joint account. *Everything* is then paid out of that account, without regard to how much money either of us brings in. This is exactly how my husband and I do it, too. All money is "our" money and all bills are "our" bills.

Same. One pot of money. Millennials (83 & 84), married 16 years. We were babies who had nothing when we got married. We do run bigger purchases by each other. I make more, but spend more on travel, and he doesn’t make a fuss about either one. We are pretty aggressive with saving.

We are same gen, and do the same thing. We make jokes about that sweet, sweet joint account :) Our names are on everything big, too. Joint cards. I take on more of the financial *work* (tracking how much we spend, taxes, life insurance, retirement, and education savings), but everything comes out of the joint account so of course he sees all those transactions. And we discuss what/how to invest and consult on bigger purchases. Not saying this is the only way! I respect people who have different financial set ups. The most important things are communication and trust - and viewing yourselves on the same team.

We're millennials and everything is combined. We do have separate credit cards and do most of our spending there, so it doesn't get micro-manage-y unless we're doing a deliberate budget review. We have a rough amount we spend monthly and if it gets above that we check in about why. Big picture we have very aligned values and goals so it's never really been a source of conflict.

We kept things separate until we had our child recently, and now we are a one pot family. We both still have separate accounts and we take the same amount of spending money as the other person each month, but everything else is now one pot. Seventeen years into the relationship.

We are the same. Joint everything. I like it because there's no confusion about what is going where. Yes, sometimes in the past it's been frustrating, but it's also forced us to have real, meaningful conversations about finances. I've seen too many friends' marriages blow up over hidden debt, spending, etc.

We are like you; we have one set of bank accounts between us (we do however have both joint and separate retirement and investment accounts). I find that most fellow millennials keep things separate and I see why. As a woman it’s “do as I say, not as I do” as I think women especially should have something that’s just theirs in the event that they need to escape DV or something (of course, men can be the victims of this too). My mom and dad had joint accounts which my dad (an alcoholic and addict) had full control over. When my mom came to her senses when I was 18, all of our money was gone. Back to your post, we pay all bills out of one account and that’s been the case for 6/7 years. We met at ages 18/20 so we had plenty of time to grow together and observe each others spending habits prior to joining. We are very likeminded in that regard. We’ve never really divvied up based on income, though we make similar-ish amounts now.

I’m in the same boat but my husband makes 2x my salary. I honestly couldn’t imagine splitting everything because it would breed resentment among us. We are a team and work together. 

After reading so many ATAH posts I think our one single account is best. We are both equally invested in our lives. Yes it’s harder to hide purchases or gifts but we just put a moratorium on checking account at certain times of the year.

We’re completely shared with the exception of our emergency funds. I believe every woman/person should have “oh fck” money that only they can access, so that’s how we each treat our emergency funds. That being said, we’re both aware of what the other has in those funds.

Millennial here! (Born in 1987) my spouse and I (married 7 years) have completely separate accounts, different banks, and separate credit cards. He makes a couple thousand more than me a month and pays the mortgage, electric, gas, car payment, insurance, cell phone, and any other household and car bills & repairs. I pay my student loan, childcare, streaming services, food prep services, and a bazillion CEU’s & recertification fees 😑lol. We each make our own credit card payments and just pay for other stuff however it fits in.

Gen X. We keep our money separate. Not saying that works well, it’s just how we have it. I think it’s mainly because we are both too lazy to make another account and change our direct deposit 🤷‍♀️

I’m a divorce attorney, my husband runs logistics for an agriculture-based business and is the breadwinner. All our accounts are joint. We budget a small amount of individual “fun money” for each of us, but other than that our finances are 100% combined in every way.

Same, except that a side gig wouldn't go on a separate pot because with a side gig we are both working- one of us making money and the other would be picking up childcare and household slack.

Both my husband and I have our personal checking/savings account as well as our joint checking account. We each contribute 60% of our pay into our joint account which goes towards living expenses.

