Yeah I agree. I think it’s more about generosity and morality of the people than setup. I know three couples, all high earning and highly educated, who kept things separate for protection and independence reasons and ended up royally screwed over financially. I think operating from a place of “I’m afraid and this will protect me” rarely works, and also that…if you’re really afraid going into something that might be a sign.
People with separate finances can be generous, of course, but I think it can be harder to tell if they are or not because things are so separate. Like I’d consider it a red flag if on a date the asker outer insisted on splitting things, which tbh I never encountered, but you wouldn’t consider that a red flag if you were happier with a 50/50 split, so it wouldn’t ping as anything to you. Ditto for not buying each other gifts, like that might seem great if you don’t want to feel you owe anyone, but I think that’s also symbolic of how you think about giving? As being transactional? But I could see it not bothering you for longer because of your own view on things. Whereas if someone was like “oh I didn’t buy you a gift because I don’t do gifts,” I’d be like…interesting, so even though this is important to me, it’s not to you so therefor you won’t do it. That says a lot IMO.
In 2 of the 3 cases I’m thinking of people only realized how stingy their partners were when shit hit the fan and they needed financial help. The third just fully lied and had drained his own accounts without her knowing, and so then she had to pay the full mortgage and all bills or lose the house. I think there is inherent risk in tying yourself to someone and that while being prudent is an asset, trying to somehow circumvent that risk is nearly impossible.
When we got married, a friend (who was going through a nasty divorce) advised me to get separate accounts. But her husband was a jerk, and that was something I knew way before they got married (who cheats at board games when playing with kids?!).
But Marmalade is one of the best and most principled people I know, and I trust him more than anyone else in the world (including trusting myself). So we did joint everything and it’s worked out great, especially since now I can make phone calls to deal with accounts and he doesn’t have to
This is interesting to me. To have everything separate the way you do, which makes sense since you’re not married, but then to have each other as beneficiaries. I just didn’t expect that. We combined our incomes/expenses bank accounts when were living together but we didn’t change our beneficiary stuff until we were married.
Yeah, I never thought of it, but I guess I can see how it could seem out of place! I think we started doing that when we moved in together. And I know for some things we have multiple beneficiaries of the other person plus our parents.
Actually at one point my best friend from high school and I had each other as our beneficiaries.
Howie wanted to make sure that I had enough that I could afford to stay in the house if he died. And we agreed that we’d keep custody of each others pets if one of us died, so it could be considered “continue to spoil my cat” money. Frankly there is also a bit of “well, who else am I going to leave stuff to?” since neither of us have any kids. He’s also an only child and I only have half/step siblings who I like well enough but didn’t grow up as siblings together.
I do need to get a will or trust or something together at some point, though. We both do. It just gets overwhelming to think of all of the decisions and I put it off. I’d probably like to leave something to my nieces and nephews and godchildren. And to charity. But deciding the specifics is hard.
Also it wasn’t until pretty recently that I even had anything worth distributing! When your “estate” is “Well, my bike is pretty nice and I have a lot of popular fiction books” it doesn’t seem that urgent!
Like @RamonaQ , Partner and I are not married but DO have each other as beneficiaries (with some stuff split out that I would leave to my brother). We’re not married because I’m neutral on the subject and Partner is NOPE NOPE NOPE on the subject LOL. I did get a shiny ring, tho. Cause I asked. Our middle ground was me determining what I actually desired from a binding contract, and it was security in the face of tragedy.
For me, the beneficiaries, wills, power of attorney, etc. was important. Without marriage as an “easy answer” to these things, sudden tragedy can really screw someone over. The house is hers and hers alone, and having a clear trail of what happens if she gets hit by a bus means I won’t be evicted in 30 days or something. We don’t anticipate her family would do something like that, but honestly it can be hard to predict, and not everyone makes clear decisions when there is a sudden loss.
Interestingly we learned that if you specify you want your retirement account to go to X person in your will, but haven’t updated your Vanguard account… the Vanguard account’s details will supersede. So make sure your details match.
Our situation is pretty unique, in a lot of ways. But this works for us. Allows Partner to NOPE her way out of interacting with an institution of marriage, and gives me a sense of security. And we both get to keep our independence firmly intact.
My husband and I have everything combined, except retirement accounts. He makes 1.5-2x more money than I do, but I manage all of our joint accounts and savings buckets and everything, and his Roth IRA. We’ve been married 9 years, and together for 13.
We didn’t combine any of our money until after we got married and I changed my name - we didn’t live together before we got married, and we both had roommates, so we didn’t have many combined expenses. We were both lucky enough to have parents who helped us through college without student debt, and we were making about the same amount of money when we got married, so it all felt very even and we don’t have a prenup.
We’re each others’ primary beneficiaries on retirement account and life insurance, with our kids being a 50/50 split for secondary beneficiary. I guess technically my car loan is in my name only? We talk about all of our major purchases, and honestly even our smaller ones. Otherwise I’m constantly asking him what he bought so I can correctly categorize it in our budget spreadsheet, lol.
When we first met I was significantly more frugal than he was, and even now he’s far more likely to suggest eating out or buying something brand new to fit a need, but we’ve both moved toward the middle. We’re both into saving money and retiring eventually, but I still stress out about how many THINGS we want, and he still hates that he feels “poor” because so much of our money disappears into pretax accounts or savings for big things, and there’s not as much immediately available money for spontaneous fun stuff as he feels like his peers have.
