Comments on Feminist Finance: To Merge Or Not To Merge

In my first marriage, we did everything joint. Nei...

2009-10-23T19:11:09.501-05:00

In my first marriage, we did everything joint. Neither one of us had a single penny that didn't have both of our names on it - and I will never do that again. It was an absolute nightmare. We were young and weren't making all that much money and it was so easy to overdraft if there was $20 left in the checking account and we both decided to go out for lunch that day independent of the other.

We also weren't nearly as aligned as we thought at first - I wanted to have a savings account and pay all the bills, but he was much less responsible. As soon as he discovered $100 in the joint savings account, he'd withdraw it and go on a shopping spree, then later say to me, "Did you know there was $100 in the savings account? Look what I bought with it!"

When things started going downhill, I went to our bank and opened my own checking account in my name only, but the bank didn't have anyway of keeping my personal account and our joint account separate. He could get my balance over the phone, could use his ATM card to make withdrawals from my account, and could even walk into a branch and make withdrawals from a teller! It was as though the bank didn't understand the difference between a joint and single account.

Always, always, always have your own savings account with enough money to pay your expenses for at least three months, six months is better. It's not because you distrust your partner, but because you care for yourself. Anything can happen and you need to be able to take care of yourself at a moment's notice.

I really like Haley's idea of formally having join...

2009-10-19T16:03:02.172-05:00

I really like Haley's idea of formally having joint accounts but treating them as separate accounts most of the time. My partner and I would like joint accounts in theory, but it's hard to implement with checking accounts that are often nearly empty. We have days when it could cause an overdraft if we accidentally both bought groceries at the same time.

We take the yours-mine-ours approach to our accoun...

2009-10-17T08:54:41.198-05:00

We take the yours-mine-ours approach to our accounts. We have one joint checking paying bills that we each contribute to from our paychecks. Before he was laid off we kept a decent cushion in there that would allow for sudden appliance purchases. Now that he's been unemployed 6 months I have let the cushion drop significantly because he's not paying in as much but there is plenty to cover our bills and food.

Then we each have our own checking and savings (I have several savings accounts) which allows us to spend or not spend as we please. I kind of love that if I go to a fiber festival and spend a couple hundred on yarn I know that it won't affect our ability to pay the bills.

You know, DogAteMyFinances, that wasn't a very con...

2009-10-16T11:21:03.525-05:00

You know, DogAteMyFinances, that wasn't a very constructive or nice remark. I'm sure Kate Gosselin had no idea Jon was going to turn into a douchebag and clear out their joint account. In fact, I'm sure 99.9% of brides think their grooms are perfection and their marriages golden, but divorce statistics tell the truth: lots and lots of people get divorced, and you never see it coming on your wedding day.

Because women take a financial hit if they have children, because women earn 78% of what men earn, because of that glass ceiling, because we pay more for health insurance, etc., etc., etc., we have to protect ourselves financially if at all possible. Maybe you will be one of the lucky ones, but poverty statistics tell the truth: most people in poverty are women and children, and far more retired women than retired men live in poverty. Furthermore, it's my understanding that all assets - including pensions and retirement accounts - can fall under the community property designation in some states.

Your smugness is unpleasant, my dear.

I think the third path you chose is the best way t...

2009-10-15T22:22:57.515-05:00

I think the third path you chose is the best way to manage couple finances. Each parties should have their own money and parties should deposite a certain percentage (the party making more should deposit more) into a joint account for common expenses. Another rational way is to split up the expenses or even take turns paying for things so that you can your seperate financial identities but you are also "supporting" each other.

Thanks for a really insightful post--I was having ...

2009-10-14T19:49:37.603-05:00

Thanks for a really insightful post--I was having this conversation recently, in a very hypothetical way, and am torn on the issue. I *like* having my own money, but I also like for things to not be complicated; it's good to see so many people taking a responsible look at their finances and finding out yours-mine-ours can actually work. I'm sure Another Reader didn't feel particularly romantic doing the math on their incomes, but finances aren't the place for romance and symbolism...

(Also, you're "I wanted to save something for the wedding night" comment made me legitimately laugh out loud. Who knew finances could be funny?)

Whew, is this defensive! Hoe about the most obvio...

2009-10-14T09:51:09.327-05:00

Whew, is this defensive!

Hoe about the most obvious and compelling reason to consolidate? SIMPLICITY. With just a couple joint accounts, we can both manage it if we get hit by a bus or (more likely) if we encounter bank stupidity.

After I got burned on some stupid overdrafts, I realized I just didn't have the time or energy to keep up with six tiny accounts and seven credit cards. If you get more busy, I'm sure you'll feel the same way.

I don't really understand this separate squirreling away Jezebella suggests, maybe she married Jon Gosselin. Besides, your 401K and so on are all individual accounts by definition. They can't be joint.

I think the yours-mine-ours scenario is one that I...

2009-10-13T16:31:35.710-05:00

I think the yours-mine-ours scenario is one that I'd personally choose when I get married. That approach includes the team aspect and the independence aspect.