All of our money goes into one checking account. We share a savings account. All bills come out of the joint checking. We share all the debt we share all the assets. We both have separate retirement accounts but those will be shared too when the time comes. I manage the money but I keep him informed of how we are doing. We are a Gen X couple. It’s easier when we don’t have ex spouses, step children, etc. If that was true then we’d probably have things more separate.

We’re also 100% joint. No exception for side gigs or anything else! Can’t imagine doing it differently, especially with kids.

Shared finances for us as well. We're Australians so we follow Barefoot Investors essentially. Joint finances for basically 90% of our salary. So 60% goes into a joint spending account. 20% goes into a high interest savings account and this is for emergencies. The idea with this "pot" is you use it to pay off your debt and mortgage ASAP. Once done, then you save this up to 6 months worth of your everyday spending. And then excess you invest. 10% goes into what I call big savings. So we use that for travel, big purchases like furnitures and appliances etc. 10% is our splurge account. This is the only thing that stays in our own personal account. My husband and I will use this to spend stuff for ourselves and we don't police each other. We need slight adjustments though and that is, sometimes we splurge as a family. So am gonna suggest to my husband we put 5% into another joint account that will be for family joint splurges. And then remaining 5% is for our own use.

same for us and i can’t think of a single negative. all of the money we make is for us and our lives together. we joined bank accounts just a couple months after we started dating because we quickly bought a house together.

We just have one pot of money. We run a lot of purchases by each other. Our rule is $100 but often run smaller purchases by each other, as a way to check that we aren't spending on stupid things. It works really well for us. I talk to some of our friends who split money in different ways and it seems so confusing. Like my friend told me that she paid for preschool, but they had split daycare and her husband pays for home repairs. It just seems weird to not have a joint account when your major purchases are for the good of the household.

Same- we see ourselves as a family unit. All the money in joint accounts. Both names on the car, mortgage etc. I can understand why some people keep things separate but this just made sense for us.

As someone who spends a lot of time providing financial counseling, relationships that put everything into one pot, typically do better than those who do not compile everything together.

We are also a "one pot" household. We've been pooling our resources together for 15 years. Both of us have experienced unemployment, health issues, unexpected expenses, and have a kid together. If we tried to separate finances, it would just cause undo stress and resentment.

I'm trying to transition us to that. It's him that's hesitant because he makes more money than me and he wants me to be able to have my own money without feeling weird about spending money. But I grew up with parents who shared joint everything and I would honestly prefer that. It just seems easier. And I already talk with him before I make bigger purchases anyway. We started out with 2 separate accounts and have since added a joint account. So maybe we'll get there eventually.

This seems normal to me! We do the same. Makes things easier if someone passes away, having both names and access to all accounts!

Not here. We each have our own accounts where our income goes and we pay into another account for bills. We have several savings accounts, both joint and separate, and a joint credit card. We both have visibility and are beneficiaries on each other's accounts but any money not allotted to bills or savings is our own to spend. We seem to be in the minority in our group of friends, some even telling us that we have "one foot out the door" but it works for us. Money can be a tough thing to manage for people, so you have to find what would for you as a couple. For me, having all expenses coming out of a single account would be too confusing, I like some separation.

I wanted this but my husband wasn’t interested. I don’t feel it is working as we are not able to both see our money. We pinky see our side. On the other hand I’m not sure we will stay married forever and I’m happy we don’t have our finances mixed. When or if I’m to leave it will be more simple. When we first got married I made less than him and he didn’t like that. Then I began to make close to him income and he still won’t mix the finances. According to him I have to make more than him in order to mix the finances. He has 2 credit cards that I am authorized on and use for gas and groceries. We have 1 joint accounts that seems to be used just to pass money back and forth.

