Getting married in April...ready to take the next step in my financial life!

[Anonymous]

Getting married in April and I'm both really looking forward to it and nervous about the financial aspect!

This is my first marriage, her second. We've been together for about 3.5 years and I'm ecstatic to spend the rest of my life with her 

That said, we come from fairly different financial backgrounds.

Her

Age: Mid 30s

Income: ~$90k

Background: She's very risk adverse when it comes to money. Fairly decent amount of money socked away in her 401(k), paid off her car and student loans in 2012, only active credit line she's had since then was a $4k Wells Fargo credit card they foisted on her a few years ago. I convinced her to check Cap One and she got a Cap One Quicksilver with $10k limit last week. Her current FICOs are in the mid/upper 700s, I believe. She is meticulous with her finances and tracks all intake and outgo in spreadsheets galore.

Me

Age: 30ish

Income: ~$115k

Background: Lots of financial problems from 2010-2013. I was irresponsible with money and credit, but have a flawless record since January 2014. Very little saved (laid off twice, in 2013 and 2015, survived by draining my 401(k) each time, ugh!) and had maxed out my cards when we started dating in 2013. I'm currently sitting at around $105k in debt, with $83k of that being split between my car and student loans, $10k being split between an unrelated charge off and collection, both dating from 2012, and the rest being credit cards. I'm on track to pay off the credit cards by this summer, at which point I'll only have the car loan and student loans as my current debts. Besides tracking my debt religiously, I'm pretty freewheeling. I make sure I put my target amounts into savings and pay the bills on time, but besides that I'm kinda easy come, easy go when it comes to money.

I don't have a strong stance on it either way, but we have talked about keeping our finances separate, or maybe doing something like 60% joint, 40% separate. Having gone through a divorce, she's very leery about being burned again (my understanding is that she lost her half of the house and many posessions, but got to keep her half of the bank account). We've lived separately and she's moving in to my place after the wedding, so we'll have to figure out pretty quickly how to handle joint bills. Well, we've decided that I'm going to be the one who actually pays them, but we haven't decided if those payments are going to come out of a joint account, or if she's going to give me money each month for her portion, etc.

I've spent most of my time here on the forums in the Rebuilding section, so I welcome any advice/tips y'all have!

[SMikulski49]

Congratulations!! My fiancee and I are getting married in June of this year, we have been living together for the past 4 years. This is what I poseted at a different thread (see below). It kind of sums up what we are doing. My fiancee had over 60K in student loans when we first moved in together (right after she graduated college) and she paid it all off within 3 years. Was able to save money in process and have enough for her own spending. It takes a team effort to help each other out and guide each other in the right direction. We have just slightly less income then you guys (around 170K combined), and we are able to live comfortably and save for future (wedding). How you decide to split up ur responsibilities will be up to you guys and what you feel comfortable with. If we did it im sure you can get rid of your debp in couple years if u dedicate a lot of your income towards that.

We have been living together for 4 years now, and she has her own savings/checking/credit cards and I have my own. We have nothing that is joint (at least yet) and we like it that way. I pay for all bills one month, she pays for everything the other month. We can see how much money we make, how much we can save each month and what we can afford. It gives us a sense of pride and accomplishment to see our own progress and how we handle money.

I really don't think it matters how you budget and how you keep track of spending and who pays for what. At the end of the day it all comes down to your spending habits, if you like to spend money you will spend money and will find a way to spend it (even if you don’t have it).

We always discuss bigger purchases either for the home, or personal use. We don't have a set amount when we starting talking to each other about a purchase.  We are not asking each other for permission, we are more discussing it so we know what we are buying and if it makes sense, should we wait with the purchase or not, do we really need it or will it sit in the corner and collect dust. Me telling her what I would like to buy is for me to see if I really need it as she always gives me her opinion. I trust her and she trusts me that we will not go crazy and spend all of our savings on useless items. I guess I am pretty lucky to have found someone that is responsible with money.

[MTSN]

I just got married last October, and we had purchased a house together a few months before we got married. We decided what the shared bills would be: mortgage, taxes, HOA, utilities, etc., then figured out what the total of that would likely be each month and added 10% to it as a buffer. We then figured out what our salaries were proportionally to each other (mine ended up being 70% hers 30%), and we took the total of the bills and multiplied times our percentage share. We opened up a new joint account and each contribute directly out of our paycheck via direct deposit into that joint account and have auto debits for the bills that come out. We check on it from time to time, but we don't have debit cards or checks that are attached to that account so there is no danger of accidentally using it for anything.

Beyond our shared expenses, we basically do what we did before we got married with what's left over - we both save and contribute to our 401k, but I tend to be more of a spender on things like motorcycle and car stuff. I tell her about everything I buy, and I ask for permission to buy anything over $500 even though she claims to not care what I do with my money. That's a trap, and I know all women care what their husbands spend money on lol. It's worked out very well for us, but the best advice is to come up with a mutually agreeable plan, make it automated, stick to it, and discuss if there's ever a concern. If anything overcommunicate instead of undercommunicate.

[Kevin86475391]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Getting married in April and I'm both really looking forward to it and nervous about the financial aspect!

This is my first marriage, her second. We've been together for about 3.5 years and I'm ecstatic to spend the rest of my life with her 

That said, we come from fairly different financial backgrounds.

