
Combining finances - dontmitch
https://blog.mitchjlee.com/2019/combining-finances
======
llamataboot
We pretty much do this, although it's a little subject to the same thing that
"unlimited PTO" is - one person may feel guiltier about spending money than
the other and it may crop up in various ways.

The only thing we haven't quite figured out how to account for yet is that we
are occupying pretty 'conventional' roles by choice and by practicality. I can
make a lot more money for many reasons, most of them have nothing to do with
me, and they certainly don't have /anything/ to do with me working harder or
being more valuable than my wife. It is what it is, and we mostly are okay
with it.

However, because a ton of my wife's work is still unseen and undervalued (by
society, and sometimes by me) and even though we have both agreed that she
shouldn't work a low paying job she hates just for the sake of working, and
even though we both see that much of her labor is in the traditionally
feminine realm of home-making, emotional support, maintaining social
connections, etc (which are all very valuable! They make my life immeasurably
better! I couldn't afford to pay for them at market rates!)

So our arrangement works well for us if we stay married of course, yet if we
don't, I am arguably in a much stronger position of being able to make money,
still have an intact work history, etc etc. Yes historically this is where
alimony comes in, but it is still hard to grapple with. You never want to
think about your relationship ending, yet you also want to work together to
make sure that the choices that you have both made that work best for you
while you are together don't become something far worse in retrospect if you
choose to part.

~~~
rayiner
It’s a very real concern that really comes to a peak when you get older. My
mom, as well as my wife’s mom and step mom really felt the pressure of being
financially dependent on their husband once they got to their 50s and 60s.
It’s not only the lost earning power—even social security forces you into
dependency, since your benefits are keyed to what you earned while working.
The one with the most peace of mind now seems to be my wife’s ex step mom, who
never had her own kids and maintained her career the whole time.

------
kasey_junk
I think this skips the biggest source of tension in my household with regards
to money. The only way I know to describe that is 'it's worth less to you than
to me'.

For instance, I would tomorrow gladly outsource the entirety of our laundry
work to a service. It would be much cheaper than other monthly expenses we
have that I value much less highly. But my wife has shot that down. She has
all manner of reasons why its not a good idea and none of them are related to
the bare economics of the problem.

As academic economics has found, so does my family, the models need to be
sensitive to lots of data that is not captured in price to make reasoning
about these things workable.

~~~
dmayle
Have you considered something like asking for laundry service as a birthday
gift?

My wife and I have similar spending patterns, but if we had different
valuations on something, I would want to be able to talk about it (express my
desire), show a willingness to compromise (in exchange of a birthday gift) but
in a way that respected her valuation.

------
shalmanese
The flows are the easy part, the stocks are much harder.

1 partner enters the marriage with a $500K paid off house, the other enters
with nothing. They divorce 20 years later and the house is appraised at $2.5M,
should:

A: partner 1 receive $2.5M, partner 2 receive $0?

B: partner 1 receive $1.25M, partner 2 receive $1.25M?

C: partner 1 receive $1.5M, partner 2 receive $1M? D: other?

How does this answer change if the house can be sold vs can’t be sold? How
does this answer change if partner 1 comes into the marriage with a partially
paid off mortgage and both contribute to mortgage payments afterwards? How
does it change if the house is underwater instead?

The problem is all of the above models are legitimate models of how to split
ownership, but they’re incompatible views. So you need to reach alignment at
the start of the relationship over which model to use, otherwise what could
have been an amicable parting ends in bitter recrimination.

~~~
bdowling
The general rule is that property owned prior to a marriage remains the
separate property of that owner. So the answer to your first question is
generally A.

The answers to your other questions will depend on whether the couple is in a
marital property state or a community property state, because the default
rules regarding marital income are different.

~~~
lukasm
Not sure why you've been downvoted. This is how it works in my country and I
think this makes sense.

~~~
roel_v
Because the topic is not "what's the default legal situation".

~~~
infinite8s
But if you don't discuss beforehand and come to an agreement, the default
legal situation applies.

