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I think its okay for people to interpret their marriages differently than other people.
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Apr 20, 2015 17:11
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Married for two years with a one year-old son and a stay-at-home wife for the foreseeable future. We have a joint account where all income goes, and an equal amount of spending money that splits off into our private accounts that we do whatever we want with. Before we were married, we divided fixed expenses roughly as a percentage of our incomes. Once we were married, after long discussion, we decided to put it all together. We have equal amounts of play money and I consider that fair. I benefit from her staying home and raising my son.
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Apr 20, 2015 17:46
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Pilsner posted:I'm getting divorced within the next month STOP SHOVING AND FORM ONE SINGLE FILE LINE, LADIES! This guy won't be on the market for long!
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Apr 20, 2015 18:01
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Whatcha bet that where his soon-to-be-ex wife made less money than him and therefore there was no advantage in a shared account, I bet even if he finds a girl making more than him it'll somehow not work out and the fact that he doesn't have the leverage of "paying for things as he sees fit" anymore won't have anything to do with it no sir
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Apr 20, 2015 18:42
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My grandparents had separate accounts. My grandfather had income for life for contracting a disease through no fault of his own in the Navy, and he worked on top of that. At first they shared an account and he let my grandmother pay bills and generally manage the finances 100% since he was the sole breadwinner of the family (six kids so a stay at home mom was advantageous). Unfortunately my grandmother was bad with money and to the surprise of my grandfather one day they were being foreclosed on and needing to file bankruptcy. Half the kids were being kicked out of private school which means they all dropped out. Luckily it wasn't a future indicator of success nor education. Anyway from that day on income was split 50-50 between my grandparents. He would make her pay for all household expenses, mortgage, groceries, etc out of her half while keeping his. It seemed very unfair to everyone in the family, until they were able to put down a $120,000 downpayment on a brand new home with brand new furniture from my grandpa's half 20 years later, on top of providing every child (minus 1) with a $50,000 inheritance plus material possessions like paid off vehicles (one of which my sister still drives). But it seems like some people do this to control their spouse or something. Finances I like to approach as a team in my marriage, much like everything else.
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Apr 20, 2015 18:55
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Droo posted:STOP SHOVING AND FORM ONE SINGLE FILE LINE, LADIES! This guy won't be on the market for long! Seriously, I'm sure that there are couples doing the separate finances thing who have great marriages, but get them talking about it long enough and most of them say something insulting or condescending about their spouses. Particularly the men.
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Apr 20, 2015 20:33
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Uncle Enzo posted:Whatcha bet that where his soon-to-be-ex wife made less money than him and therefore there was no advantage in a shared account, I bet even if he finds a girl making more than him it'll somehow not work out and the fact that he doesn't have the leverage of "paying for things as he sees fit" anymore won't have anything to do with it no sir But whatever... I know of plenty of people who share my opinion, and of course some have another opinion.
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Apr 20, 2015 20:33
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Pilsner posted:You lost your bet buddy; she is highly educated and makes around 20-30% more than I. Now that we are getting divorced, I would feel like a straight up thief if I ran away with half our combined worth (e.g. mostly hers). You sound like a fun guy.
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Apr 20, 2015 20:42
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I make approximately a bajillion dollars and sometimes I let my husband roll around it on the floor before I stash it all away in our Vanguard 401ks. But he ties me up in bed so it all evens out in the end, I guess~
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Apr 20, 2015 20:44
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A thread in which some posters discover that a decision made for love doesn't always translate into a decision that's financially responsible.
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Apr 20, 2015 20:47
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Radbot posted:A thread in which some posters discover that a decision made for love doesn't always translate into a decision that's financially responsible. If someone's in a relationship without trust, money just happens to be the most easily quantifiable indicator.
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Apr 20, 2015 21:21
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I dealt with it by getting divorced.
