STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

pinky · BCBG

How many bank accounts?

erin · Chanel

joint savings, checking and escrow (for our taxes).

it would feel kind of weird to have separate accounts. (for me, at least)

AllieGurl · Marc Jacobs

We have 2 joint checking, a joint savings and I have a personal savings from before we got married.

Personally I dont like keeping seperate accounts, It feels to strange to me. I would simply take control of your finances to prevent the problems going forward.

What works for us is we use our amex for everything. then at the end of the month we pay the bill. We have preset amounts that we are allowed to charge per month on it, and so I usually can expect the same bill each month. this way my checking account basiclly pays the bills.

HTH

Kitty · Hermes

We have our own accounts and a joint savings account that we never put money into. I WISH we shared money...I'd have a lot more since he makes like twice as much as I do. We're not married, though.

pinky · BCBG

Thanks for answering! I thought it would feel strange having separate accounts, which is why we had joint accounts in the past, but obviously this isn't working for us. Today I spoke to dh about having separate accounts and he agrees. I'm learning to pick my battles in marriage, so rather than argue about this each month, I'm trying to be proactive and find a solution that will work for both of us.

We've agreed to put a certain percentage of our pay into our joint checking account each month to cover the bills. We'll also put a percentage into a joint savings each month. All personal and business expenses need to come out of our private accounts. Does anyone use this method of banking? Does it work for you? Any advice?

I really hope this works!

atlgirl · Gucci

We have shared accounts. One checking, one savings - both with the same bank. And another Money Market checkng that $$ gets auto-deposited into from DH's checks. We use that for emergencies.

I have my own, but only because I run my own business. And it's not a good thing for tax purposes, to have biz/personal out of one account. I have my own checking and savings acct. for the business, and am shortly opening up a money market account for the biz as well. DH is on both of the biz accounts though, if necessary. And he has a debit card for the checking account, because he's occasionally had to buy supplies, etc. when I am not available to do so.

wicked · Coach

My husband and I don't have any shared accounts. I make out checks for all the bills and he just reimburses me for 50% of everything. Works well for us (in my eyes it's simpler to do it this way).

bluediamond · Dooney & Bourke

Before we got married we each had our own savings and a joint checking. After we got married we merged them all. So we now share one savings and checking account. All of our monies get deposited into the checking and at the end of the month we roll over the excess into the savings. Has been working well for us in our 1.5 years of marriage.

NCshopper · Hermes

DH and I have one joint checking account, which we do most of our financial stuff from and we both have a separate checking account. We've kept the separate accounts cuz that just makes it easier for us to buy things like birthday presents without the other person knowing where something was purchased.

We have separate savings accounts, but we both consider the money "our money." We were able to get extra money from ING when we set up our accounts separately.

When we got married, we kept our accounts separate for a long time, just because it was more convenient than having to do all the paperwork to start a joint account and it just kind of stuck.

Elle · Hermes

On most recent count, we have 8 accounts, all joint. That's 6 savings and 2 checking, if it matters .

We've always shared money - we had joint accounts in highschool (!) so we don't really know any other way. But I am the sole money manager/bill payer, and usually I run numbers once a week or so. Then we both adjust our spending for the next week according to the current situation.

luckylily · Gucci

Elle wrote:

On most recent count, we have 8 accounts, all joint. That's 6 savings and 2 checking, if it matters .

We've always shared money - we had joint accounts in highschool (!) so we don't really know any other way. But I am the sole money manager/bill payer, and usually I run numbers once a week or so. Then we both adjust our spending for the next week according to the current situation.

We are the same (except we didn't meet until we were 25). I manage all the accounts and bill paying. A couple times/week I'll give him a status update on what's available in our main checking account, especially if it is getting low.