-- it's personal, but do most of the married here have joint bank accounts with their husbands/wives?

-- how do you actually save money being married? taxes, right?

-- if you were to, say, put a down payment on a house...who paid for it? do you actually keep record of who has paid for what?

We have a joint account, it's much easier that way.


Yeah, I have no idea what we'll "save" though.


No. That's sort of ridiculous. You have a joint account, the money belongs equally to you both. Your combined income is your income. Trying to separate it or go halfsies is a great way to get divorced.

what if you make $100,000 a year, and she makes only $40,000?

Then you make $140,000 as a couple and base financial decisions on that.

You don't have 2 separate bank accounts and expect her to make half the house payment that was purchased based on a combined income.

you do, however, have one bank account for yourself, no? not even one for yourself?

No. One account for the 2 of us.

We get paid and then:
1) Put $ into our savings acct
2) Pay bills, buy groceries, etc
3) Put more $ into our savings
4) Repeat

"Other purchases" are done as needed, but the other party needs to be aware unless it's petty shit like Taco Bell.

wow, i better rethink this entire thing.

Yeah, if you thought halfsies and separate accounts was the way to do it, you and your bride are gonna have some issues. I'm not an expert or anything, but before we were married and did have separate accounts, we had some issues because of it. Finance with us is about as smooth as it could be now. We have an understanding of where we want to be financially and what we need to do to get there, we respect our limits, and we don't do stupid shit like "HEY HONEY I JUST BOUGHT A PS3 AND 10 GAMES WITH MY BONUS CHECK!!!!"

You don't save any money in taxes being married. In fact, if both people work and do alright for themselves, they can actually get screwed.

Example A - two people each making 40,000 annually:

Single - $40,000-$5000 standard deduction-$3,200 personal exemption=$31800 taxable income. Federal Income tax = $4,621

Married - $80,000-$10,000 standard deduction-$6400 personal exemptions=$63,600 taxable income. Federal Income tax = $9,236

So, if these people were single, they would pay collectively $9,242, so being married saved them a whopping $6.

Example B - two people each making $150,000 annually:

Single - $150,000-$5000 standard deduction-$3,200 personal exemption=$141800 taxable income. Federal Income tax = $34,311.

Married - $300000-$10,000 standard deduction-$6400 personal exemptions=$283,600 taxable income. Federal Income tax = $74,179. In this instance, being married cost our happy couple $5,556.*

Granted, most times both parties in a marriage don't make $150k, but the $6 savings gradually changes to the $5,556 cost.



Some married couples may pay the same as if they were single (or slightly less - two people each making $25k save $12), some may pay the 'marriage penalty', but no one saves because they are married. Just another example of our ass backwards government rewarding what they deem 'bad behavior'. Have a kid when you're single and can't afford it? Here - here is housing, food stamps and health insurance. Don't have a kid and walk the straight and narrow? Suck it up and pay for everything. Get married like we say you should? Well, you can pay us more in taxes than your 'living in sin' counterparts. It's fucked up.


*I realize that with the $300k couple, there are other factors such as the alternative minimum tax, itemized deductions, etc, but to keep it simple I used the standard tax rates and standard deductions.

PJDoll gets me hard when she starts "talkin' figures"

yes, joint. we lived together for 6 years and had separate accounts up until we got married. having them separate and running one household was a pain, but we had a system. i paid XYZ and he paid ABC. when one of us came up short for something unexpected like a car repair, the other took care of the bills.

now it is all one coffer and it works out quite well.



i don't think we save anything...but then i am cosidered an "independent contractor" and i don't have taxes taken out of my pay...not until april of course.



we bought our house before we were married, and we used the profit from the sale of his condo. but at that point, even though we still had separate accounts, it was all just "our" money. and even though it was technically "his" money that paid for the down payment, it was "our" house because i was paying the mortgage.

as soon as we got married, we got a joint account, and that is it. i do not feel the need to have another separate account, and neither does my husband. it is all just "our" money. we buy what we need, we try to save a little, and if either of us has a big urge for something unnecessary, we discuss it.

marriage is a huge step, and if you are still feeling a need for separate accounts for whatever reason, maybe you should try living together first to see how it feels to share furniture/electronics and household costs with your separate accounts.

when it all starts to feel like "ours" you can start thinking about marriage again.

I just give my wife all my money and she gives me spending money each week. It works out pretty well b/c I suck at saving and paying bills on time.

i'm basically the same, she's much better at it than I am

Work on the whole girlfriend thing before talking about marriage, yeah?

Careful... If you do that without paying taxes quarterly, you can pay a hefty penalty.

My wife and I have joint accounts, and we each keep one separate savings account.

Most of the ways you save money are the same ways that having a roommate saves money.

We have no record of who paid for what b/c both of our names are on the joint accounts. Although, the house lease does have my name, b/c the preprinted form said "blank" and "blank's wife." My wife, who did ALL the househunting and loan work, was not pleased.

Here's how the seperate bank account thing will work for you....

You spend as you want...she spends as she wants. You think everything is going good. One day she asks you how much money you have in your account...you're taken back a little, but answer her question. She claims to just be curious. A couple weeks later you get home from work. She's sitting down and giving you the look from hell. You say "What?" She pulls the bank statement for your account from behind her back and asks "What are all these debits at the convenience store for four dollars here and 4 dollars there. You say "It's just a soda and a bag of chips...a mans gotta eat." She now gets a little calmer and says in a gentle caring kind of way..."I don't mean to rag on you, but there must be a way we can cut down on these expenses." By this time you're getting pissed that she's giving you shit about your bank account when you never question hers. Try to hold your tongue because this can only go one direction. It is at this point that you will realize that a joint account is inevitable. There are some things in life that you just have to let go of when you get married....sorry man

so Wtob? finally said yes huh?

We have a joint account as well but we also each have seperate accounts. I get paid by direct deposit into my account that I've had forever as does she. We then put money into the joint account where the mortgage and bills are paid out of. Depending on what's going on I might put in more than her or vice versa. Right now we're concentrating on paying down her med school loans so she hasn't been putting as much into the joint account.

None of this is a big deal as long as you're both open about it all, we're both of the mindset that any money coming in is "ours" not his and hers. There's a certain amount that we need in the joint account each month for all bills and mortgage and we also have a joint savings account where we each put a certain percentage into each month for savings.

We do the opposite, my wife is terrible at saving. I pay bills and give her an allowance for shopping. We tried the separate bank accounts for a year and it was a pain. Who paid what, how much to pay, so we just went joint and let me handle it. I give you money every month and you do what you want with it and I dont complain but you dont ask for more. Works great.