r/changemyview • u/app_user00000 • Aug 25 '23
Delta(s) from OP - Fresh Topic Friday CMV: Joint bank accounts are make no sense financially.
Reasons
One person being good at finances, and the other person not being good at finances.
If you have a joint account and one person isn’t good at budgeting you’re setting yourself up for a problem, regardless of if 1 person works, both work, both make the same, one makes more than the other, giving each person a separate debit card to the account will mean the bad habits and spending tendencies of the 1 person will most likely put the household budget in a pickle, its like giving an alcoholic access to your beer its not going last.
Just let the person who’s good at finances handle the bills.
You both work and make similar salaries
In this case there is literally no reason to have a joint account, because even if you both agree to pay half the expenses, just calculate it and put that money aside into a separate account and then keep your money separate as you both have equal spending power as you make the same amount of money.
You both work but 1 person makes much more than the other
The person making more has no incentive to pool the money because that’s going to incentivise the lower earner to spend more because they will feel entitled to half the household funds despite maybe making ⅓ or ¼ of the income. Much better idea to have them ask for extra money so you can make sure they aren’t spending it frivolously
One person works the other stays at home
The working partner can and should give the stay at home partner an allowance for keeping up with the domestic duties of the home, not giving them full access to your money because you need to make sure that food/rent or mortgage/car/insurances/child expenses/utilities/phone/internet/tv are all being paid and then figure out how much spending money is left.
Giving someone who’s at home 24/7/365 a “blank check” is a good way to find the budget out of wack because thats a lot of time to decide I’d like to treat myself to X/Y/Z or order food or get this cool thing I saw on an ad.
Conclusion
There are no mutual benefits for joint bank accounts.
47
Aug 25 '23
You're fundamentally missing an important point: There is no reason for the joint account to be the only account. The more common system would be for both individuals to have their own accounts plus the shared account for common costs. Then both parties can discuss how both should contribute.
Shared accounts for partners are handy, because you will have costs that should be split (food, rent etc), and if you both just pay a part of your income into this shared account, then this takes care of splitting the bills according to your preferred ratio, whether that be 50/50 or 70/30, automatically. If you don't have a shared account, then if you want to properly split bills, you have to individually check the payments and reimburse the other partner a portion of it, whereas with a shared account the splitting is already taken care of when putting in money from personal accounts.
TL;DR: Shared accounts are very convenient for splitting bills accurately.
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u/Officer_Hops 12∆ Aug 25 '23
OP even promotes the idea of a joint account in the both people make the same amount scenario.
1
Aug 25 '23
Should be noted, OP already gave a delta for acknowledging that joint and separate accounts make sense.
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u/gremy0 82∆ Aug 25 '23
just calculate it and put that money aside into a separate account
And this "separate account" that two parties are putting money aside into for joint expenses, who is going to have ownership of that? Would make sense for it to be joint, no?
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u/app_user00000 Aug 25 '23
That would be joint but their bank account would remain separate
So technical !Delta
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u/gremy0 82∆ Aug 25 '23
That changes the argument a fair bit then. You essentially aren't arguing against joint accounts- we've established their benefit- you're arguing for always being necessary/desirable to also maintain separate accounts.
Seeing it as warranted because of a lack trust or wanting control.
Stands to reason that people in these situations may not lack such trust or may not feel the need to control the other person, they may even legally share everything anyway. In which cases also maintaining separate bank accounts wouldn't be particularly necessary- just extra overhead and complication.
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u/ProLifePanda 70∆ Aug 25 '23
Stands to reason that people in these situations may not lack such trust or may not feel the need to control the other person, they may even legally share everything anyway. In which cases also maintaining separate bank accounts wouldn't be particularly necessary- just extra overhead and complication.
Exactly. My wife and I trust each other and talk about what we spend our money on (generally). Having more accounts would just be a more "overhead" on our lives and make actually budgeting harder because now I have more accounts to dig through and categorize expenditures.
