Oh, and if you want to try out YNAB, let me know and I’ll send you a link. If you sign up through it we both get a free month.
Joint accounts. He manages the money, and pays most of the bills. We have separate credit cards, and each pay our own credit card. I’ve earned the bulk of the income over our marriage, especially when he was a stay at home dad, but now I’m easing into retirement and it’s getting closer.
We mention larger purchases, maybe $100-$200. Back when i went out of the house and spent cash, he went to the bank and gave me a weekly allowance. But i chose for much it would be. Still, it was a really easy way to budget little indulgences.
Joint everything.
He recognizes that although he’s better at making money than me; I’m better at managing it.
We do each have a credit card in our own names just in the event of an emergency, but we don’t really use them. I think his Sports Illustrated charges to that card once a year and our Netflix account is linked to mine, just to keep them open/active, but that’s it.
My stepdad’s wallet was stolen when he & my mom were traveling in Europe and they had to cancel all their cards except my mom’s Discover: the only one that wasn’t in his name too. And Discover is useless in Europe. So I’m kind of scarred by that story, and insist that we each have one non-joint card. But the material spending goes on the joint cards.
$300 threshold to discuss purchases if it’s something major. (If I’m at Costco and rack up $350 worth of frozen food and deodorant and wine and socks then no biggie.)
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Oh, yeah, i often rack to more than $100 grocery shopping, but that’s an expected purchase, not one we would discuss.
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I make all the money, I do all the budgeting and manage our finances. I decide what we are saving for retirement and college funds and how we are paying off the mortgage. Joint accounts, but the mortgage is in my name only.
He would do fine managing the money, but I did all the work in my first marriage and already had all the spreadsheets set up. I make a lot more than he was used to dealing with before. It just makes sense.
We do have some separate credit cards. But we have access to the online accounts, so no real surprises.
And, we had separate finances while he was still working, since we were only dating. After we bought a house and moved in and he quit his job, I added him to the account. I wanted to add him sooner, but he was uncomfortable being a trophy husband.
Our situation is weird, but seems to work. We are not legally married. So on paper, everything is separate. He’s joint on 2 credit cards for convenience but we both also have our own and all bank accounts are completely separate. Different banks even. He contracts with one of my side LLCs and the money generated from that goes to me and helps support the household. But that’s the extent of combining finances. Neither could tell you exactly how much the other has.
It’s odd to me. But in over 6 years, we’ve had 0 fights over money and we are both content with the arrangement, so 
We just figure it out.
:exams:
We have joint accounts for bills, retirement, etc. But we have a spending money budget also and that is kept separate so there is some no questions asked funds. So 90% together, 10% separate.
We have separate accounts, which started many years ago because she balanced her checkbook every week and I just kept track online. We split bills such that after the dust has settled we have about the same amount of discretionary income. We don’t have any hard rules about spending, normally if I’m buying something over $500 I’ll at least mention it. I save half of my net income and I’m on a 7-8 year path to paying off the mortgage, so she doesn’t really care what I buy with my disposable pile of money.
I have been joint with everyone I ever lived with.
Joint everything, and I would tell my spouse about most $100 purchases except vacations - which she knows about and generally aren’t very expensive. She doesn’t do any of the finances or the traveling, she and the kids are home bodies.
I’m currently stashing away almost 40% of what I make now. If you stash it away, you have less lying around burning a hole in your pocket. I could pay off my mortgage now with half of my taxable investment account, but 2.625% is cheap money (I think).
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#winning
Joint. I do most bills. We look at the budget together. We both get a little cash weekly but if he wants fast food and doesn’t have cash he just uses the debit card. I bring in 80% of the income. He makes 80% of the large purchases, mostly bc I don’t have the stomach for it. If I need clothes I take him, partly bc he has a good eye and partly bc he’ll remind me that in my position I ought to have appropriate clothes. Somehow this all works & we have a decent amount saved.
Lol. “You need new clothes”. Yeah, I’ve had that statement pointed at me.
At the beginning of the pandemic I threw out all my shoes, which were getting worn. I’m left with one pair of hobo-level sneakers not really suitable for public consumption. I REALLY need new shoes, but really, where am I going? Not to the shoe store right now, that’s for sure.
Every year or so we take a trip to some big outlet mall in the US and pack out a bunch of clothes (seem to get better deals in the US). But haven’t been able to do that in quite some time either.
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Completely separate everything (except taxes). 15+ years of marriage, and after the first year (when I bought a 20k car without telling her in certainty beforehand) no fights about money. I have no idea how much in savings she has, or how it is invested. Vice versa for her.
Initially, we covered mutual expenses proportional to income because she took a pay cut to move to my city, but now she makes 100% of earned income, and the expense allocation hasn’t changed from the last one.
No approval process for expenses, but a courtesy heads up is appreciated if something big is being spent.
SO was the sole provider in his previous marriage (I think I’ve probably made that semi-obvious), and I think the combination of frequent medical expenses and limited financial knowledge/expectations on the part of the non-income earner was a significant sore spot for them as a unit.
When SO and I met, he was living fairly conservatively, and it took him a little while to get comfortable with a total flip flop on the finance front. No fights though, it’s pretty easy to not fight about money when you’re going in the direction of a significant quality of life improvement.
I guess I should also mention that while all is separate, nothing is secret. I keep a detailed spreadsheet of all accounts and assets and both he and my kids know where all the info is in case I get hit by a bus. He just never looks at it 
He’s not as organized, so it’s on my to-do list to at least get him to put some documentation together and take some steps that would ease the burden on his kids in the event he’s hit by a bus.
Fully joint. Wife pays most of the bills that aren’t set up to auto-pay, mostly because she checks the mail more and sees them.
We’ll discuss larger atypical purchases but don’t really have any issues since neither of us are all that extravagant and able to live within our income pretty easily.
I do the managing/investing which is mostly just pay down mortgage a little more occasionally and move money to index funds when checking/savings is higher than I’d like it to be.
Does not compute.
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