------
skrebbel
This is what my SO and me have been doing for 8 ish years now and it's great.
We call it "pocket money". I can't complain when she spends it all on shoes
and bags, she can't complain when I spend it all on beer and hamburgers.

When we were poor, we both only got a little pocket money each month. Now that
we're richer, we both get more. I buy hotel breakfasts now sometimes (the
buffet ones), on normal work days, in my home town. It's terribly decadent but
hey, it's my money. Other people buy iPhones. I have nobody to answer to but
me. It's lovely.

I warmly recommend pocket money.

~~~
blts
Does it lead to overspending? Since you have your pocket money - then you need
to spend it?

~~~
shostack
If budgeted for properly, this should in their reduce overspending because the
amount you can freely spend is one you've previously accounted for as "an
appropriate amount."

------
treespace8
My wife and I do the share model. However money is a very emotional thing.

The only thing I’m strict about is big picture. IE, Do we have enough savings?
Are we on track of retirement?

If I focused on keeping a fun money budget things would get stressful. IE is
her hair, nails from fun money? When I take the kids to laser quest is that my
fun money? Did we really need new placemats? Should that be fun money?

When there are no kids and both work full time it’s simple enough I guess. But
when you are a parents it just gets too complicated.

------
dougmwne
We've had separate finances for 12 years and it's seemed to work well for us.
We combine the "I've got it" approach for little things and "Let's split it"
for large shared purchases. It leads to healthy communication and negotiation
on large purchases, plus personal responsibility of our own incomes, expenses
and savings. Large purchases that are not shared can be subject to opinion,
but never control. Of course, there's no substitute for financial
compatibility.

------
isbjorn16
#4 misses some other cases. My spouse and I are firmly in this category, but
we also have different spending habits for sure! They buy a lot of little
stuff that I don't see as particularly useful, while I don't buy anything at
all for months on end, until I spend a whole hell of a lot all at once.

Should be a recipe for disaster, right?

Except it isn't. We just accept that this is who we are, and we're comfortable
with that.

The author correctly notes that things can change over time, but they seem to
ignore the most important thing to this entire process working: we use our
words and talk about things before they become an actual problem.

Since my spouse and I have accepted this scenario as being perfectly fine for
us now, our normal doesn't frustrate either of us, even though we are wildly
different in our spending approaches. And when things change, we're _both_
comfortable making changes to accommodate those changes.

Some of you might be saying "but yes, averaged out over the year you probably
spend the same", and the answer is no. Not even close. I may spend 600$ on a
gaming monitor with a 6 month gap on either side, but my spouse ends up
spending more like 4000$ on little bits and bobs throughout that same year
period. Guess what? This inequality doesn't bother either of us. Why should
it? We're in this together and both of us need to be happy with what we're
doing. I don't need 6.6667 gaming monitors, and the point isn't to try to
equalize our expenditures. Buy what you need to make your life better, and
then buy no more.

Or, at least, that has worked for us for the last 15 years. Things could
change! Things can always change. But I'm not even remotely worried about
that; because that's when we make dinner and sit in front of a couple laptops
with a bottle of wine and work out a much more strict budget and emphasize a
more restrained approach toward both of our spending patterns. It's happened
before, it may happen again, but we'll be fine because we come to a consensus
on our financial goals and priorities and neither of us have ever acted in bad
faith with regards to achieving those goals and priorities. And if that
changes? Well, a more fundamental thing has changed, and maybe we SHOULD have
marital strife. And that's okay too.

~~~
skrebbel
The case #4 missed is "yay we have so much disposable income that really it
doesn't matter, and this entire article is academic". That might be common on
Bay Area-dominated HN, but not in most of the world, where I suppose this
article is targeted at. I guess wealthy people don't need advice on how to
combine finances :-)

Personally I find "she spends $4000 a year on stuff I don't see the value of
but I'm fine with that" nearly unimaginable. I could only see myself have that
attitude if we really had thousands of dollars (or euros, in our case) of net
disposable income every month, after retirement savings and everything.