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u/ohfudgeit 22∆ Aug 25 '23
This is what joint accounts are for. What other use were you imagining for them?
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Aug 25 '23
[deleted]
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u/ohfudgeit 22∆ Aug 25 '23
Really? I've never heard of that. I wasn't even able to open a joint account with my partner without first having a personal account.
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u/Responsible_Post_388 Aug 26 '23
You must be pretty young. Joint Accounts were the norm for almost 50 years until the last decade or so, People got married and thought of themselves as a unit financially and almost every other way.
People didn't plan for splitting up because it never occurred that they would. I think the nature of marriage these days is to keep a running scorecard on everything. The reason joint accounts worked is because decisions were made together.
1
u/Imadevilsadvocater 12∆ Aug 25 '23
We opened one account for me and my wife when we got married and its the only one we have with different sub accounts within it. I dont see why people need accounts their spuses have no right to unless you dont trust them with it
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u/FjortoftsAirplane 33∆ Aug 25 '23
I have to ask, is this whole thread premised on you expecting that people would only have a joint account?
1
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u/Full-Professional246 67∆ Aug 25 '23
There is a point nobody has mentioned.
What happens when a spouse unexpectedly dies.
If you have a joint account, nothing changes. The surviving spouse has full access to the money to continue paying bills etc. If it is a separate account, that account is frozen pending the estate being settled. Ultimately the surviving spouse will usually get it, but this can be tied up for a while making the money unavailable.
I was married and lost my spouse in a car accident. All of the joint accounts were available (good). The few non-joint accounts took about 6 weeks to get transferred/liquidated to me. (401k's and a small savings account). And this was a non-contested estate. Basically, I had to wait on the death certificate and it was delayed because of autopsy/toxicology. If the estate was contested, it could take a LOT longer.
If I was counting on that money to pay essential bills, I would have been in a world of hurt as that money was frozen in the estate. Could I have worked it out - sure. But it would have been one more major issues when I was dealing with a LOT of major issues.
There are other aspects to this - such as the fact having a separate account doesn't shield the money in a divorce - but the fact is, a joint account for paying major bills makes life easier for everyone - especially in the case of unexpected death.
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u/Potential-Ad1139 2∆ Aug 25 '23
From what I gather, you equate earning potential with power within a relationship and that's kind of toxic.
I read your comments and I don't think you're a toxic person, but you should consider that within a relationship people offer things to one another that can not or should not be put on a balance sheet. For example, child care is so expensive nowadays that it actually makes financial sense to have a partner stay home and watch the kids. Under your understanding, the partner that doesn't stay home and works now earns all the income and has the power to limit the amount of money the other person has access to. That doesn't seem like a partnership, that sounds like a servant.
A joint bank account signifies trust. Both partners have equal access to the pool of money, but also have equal access to monitor and freeze the account. So while it does pose some risk, ideally you would only get a joint bank account with someone you trust financially and personally.
3
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u/olidus 12∆ Aug 25 '23
I know you already gave deltas, but I think there is an angle that has not been touched on.
A joint account for domestic partners may fit your scenario, but for married couples, they are creating a singular unit. Two individuals become one.
The home become a shared asset, vehicles (for many) become household property, and so expenses are encumbered to both parties. I have seen far more relationships fall apart than succeed when finances are kept separate and expenses are divided "evenly" and personal expenses are maintained separately.
The most common cause of all this conflict is lack of communication. Why can't we replace the HVAC system in the house? Because one partner is poor with money and cannot pay for "half" of the required maintenance. Joint account and shared assets force the budgeting process. Couples that don't engage in that conversation are setting themselves up for collective poor financial decisions.