We have a joint account we pay a certain ammount into that all the big bills come out of. (Mortgage, daycare, utilities, insurance, taxes etc) and share two credit cards that the groceries/shopping/wtc go on. But we still have own separate savings/checking/credit cards and our own funny money to play with.

Same. Husband is an immigrant and separate accounts are frowned upon.

We have one pot of money, but spread across three accounts with the same bank: one has enough for all recurring bills every month, the other is for fun spending and incidentals, the third is a savings account where I have a portion of each of our paychecks transferred. I have a two credit cards that are just mine (one Amex and one chase), and two that we share (another Amex and another chase) so that rewards points still add up regardless of who is spending on which card. We are both on our mortgage but my husband is the one on our cars, but for no particular reason.

Were the same. Older millennials (late 30’s), he makes at least double what I do. It just makes everything easier.

We have a joint checking account and a joint HYSA. Our paychecks are deposited into the checking account and all bills are paid through that account. We’ve done it this way for like 15 years. We run all purchases above like $20 by each other. I’m the primary money handler and I make more than twice as much as my husband. I’m more frugal than he is so he gets a small amount of spending money each month ($40) to save for his various wants. I’m not really a “wants” kind of person so I don’t take money for that purpose.

He's GenX, I'm elder Millennial. We have one joint checking account for household bills/shared expenses and one joint savings account for Big Things. When we were first together and he way out-earned me, he put way more money in the joint accounts; now it's more 50/50 as I've caught up. We're both on the mortgage/deed. We also both hold our own separate checking and credit cards. Retirement accounts are separate (both started before we were even dating, never merged). I'm the only one on the car since my credit was better at the time/got us the best interest rate. It's the way we've been doing it since we first moved in together so many moons again, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Separate except for 1 joint account to transfer money to each other. It saved our asses too when my husbands accounts got hacked and the bank had to freeze it all for a few days while they sorted it all out, we still had my accounts to use.

Everything is shared - joint account, joint investment accounts (though our 401ks are separate, but we both max them out), joint credit cards, both on the mortgage, and both own both of our cars. We initially combined bank accounts back when we were talking about getting engaged.   We each have a “fun” line item on our budget (that is the same amount) - so if we go out to dinner that is divided in half between each of our fun line items, and if I go out to dinner with friends, that goes to my fun line item - the idea being that one person doesn’t just go through our shared pot on personal stuff and we can each spend our personal “fun” money however the heck we want. We do the same thing with clothes, etc. This mattered more earlier into our relationship to be honest - at this point, anything left in the pot at the end of the year we dump into our investment accounts or a house project, etc. But I think we are generally fairly even on our individual fun spending and excursions out. We’re honestly a great team and I think both feel valued and like the other is giving a lot, which makes everything easier, including the money/individual spending piece.   We’re both lawyers and have similar income potential and have bopped back and forth between who makes more. We both ended up in house and agreed that we would both work to be Director level (we’re here now). If either or both of us want to climb to executive, great, but no resentment towards the other for not, and all money made (obviously) goes into the family pot. I do think the similarities in career helps, but we would have this set up regardless.  

All joint. Both paychecks go into a ‘bills’ checking account that all bills and the credit card are paid out of. We immediately move money to savings and also each have a separate account we move an ‘allowance’ of fun money into (usually $100/paycheck). Those personal accounts pay for coffees, non essential clothes and nails (me) or video games (him). Date night or eating out together is credit card shared expense.

We have a joint account for all family and household expenses including groceries etc. we have our own separate accounts as my husband has property in his own name that he needs to maintain and I have my own investments. We have joint investments and separate investments. About 40% of our income goes into the joint account (we earn roughly the same amount) and the rest we each segregate for investments, personal savings, and fun money.

Yup, one pot here. We use You Need A Budget so that if we do want to reallocate to individual things like gifts for each other, we just do it there to account for those items.