~~~
kelnos
I don't think that's particularly fair; I think you just have to scale it to
your own situation to see how you feel about it. For you, jointly spending
$4600 a year on fun stuff sounds ridiculous. That's totally fine, but it's
missing the point. (The parent might be ok with $4k a year but not $8k a year.
Everyone has limits, and it could be a source of conflict if his spouse wants
to expand her spending.)

$4000/$600 is 6.67. Let's say you spend $50 a year on your own fun purchases.
Would you be ok (both financially and emotionally) with your spouse spending
$333 a year on their own fun purchases? I'm of course making up the $50
number, so set that to whatever's reality for you, do the math, and see how
you feel.

Maybe it works out that you're only comfortable with your spouse spending 4x
what you do, or 3x, or 2x. Or maybe it's the reverse, and you're the bigger
spender, and you need to find out what your spouse is comfortable with That's
fine. The point of this is to negotiate with your spouse to get to a point
where you're not anxious or constantly arguing about spending levels.

~~~
skrebbel
No, my whole argument is that that factor (your 4x, 3x, 2x) example becomes
irrelevant once you're wealthy enough. Other stuff starts to matter more. My
theory is that the GGP is in this position.

But when her buying 2000 euros worth of shoes means I can't get a new pair of
jeans anymore then we have a problem.

~~~
isbjorn16
I'm sorry if my intention wasn't clear enough!

You're absolutely right that right now, we are wealthy enough to be able to
spend 4600$ on various "things" without either of us really batting an eye.
That isn't really the important bit; when we first got started, I was making
42k USD in total comp, and she was making 26k in total comp. Our first house
was 54,000 USD and our mortgage was 456$ per month.

We were not wealthy, but we were _okay_. And at that point in our lives, we
still had a joint account as our only account. We didn't buy fun stuff or
convenience stuff without a discussion first, and we had to discuss these
things pretty much every week. That worked for us, because we still
communicated, and the important thing - the thing most vital to my previous
comment even working - is that we put our family first and ourselves second.

Now that my new home cost me 12 times what my previous cost me, and now that
I'm bringing in about a quarter million USD a year, you're _absolutely_ right
that we are wealthy and the 4600$ isn't a major problem to us. But if for some
reason it ever did happen - say, I lost my job and we relied only on my
spouse's income, neither of us would be spending any money at all that wasn't
absolutely required.

What I was trying to drive home with #4 is that if you and your spouse are
always on the same page about what comes first; your personal desires - or
your family's needs, goals, and then desires (in that order), then it works
really well.

I know plenty of couples where one or more of the spouses is an incredibly
selfish person by nature. Perhaps one of the other bullets in this article
would accommodate that well enough, and I doubt #4 would even remotely work
for them.

But for my family unit, a single joint account with both incomes going into it
still works for us, even if we have very different spending habits between us
- and it works for both of us _really_ well. From our early days straight out
of college making relatively low income until now where we make entirely too
much, this way has worked solely since both of us are able to modulate and
restrain our spending _when times require it_ , especially since we put our
family before ourselves. #4, as in the article, didn't allow for any wiggle
room like that. That's okay, though, since it was hardly purporting to be an
exhaustive listing and description of income:spending strategies! I just
wanted to share that #4 can absolutely work even for couples without the same
spending patterns, as long as they're willing to put family over self.

~~~
isbjorn16
Maybe another way to put it: #4 works as long as neither party is overly
selfish. That doesn't mean that both will spend the same, though. Equality of
expenditure isn't as important as equality of happiness/contentedness. Prizing
the latter more than the former is the real goal, so really - however you get
there? As long as it works for you and your family, go with it!

------
fegu
The article, and comments so far, focus on income only. This is the easy part.
A lot of people have savings or investments going in. Perhaps one is renting
and the other owns a house. This is where it gets tricky. Especially
considering it would be prudent to lay plans that also work well in the event
of a divorce.

------
n42
My partner is what some might call a trust fund baby. Her family is fortunate
enough that she need not work. She will likely receive a sizable inheritance.
Her parents have shielded her from their wealth, while making sure she always
has enough to be comfortable. Neither of us knows how much wealth her family
holds. They are very discrete.

I come from a middle class family that spent their money and saved poorly. I
took loans out to go to college. I’ve worked my way up in my career in tech
and now make a comfortable salary.

This puts us in a situation I feel like this article doesn’t really cover. She
doesn’t have a “salary”, but she “makes” more money than I do - however much
she needs. I do not plan around her family’s wealth. That is her family’s
money, and if/until we ever decide to start our own family, I do not involve
myself in their affairs.

What we’ve found works for us, is simply a joint credit card. We put shared
expenses on it and split it at the end of the month. We use our shared points
on vacations we spend together. It is a way of treating each other as equals,
and helps prevent either of us feeling taking advantage of. I maintain my own
savings and retirement account. She maintains her own investments. I spend my
money however I want and have my own personal card, and her the same.

If I was out a job, she would support me. If her investments tank or her money
were cut off, I would support her. It’s rather simple.

The tension we face actually comes from her wealth rather than our lack of it.
There are times where she would happily use her wealth as an expression of
love. I would never be ok with her father buying us a home. She doesn't
understand why not - I was raised to value my own financial independence. I
would never feel comfortable living in a home that I did not earn.

How do couples in other similar situations handle this?