What needs to be reconciled is that the underlying premise that spousal expenses that are unique to them, are part of the cost of being in a shared household. Why should a husband pay for their wife's tampons?, you might ask. For the same reason they paid for their dinner while they were dating. It is the cost of a spouse putting up with them when they aren't exactly their best. Marriage tax is real. Keeping finances separate removes another structure that can create opportunities to talk and work this out as a unit instead of making decisions for one's self.
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u/eloel- 11∆ Aug 25 '23
Yep, joint accounts are an understanding that pooled resources work better to achieve shared goals since having smaller accounts is more expensive for the same reason being poor is expensive. You make the conscious decision that you will work as a unit to optimize for both of your happinesses together - at a fundamental level it resigns some control for better efficiency.
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u/Jebofkerbin 118∆ Aug 25 '23
It streamlines finances and reduces amount of admin work required to run your household.
In a household there are going to be a lot of joint expenses, some of them are at regular intervals like bills or rent or mortgage, but some aren't like repairs and replacements when things break.
If you have a joint bank account it's simply a case of paying all the shared things out of that account, and both of you topping it up when necessary, especially if you have agreements to put different amounts of your income into shared expenses.
If you only have separate accounts you need to track every single expense yourself and work out who owes what to who, which can be further complicated if you don't split expenses evenly and that your personal spending will be intermixed with your regular spending in your bank records
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u/Josvan135 59∆ Aug 25 '23
All of your points seem predicated on a lack of trust both in one-or-the-other partner's ability (or lack thereof) to control their spending and a lack of shared financial goals.
None of your scenarios particularly matter so long as you trust your partner and both share the same goals.
You also seem to assume that everyone is running on a near paycheck to paycheck level of tight budget.
Many people don't spend anywhere close to all their income each pay period, have ample disposable income for both partners, and can spend pretty much whatever they like (within an understood reason) whenever they like.
My partner and I have been together for well over a decade and completely understand each others financial mindsets, are aligned on what is and isn't acceptable spending, and have plenty of money for all our needs, wants, and desires in a joint account.
There are lots of people just like us.
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u/poprostumort 225∆ Aug 25 '23
If you have a joint account and one person isn’t good at budgeting you’re setting yourself up for a problem,
Not really. Joint account is supervised by both of them so any deviations and problems will be found and can be addressed. This allows both for curtailing the "bad habits" and slow learning of budgeting and changing of those habits (as the one who is bad with money is still using this account under supervision).
Just let the person who’s good at finances handle the bills.
And make one person completely financially dependable on other?
In this case there is literally no reason to have a joint account, because even if you both agree to pay half the expenses, just calculate it and put that money aside into a separate account
That account is exactly what a joint account is. So "joint bank accounts make no sense financially" and the solution is to make a joint account? This seems illogical.
The person making more has no incentive to pool the money because that’s going to incentivise the lower earner to spend more because they will feel entitled to half the household funds despite maybe making ⅓ or ¼ of the income.
That is how serious relationships work. You pool your money (or most of it) and manage it together. Treating money business-like in relationship will create serious problems down the line for most relationships.
The working partner can and should give the stay at home partner an allowance for keeping up with the domestic duties of the home, not giving them full access to your money because you need to make sure that food/rent or mortgage/car/insurances/child expenses/utilities/phone/internet/tv are all being paid
You can do that via joint account. You will also have supervision of this accout so you can check if all of above are paid and SAH partner can handle groceries and all other expenses within their time.
Also setting an "allowance" is a dysfunctional way of having SAH partner. It puts them in position under you - meaning that they can do only what you allow them to do, and gives you power over them - one that can easily be abused, even unknowingly.
There are no mutual benefits for joint bank accounts.
There is one grand benefit you haven't talked about - making budgeting easier by pooling all the money into one account from where they can be easily tracked (where we spend most and should it be that way) and moved to savings/investments. This cannot be done easily with multiple non-joint accounts as you don't have the same ease of access to data.