My significant other (who I refer to here as Johnny Dollar) and I are unmarried but have been together 6.5 years and lived together for 2.
When we met, we were both pretty far along on our paths to FIRE. He quit his job a couple years before me and I struggled with that. I didn’t like needing to work when I wanted early retirement so badly and he was living my dream. Plus we didn’t live together so I didn’t benefit from him taking over some of the household tasks. But we made it through and I successfully quit on my own a couple years later. Since moving in together our relationship has strengthened and we are very happy together.
We still keep our finances separate but we maintain a spreadsheet for shared expenses which we reconcile monthly. He pays more for food than I do since he eats significantly more than me but otherwise we share joint expenses equally. We each cover our individual expenses such as clothing.
We rent an apartment together so I’m not sure what we would do if we ever buy a home. I bought my first ever vehicle last year and he doesn’t own one. I pay for all those expenses but he pitches in per mile driven when we take trips together.
I’m way more speedy than he is so I appreciate that our separate finances mean that he doesn’t judge my purchases. I mean it’s crazy how little he spends— for example, this week he mentioned he much prefers shopping for clothes at garage sales because thrift stores are too expensive. I wouldn’t want to feel pressured not to buy something that I really want because he thinks it is too expensive. This system really works for both of us and I don’t really see us changing much in terms of how we handle our joint spending.
He’s got a higher net worth/stronger withdrawal rate than me, so I do sometimes worry that I will run out of money. But it’s a silly fear because even with the market drop this year my spending was under a 3.5% withdrawal rate. Even so, I would feel more secure if we married or at a minimum if we made each other beneficiaries on each other’s accounts. So these are things we will continue to discuss.
D and I have been together about 15 years and married for about 7. We moved in together a few months before getting married, and had to do a few money things together with our separate accounts, and I guess that was enough because we got a joint account and combined our finances pretty much right after getting married. I did change my name (because I preferred his aesthetically, no regrets) but I’m not sure whether we started to combine stuff before that was final. I haven’t had any issues with the name, but I also haven’t applied for any credit cards. We do have a mortgage together.
Neither of us had any student debt. He did have a few hundred dollars in credit card debt when we combined finances, which I immediately paid off because it freaked me out. He racked up more. There was a Conversation. Eventually he paid it off and started living within his personal means.
It’s easier for us to have combined accounts because I am a control freak care a lot and he doesn’t care very much. Actually at this point I think he actively cares about me managing our money. I do all the budgeting, pay the bills, etc. Occasionally we have a budget conversation but he never seems very interested. We each get fun money every month and I tell him how much he gets, and he asks me once or twice a month how much we have left in the food budget.
Now that he’s a SAHD, as others have said, it definitely wouldn’t make sense to have separate accounts. I’m the only one with an income!
We talk about most purchases, certainly major ones. Our own fun money is ours to do with as we wish. He tends to spend whatever he has in his account, I have an entire separate budget in YNAB to manage mine. He actually has come around to the “budgeting your fun money” mindset lately and is having me put aside some of his fun money for a specific purpose. So say we each get $100 fun money for September, I’ll tell him to transfer himself $50 and put $50 in that other category and when the purpose arrives (OK, it’s the Renaissance festival) I’ll tell him how much he has to spend for that purpose. (Come to think of it, before I set up a whole separate budget for my fun money, I had a YNAB category for regular fun money and one for Renn Fest. We really like it.)
He does not have any retirement savings of his own, though of course he is primary beneficiary on all of my accounts and insurances (the wiggler is secondary). I have the intent of setting up an IRA for him but that plan became harder when I realized he would have to open the account and everything.
I hear ya! If I could just do everything in Marmalade’s name (I forget, do I have power of attorney now that we worked with the lawyer to set up our estate?) things would get done in a more timely manner
I was able to open an IRA for my husband (hi fellow money manager, lol, I related to your roles a lot) and contribute to it for him. I’m 99% sure I did it all online with Vanguard and just needed info like his social security, birth date, etc. so I probably had to randomly shout some questions at him but that was it as far as I can recall.
This also works for certain things if your opposite sex partner has a misleading name (eta I’ve never done it for bank stuff. But like, utilities? C’mon)
I’ve called on his behalf for things, but this is one time when the general public treating blind people like they are infants actually works. I simply say that I’m his wife and he’s blind and they just say “ok”.
So did you not already have a Vanguard account? I was going to set it up with Fidelity since I already have an account there but I guess it doesn’t matter if they aren’t going to be linked or anything. Maybe I should just do it with Vanguard.
Considering how many different places my 401k has moved over the years I guess it doesn’t matter if I have an account with one more place. And anyway it would be his name on the account, not mine. Theoretically I could do it with Fidelity, even, except I don’t think I could figure out how to log out of the account.
Cause I asked. Our middle ground was me determining what I actually desired from a binding contract, and it was security in the face of tragedy.
He actually has come around to the “budgeting your fun money” mindset lately and is having me put aside some of his fun money for a specific purpose. So say we each get $100 fun money for September, I’ll tell him to transfer himself $50 and put $50 in that other category and when the purpose arrives (OK, it’s the Renaissance festival) I’ll tell him how much he has to spend for that purpose. (Come to think of it, before I set up a whole separate budget for my fun money, I had a YNAB category for regular fun money and one for Renn Fest. We really like it.)
(eta I’ve never done it for bank stuff. But like, utilities? C’mon)