~~~
zimablue
Effectively you're under their families power, being "discreet" and doling out
money adhoc I wouldn't view as positive, it's them maintaining permanent
control. I've long thought that the approach taken by my parents with far less
money was pretty good- you get an allocation at 18, more if you're using to to
go to uni. If there's any left over at 21 you get the remainder but after that
there's nothing more and no expectation of inheritance. I'd try to follow
something like this regardless of scale, if it's a couple of million maybe set
up a fund that stops at 25

~~~
sgt101
I think tax might complicate this.

But, remember, familial power tapers with time, no matter what. And in time
you might value the power and leverage that you have to deal with children who
display a shocking lack of sense.

------
duxup
I see lots of choices out there, and different things work for different
people... and sometimes things evolve, and like relationships the finances
should / will too, even when you don't want them to.

It became clear that when my wife went back to school we couldn't sit and do
math or rearrange everything all the time. We just put it altogether.

Nothing is easier when married than just putting it into one pot and it is all
"our" money. It's not about who does what (maybe one day someone does more
dishes, makes more money) and it's all "ours".

But even than if you have a couple with very different spending and someone is
more responsible, I don't think it is bad to establish an "allowance" for
everyone for as the article describes "splurges".

The important thing is to always be communicating about it.

------
soperj
This sounds basically like have one pot of money, but allow both people to
blow some of it every month on unnecessary stuff. Which is the opposite of
what a saver personality would like to do. I don't see how it would work in a
relationship where one person is blowing the "fun money" every month while the
other person saves it. There would still be resentment.

~~~
ianferrel
My wife and I do this, and while we're both savers by nature, I'm _more_ of a
saver, so I end up piling up the fun money while she tends to spend hers (I
think. Mostly. I don't actually know how much she has in her personal account
because I don't care)

There's no resentment because we already agreed that fun money isn't part of
savings or long-term planning. And the fun money is a small enough part of our
overall budget that it doesn't impact important goals.

From a "resentment" point of view, it's much better for me to have pre-agreed
on $x a month that's going to be spent frivolously than it is to have a
conversation about each frivolous purchase as it comes.

And I do still spend my fun money, I just spend it in larger chunks. She's
more likely to spend regularly on things like lunch and events with friends,
I'm more likely to save up for a while then buy a new power tool, or rent a
cabin for a weekend ski trip.

~~~
username90
> Mostly. I don't actually know how much she has in her personal account
> because I don't care

If you divorce you will, since she will be taking half of yours if she didn't
save anything.

~~~
oarsinsync
The point of 'fun money' is that it isn't money that goes into savings.
There's money allocated into savings before any 'fun money' allocations.
Anything you have in your 'fun money' account isn't part of your savings, and
can (and should) be spent guilt free.