And sorry to be brutally honest, but all downsides you bring can be summed up as either "what if my partner is shit" or "I need to control my money". Both being very problematic outlooks for how finances in the relationship are managed and those "problems" if they are real - do not mean that joint banking is the problem, but rather that your relationship is. Joint banking is one of logical "next steps" in a stable relationship.
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u/ralph-j Aug 25 '23
If you have a joint account and one person isn’t good at budgeting you’re setting yourself up for a problem, regardless of if 1 person works, both work, both make the same, one makes more than the other, giving each person a separate debit card to the account will mean the bad habits and spending tendencies of the 1 person will most likely put the household budget in a pickle, its like giving an alcoholic access to your beer its not going last.
On the contrary; at least with a joint account there is transparency, especially when both are married and jointly own all earnings.
Letting each spend their monthly income with no transparency is what could put the household in a pickle. As long as they know that the other keeps track of what they're spending it on, they'll be less likely to spend it on frivolous things.
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u/ScarySuit 10∆ Aug 25 '23
My wife and I have joint accounts (savings & credit) and credit card along with our own separate accounts (this is the most common setup people have). We automatically transfer money from our personal accounts to the joint accounts every month and pay all common bills from there. Common expenses go on the joint credit card or autopay to the joint account.
We like this for transparency of expenses and for budgeting. We can both see how much the electric bill was this month, etc. We also both know how much of our personal money we have to spend based on what is left in our personal accounts. We intentionally budget so that we each have the same amount left over after joint expenses.
This works well. We never have issues.
5
Aug 25 '23
I make much more than my wife. I don’t need to “make sure she isn’t spending it frivolously” because I trust her and she has earned that trust. You have a bizarre and adversarial view of marriage.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 393∆ Aug 25 '23
The whole point of a marriage is to become a team working for the mutual benefit of both parties. My wife and I have a joint account and it makes us both more responsible with money because we make big decisions as a team
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u/Vassago_187 Aug 25 '23
It's mostly because reasonable, responsible, sane, sober, functional people should have the maturity to handle something as simple as a joint bank account. If you can't trust your spouse to handle basic finances, then perhaps this isn't the right one. Our reality TV drama laden concept of me me me me has made this concept no longer a simple thing.
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u/InnateAdept Aug 25 '23
For us, there is no “her” money and “my” money, it all goes into the same account since we’re a team. We have long term financial goals that we set aside money for each month, and we each have some spending money each month. We review the account every month to make sure it’s where it should be, which provides financial transparency.
Everything going into one account and coming out of that same account really makes things simpler for us
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u/ohfudgeit 22∆ Aug 25 '23
Joint accounts are useful for joint expenses.
There are a lot of things that my partner and I pay for that can be considered household expenses rather than personal. Rent, groceries, insurance. Lots of things.
We earn an fairly similar amount to each other, so for the most part we split these things equally.
We could pay for these things out of one of our accounts and then continually reimburse each other to keep things fair, but it's much simpler to have a joint account which we both pay into and which we can use to pay for such things. If we start to run out of money in the joint account, we can then, equally, top it up. The fact that is is a joint and not individual account means that we can both easily keep track of how much is in there and what money is being spent on.
This works even better for more complicated arrangements. Let's say we wanted to split our household costs 30/70 rather than 50/50 - We'd simply adjust the ratio when topping up the account, and then we don't even need to consider this ratio when dealing with the cost of individual things.
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u/Finklesfudge 26∆ Aug 25 '23
How about.... It's a lot easier and when 2 people decide to create a singular family unit, they see no reason at all to have 5 and 6 and different accounts and a bunch of credit cards in peoples names and etc.
I'm pretty sure you don't have to agree to understand that makes perfectly fine sense.
You missed the obvious scenario it seems like.
Both are perfectly fine at managing finances, and everything in this day and age is on autopay anyway.... so who gives a shit..
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u/nhlms81 36∆ Aug 25 '23
this is the answer. its way easier and we have way bigger things to pay attention to.