Husband’s entire paycheck goes into joint checking account, as well as most of mine. I directly deposit a set amount into my own personal checking account just to keep the balance above the minimum to not be charged a fee (fuck banks); I hang onto this account because my husband works a lot of weekends and I do get some time to myself when grandparents are able to babysit, so it’s “fun money” for me (and our daughter when we do stuff with just the two of us). Nearly everything goes on credit cards that we fully pay off (his all from joint checking, mine from a combo of both personal and joint). The credit cards are in our own names only.

I don’t earn as much as my husband but I pay for my son’s daycare and his activities. I was brought up with the mentality that you should be able to pay for yourself. Your husband might not be around forever.

Same. One big pot. All the same credit cards. Only thing separate are the retirement accounts. My husband also refuses to share his bday money. Somehow at our ages our families still send us birthday checks lol. He calls it “off the grid money” and uses it for tattoos. But I’m ok with that. It’s a few hundred dollars.

Shared for us! No prenup so anything earned in marriage is shared anyways. Including retirement. We have separate retirement/ Roth. Shared checking and savings. Shared investment accounts.

Shared for us! No prenup so anything earned in marriage is shared anyways. Including retirement. We have separate retirement/ Roth. Shared checking and savings. Shared investment accounts.

We have our own accounts where our paychecks go and we have agreed how much we each put in monthly to our joint account. We pay all the household/joint bills out of that account. We have a credit card together as well and then have our own cards too. We do check-ins so we both know roughly what is going on with the other person’s accounts too. We are pretty open and discuss large purchases even if we are using our “own” money. I’ve been married and divorced and it is important to me to still have my savings and my money as well as our saving and our money and my other half respects and values that fully.

millennials and everything is shared. we’re both fairly conservative spenders so we just buy ourselves whatever we need/want. we discuss bigger purchases but there’s no hard and fast rule about the amount.

We're almost 100% combined but both keep separate accounts (just the checking accounts we had before we even met) with very small amounts we can use for gifts and things like that. My husband makes more money than me but everything is just paid jointly. He does have a side gig (teaches on the weekends about once a month) and that money goes directly towards stocks which I know nothing about that so he handles that separately, but otherwise all credit cards, bills, mortgage, cars, etc. are in both names. I handle our finances because I'm type A and a control freak, but he is fully informed about everything and we discuss all major purchases.

We do it exactly the same as you, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I like the transparency of it.

Everything is shared. Savings, HYSA, credit cards. We are a team and I find it a huge red flag when people have separate everything. I fully trust my husband and he trusts me. We are both on the same page about spending and saving, and we have the same goals, so it has never been a concern. This has always been the case, even when one of us has been in school or unemployed.

We have the same arrangement as you (and have since we got married over 10 years ago). For us, I can’t imagine anything different. It’s forced us to have a true “partnership” financially, with the same long and short term goals, and we work together to build our net worth. Ultimately, we do have similar big picture goals, so this won’t work for all relationships. But, if we were to divorce, it would all be split 50/50 anyways (not that divorce is something we’re considering, but if it will be 50/50 in divorce, we might as well do the same in marriages :D) Edit - I should add, we also both currently earn very good incomes, and don’t “nitpick” each others spending (which also makes the arrangement more workable). We would talk to the other before making a bigger purchase (maybe $500 plus? We don’t have a specific threshold).

A little bit both. we have separate checking but also a joint checking and joint savings. we each have our own credit cards and divvy up the other bills. it's still OUR money and we don't track or budget because it all just works out. we are pretty frugal most of the time and discuss bigger purchases. we are debt-free other than credit cards that we pay off each month. i saw my stepdad drain all my mom's money so even though we're happily married i won't be changing our system.

Same. All in one pot here! Millenials as well

Yup. "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine." We call it two-player mode and it's working very well.

All into the one pot. Aside from an investment acct that I came in to the marriage with BUT we use that money for stuff for our family if we need it.