This works as an individual as well, and is the mechanism I used to get myself
out of debt. The vast majority of my remaining income after essentials went
into paying down debt, or into my savings account. A small amount went into a
discretionary spending ('fun money') account. Anything I didn't spend that
month simply rolled over to the next month. It never went into my savings, and
eventually got spent (usually after several months of 'saving' in the 'fun
money' account, in order to buy a new phone / other gadget)

~~~
username90
> The point of 'fun money' is that it isn't money that goes into savings.

This is wrong since they specifically talked about saving their fun money.

~~~
oarsinsync
> > > > And I do still spend my fun money, I just spend it in larger chunks.
> She's more likely to spend regularly on things like lunch and events with
> friends, I'm more likely to save up for a while then buy a new power tool,
> or rent a cabin for a weekend ski trip.

> > It never went into my savings, and eventually got spent (usually after
> several months of 'saving' in the 'fun money' account, in order to buy a new
> phone / other gadget)

> This is wrong since they specifically talked about saving their fun money.

Saving multiple months of fun money to blow on something frivolous should
probably not be the same as a savings account. That's not what the article
(nor myself, nor I suspect the GGGGP) was talking about. Savings are for long
term planning, for long term investments, for large scale purchases. If you
need to save >12 months of 'fun money' for a purchase, then this might not be
the correct approach for you, as you're right, and that's effectively a
savings account at that point.

~~~
soperj
>That's not what the article (nor myself, nor I suspect the GGGGP) was talking
about.

It was exactly what I was talking about actually. I'm not going to blow money
period, so I'd end up saving the >12 months of 'fun money' not for a purchase
at all.

~~~
loco5niner
Actually, I suspect oarsinsync was referring to this comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ianferrel](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ianferrel)

Although I could be wrong. GGGGP would point to your comment, while the
statement makes more sense applied to the other.

And you are going to be spending the money on a purchase, just not right now.

~~~
soperj
>And you are going to be spending the money on a purchase, just not right now.

How do you figure?

~~~
loco5niner
Why would anyone save money, if not to eventually spend it as the need arises?

------
avip
My biggest challenge, not discussed here at all, is how to force my wife into
taking financial decisions. Numerous times I’ve tried to walk her through our
finances, trying to make our life choices and trade offs more explicit. Yes we
could move to a nicer place but we’ll have to cut down on kids activities. I
feel I’m taking all the decisions myself.

~~~
zrail
Can't really force anyone to do anything. For awhile my spouse and I did a
monthly "money talk" where we walked through the monthly income and expenses
and talked about things coming up. Eventually they decided they'd rather just
not pay attention.

------
rconti
This was the least surprising result. I thought "combined finances, with an
allowance" was basically the default for married couples who have been
together a long time and/or since they were fairly young.

Currently my wife and I just contribute an equal amount to a joint account for
the mortgage and car, and the rest is basically "I've got it" in a
proportional sense. It basically works because we spend less than we make, so
we have savings. I'm currently out a TON of money for an upcoming vacation,
but I kind of have the sense that it all works out in the end, because I am
not (yet) out of money, and if I have to dip into "my" savings to pay the
bills from the trip, well, from a net perspective "we" still have the same
amount of money as if I asked her to pony up some to pay my credit card this
month.

But of course, this fails plenty of tests, and will have to be re-thought if
one of us ends up out of work.

~~~
mercutio2
Amongst my social group your approach is relatively unusual. A sizable
fraction of adults can’t be bothered to form a budget and do bookkeeping. This
always surprises me, but it seems to be true. You can’t really have an
allowance system without some amount of tracking/budgeting.

Of course, most couples in my social circle are extremely wealthy by non-Bay
Area standards, so that gives people a lot less direct incentive to be
especially thrifty.

My parents, and my marriage, have a different system: we ask ourselves about
every purchase if it’s likely to bring us as much joy as we feel the money is
worth, and just don’t buy that much stuff because most things don’t seem like
they’d bring us enough joy to be worth the outlay.

Then, when we want something expensive, and say “yes, a new couch will bring
me joy even if it doesn’t bring you much joy”, we don’t worry about the cost
all that much.