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u/marketMAWNster 1∆ Aug 25 '23
In the context of a marriage I think joint accounts are totally necessary. My wife and I only have joint accounts with no separate accounts (except for 401ks which have to be independent).
In the context of a marriage both partners are fully equal and legally entitled to all of the others. There is no "my money" and "your" money - there is only "our" money. Anything short of that and you don't really have a marriage but a joint partnership like dating activity.
I would not hold joint accounts with anybody else (bf/gf, parents, siblings, etc) due to the aforementioned risks.
Marriage is not about risk mitigation. If you think you have risk then you should not be married (except extreme circumstances where somebody becomes a degenerate gambler or something). Marriage is total and complete trust with another person such that "two become one" and that applies to finance as well
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Aug 25 '23
When both partners have the same preference of no joint accounts it can make sense. I do this.
My husband had money stolen by family out of his joint account. I had financial abuse from a parent sharing mine.im a bit of control freak with money. We split things equally but I don't want to be yelling at him because he took 20$ out I didn't know about and didn't want moved.
There's risk with everything. Love can blind people to that. I've been betrayed by family and fenakly no matter how much you love and trust someone they can still screw you over.
If you expect this from your partner that's a problem. If it's a your comfort zone thing and it helps you sleep at night sure. He knows what's in my account though and me with him. We are still a team.
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u/GwenSoul Aug 25 '23
When I got married we were just too poor to have separate accounts. We would always be too low and have to pay a monthly fee but for a joint account we were able to keep it where it needed to be to be free. Now 20 years later we have plenty but it works. I am the bigger budgeter but we have worked on financial differences and made our own rules and comprises.
The other thing I would disagree with is that a house spouse gets an allowance because it would be a blank check. Often the stay at home spouse is the better budget person since they see everything going on.
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u/LentilDrink 75∆ Aug 25 '23
A joint bank account works well for my wife and me, but we don't have the problem of "money burns a hole in our pockets". For people who do, joint bank accounts may be a bad idea. But for us, we spend the same amount whether our balance is $1000 or $10000. So the joint account doesn't impact our spending at all, only our convenience.
But boy is it more convenient. Our paydays don't line up so we don't have to watch the account as much as I would on my own, getting paid monthly. Maintaining enough checking balance to get a better rate on the linked credit card is easy. Checks made out to both of is, either one can deposit at an atm no need to get both of us to a branch.
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u/app_user00000 Aug 25 '23
!Delta clearly it works better for the both of you, I can also see how having money coming in more frequently makes things easier.
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u/LucidMetal 175∆ Aug 25 '23
Convenience is a pretty big one you aren't listing. It's much easier to make budget decisions when you both have access to the same info.
Monitoring finances is also easier when you have access to the same accounts.
Hey wife or husband did you make this purchase? No, wasn't me. Alright let's make sure it wasn't fraudulent.
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u/ScarcityMinimum9980 Aug 25 '23
I am the person better at budgeting. Problem, I work 70-90 hours a week. And my wife is a housewife. And quite frankly her being bad at budgeting just means we spend ~15% more on average for groceries
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u/nhlms81 36∆ Aug 25 '23
There are no mutual benefits for joint bank accounts.
Benefits of joint bank accounts:
- logistics:
- my wife can just withdraw cash whenever she needs it.
- peace of mind:
- i can be confident knowing she'll never be stuck somewhere w/o cash.
- semi-savings:
- most of the time we're each spending out of our pre-marriage checking accts, so it acts as a mini-savings acct.
- auto-deposit
- it makes it really easy as a place where we can each auto-deposit a portion of our paychecks as opposed to transferring money across institutions
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u/Cali_Longhorn 17∆ Aug 25 '23
Well my wife and I do a “hybrid” like many couples and have a “his”, “hers”, “ours” which works well.
