Organizing accounts? Long

[mschluckbier]

OK, my fiancee and I just moved in together, he has a checking and savings account through our credit union, I have the same. Yesterday we put his name on my account so we have a joint account locally, plus our ING account we opened. What is the best way to organize this???? My thoughts are this: ING account is for our $20 challenge (to be used for house downpayment in Sept., and new vehicles), our new joing checking/savings (used to be mine) as the main household account (bills, groceries, entertainment, etc) plus emergency fund. His account to be used as his little mad money area, put some away for tools, or gifts, or whatever his strange little heart desires lol. Does that sound good? Too many accounts????

[Broken Arrow]

As a general rule, I think it's better off to keep accounts separate. Even when you co-habitate, get engaged, married, and have several children together, there is no rule that says that you have to melt your accounts together.

What's really important is to quickly sort out a method that works best for the two of you. Some couples do just fine with separate accounts and finances throughout their lives, while others use share the majority of their accounts (though I can't imagine how). Still others simply allow the other to manage all the finances and leave it at that. Of course, it can also be a bit of a mix between the above methods. Whatever it is, just please make sure it's a system that works for the both of you on a practical level, not because you feel like you have to because the two of you are engaged and cohabitating.

Here's what I personally recommend anyway. Keep individual accounts for your own monies. Have a joint account to make it easy to transfer or pool money for things the two of you want to pay for jointly. Otherwise, I recommend to split the bills instead. For example, one can pay for the gas while the other pays for the electricity. One pays for the cable / internet while the other pay for the cellphone.

I think that's a better way to approach things rather than to bicker about when the other person is going to cough up the money or pulling your hair out trying to figure out which transactions are yours and why they have a $300 charge from Walmart.

That is, if you want to try to be equally approach your finances. Otherwise, it would be better to simply let one of you to manage all the bills. If I seem to be a bit bullish about this subject, it's because I've had to go through a lot of hardship, learning the hard way about this particular lesson.

[Ima saver]

We have every thing joint, I handle all the money, he gets a weekly allowance and so do I. But we have been married for 30 years, so, what is mine is his and vice versa.

[veronak]

I hope you too have a mad money account. But to answer your qeustion I would use the INg account for saving towards a house since the interest rate is higher than your local bank, I am currently using this account for that very same purpose. Good luck

[PrincessPerky]

Whatever works. In a way it seems like a big decision, but unless you pay fees on anything it really isn't. In so far as making the 'wrong choice'

While many keep seperate money even after married, I am a fan of simplicity, and I am lazy......having only one checking means I only have to balance one checkbook! (we also have the savings at ING)

But do aim for some 'mad money' however you sort it...not that we have any...but it always seemed like a good idea!

[mschluckbier]

In some ways I feel like I have "old-fashioned" values, even after going through an icky divorce in which I got nothing but my children (which are priceless! I so got the better end of THAT deal lol). I was raised that you have one account, and discuss purchases. I dont like the idea of keeping everything seperate, in my mind, if we're buying a house together, shouldnt everything be together??? The mad money accounts is another thing though lol. Thanks everyone for your advice, I think working out the particulars will just take some time and some trial and error. Thank you all for your advice though, some really great suggestions!

[lucasrd]

I really like the system my wife and I have. We have a joint checking account that both our paychecks get direct deposited into. At the same credit union we have a savings acct for our emergency fund (nice to have at the same bank so transfers are instant).

We use our checkbook to pay all bills. We keep a balance of $5000 in there. Everytime one of us gets paid, we transfer everything over $5000 into ING (unless our emergency fund is lower than it is supposed to be...then that gets replenished first).

Within ING we have various savings accts set-up so we can easily see what we have in "cash savings", "car fund", etc.

We then have two other checking accts (we each own one) where our weekly allownace gets deposited into ($50/wk)...I deposit into these accounts every monday from ING. This is really cool because then we are each accountable for what we spend, can't get mad at each other for spending too much, and won't end up spending more than we budgeted to...

It works for us

[Ima saver]

I like your ideas, lucas, I have used the envelope system for so long, putting my check into checking would mess me up. (I tried once for 3 months)