I moved in with my boyfriend about 3 months ago, a...

2009-10-13T04:08:58.422-05:00

I moved in with my boyfriend about 3 months ago, and we opened a joint account within a couple weeks. We do the yours-mine-ours the way Jezebella describes it - he pays for 62% of joint expenses, I pay for 38%, in proportion with our joint paychecks. We decided to calculate the % on our net income, and in my case my net income after direct deductions are made for student loans (the lucky bastard doesn't have ANY debt after just finishing a PhD!).

What actual $ this amounts to has been revisited twice already, as we get used to a joint budget (less in staple groceries, more in fancy cheese) but the baseline remains what *I* can afford (and how much of my paycheck I want to save) since my income is much more limiting than his. He also paid upfront for big expenses (fridge, bed, bond on our appartment) and, for my 38% share of those, we've agreed to a repayment plan I can afford.

Living in New Zealand means direct credit/debit from one bank account to another is super easy even between different banks, so right now we have 3 different banks in use and it still works. I get benefits at both 'my' and 'our' banks because of my job/union.

The next step for us: saving together, for a couch in a couple months and a three-continent wedding in a couple years (ah, expat life).

We do the "yours mine ours" thing slightly differe...

2009-10-12T15:43:52.453-05:00

We do the "yours mine ours" thing slightly differently due to differences in money spending personalities. I pay a few of the bills, and then save the rest of my paychecks, my partner then pays the rest of the bills and pays for everything else that we buy each month, groceries, birthday presents for non-us people, beers at the bar, I never pay unless there's some extenuating circumstance. I realized that my partner will somehow manage to spend almost all of his paycheque every month, I on the other hand, will save almost everything. By shifting the amount of money that he has that isn't committed to a bill, he has managed to stop spending so much, and we save almost my entire paycheque. All of our accounts are joint in theory but not in practice, ie. both of our names are on the accounts, but he doesn't have a debit card for mine and I don't for his, basically we have them for depositing tax cheques and cheques with both of our names on them.

just feel the need to point out that a POA is not...

2009-10-12T12:14:47.075-05:00

just feel the need to point out that
a POA is not identical to having a joint account: when you die, any POAs you have issued expire.
someone who is not joint on the account does not have access to the account until probating the will.
Liza

I love rule number one: "Don't marry a douchebag."...

2009-10-12T11:22:17.130-05:00

I love rule number one: "Don't marry a douchebag."

Also, as feminists, we do need to recognize that a man is not a retirement plan, and be sure to have something set aside that is ours, and ours alone. My parents worked out a yours-mine-ours scenario forty years ago, after two years of arguing about money non-stop. Their contributions to "ours" varied according to their incomes, which I think is essential given women earn 78 cents on the male dollar. In my parents' case, my mother frequently worked part-time in order to spend more time parenting. I think this concept gets more complicated when one parent is the full-time, unpaid caregiver. It becomes very, very easy for the money-earning partner - who after all, is nearly always the man - to get territorial and controlling about how "his" money is spent.

Given the income inequalities inherent in a hetero marriage, I would suggest that each partner contribute an equal *percentage* of their income to the "ours" fund, in an amount sufficient to cover expenses.

When my partner and I moved in together, waaaaay b...

2009-10-12T09:13:13.358-05:00

When my partner and I moved in together, waaaaay back in spring of 2006, we kept everything separate because we had no idea what we were doing with money. Our landlord let us pay rent with two checks, so we each paid our respective amounts out of our own accounts, and very much did the "you take electric I'll take cable thing."

Then we got serious about knowing what we were doing with our money. We read Suze Orman's Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke (all of which we were!) and decided it would be better to open a joint account for joint expenses. We also started divvying up the amount each of us put into the joint account according to the ratio of income we both had. In the meantime, we kept our own separate accounts for our own expenses (student loans, credit card bills, random fun things we wanted but weren't a joint endeavor).

We got married a little over a year ago and still have the same system. The ratios have changed since he's going to grad school fulltime and I'm the primary wage-earner, but the idea is the same. Some of our married friends think it's so weird that we don't just dump all our money in one account, but this way works much better for us. We've done it for so long and it's worked beautifully, with very few kinks along the way. I like maintaining my independence and not knowing what he bought me for Christmas (a perpetual complaint among same married friends).

I recently learned the hard way that it's not alwa...

2009-10-12T01:25:23.711-05:00

I recently learned the hard way that it's not always a good thing for all parties to be 100% entitled to the money in an account, even when everyone involved is trustworthy. I have an account I share with two other people, one of whom is self-employed and owes some back taxes to the state. Recently the state department of taxation contacted the bank and removed all the money from every account with that person's name on it--including our joint account we use for making mortgage payments. Ack! The person was able to get some of the money returned eventually, but it took a lot of paperwork (we had to prove whose paycheck each deposit had come from) and has still left all three of us worse off financially than we were before. (We were one payment ahead on the mortgage, now we've lost that cushion.)

Commenting anonymously because of the financial details I'm giving here.