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Apr 20, 2015 21:39
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When I was married my husband made more money than me, but he grew up in poverty with a family that blew every dime the minute it came in, figuring it could be eternity before they'd have more money, so his habits were terrible. So I told him we should have a joint account because I was better at managing money. All this did was lead to a bunch of resentment from both of us (I felt like a parent, and then he was mad that he could no longer do what he pleased on payday). And yes, I also had a job, but I made half as much monthly as my husband did. Money was just one of the reasons our marriage fell apart. We did not have major financial problems or debt, it's just that we had different philosophies. We could have just separated everything out but he was so irresponsible I knew I'd wind up covering everything myself out of my smaller income. And I knew that he wouldn't be smart enough to plan ahead and put money aside for things like birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, etc. and thus I'd be subject to a lifetime of lame items bought at the last minute rather than something that was planned for and saved and really had a lot of thought put into it. If I ever remarry it will only be to someone who is responsible like I am with money (meaning - he doesn't blow it all on payday on non essential items) and I'm insisting on separate accounts for everything. We'll just work out who pays for what. Maybe he'll cover rent or mortgage but I'll pay all utilities, grocery, and whatever else so that it's an equivalent amount or percent based on income. But I'll never combine again. Hell no. I'll be happy to be transparent and honest if asked, but I won't cross the line of joint accounts ever again.
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Apr 21, 2015 01:23
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LloydDobler posted:I dealt with it by getting divorced. Me too! 
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Apr 21, 2015 01:25
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Huh, might as well add my bit, my wife and I currently have separate accounts, partially because we are currently living apart due to my new job being in Georgia (ask me about wedding planning from a 1000 miles away!), and her still finishing up the last 2 years of her MD/Phd in Texas. We talked about it before, and when she finishes and we move in together again, we were going to have a "household account" where we drop the majority of our cash for stuff, and then have personal accounts for fun stuff. I dunno, I never thought of it as a mistrust thing, I figure it makes it easier to do surprise gifts, and neither of us really likes balling out and buying new things, she grew up poor as poo poo and thinks that Target is fancy, and my parents drilled into me a sense of thrift, though I admit to spending $$$ on dumb poo poo from time to time.
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Apr 21, 2015 02:35
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I think there's a difference between separate bank accounts for personal discretionary spending/gifts and separate bank accounts entirely. In one case you're still pulling from a joint account for common expenses and in the other you're figuring out who owes what and how much for how long and what's fair, etc. Neither my spouse or I have spending control issues so a joint account just makes sense. If my wife spent every penny we had every pay day I'm sure I'd feel differently but I'd like to think I wouldn't have married someone like that to begin with. If your spouse has spending issues and you need to exercise control over the account I guess I can understand that but it sounds to me like the marriage is in more trouble than just financially at that point.
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Apr 21, 2015 03:23
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I cannot even conceive about having separate accounts. We merged our bank accounts before we got married, in fact, but we are on the same page financially and I think it helps that neither of us have any expensive hobbies. We always discuss major purchases with each other before doing anything.
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Apr 21, 2015 05:13
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A related issue of expectations but not necessarily income management: The latest Freakonomics podcast detailed a family where the husband and wife went to a charity auction at the invitation of friends. The husband bought a few raffle tickets for a $7000 diamond, and won. The husband's plan was to sell the diamond to pay off some debts and contribute it to their savings. The wife's plan was to... wear it as jewelry. Am I crazy or is the wife out of her mind? If they have debt and a savings which needs contribution, then it doesn't matter if the windfall was a diamond or a car or a hand of blackjack no you do not get new jewelry.
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Apr 21, 2015 05:46
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Alastor_the_Stylish posted:A related issue of expectations but not necessarily income management: That "$7,000 diamond" can probably only be resold for like $1,200
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Apr 21, 2015 06:01
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canyoneer posted:That "$7,000 diamond" can probably only be resold for like $1,200 It's up to $5500 so far. http://m.ebay.com/itm/FREAKONOMICS-CHARITY-DIAMOND-1-000ct-F-GIA-Princess-VS2-/121623148342
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Apr 21, 2015 07:02
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Those of you who feel strongly about joint finances (regardless of if there's income inequality), have you always felt this way? Or was it something that came with time/age? Or when you met your current partner?
