So, I saw an interesting post the other day about how married couples choose to manage their finances. The question was…
Do you have one bank, your bank and his bank or your bank, his bank and a yall bank?
I think there were about a couple dozen responses and I was the only single potter. I have to admit that growing up, sage wisdom has always been to have my own money and an account where we put money in together.
To be honest, I don’t feel all that passionate about the subject, but I did start to feel insecure about it. I mentioned in my intro post on family, that my husband and I have a pretty old school traditional way of managing our marriage and finances. While I’m not “the little misses at home,” I am all for being in my role as wife and he is for being in his role as a husband.
We’ve been a single account home for four years. The only thing that sucks about it is that you can’t really surprise the other partner with anything, because money is in the same pot. We do have a couple of credit cards that are just our credit cards, but the bills are all drawn from the single account.
If being left high and dry is something of concern. Have you chosen the right partner?
B
There are risks to this. The biggest being that one spouse could rip off the other and leave them high and dry. I mean that is obviously a concerning thought, but I’d think that unless you married a con-man (which does happen in real life), you are likely to see the writing on the wall that signals that you need to make some changes.
Here is what I like about the single pot lifestyle:
- Transparency – It’s great not having to talk about money all the time. Once the budget is set, everyone can clearly see in the single bank account how it’s being adhered to. Unless someone (most likely me) is constantly breaking the budget, it is an easy way to keep our finances maintained.
- Buying a home – Now, I don’t know if this is absolutely true, but the number of bank statements and penny chasing underwriting was doing with the single account we had makes me think that two or more accounts would be BANANAS.
- It’s good for the bond – The unspoken trust that I have for my husband has been good for our bond. He was concerned that I’d push back on the idea of a single account and avoided the topic for months before I was like. Let’s go to the bank. He appreciates my trust in him. To be honest I appreciate that bills are ALWAYS paid on time. Our credit has greatly improved and it’s one less thing I have to manage.
So tell me sis. What is your set-up? Why do you have it set-up that way? What are the best and worst parts of it? Did you all plan how you would handle finances before you got married? I’d love to know.
