You know? This was quite a hot button issue for me, in my incredibly life-experienced seventeen year old mind. This was the ultimate way to manage finances because it was the way my parents had done theirs.
In fact, I can even recall telling Topher that I would REFUSE to marry anyone who wanted SEPARATE accounts.
Ah, how the fates could smite me, if they existed.
Back in America, after we got married, I didn't even think of relinquishing my personal bank account. According to the plan Topher and I had worked out (the plan that was nothing like I'd envisioned nine years ago), I was supposed to transfer my direct deposit into our joint account.
I never did it.
Topher and I had set up a plan, that we will still implement when we return. In essence, our joint account will hold the majority of our money, including bills, our mortgage, etc, and we'll divide an even amount out each month for personal spending- for fun things we want! We'll also take out small amounts into savings for emergencies and travel.
And then two weeks ago, we had the revelation that we could still use the same idea here in Cambodia. It was a real revelation because I was riding a bike, and that's when real epiphanies happen.
Currently, we've been managing two separate accounts, and spending them separately. We'd do our best to evenly split food from the market and general supplies for our house. If we felt like being nice, we'd buy dinner for the other person. It's actually quite different from how I've seen at least another fellow PC couple manage their allowances, and of course, it's the exact opposite of how I'd always said I'd run my marriage finances.
I guess my independent streak has overtaken the sensibilities of my seventeen year old self. Or in my infinite wisdom of my additional nine years of life, I've come to realize that maybe there isn't a way to handle household finances that will actually predict relationship success?
God, I'm so smart at the ripe age of 26.
So! We realized we could manage our Volunteer allowances in a similar fashion as we would regular salaries in our home of record.
Thusly, starting next month, we're planning on contributing a same amount of money for food at the market and supplies, and ensuring we have a good amount set aside for travel. We'll still be mainly independent, but maybe we'll do my seventeen year old self proud.
Is your current plan for money management how you always planned it?
The husband and I lived together for 6 years prior to getting married and how you mentioned above is how we did our bills. We got married in June and now everything is in one account. I agree there probably isn't a way to handle household finances that will actually predict relationship success, everyone wants to do it their own way. What works for me, doesn't have to work for you =)
ReplyDeleteI have always wanted a joint account (as did my husband), but I refused to join accounts until AFTER we got married. We lived together about 2 years before we got married, and even though we were sharing expenses, it was easier in my opinion to wait until after we were married. I've also heard holding on to separate things like that can help you "feel" more married if you lived together before hand. We have been using a joint account for over a year now, and I can't imagine trying to use separate accounts. It was always such a pain when paying for groceries and rent, etc. Plus, my husband makes more than me since we are graduate students and I only work part time while in school. We rely on his paychecks to pay our bills and for groceries, and my paychecks go to savings/fun stuff. It is what works best for us!
ReplyDeleteYou could always pull out like $20 for each of you a week for "fun" stuff. That is what my husband and I do and it helps keep us on a weekly budget. Dinners out together come from our joint fun money.
That's so funny because I had precisely the opposite experience! I had always assumed/wanted to have separate accounts just as you do now. I thought having just one account would be stifling and would bother me. So when we moved in together we set up joint checking and savings and contributed to that for our shared bills but maintained personal accounts for our personal bills and spending money.
ReplyDeleteAnd we hated it. It was so complicated to always be moving money around (we're so lazy) and we were constantly having to pay each other back for stuff. And really, my husband never spent money on anything I disagreed with, and vice versa... so we decided to forego our independence and just have purely joint accounts that we'd both draw from. And we love it.
I guess the moral of the story is that you just have to do whatever works for you, even if it isn't what you expected you'd want. :)
We like, literally *just* combined our bank accounts so that both of our names are on everything (except our individual bank credit cards). I'm still not that thrilled with the arrangement, though I like it in theory. My parents have always had separate bank accounts, and I knew I didn't want that, but I definitely don't like the idea of someone else using my money! :)
ReplyDeleteSomething I agree with in theory but have liked less in practice (wholly because I make significantly less money than husband): we split our salaries 80% into joint account, 20% into personal for our own savings and fun spending. I felt like this was fair because Dave earns more, he should get more 'fun money'. But it seems a lot less fair when I compare my wimpy fun money to his! I work hard too! I'm just an underpaid graduate student, haha.
ReplyDeleteI always thought we'd have a joint account, and we do have one, but I also still have my own personal account. I just couldn't let it go. It actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise that I still have a separate account: occasionally our joint account (that our credit cards are linked to) will decide to put our cards on hold since we're out here. There's no rhyme or reason to it, it's like one day someone new will see that it's being used outside of America and not bother to see that we live here now, and he/she will just put the card on hold....not fun when you need money! Luckily, since I have my account, we can use that as a back-up!
ReplyDeleteso interesting to hear how everyone does it!
ReplyDelete@sunny: i definitely wasn't trying to say that having one account would NOT be a good idea- was just saying that i now realize there are many ways to do it :)
@debbie: that's exactly what we do- we have a larger amount than that for personal spending money, but it's equal and agreed upon regardless of our salaries. :)
Hehe, I definitely had the same idea as you had. Joint account. The ONLY way. Instead, we still have separate accounts at separate banks. We have the bills divided up so that he pays some, I pay others. It's hard to explain to people, but we still share the money equally even though it's not together in one account. Our reason for this? Laziness. We don't feel like dealing with changing banks or accounts, or figuring out a new financial system. The plan is to possibly do it next time we move, since we'll have to change banks at that time anyway.
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