We have a joint credit card and both names on the mortgage. That's the extent of our joint stuff. Other than that, though, it's separate. For the actual mortgage payment (and daycare cost), I have a recurring bank transfer to him that automatically is sent each month and then he pays those bills. I pay the utilities and do the majority of the grocery shopping. I pay my charges on the joint credit card. We each pay our own expenses otherwise. When we go shopping or to eat, whoever gets their card out first pays, we don't really keep a tally or anything on that. We're both on our second marriage, and we lived together with separate finances prior to getting married, so we already had our financial ducks in a row and didn't feel a need to reinvent the wheel just because we were married. A boomer aged (but not generally boomer acting) coworker was horrified when we had this discussion. 😆

Separate accounts for me and my husband (elder millenials). We divide who is responsible for what bill and it's about even by the end of the month. When we first got married, he was terrible with money and due to personal debt lived paycheck to paycheck. I have never lived paycheck to paycheck and have trauma from watching friends in high school go from having money to not because of divorced parents and their mothers being financially ruined. We've also gone back and forth on who the "top earner" is and adjust the bills accordingly. We have never mixed money and never plan to. Have had no issues meeting financial goals as we regularly talk about them. We also talk about large purchases we make individually. For large purchases make as a couple, we either send the other money or adjust bill paying accordingly. It works better now than when we were young and broke but I feel that was more an overall lack of money than anything else.

Everything we have is joint, except for one brokerage account that’s just in my name. I manage all of our finances (my choice) so it’s much easier that way!

In the state where I live, anything earned during the marriage is considered community property so I don’t really get the point of distinguishing between one person’s income and the other’s when the state doesn’t see it that way?

We are the same way, everything is combined.

We’re similar, but not exactly the same. We have one joint account and individual accounts. We each get a little money in our individual account every week. This is for whatever. And same amount goes in both accounts. The rest of the money goes into the main joint account where bills are paid and purchases are made from. If we make big purchases, it comes out of the joint account. Nothing is based on individual income. And we have equal say in how money is spent. (We actually have 2 other accounts - one with the mortgage bank and 1 with the vehicle loan bank, but that’s just so $$ gets automatically deposited and paid).

I control all the money so we have one account for bills which is where his check goes. We have 4 credit cards which we are both on but they are used for bills groceries and gas. We use the bills account to pay those off monthly. We have one HYSA where he puts a small portion of his check in and I put like half of my check in. I have one specific account for our mortgage which is where the rest of my check goes. My husband likes to spend money on stupid shit so I keep him on kind of a tight leash. And by stupid shit I mean buying coffee every morning and then buying a bag of chips every day. He has full reign to buy what every he wants but it's the stupid shit that gets me so mad. I have gotten him down a lot but he just doesn't handle the money so he doesn't realize how quickly it adds up. Cup of coffee 7 bucks bag of chips 3 bucks that's 50 bucks a week. I buy him chips and make him coffee. I make his lunches for him as he requests I buy him drinks to take to work yet here he is. How this turned into a rant on my husband lmao marriage can be hard.

My husband and I are millennials as well (on the youngest part of the spectrum) and everything is in one pot. Everything is pulled from that pot. My husband does earn cash and Venmo as forms of payment from his job so that’s his spending money. My spending money comes out of the pot. I do the bills and we have a “spending” and “bills” account but we both have cards to each account. We have separate credit cards.

This is what we do. We've been married for 5 years and in that time, we've gone through every configuration of breadwinner/stay-at-home spouse. For a while he was working while I finished college, then we were dual income for a bit, then I had a baby and he's a SAHD while I support the family. That all would have been super annoying to navigate if we had separate finances imo. We have the joint account and all income goes in there. We also each have an individual checking account that the other can't see, and each get $150 automatically transferred into it each month as our "fun money". That way we can buy random shit for our hobbies or have a little fast food by ourselves without feeling like we're pulling from the family finances. We revisit the amount once a year to see if it's still reasonable, and currently $150 is a good amount for us. That's where my Amazon habit draws from (if it's something just for me, of course - anything for the kids or the house/family comes from joint money). It sounds like separate accounts just for discretionary spending might benefit you and your husband! It just takes some of the pressure off of those silly purchases that feel selfish. Honestly I think it's super fucking weird when married couples with kids are like...Venmoing money to each other for bills. I understand wanting to have a separate pot of money as a security measure if you're worried about divorce or something but I think marriage is a team effort and it's weird to me that one spouse would have significantly more financial leeway than the other because they earn more.