But having a non-scarcity mentality about this sort of thing is obviously a
super privileged position to be in. When my father remarried, he tried this
system with my stepmother and she... spent all their money on frivolities they
couldn’t afford, and now he’s retired and barely has any savings.

So I don’t really recommend this system unless you and your partner have
reasonably similar utility functions.

~~~
rconti
"My" approach is just the chip-in. The allowance system is what I ASSUME most
people use (the one the article is advocating). I'm surprised the author
thinks it's novel.

I agree on budgeting and bookkeeping. Frankly, we do neither. I buy a bigass
TV because I want it, my wife buys some awesome workout gear because she wants
it. It just works. But yes, it's a position of luxury to not have to budget.

~~~
skrebbel
FWIW My SO and me are the only people I know who do the allowance thing. My
friends routinely talk about "he/she spent so and so much on $USELESS_ITEM,
grumble grumble". I say "pocket money!" and they nod and laugh and don't do it
because it makes them feel like children.

~~~
burfog
Doesn't that encourage waste? You seem to have decided that a certain portion
of income will just be blown on random stuff.

I go with double-approval. You could call it a veto system. Both must agree
before spending.

There is pre-approval for unavoidable expenses like bills, groceries, fuel,
emergencies, and tolls.

~~~
zrail
You have to decide on your priorities. Accepting a certain amount of “waste”
in exchange for happy spouses is a worthwhile trade for many couples,
including my wife and me.

------
StavrosK
What if one spouse makes seven figures and the other is unemployed and takes
care of the household? The income disparity then is too high for this, it
seems to me, but maybe it's just me.

~~~
toast0
My spouse and I have a simple plan. I make the money, and my spouse spends it.
:)

When money was tighter, we would coordinate more closely and more frequently
about expenses and timing. Now I just maintain a certain balance in checking
and we coordinate over large payments to make sure they don't hit checking all
at once.

If you or your spouse is making seven figures, you shouldn't have actual money
problems -- even if taxes take half, you can save half and still have
250k/year to spend; spend half of that on a $5M mortgage, and you've still got
more spending money than US median income. Your money management priorities
should be around limiting the time it takes to manage, unless you get
enjoyment out of micro managing it.

~~~
cm2012
My relationship is the same. I make a lot of money, and there's not much I
want. I get a lot of joy out of watching my wife get things she wants though
(which almost always makes my life better in ways I don't always expect).

Certainly when we made less money we had to coordinate much more.

------
hnruss
This is exactly the system that we use. The downsides that we have encountered
so far:

\- Pooling our money in a shared account makes it seem like we have money than
we actually do, leading to overspending

\- We each have different ideas of what is a necessary expense

To fix this, we had to start communicating a lot more about finances than we
used to. We wound up creating a spreadsheet to track recurring expenses and
calculate our monthly budget. We decide ahead of time what we're going to
spend money on, and talk about it when unexpected expenses occur.

The benefits of this system seem to outweigh the downsides, so we'll probably
keep doing this for the foreseeable future.

------
mariojv
This is interesting. I looked around a bit for decent surveys or studies that
break down statistics about couples who share finances this way versus using
some other system, but I'm having a hard time finding any.

There are some surveys on why couples with joint accounts also maintain
individual accounts, one of which seems to indicate independence is the
biggest factor (38% of respondents). Only 16% said they did it for ease of
budgeting, which to me seems to indicate that the system recommended by the
article is relatively uncommon. [0]

For us, we keep it relatively simple. We have some savings from before the
marriage in separate accounts that we use for stuff like surprise gifts or
security when we need to pay something that requires a direct transfer online.
Everything else comes from the joint account or goes through a joint credit
card that we pay off every month.

Although our opinions still differ slightly on some long term goals that we
won't have to decide on for a while, generally if there's a disagreement we
just talk it out. We consult each other on expensive purchases, generally non-
necessities over a certain amount. We've both supported each other through
periods of temporary unemployment or income differences. Admittedly, having
similar values and living in a low cost of living area helps a lot with this.

