Personal Finance

3846 readers

1 users here now

Learn about budgeting, saving, getting out of debt, credit, investing, and retirement planning. Join our community, read the PF Wiki, and get on top of your finances!

Note: This community is not region centric, so if you are posting anything specific to a certain region, kindly specify that in the title (something like [USA], [EU], [AUS] etc.)

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Shared account with SO (self.personalfinance)

submitted 1 week ago by root to c/[email protected]

27 comments fedilink hide all child comments

For the last decade or so, my SO and I have been more or less dividing our expenses, and Venmo/ PayPal-ing the other as needed (rent, etc).

I know a lot of couples use a shared account that they both contribute to via direct deposit. How many of you do this? Any drawbacks or other options I haven’t mentioned?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Never saw a need for accounting between a couple. The couple is a team, pay the bills, live life. Who cares. Just always seemed like per-charge accounting and "keeping track" is an easy fiscal path to tit for tat complaints/annoyance/arguments. Might as well map how much electricity each person uses at that point, who flushes the toilet the most, etc.

Each should have private charge and checking accounts if for nothing else than gift buying. Have a joint account for most of the money, especially important if one or the other becomes ill or dies. Otherwise survivor access becomes tricky instantly.

Not poo-pooing the methods of others, the more complex methods just seem like overhead, but if they work, they work.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Yup, that's how we do it. General setup is $X/month goes to each of our private checking accounts for personal use. We discuss any non-regular purchases over $50, unless we make it from our personal accounts.

That's it. Transparency is a really valuable thing in a committed relationship.