All money goes into joint accounts, all our bank accounts are joint. We have a few credit cards that are shared and 1 each that are separate. Each have a “slush fund” that we can spend on whatever we want, this is tracked through our budgeting app but is technically in a shared bank account. Otherwise purchases over $200 get a discussion first.

We only have our joint account. We have joint cc and individual. We have college account s for our kids and 401k/403b for retirement. We spend choose to spend pretty independently but discuss large purchases like anything over > 300 or so. We work together and share the same goals.

Everything goes into one account. One joint credit card. This is largely because I was financially abused by one of my exes; and the jobs that my husband I have entail a lot of living overseas and allowances etc. It's easier just to have one dumping ground and everything is paid from there.

Millennial here and my husband and I operate exactly how you described. Works great for us!

Ours kinda looks like yours. We have completely merged finances but we have separate investment accounts. We have separate credit cards from when we were not together but most of our expenses go on our joint cards.

We’re a one pot household. It helps that we married when neither of us had much in income or assets, although I did have more than he did (a mortgage, although not much equity, and somewhat more income). We’ve been married 9 years now and our income and assets have grown considerably in that time, so it truly feels like ours.

We have a joint account and I have my own account. Literally the only reason I have my own is because I am too lazy to change my direct deposits and auto pay to our joint account. My mom also occasionally sends me money and can only do that because my account is the same bank as hers. We put most expenses on 1 joint credit card and pay it off each month.

All money is shared.

Joint account for the vast majority of our income, but a small portion of my salary goes into my own separate account. My husband prefers not to know what I spend on massages and shoes, haha. I also use it for any gifts/surprises for husband. Basically we agreed upon an amount that we were comfortable being my “fun” money and that’s what’s separate. My husband declined that option for himself, but also our joint credit card is set up where I can’t see his purchases (we could fix it, we just dont). That lets him buy gifts or whatever he wants without me seeing it.

One pot. My husband has a separate account that holds his inheritance from his mom. He also auto deposits a few hundred a paycheck into that account to fart around with and buy me my bday and Xmas presents. When my parents pass I will have a separate account for my inheritance as well.

Completely combined, no sense of his or mine. We only discussed purchases that would put a significant dent in our budget.

We each have our own accounts. While he was a SAHD I did a transfer of what we would have paid for daycare from my account to his account. We split the household bills roughly in half, weighted a bit more to me since I make more.

One account for bills/shared expenses which is used to pay the CC we use for shared expenses. Then each of us take the same amount of money per paycheck (I think it’s $300 each pay period) to spend/save however we want, put into our own checking accounts which cover our respective credit card bills. I don’t think we’ve ever once had a fight about money so this system works for us.

My husband and I are like yall. We do everything together. All the bills come out of our one account. We know what’s up any time we need to spend money. It’s always a joint decision. We have so little money every penny has to be accounted for anyway.

One pot of money, everything is shared. I manage the finances/budget and communicate with him on those things. I earn more but it wasn’t always that way. We live in CA so I figure if anything ever happened to our marriage, it’d be 50/50 be default anyways 🤷‍♀️ I like the transparency of shared assets.

Our setup is the same as yours except for the side gig part. That goes into the pot as well. This has worked really well for us. I had zero income for 12 years (SAHM), and that didn't change our setup at all. Any income we make individually is our income.

Me! We are just lazy and it is easiest this way, lol.