Hocus Pocus fucked around with this message at 10:42 on Apr 21, 2015 |
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Apr 21, 2015 08:14
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You guys are weirdly passionate about how other couples' finances should work. The important thing is both people discuss their situation and agree on the arrangement with no lingering issues. In a dual income household I really don't see the issue with having separate finances. We have separate chequing accounts and separate credit cards but each of us has a secondary credit card linked to that of the other person. There was pre-existing assets coming in to the relationship so pooling doesn't really make sense in this case either. We keep track of all the expenses and divide them fairly. After that each of us is free to use our remaining incomes as we want. I think pooling finances makes sense for single income couples or those entering a relationship with few assets but for dual income households it seems like unnecessary complication if both people are financially savvy.
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Apr 21, 2015 13:22
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I'm currently engaged and we've been talking about finances quite a bit as we move toward marriage. We both came to the conclusion that separate accounts would be easier. I'm a little confused by the sentiment that separate accounts are demeaning. For us it's not so much a difference in priorities and end results. It's more a difference in habits and tracking. I like to go all analytical with mint and spreadsheets. She prefers to roughly allocate things in her head. Our systems work for us individually. As long as we've discussed the broad strokes of the budget, why would we try to bend our tracking methods to one or the other person? When you're driving somewhere together do you have to sit down and agree to turn by turn directions? Because that seems like the same thing to me. As long as the individual money is equivalent to what people used to keep in personal wallets/sock drawers it seems fine to me. In answer to the op, make sure she has some fun money but don't call it an allowance. I'd make another joint account and have some of the direct deposit go there. Everyone deserves a little bit of fun money and if she's in grad school it's understandable that that is her job right now. Then you start adding miscarriages into the story; no poo poo she has trouble concentrating on school. That takes a huge mental toll on anyone and you need to be very supportive after she's gone through something like that. Leviathan Song fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Apr 21, 2015 |
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Apr 21, 2015 15:32
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Hocus Pocus posted:Those of you who feel strongly about joint finances (regardless of if there's income inequality), have you always felt this way? Or was it something that came with time/age? Or when you met your current partner? I don't feel "strongly" in the sense that I think people who don't do thing jointly are wrong. However, pooling our resources/income/accounts was something that grew naturally out of our relationship, not something that we imposed from the beginning. We were living together for years before getting married, so the merge took place gradually as we obviously had our own accounts when we got together. Once we were comitted to each other deeply and indefinitely, we just sort of naturally grouped things together for simplicity. Complete trust in each other works well for joint accounts, as well as similar spending habits. If either of us had any suspicion that the other would "waste" the money, then it wouldn't work. It helps that we both agonize over even small purchases. Deciding to get Chipotle for dinner doesn't happen without consensus building and hand wringing on both sides. Sometimes she was earning a lot more than me; now I'm the only one working while she stays home with our baby. This dynamic will continue to change. As people have been saying, there are a lot of ways to administer a relationship. If you are not on the same page with your partner, you will have problems regardless of what you do--you will just have to use your financial system to mitigate underlying issues.
