My wife (ex) and I from the day we married each had a joint account and we had a joint "household" account used for paying bills. We contributed to the joint account based upon an equal percentage of our incomes. In other words, rather than contribute the same dollar amount, which would not be fair to the one earning less money, we each contributed the same percentage of our income. It worked out great. We never had a joint credit card. When we divorced it made things much cleaner. Since we did not co-mingle our remaining funds, we each just kept what we had. As far as retirement funds, we each contributed to our own. We had no joint investments either. At no time did we feel like we were preparing for divorce ahead of time. It just seemed like a fair way of doing things. She was a spender, me a saver. So I didn't have to worry about her spending too much of the bill money and she didn't worry about me saving too much, as we would if everything was joint. Worked great. Not for everyone, but wonderful for us.
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