Her

Age: Mid 30s

Income: ~$90k

Background: She's very risk adverse when it comes to money. Fairly decent amount of money socked away in her 401(k), paid off her car and student loans in 2012, only active credit line she's had since then was a $4k Wells Fargo credit card they foisted on her a few years ago. I convinced her to check Cap One and she got a Cap One Quicksilver with $10k limit last week. Her current FICOs are in the mid/upper 700s, I believe. She is meticulous with her finances and tracks all intake and outgo in spreadsheets galore.

Me

Age: 30ish

Income: ~$115k

Background: Lots of financial problems from 2010-2013. I was irresponsible with money and credit, but have a flawless record since January 2014. Very little saved (laid off twice, in 2013 and 2015, survived by draining my 401(k) each time, ugh!) and had maxed out my cards when we started dating in 2013. I'm currently sitting at around $105k in debt, with $83k of that being split between my car and student loans, $10k being split between an unrelated charge off and collection, both dating from 2012, and the rest being credit cards. I'm on track to pay off the credit cards by this summer, at which point I'll only have the car loan and student loans as my current debts. Besides tracking my debt religiously, I'm pretty freewheeling. I make sure I put my target amounts into savings and pay the bills on time, but besides that I'm kinda easy come, easy go when it comes to money.

I don't have a strong stance on it either way, but we have talked about keeping our finances separate, or maybe doing something like 60% joint, 40% separate. Having gone through a divorce, she's very leery about being burned again (my understanding is that she lost her half of the house and many posessions, but got to keep her half of the bank account). We've lived separately and she's moving in to my place after the wedding, so we'll have to figure out pretty quickly how to handle joint bills. Well, we've decided that I'm going to be the one who actually pays them, but we haven't decided if those payments are going to come out of a joint account, or if she's going to give me money each month for her portion, etc.

I've spent most of my time here on the forums in the Rebuilding section, so I welcome any advice/tips y'all have!

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If you don't have a strong opinion about it either way and given the situation, I personally would suggest following her lead with what she wants to do. Given her past bad experience it's understandable that she might be a little gun shy about mingling finances, especially since in all honesty it sounds like she's the more cautious spender/bigger saver.

Just my opinion, but it sounds like you guys might benefit from an arrangement similar to the ones described above, splitting up the household bills proportionally based on income, but keeping individual saving and spending separate, at least at first to see how things go.

[Anonymous]

We talked about this last night.

Still working out the details, but the plan is to open a joint checking account and, for right now, just move money over to cover the joint bills each month. Starting in May, I'm going to have 40% of my paycheck deposited into that account, and she's going to do something similar (not 40%, but in that ballpark). All utilities, household bills, and rent will be paid from that account.

Next step will be to open up some joint credit accounts, but we're not going to touch that till the summer. Ideally, in my opinion at least, we'd pay all joint bills we can on our joint credit card, and use the joint checking account to PIF each month.

I think I'd like us to eventually get to the point where the majority of our income is going into a joint account, but I think this is a great first step.

[SMikulski49]

Sounds like you guys are making progress. Take it one step at a time, as long as both of you are comfortable with the plan it should workout just fine.

[Anonymous]

I would highly recommend no joint accounts.  This is an asset protection deal.  If something happens to one of your incomes, the other half of the marriage will hopefully still have good credit and income.  Joint accounts take down the entire credit rating of the marriage if something unexpected happens.  Buying a house on one persons income means that if ever someone is laid off, gets sick, whatever, you can still afford your home and both people can still have good credit.  If you buy a home using combined income, and part of that income goes away, the financial health of the whole marriage can tank.  Unfortunately a common story is as follows - People buy a house with joint income, have kids, increase spending, get that mini van and then one part of the joint income goes away and everything gets extremely difficult.  If you avoid joint debt and accounts at all costs, you are much more financially stronger in times of challenge.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I would highly recommend no joint accounts.  This is an asset protection deal.  If something happens to one of your incomes, the other half of the marriage will hopefully still have good credit and income.  Joint accounts take down the entire credit rating of the marriage if something unexpected happens.  Buying a house on one persons income means that if ever someone is laid off, gets sick, whatever, you can still afford your home and both people can still have good credit.  If you buy a home using combined income, and part of that income goes away, the financial health of the whole marriage can tank.  Unfortunately a common story is as follows - People buy a house with joint income, have kids, increase spending, get that mini van and then one part of the joint income goes away and everything gets extremely difficult.  If you avoid joint debt and accounts at all costs, you are much more financially stronger in times of challenge.

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I feel the same way. No joint accounts for us. We made decisions about who pays what and we are very happy with that.  We each have our own credit and we both are good money managers. That being said, we are older and have grown children and assets of our own.  

[RonM21]

The.nice thing is that you are working it out together and it was never a deal breaker sort of thing. I think you'll be fine. You're already learning and you'll be better for it in no time!

[Anonymous]

Thought I'd come back and update after a bit of married life. :-)

We've set up a joint checking account and are each depositing $1k per paycheck into the account. Rent and utilities are being auto debited from that account. She got a $25k NFCU card last month, and we're in the process of adding me as a joint owner on it. Once I'm on it, all joint expenses (travel, eating out, groceries, etc) will go on that card and we'll use the joint checking account to pay it off in full each month.

We continue to talk about joint finances and I think we'll eventually get to a point where we're mingling most of our finances, but this $1k per paycheck is a good start. 

And on top of all that, I'm pretty pumped about being a joint owner on the $25k card! It will definitely help my rebuilding efforts by increasing my available credit drastically, and I hope having a high limit card on my report will help my efforts in the summer and fall towards getting CLIs or new credit.