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Apr 21, 2015 15:32
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Hocus Pocus posted:Those of you who feel strongly about joint finances (regardless of if there's income inequality), have you always felt this way? Or was it something that came with time/age? Or when you met your current partner? My decision to pool money came with marriage, because: 1. Assuming you stay married until you die, pooling money is easier, fairer, more efficient for investing, and more efficient for taxes 2. If you get divorced, your assets are generally considered pooled by the legal system anyway so I accomplish nothing by the added complexity of separating them I made several specific points on point #1 that no one has really refuted (here and here). My impression is that people seem oddly attached to their separate finances and justify it by saying that separating is simpler, which makes literally no sense at all. My current impression is basically what Baja Mofufu said - people who are very strongly attached to the idea of separate finances must have a reason other than pure convenience or efficiency, and it probably comes down to how much they trust their partner. Edit to add: There are also a lot of people that say they split, but then talk about each having $500 a month in spending money and loosely splitting up who pays what bill. I don't really view that as "splitting" so much as I view it as a less efficient form of combining, but I guess it depends on some of the other details in the relationship. I think the core trait that defines split finances would be that the higher income partner is allowed to spend more money per month on eating out/discretionary than the other partner, they both know this, and they are both OK with it. Droo fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Apr 21, 2015 |
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Apr 21, 2015 16:08
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Alastor_the_Stylish posted:A related issue of expectations but not necessarily income management: This is exactly the controlling attitude I think of when men don't trust their wives with money. Of course he's right and they should sell the diamond but he couldn't come off as more of a dick about it. For example he: -Unscrewed light bulbs throughout the house without telling her, including over her personal bathroom sink, because she "didn't need that much light." -Hid the diamond from his wife on a high shelf in the laundry room after they fought about it because he was hoping she'd forget about it if she couldn't see it (like a toddler or animal?) -Finally admitted that his wife could keep the diamond if she really wanted it, after she told him the whole fight at that point was just about him putting her feelings as a priority for once over his control of the finances. But then right after that he started spewing some nonsense that he's afraid she would get just as angry if someone rang the doorbell and handed him a wad of cash (as if giving in to her once will make her a totally irrational spending monster). Then he says he would resent her if she kept the diamond anyway. Way to give in, dude. Now to be fair women can also say horrible things about their husbands in public instead of working them out in private. I remember reading these articles a few years ago and cringing. Wouldn't it feel great to be allowed to have your name on the bank account where your pay check is deposited? Progress! (And yet another way to deal with an income inequality situation...) http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/it-happened-me-im-head-our-household http://www.xojane.com/relationships/i-still-make-more-money-than-ed-the-continuing-adventures-of-our-marital-finanances Baja Mofufu fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Apr 21, 2015 |
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Apr 21, 2015 17:02
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It's like a microcosm version of how some people win the lottery and it ruins their life. Win big diamond, proceed to screw up your life as a result! I hope it accidentally gets flushed down the toilet or something. They'll be in the same position they started with, but they'll feel like they're much worse off.
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Apr 21, 2015 17:19
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While his actions were kind of retarded, her wanting to put her feelings over their finances makes her opinion not worth listening to.
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Apr 21, 2015 17:56
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Thesaurus posted:It's like a microcosm version of how some people win the lottery and it ruins their life. Win big diamond, proceed to screw up your life as a result! While I was listening to the story, my solution was to just throw the loving diamond in the ocean. No mildly valuable rock is worth driving that big of a wedge into your marriage and if the two of them can't come to a resolution like adults then they don't deserve the windfall. Either that or keep it because the husband is a massive tool who was taking snide jabs at his wife through the entire interview and every time he sees his wife wearing a crazy big ring it'll eat him up inside. To bring this back to the OP, there's no single right answer to how you deal with you and your wife's finances. Just about every person in the thread has a different arrangement that works for them. The two of you have to sit down and find one that you're both able to live with, either cover all of the bills and let her use her money for herself or don't. Whatever you decide on, just make sure that you're both on board with it.
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Apr 21, 2015 18:02
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I can see arguments for both but ultimately it's up to the couple and whatever decisions you make about your marital finances. Furthermore, two equivalent accounts that you throw x dollars/month into is mathematically the same as one account that you throw 2x dollars/month into. Aside from like, getting the minimum threshold for like, vanguard admiral funds or whatever. As long as costs are being shared and there's communication it's really just personal preference and logistics.
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Apr 21, 2015 18:03
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Droo posted:My decision to pool money came with marriage, because: You make a really good point. By your definition my fiancé and I don't really have split finances because we have about equivalent spending money and just keep it in separate accounts. I have a much higher income but I just pay more of the bills to compensate. My parents do pretty much the same thing but they just keep the money in their wallets instead of bank account. The convenience and efficiency are mostly in the eye of the beholder since different people are more comfortable with different methods of budgeting, even if it results in the same exact savings and spending.
