We put all of our money in the common pot: joint accounts at the bank. There’s a cd in my name, just because I was the one who went in to renew it, but it’s part of the common money.
In a community property state, everything we earn now is common anyway, but I know people who keep funds separate or partly separate. One friend said, “but don’t you want a separate account, like so-and-so has, so you can buy things (like presents) without the other person knowing all the details?” Other people think it is important to have one’s own account. My friend who was denied access to a joint account while her husband was traveling would probably agree with this (I’m not sure when it happened, though she told me the story 20 years ago, but I know where–the state I live in now).
As with my desire for a relatively traditional wedding (friends in attendance, standing up and making vows, not done by the Justice of the Peace, and not done in Tijuana), my feelings on this are partly related to my parents. I remember seeing a list on the fridge at my father’s house, detailing who had paid for what recently. My grad school housemates and I had a list like that, but ours was just groceries and utilities, not the kid’s orthodontist and so on. It reminded me of one of the stories in the Joy-Luck Club, in which the daughter in the failing marriage has a financial list like that (am I confusing this with a story from Charlie Chan is Dead? The fact that ice cream is on the list of shared expenses even though the wife is lactose intolerant is a key part of the story…)
In our case, when we were going out, we put money into a kitty and used that to pay our restaurant bills, movie tickets, and such. When we moved in together a few months before getting married, we had separate accounts, and kept those lists of groceries and utilities and rent to split the costs. After we got married, we got a joint account. I kept my non-community property (pre-marriage savings) in my old credit union, which refused to give us a joint account becuase of my husband’s credit rating. My husband had debts rather than savings, so he doesn’t have a stash of pre-marital money.
My husband lost his job three months before our wedding. Aside from emotional stress and financial insecurity, I think this is a good thing to happen to a couple, because it makes it clear that both of you are in this together. A friend of mine in a similar situation (can you say “high tech crash”?) agreed. It is especially good if the person who loses the job is the one who usually makes more money (ie. the computer programmer, not the literature professor). He (especially if it is the he) gets to experience being the one contributing less money. And she (in our case at least) gets a feel for the stress of being a sole breadwinner for a while.
Anyway, since I do all the financial record-keeping and paying of bills, it helps to have things in one place, albeit multiple accounts.
Maybe it is good that I keep forgetting to post until almost midnight, or I would really ramble on about things.