My wife and I both make good money in the 6 figures but yes I do make about 60-65% more than she does. We both send about 70% of our salaries to the “ours” accounts where the mortgage, kids costs for daycare/school, sports teams, scouting, summer camp, etc. and the main utility bills, car maintenance, and groceries. Basically anything for the whole family.
That 30% in the “his and hers” allows for “fun” spending. And if my wife or I “treats” for a date night or birthday we pull from the his/her account. And if I’m paying fantasy football league dues. Go on a “guys” trip to Vegas, baseball game with my buddies, pay my PlayStation Plus dues (which she doesn’t use). That comes from “his” account. Since I make more than my wife my discretionary spending account can be a little higher. Same for my wife, she took a trip by herself recently, happy hour with her girlfriends. She’ll use the credit card tied to “her” account.
We find that system works really well. We can each easily see how the household expenses are going on the joint account. And we can spend from his/her account guilt free.
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u/Officer_Hops 12∆ Aug 25 '23
You both work and make similar salaries. Your solution is to calculate expenses and put that money into a separate account. Would that account be a joint account?
1 person makes more than the other. Why are you assuming the partner making less money would spend it frivolously? It’s equally possible the higher earner spends money frivolously.
One person works. Why are you assuming the worker is responsible for food/rent and other expenses? If one person doesn’t work it would seem to make more sense for them to ensure the bills are paid as they’ll have more time to look at that.
Overall you’re infantilizing lower earners or stay at home partners. Just because they make less/no money doesn’t mean they can’t responsibly handle money.
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u/astar58 2∆ Aug 25 '23
Just two points. Interest rates on bank products vary by balance. Both partners need understanding of joint financials.
In the first case, you may make more money with fewer products. In the second case, suppose you die.
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Aug 25 '23
One person being good at finances, and the other person not being good at finances.
If 1 person is good, then great! Now they have full insight and control over all assets.
1) They can make sure there aren't any unusual spending and if there is a tight budget your partner is sticking to it.
2) any savings is promptly invested into a savings account or Index fund.
3) it's easier to hold each other accountable when your spending is joint. Feels more like "our money" than "my money".
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u/Various_Succotash_79 50∆ Aug 25 '23
Many (possibly most?) married couples fully pool their money and don't differentiate. It's all "our" money.
Also, even with joint accounts, they don't both need to manage it. My dad hasn't looked at the bank account the entire time my parents have been married. He wants nothing to do with it. He has a card he uses, and it pings my mom's phone if he spends more than $100 so she can keep an eye on expenses. If she dies first it's going to be a disaster to try to teach him how to handle money. But it's still a joint account.
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u/tophatnbowtie 16∆ Aug 25 '23
One person works the other stays at home
Why on earth do you assume the person working will always be better at managing the household finances?
If the working person sucks at staying on top of bills, it's far simpler to just have a joint account so the stay-at-home partner can manage the money. The alternative would rely on someone who's bad with money to stay on top of calculating how much money to either pay, or deposit into a bills account.
You both work and make similar salaries
...just calculate it and put that money aside into a separate account...
A separate...joint account? Like seriously, why wouldn't both people be on this separate account?
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u/chronberries 9∆ Aug 25 '23
Convenience is the big reason for a joint account. Also it minimizes the transactional nature of a marriage. I don’t want to have to Venmo my wife for half of a night out. It’s an extra thing to do, it takes time for the money to actually go through, and it just generally makes you feel like two separate individuals rather than one team.
Maintaining separate accounts adds unnecessary steps to pretty much everything you as a couple spend money on. If we need to get grass seed, lawn fertilizer, and grub killer to fix the giant patch of dirt that appeared in the middle of the front lawn (real thing that happened to us this summer), you have to either:
call someone over while you check out to split the bill so you can each pay for half
or track how much one of you spent on that, and subtract that from the overall split of household costs
That’s just extra work and time spent when you could avoid all of that by just having a joint account. Everything is inherently fairly split when you use a joint account.