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Apr 21, 2015 18:12
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Rockzilla posted:While I was listening to the story, my solution was to just throw the loving diamond in the ocean. Welcome, James. Avatar sucked.
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Apr 21, 2015 18:25
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Alastor_the_Stylish posted:A related issue of expectations but not necessarily income management: If they have a sensible budget which is managing both their debt and savings (and the fact that they have debt and savings suggests they do) then selling an item for less than it's value and paying tax on the proceeds doesn't seem particularly prudent. Granted, it's not an investment which will drastically increase in value (or even hold it's value against its retail value) but since it's an item you don't need to pay any tax or maintenance on it's not going to be a money drain. This is the opposite of a house or car; win one of them you can't afford and you'll be paying extra taxes, maintenance, depreciation, insurance, running costs etc, and it would be sensible to sell up and keep the cash. A diamond could be used as flashy jewellery now and as a family investment later; pass it down to an eldest son for example, so he won't have to buy an engagement ring and can use the money saved on a down payment for a house. So the point is: if they can afford to keep the diamond they should keep the diamond. If they can't afford to keep the diamond they shouldn't be swanning around at charity events; I expect an event where you can win a seven grand diamond with a raffle ticket probably had quite a high cover charge.
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Apr 21, 2015 18:59
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duckmaster posted:I expect an event where you can win a seven grand diamond with a raffle ticket probably had quite a high cover charge. The cover charge was $250/couple because the event was for charity (Family and Child Charities) but the husband made his wife check with her friend to make sure that they would get in for free as her friend's guests before he'd agree to go. Also he's a paramedic with the fire department and she's a night shift ER nurse supervisor so I don't think there's a lot of income inequality with this couple. In fact she probably makes more than he does, right? (I'm not familiar with the salaries in either field.)
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Apr 21, 2015 19:13
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skipdogg posted:A couple thoughts Here's one thought: don't ever post again. This is one of the worst posts I've ever seen on these here forums. Gross.
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Apr 21, 2015 19:14
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Barry posted:Here's one thought: don't ever post again. This is one of the worst posts I've ever seen on these here forums. Gross. Not that I disagree, but what exactly is so bad about that post, in your opinion?
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Apr 21, 2015 20:24
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It's full of assumptions, preachy and condescending as hell and also has the bonus prize of a nice dig into OP's post history.
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Apr 21, 2015 21:06
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My wife and I deal with income inequality by combining finances. We don't even have a discretionary budget for each of us. Just one pool of money we budget from and have long term goals for. The great thing about this is that through our 5 year marriage so much has changed in our income, jobs, and living situation that the joint account forces communication and working as a team. Some couples probably like separate finances because it saves fights, but I view ours as a reason to be on the same page with our life goals. For example when we got married my wife was making 3x my salary 50k-150k and we were living in different cities. We decided to move to a city that supported both our industries, so I took a new job and she transferred. We decided to buy a house and as we discussed the house budget we decided that if we were going to have kids soon we should budget the house of my salary so that she didn't have to work if we decided that was the best option. Good thing because a year later she got pregnant with twins. Now I make 100k and she stays home with the kids (#3 on the way). She didn't begrudge me making significantly less at a startup company at the beginning of our marriage, and I don't begrudge her quitting her well paying job to raise our children. We had long term goals and having joint finances made sense for us and forces us to communicate on what we want now and more importantly for our future. I get it is not for everyone, but I love what sharing finances has done in my marriage. I really do view it as an US and not as Me and Her.
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Apr 21, 2015 21:07
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Back when I was living with the gf we used to pay the same proportion of income into shared expenses. Should work (mathematically) unless one person has no income.
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Apr 29, 2015 11:41
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zmcnulty posted:Back when I was living with the gf we used to pay the same proportion of income into shared expenses. Should work (mathematically) unless one person has no income. I never quite understood this theory (well I get how it works and all that) and why it didn't cause problems like in the OP because of one partner possibly subsidising the other. You don't necessarily have a lower percentage of costs just because you earn less, it just seems a bit backwards.
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Apr 29, 2015 13:01
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