I'm not sure the system in the article would help too much for resolving
expensive decisions unrelated to individual hobbies. For example, if one
person wants to spend a larger portion of income on housing that requires more
joint contribution, there's still a possible conflict. It does make those kind
of decisions have a discussion built in by default though, which is definitely
a good thing.

Overall it seems to me that the key thing is that people are having healthy
discussions and making decisions together - including decisions around what to
leave totally up to the other person, like the article's system does. Some
conflict might be totally avoidable, but I think there's no way around just
learning how to resolve disagreements respectfully.

[0] [https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/td-bank-survey-
find...](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/td-bank-survey-finds-many-
couples-maintain-separate-bank-accounts-251917121.html)

------
filesystemdude
Our system: I make more, and I pay for the biggest expenses (mortgage, and
previously cars and student loans before we paid those off) and have
healthcare and whatnot taken from my paycheck.

She makes less but still a decent amount and pay for the smaller bills.

Every once in a while, she'll pay for a big-ticket item (like a vacation or a
large house repair) out of her savings, which accumulate faster than mine, to
catch up.

It works because we started together with next to nothing, so we're both big
savers: Our combined income our first year together after college a little
over ten years ago was probably a quarter of what we'll make this year. We
both max out (or come very close to maxing out) retirement now. She has more
cash on hand because I'm paid proportionately more in various types of stock
incentives, so when my incentives vest I tend to sell the company stock to
diversify but keep the money in investments).

We live in a small house, no kids, reasonably cheap cars, vacations are often
tacked on to work trips to save money, no expensive hobbies.

I doubt I'll "retire" early but our savings mean if I decide to leave tech in
a decade and become a woodworker or park ranger, I can with no monetary
consequences.

------
unholyguy001
Betting the OP doesn’t have kids. Until you have kids you are playing the game
on easy mode

The biggest problem with the approach is large, optional purchases that effect
quality of life. Things that are too big for “fun money”

Remodeling or Upgrading a house Private school for kids Vacations Vacation
property Nice cars College savings Rainy day funds

One way to handle such is for both partners to agree on % saved out of the
joint account and/or minimum balance

~~~
kelnos
Only two of the things you mentioned (private school and college savings) are
unique to people with children.

All kid-related expenses (including private school and college fund) should be
considered joint expenses and come out of the shared pool of money. Parents
should agree on how much to spend monthly/yearly on non-essential/fun stuff
for the kids (similar to how the parents each get their own fun money
allocation). If one parent wants to exceed that for a one-off thing (and the
other parent disagrees), they can dip into their own fun-money allocation.

Couples without kids still have to decide what to do about home improvements,
vacations, vacation property, cars, and rainy day funds. It's just that
couples with kids may have less money to allocate toward those things, or have
to make harsher compromises. But hey, if you decide to have kids, that's what
you've signed up for.

A couple might agree that replacing the old, fraying carpets is obviously a
joint expense, but the fancy car that only one spouse wants and cares about is
a personal/fun-money expense. Having or not having kids doesn't change that.

------
vitoc
In Prudent, you can combine multiple journals. Your wife can maintain a
separate journal while you maintain another one. This way, both parties can do
whatever they want or agree to some set of rules. Most importantly, at any
time, you or your wife can see the combined financial strength, or individual
financial situation. Awareness of both can make a big difference in making
important financial decisions. Avoid being penny wise, pound foolish. The
combined report (of savings, etc.) gives both of you better insights on the
financial journey that you can embark together (i.e. buying a house, having
kids, moving cities, etc.)

[https://docs.prudent.me/docs/combining](https://docs.prudent.me/docs/combining)

------
matdrewin
We just have joined everything. If we split, it would be 50/50 but I'd
probably end up giving her most of the stuff, I already find that we have way
too much stuff as it is. I like the simplicity of it all even though it might
not be advantageous financially for me.

Personally, I find that "fun money" is the easy part. We both splurge from
time to time but it is reasonable for the most part. The hard part is the big
shared expenses which you'll never be able to cover with "fun money" or it
sucks to do alone (house renovations, cars, trips, entertainment etc.) for
which 1 partner doesn't see the value of the shared expense.

------
galfarragem
I'll bite it.

With nowadays lifestyle and state of Law doesn't make sense to marry in the
traditional sense. Ok you can do a pre-nup but that is a huge hassle for the
couple.

People value stuff differently and on the long term ignoring that is a certain
path to regrets. So the best, IMHO, each one should keep _legally_ their stuff
with some _joint ventures_ on common projects (house, etc). However I'm not
saying to strictly split every expense or be stingy. I'm happy to pay most of
daily expenses, holydays or extras. I just don't want to wake up one day
feeling used neither _legally_ get stuff from my partner or her family.

------
aliceryhl
Me and my boyfriend are students. I have a good student job, while my
boyfriend has a large amount of savings. The last system here would just
amount to him giving me his savings.

Our system is that we have a shared account, and we keep track of how much
money we have both put into that account. I've put in about half what he has
put in, because he spent a lot of money when we bought all of the furniture
etc. for our rented apartment, when we moved in. So then I just put in a bit
more than him each month, until we reach the same level.

------
xondono
While I’m sure it works for the OP, I’m guessing most other options would
work.

My take is that this approach just moves the discussion to what qualifies as
“fun money” or should come out of the shared account.

Maybe it’s because we are too young yet, but me and my SO just have a shared
account and contribute to it equally (she insisted, I wanted to do
proportional). We make sure to put in there enough to cover the bills and some
more to have some “emergency money”.

Aside from that we keep separate savings accounts and some investments.

------
zrail
My wife and I had split finances while we were dating and for a few years
after we got married. The thing that tipped us into "everything shared" was
when we were expecting our first kid and my wife left her job. At that point
split finances just didn't make any sense. Now we have a system basically
identical to the OP's system and everybody is happy with it.

------
challenger22
I would be very frustrated if I explicity had less fun money than my spouse.