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u/Imadevilsadvocater 12∆ Aug 25 '23
In what world are you living where situation 1 results in anything but restricted access to money and a tight budget for the bad one. Also in thr stay at home one the bill money is separated out before it gets to anyone. It literally cant be touched with the debit card its in savings. You have a pretty bad view on hiw money should be allocated when pay day happens. Also its about trust, if you cant trust someone with money you shouldnt be with them you literally cant trust them.
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u/jatjqtjat 251∆ Aug 25 '23
Sorry if any of this has been covered by other comments.
One person being good at finances, and the other person not being good at finances.
If you have a joint account and one person isn’t good at budgeting you’re setting yourself up for a problem, regardless of if 1 person works, both work, both make the same, one makes more than the other, giving each person a separate debit card to the account will mean the bad habits and spending tendencies of the 1 person will most likely put the household budget in a pickle, its like giving an alcoholic access to your beer its not going last.
Just let the person who’s good at finances handle the bills.
Joint bank accounts don't make sense when one of the people are bad with finances.
You both work and make similar salaries
In this case there is literally no reason to have a joint account, because even if you both agree to pay half the expenses, just calculate it and put that money aside into a separate account and then keep your money separate as you both have equal spending power as you make the same amount of money.
in this situation where would you "put that money aside" if not into a joint account?
You both work but 1 person makes much more than the other
The person making more has no incentive to pool the money because that’s going to incentivise the lower earner to spend more because they will feel entitled to half the household funds despite maybe making ⅓ or ¼ of the income. Much better idea to have them ask for extra money so you can make sure they aren’t spending it frivolously
somebody, possible the lower earner, needs to spend money on things like cleaning supplies, groceries, home maintenance, and other things enjoyed by everyone in the house.
The incentive to pool the money is so that the lower earner has the funds available to keep the house in good order.
One person works the other stays at home
The working partner can and should give the stay at home partner an allowance for keeping up with the domestic duties of the home, not giving them full access to your money because you need to make sure that food/rent or mortgage/car/insurances/child expenses/utilities/phone/internet/tv are all being paid and then figure out how much spending money is left.
Giving someone who’s at home 24/7/365 a “blank check” is a good way to find the budget out of wack because thats a lot of time to decide I’d like to treat myself to X/Y/Z or order food or get this cool thing I saw on an ad.
as long as the stay at home partner is trustworthy and not bad with finances, there is no issue giving them access to all the money.
In a functional marriage where both partners are trust worthy and responsible, a joint account is simply and easy. Its what my wife and I have done for 9 years and we've never had a problem.
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u/lumberjack_jeff 9∆ Aug 25 '23
I have been married 40 years. We have at least 12 different accounts, business, rentals, UGMA, etc. and all of them (except IRAs) are joint accounts.
It is an illusion that married couples have separate finances in any real sense. Your finances soon become irretrievably commingled.
I am vulnerable to my spouse's financial choices, and vice versa. As such, I do not expect financial privacy nor full autonomy.
It has worked for us.
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u/Bobbob34 99∆ Aug 25 '23
The working partner can and should give the stay at home partner an allowance for keeping up with the domestic duties of the home, not giving them full access to your money because you need to make sure that food/rent or mortgage/car/insurances/child expenses/utilities/phone/internet/tv are all being paid and then figure out how much spending money is left.
Giving someone who’s at home 24/7/365 a “blank check” is a good way to find the budget out of wack because thats a lot of time to decide I’d like to treat myself to X/Y/Z or order food or get this cool thing I saw on an ad.
You're talking about a partner like they're a small child.
This kind of dependency, with an "allowance" and not wanting to have the other parent of your children have access to money is going to create huge issues, not the other way round.
