Ex went from being fiscally responsible to irresponsible when we had kids. It was a bit of a situation of the boiling frog - based on our budget we should have been able to net 1k a month after all our bills were paid and after a bit of spending money for ourselves and for her to spend on the kids, yet it was harder and harder to find that 1k every month. We were at the point where separate accounts and a forced allowance would have only been the way to make it another year without piling on CC debt. I canāt say it wasnāt the only problem in the relationship, but I also canāt say the other problems were completely independent of it either. On the other hand, determining the allowance probably would have led to repeated disagreements over equity. We had personal fun budgets for few years at the end - I gave myself $350-400 a month for non essential purchases and her 3x for her plus the kids. Pretty much each month I had budget leftover and she was burning through the monthly family pad. I took the separation to realize how much of a problem it had really become.
I have no idea what Iām even answering at this point.
Maybe. If we had everything combined I would have been more aggressive in paying it down to optimize joint finances, but I think her having a larger stake in it being a joint effort has led to her making better financial decisions and remaining focused on it. I think we will take a year or two after everything clears before making any decisions on joint accounts. It really doesnāt matter much at this point since I cover everything related to the house which pretty evenly balances out incomes, and we will be plenty cash flow positive once the debt is gone that we should not really care about the rest.
Because for the one-time very brief effort of combining your finances you save a lifetime of effort of splitting up expenses.
My husband and I never ever discuss who is going to pay for dinner. It simply could not matter less who puts dinner on our joint credit card. Usually he pays, I think because thereās some societal expectation that the man should pay, but in point of fact it makes absolutely no difference.
Thereās no discussion of how to split anythingā¦ it is already predetermined that the split is 100% from our joint account.
I spent 30 minutes opening our joint accounts and Iāve never had to debate or even consider who should pay for what since.
When we made within $100 of the same pay, everything was 100% joint. When I made over 5x his income it was 100% joint. When I wasnāt working and he was making bank it was 100% joint, now that weāre both working but he makes a lot more itās 100% joint.
Weāve never had to consider āgee, when your income dropped from the low $100s to the high teens you probably canāt afford as much of the mortgage payment as you used toā¦ whatās a reasonable way to split that now?
That sounds like a monumental hassle.
it really isnātā¦if you treat each other as lovers instead of competing accountants.
Also, when he wanted to do a major career change that involved enduring some short-term pain for some long-term gainā¦ Iām not sure he would have taken the risk (and it was definitely a riskā¦ we didnāt know when or even if he would land his dream job and he was giving up a cushy job with decent pay and great benefits) if heād really had to adjust to living on ~$19K a year, even temporarily.
He wasnāt comfortable burning through savings, and he wouldāve been burning through his savings pretty fast even if I covered 100% of joint expenses and he only had to pay for his solo expenses.
But when it was joint then we had a conversation about whether we wanted to take the risk and make the short-term sacrifice, decided the risk was worth it and likely to pay off, and took the plunge.
Heād be the first to tell you that he never wouldāve taken that risk if he didnāt have my actuary salary to fall back onā¦ and my confidence in our ability to financially weather the storm.
Sure.
The fact that itās a discussion that even needs to occur in the first placeā¦ even if you can be confident it goes wellā¦ is what sounds like a hassle to me. Itās something I donāt have to think about.
All we need is love.
How bad are we talking here?
If they spend less under separate accounts because they have less available to them to spend, then separate accounts would be helpful for that particular person. Thatās what I was envisioning.
If their spending is unaffected then sure, separate accounts would be the same as joint or worse if they rack up tons of credit card interest and late fees and such.
Well it can be very freeing to not have to be individually self-sufficient. Thatās an advantage of joint accounts.
Or perhaps itās simply an advantage of having an SO upon whom you can depend.
This sentence is hard to compute. In my experience kids usually make people more responsible, not less.
My first inclination in reading it is to assume that you simply didnāt understand just how expensive the kids truly were.
But you seem like a reasonable person and I wasnāt there so Iām also inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Can you say more about how you arrived at this conclusion?
Did she start spending more on herself than she did before the kids?
Did you have an expectation that she would cut back on her personal spending now that there are additional mouths to feed and she actually spent (more or less) the same?
Was there a change in the familyās income? I would imagine that the increase in costs that a baby brings coupled with the decrease in income from one spouse working less or not at all would be a tough pill for a lot of families to swallow.
Was there something that triggered the change? Mommy & Me group made up of more affluent mommies who spent more than her old friends?
How were expectations regarding increased expenses changes in personal spending and possibly decreased income discussed? Was there agreement? True buy-in or reluctant āok, FINE 
ā???
Just curious.
I mean, if youāre going to be bailing each other out and giving each other money anyway then to some extent itās not truly separateā¦ itās just joint accounts where some of the accounts have extra hoops to jump through to access the money.
I guess my husband and I almost have that.
His name is on our high-yield savings account (they both areā¦ fully joint), but I doubt he even knows which bank itās at. Not because I donāt tell him, but because he doesnāt keep track of stuff like that.
If I was hit by a bus tomorrow heād probably have to wait for the quarterly statement to come in the mail before heād know how to get to the money even though he has full legal access to it.
But he chooses not to worry about that stuff and outsources the money management to me. He doesnāt like doing it anyway. Heās not a 
like me. Another advantage of joint accounts.
Yeah, Iām not 100% sure how to access some of the accounts my husband put the money in. Iām happy to let him deal with that.
The advantage is in having a trustworthy partner with whom you can collaborate and build the life you mutually want. Not in whose name is on what bank accounts. Ffs 
I think you need to re-read what I was claiming the advantage was.
Especially before getting rudeā¦ again. 
Have we made any progress on this topic since 24 hours ago?
I donāt understand all the judgmental comments about people who like having joint finances, tbh. Live and let live!
Nah. The gist seems to be āIf I ignore all of the advantages of joint then separate is no worse than joint.ā
If youād like to clear your mind of having to cure cancer, see my thread here. That way, you can just focus on drinking.