~~~
blairbeckwith
That is exactly the opposite of what the article suggests.

> Both partners have equal access to it, and both partners will continue to
> receive the same monthly allocation for fun money no matter how much each
> person makes.

------
rayiner
My wife and I have been married 7 years and we just got a joint account last
year so we could deposit a check endorses to us jointly. We have two kids
together, but sharing finances seems terrifying.

~~~
harryh
How do you handle joint expenses like rent/mortgage and all the kid stuff?

~~~
rayiner
We split them up, roughly based on ability to pay. It reduces friction, but
the downside is that I think it reduces our ability to optimize expenditures.
(You don’t have two person sign off on most expenses.)

~~~
harryh
My wife and I basically do this with a joint checking account + credit card
that we contribute to (somewhat unequally) every month an amount that is
designed to cover 1 month's of expenses plus a little buffer.

I find it makes it a lot easier to know that $X thousand/month is my "family
expense" and then everything for that is easily accounted for in a way that is
totally separate from my personal finances.

I actually have two separate mint accounts, one for family expenses and one
for my personal stuff.

~~~
rayiner
That makes a lot of sense. We’ve been trying to set that up just for
simplicity of keeping track of auto payments and whatnot, but it’s so hard to
switch everything over.

------
deckard1
Where there is a social issue, there is an engineer with analysis and a clever
system to "fix" it.

Budgeting is one thing. But developing a fairness system... are you sure you
should be married to this person in the first place? Might want to go and
tweak _that_ algorithm a bit.

In all seriousness, systems like this are brittle and really only work if
you're on the same page anyway. In which case, you don't need the system. If
your SO likes to spend, he or she may not agree that the "fun money"
allocation is enough. You may think it's too much. So you come up with some
middle ground. Resentment builds over time because your SO can't always afford
the things they want, and you resent having too much allocated to his/her pile
of fun money.

tl;dr: if you're not on the same page financially, a fancy system won't save
your marriage. Fancy systems and over-analysis can also bring problems, YMMV.

~~~
lotsofpulp
I also find all this clerical nonsense funny. If your SO and you are not on
the same page regarding goals and what both are willing to prioritize or
sacrifice to achieve them, then it’s all moot.