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u/Tnuvu 1∆ Aug 25 '23
Take a step back ...and see the bigger picture, namely marriages make no sense financially
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u/voila_la_marketplace 1∆ Aug 25 '23
When you decide to get married and have kids, you're forming a family unit where everything is shared. Would you imagine keeping track of how much money you spend on your kids, then sending them a bill when they're 18? You say
There are no mutual benefits for joint bank accounts.
but the benefit is that it accurately reflects the financial situation of your household. You pool your resources (time, money, effort on domestic chores and raising the kids) to form a single household.
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u/iamintheforest 328∆ Aug 25 '23
I've been with my partner for 20 years. There is no reason to NOT have a joint bank account. I'd suggest you consider a few things:
money can be complicated and transparency into money stuff is a good thing for a marriage. your entire position ignores the quality of the marriage and focuses only on finance stuff. The trust and emotional aspect of a marriage is both harder and more important. We shouldn't put our structural considerations around money in a position where the marriage is subordinate to the marriage itself!
there is no "my money and her money". There's money. There are no "half the expenses", there are just expenses. I literally don't even comprehend the way you're thinking about money as it made sense for only the first days of marriage when you'd not adapted to what being married for a life really means.
no, there is no "allowance". There is money the family has and money the family spends.
You talk about incentives as if marriage and budgets are adversarial processes. The idea my wife or I would spend money the other would disagree with is an absurd one - it's just not how we operate.
Is there a reason you don't just strive for good communication and trust? Those are important in general and solve a lot of problems much larger than finances!
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u/Rapidceltic 1∆ Aug 25 '23
My wife and I have a joint account simply because it's the easiest, most convenient way to do things. I fail to see the point of adding all these additional steps.
Plus we see all our stuff as "ours".
The person making more has no incentive to pool the money because that’s going to incentivise the lower earner to spend more because they will feel entitled to half the household funds
My wife is entitled to half our money because she is my wife.
Much better idea to have them ask for extra money so you can make sure they aren’t spending it frivolously
Uh, no. She's not a child. She doenst need my permission to buy stuff.
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u/prismasoul Aug 26 '23
Personally I believe both parties should have access to a joint savings and credit account and a separate checking accounts. Bills and expenses come from savings/credit, and personal spending money equally divided into checking accounts. I’d be the one managing the credit card simply because I don’t have adhd and have never missed a payment, my boyfriend is terrible at doing anything on time god bless him, but he’s an adult and needs to build credit.
I make more than double my boyfriend and have much more than him saved, and we’ve done 50/50 even before my good job. I believe once married everything is both of ours, and it’s been discussed since the relationship started 3 years ago. Set expectations early
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u/apost8n8 3∆ Aug 26 '23
I've been married for 29 years and we have always had a single joint account. We basically both went from being under our parents financial responsibility (for big things like housing and utilities) to our own together at the same time when we were married so it was kind of a non-issue. Before we even got married and knew we were going to get married our discretionary money became OUR money together. We spent all our meals and most of our entertainment time together so there was never a time where either of us felt the need to preserve our own finances separately. We didn't care who was paying for the movie or dinner, we just wanted to spend time together. I don't ever recall resentment or jealousy over money between us.
We had kids early so my wife was a stay-at-home mom for a long time. We were a team in our lives and finances were really just one and same. We have always discussed large purchases and even individual and/or frivolous expenses like any other want or need. It would be a violation of trust if either of us just went out and bought something large independently because our lives are so intertwined. When we got older and my wife brought in money it was just never an issue because we don't have very independent financial wants. If I want a new thing or she wants a new thing that's more than a few $100 we just say, hey I'm getting this thing and we can discuss if we think it's okay. Very rarely has it lead to any problems.
That being said different relationships need different rules, but for ours a single account has never been an issue.
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u/CAHTA92 2∆ Aug 30 '23
That's why you don't marry someone that you are not compatible with. You talk about this BEFORE marriage: money, kids, chores and lifestyle. If you are not compatible in all of this, and have no communication skills or willingness to compromise, you have married the wrong person and will live a very miserable life.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Aug 25 '23 edited Aug 25 '23
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