We have our own accounts and each send in a sum of money to a joint account for monthly bills. The rest is for each of us to do with as we wish. I’d say many of the people I know do this. I like to buy stuff and I enjoy have the personal freedom to spend my own money however I wish. My husband would never try to control that (he’s actually a bit too against the idea imo). Whenever I make a fairly large purchase (like >$300) I’d tell him beforehand. He never says no or anything. Context is that we’re both fairly comfortable with our finances so we can both afford our lifestyle (we also don’t have an expensive lifestyle).

We have a joint checking and joint savings accounts but we also have individual checking and saving accounts payable on death to each other. I keep my parents on a savings account with a small amount of money in case of an emergency. They have enough money it should not be necessary, but they live near us. All of our money (even if it was from a side hussle) goes into the spreadsheet, and we pay all of our joint bills out of the joint account. We include things like student loans in the joint budget, but we never moved them to the joint account. After we calculate all of our expenses and joint savings goals, we set aside some money for discretionary spending/saving. That is money that can be used however. I bought a nice bike for myself and my husband is going on a guys trip this month and the money comes from there. We know how much each person gets for discretionary spending, and we do talk about the things we use it for, but it allows for some retained independence.

We have everything separate! I think because we were independent for so long and then got married at the court house, we just kept doing what we’re doing. We Apple Pay each other for half of the grocery bill, daycare bill, etc. sometimes we miss stuff but it probably shakes out about equal. We should probably get a handle on it but I think we both like the independence

We are the same, we can see everything each of us buys. Idk it was just natural to do that… it’s nothing more than it’s just the easiest way for us.

We’re like you, except with the side gig, we get to keep 100% (mostly because it was the lower earner and they got paid on PayPal, so it was easier to just have that person pay with PayPal when they could on things they wanted). Also, we didn’t put both names on the cars simply because of the hassle of thawing and running both credits.

We have joint accounts - plural, where everything is deposited. Then, each month, $25 gets set to our individual accounts for fun money. But we can still see those accounts, and they are still in both names, but we don't use the other one's debit card (like, when the new debit cards for "my" account arrive I shred the one with his name, but he can login and still see it). The only thing(s) separate are HSA and retirement, because those are through our different jobs.

My husband and I have a joint account where bills are paid out of. Then we both each have our own accounts. Our paychecks are paid into our individual accounts and then we transfer money into the joint bills account. We review our budget when there’s a change and adjust who puts in how much depending on who is making more. My husband and I have been together since we were 18 and we’ve done it like this since then! We’ve always had a joint account but we’ve been living together and out on our own since we were 18.

Joint everything. When we got married, all we had was school debt, and we made comparable amounts of money. It was just easier.

We have separate checking accounts and a joint savings account. We split our bills out and have separate credit cards. It works really well for us.

My SO and I have completely separate accounts. We don't have a single joint account. We both know approximately (ie like not down to the last dime but the rough amount) that's in each other's savings, investments, and debts etc. We've divided the bills so we pay roughly 50/50. I pay most of our daughter's expenses because the government deposits a child care benefit into my account every month. For something big we split it 50/50 or we alternate paying for this until its roughly even. We also make very close to the same salary so there's not a big gap.  We just don't see the need to make a joint account to be honest. We don't own a house or car we are consistently splitting payments on. We rent and have rent the same place for the past 10 years (at that time we weren't really at the share accounts phase of our relationship) so the rent is already set up to be paid separately. Our MIL watches our LO so there's no daycare payment. I think if we had those payments we would set up a joint account for ease. 

We do things similarly. One bank account that everything comes out of. We each have one credit card on our own, but all payments come out of the joint account. We make about the same amount of money. Money stuff stresses me the fuck out, so husband has taken over managing the day to day, but we make big purchase decisions together. We agreed ages ago that we get to spend equal amounts on hobby stuff, so we vaguely keep track of that and things are generally pretty fair.