I understand this perspective. It is basically forcing a budget into place because of either a lack of confidence in an "agreed upon" budget holding up or experience telling you it won't. Tragic.
Cut him some slack, he's a communist. edit Spoiler This is obviously a joke in case anyone who doesn't post in the D&D thinks I'm serious[/quote]
Fair enough. I was looking at it too logically, too mathematically. There's a big human, emotional aspect to it. If this is peace of mind then that's a pretty good reason.
the really sad part is that the guys "personal account" is actually mostly used to save up for the gifts he has to buy her during her B-day, X-mas, valentines and anniversary :grin:
I'm not taking it personally but is there any reason to insult other people's methods that work for them? That's all I took issue with.
Dude, I've got a friend who is 26, married, graduated from college last year & paid off his student loans before he graduated. He quit taking student loans halfway through & paid the rest of college with cash while working full time. Took him a little longer to finish school, but now he's on baby step 4..yes, step 4. They had a house with lawnchairs for a couch for a while..but now they've got nice furniture, 6 months worth of expenses in a money market account for emergencies, etc. All on a 26yr olds salary - not like he's making bank yet.
that's pretty much it. It's always the same amount of money. Logically, one should/could only spend what was agree upon. Unfortunately, not everyone has that great of self control. That doesnt mean that the relationship is doomed or she's a bad person...it's just how it is. So rather than worry when she walks in with a new bag, you can just let it go and tell her to get you a beer.
We've had our own individual accounts for years before we got married so either of us didn't want to close them out. We opened our joint checking for the mortgage and daycare and those types of things but everything's been good so far. Don't really want to know what she buys and vise versa.
I don't know exactly why it works better for us to have separate, it just does. We have agreed on which bills the other is responsible for, and then we alternate on things like groceries, restaurants, etc.
Nice. I can only imagine where I'd be now had I discovered his program 15 years ago... But someday....someday we will be 100% debt-free including 2 houses (1 with rental income), have a fully funded emergency fund with 6 months of expenses, and on our way to early retirement....
I just think it's easier if each person only has to track their own budget with their own individual account. Create a joint account for your savings and agree on a general amount you both want to put in it per month. You could pretty easily turn it around on the people advocating a joint account and ask if they have one simply so they can track their spouses purchase because they don't trust them. I can't see why else you really need to have one. If you're going to be dishonest with your spouse about what you're spending your money on, you're probably going to find ways to do it with or without a joint account.
That's pretty much it. My wife and I are mental midgets when it comes to budgeting. It's the reason we've gotten in a bit of credit card trouble. Our credit is still good and I've never missed a payment on anything. But anything we can do to limit our spending helps. The individual accounts are so that we can spend some money on ourselves w/o the other one questioning it. I don't want to get in an argument because I spent money at a bar or vice versa if she went and bought shoes she didn't need.
We are married. We've agreed to pool our resources. Having one bank account lets us both know exactly how much is coming in and how much is going out and helps us work together to budget for our family and our future. True
it's like an allowance to a kid. yea, i know when you're married you should aoll be "adults" and know how to follow rules and stuff. too bad it doesn't always work that way. you give a kid $100. tell him you want him to spend only $80 of it by the end of the month because it's important to save the rest for a later day. that money will probably be gone in two weeks. on the other hand you tell that kid, this $100 is yours. however, i'm only gonna give you $20 per week for the next 4 weeks and you can spend it however you like, but i'm gonna keep the last $20 as your savings. it's much easier to do the 2nd part.
I am not married, so this is hypothetical for me, but I will tell you what I like about the idea of having both a joint and separate, and it partially relates to the second half of your question. It's not that I think I/my hypothetical wife wouldn't be able to successfully manage a budget out of one joint account, I just think it would be easier to do it out of both joint and separate. The joint account would be for family bills, family activities, emergency savings, etc. The separate accounts would be for random recreational spending for each partner. The same could be achieved by having a joint account and saying that your budget only allows you to draw $X per month for each partners' personal spending, but it seems like there is less bean counting involved when you can just log into a separate account and see how much disposable money you have left rather than keeping meticulous track every month. A similar alternative to this would be to have a joint account for fixed bills, family stuff, etc, and another joint account for disposable income that could be spent freely by either partner. I just see it as a simpler way of budgeting.
I totally appreciate that, but I'm guess I'm referring to a joint spending account as opposed to a joint savings account. By all means I agree a married couple should plan out a general figure of how much they are both going to try to save. However, as long as we're both sticking close to that, I don't see why I need to see what exactly my wife is spending her "allotted money" on unless it's a trust issue. I also think it's easier for me to just track my own spending budget.
we do the separate account thing too. No secrets, or lack of trust, but I don't want to be buying my own birthday presents . Nor do I want to know how much she spends at Starbucks. We set very global budgets a while ago...and transfer funds based on that. Each of us knows exactly what we earn, and where all the cash is. But I don't need (or want) to know the breakdown of where her monthly bit goes. Works for us.
Joint account + retain our separate accounts 55% of our after-tax income (each) goes into the joint, the rest is ours for free spending. Joint account is strictly for house, utilities, and daycare. No getting pissy at one another for spending X amount on clothes, impulse buys, etc. Smartest thing we ever did. Evan
