You can also make one for yourself and roll any IRAs or 401ks 
Jkjk not telling you what to do. But FWIW I keep all my personal retirement accounts in Vanguard because I like their business model better.
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I did my husbandās IRA online with Vanguard with his info too. We each have our own logins and our own IRAs. The only thing shared is the joint taxable account. It shows up under both of our accounts and we (haha I) can contribute to it from either login.
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I met Human in college and we started dating about 5 years later. I was in grad school (albeit engineering) getting 1800/mo, which seemed princely TBH, he was making similar or less. He had student loans, I had a similar family loan. Sooo young and broke, 
We moved in together 4 years later and established āyours, mine, and oursā finances we use to this day. Joint checking and I added him as an AU to a CC in my name. I did not think splitting expenses by % income was fair for an unmarried couple, so our deal was 50/50 on rent, utilities, groceries, etc. this rapidly expanded to include most furnishings and dates. I reserved veto rights on luxuries but he could buy them independently (this would include eg if he had wanted a larger/nicer apt, but we made do with a 1br in my comfort zone until I got a Real Job. I did make him buy a TV once because I didnāt think an update was called for.)
4 years later I graduated and got a Real Job and not much changed, except we got a new,
bigger apartment and renegotiated amounts accordingly. When we eventually stopped procrastinating and got married, we opened a joint savings for a house fund. ETA also we paid off all the college debt before we did, and I had almost caught up on savings and investments.
There were a couple months in there somewhere when each of us was sole breadwinner. We just skewed contributions to the joint account to 0/100.
Like Ramona, it always seemed weird to me to ask an SO for repayment, Iāve found the joint account waay easier to deal with.
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Reviving this discussion because this is something that partner (Z) and I really need to figure out. I have a lot of confused thoughts about it and would appreciate some perspective! Sorry this is a full novel 
We have been together for 8 years and living together for 6 and up until now had a good system worked out where finances were almost completely separate but everything shared was split 50/50 (rent, groceries, eating out together, vacations, etc). We tracked all of that in a spreadsheet and settled up every so often. Now within the past 2 months we a) got married and b) moved to a new country. We are both in agreement about combining finances more but not sure about the specifics. Z is in favor of having completely joint finances, and Iām in favor of more of a āyours, mine, oursā system, at least for now.
Combining everything works out more in my favor, because his salary is higher at the moment (which is the reverse of most of our dating life) and there are a few joint things that get deducted straight from his paycheck (health insurance, phone plan). On the other hand, he has a decent amount of student loan debt and I have none. Weāve put the conversation about how to approach that on hold while payments are still paused. If we did combine I think we would still keep our individual pre-marriage savings separate, but any future savings would be considered joint.
However, when we talked about this the other day I realized I had a really strong emotional reaction to the idea of combining everything because to me it feels like a big loss of agency. Iāve always been a saver and feel a lot of pride in how Iāve handled money over the past decade of being a working adult. I have had to fight feelings of being uncomfortable with spending money, although this has gotten much better as Iām gotten older and more financially secure. I like tracking individual expenses by category and spending below my means, while Z tracks things less granularly and just makes sure he has enough left by the end of the month. Heās responsible with money and I donāt think our spending is wildly different, but we definitely approach it in different ways. Like, last month we were at a crafts market and he needed a new wallet and found a nice leather one. When he paid he realized he misheard the price and what he thought was a $30 wallet was actually $80 but he just shrugged and bought it anyway, which I 100% would never have done.
What feels good to me is that almost all expenses would still be joint, including things like one of us eating out or taking an Uber ride without the other, because I think thatās likely to be pretty even in the end anyway. But I would still like to have separate accounts that the remainder of our individual salaries would stay in after whatever is spent on the joint stuff. For me, I would then want to use that account for things like new clothes (or $80 walletsā¦), my gym membership, if I take a solo vacation, etc.
Z is open to that kind of system in theory, although he doesnāt understand my emotional reaction to the idea of combining everything, which in his mind is the obvious choice now that weāre married. The biggest issue is really that logistically there are a lot of reasons why combining everything would be easier. We moved to this country for his job so he is the only one with a local bank account. This is also a very cash-based economy (including our rent), so in practice basically everything will be paid for by withdrawing cash from his account. So we canāt just set things up where we have a joint credit card for shared expenses and then I would just use my own card for my expenses, which would be easiest. We donāt even have a way to easily transfer money to and from the local account to our US accounts at the moment, although this will hopefully be set up eventually.
So basically to do things my way would require a lot of tracking of how much cash weāve withdrawn from his account and then how much of that gets spent on stuff that is considered ours, mine or his. And I find it really hard to track spending in cash in the first place, especially when a lot of it is smaller more frequent transactions than Iām used to (i.e. multiple smaller grocery trip per week rather than one big one). And then also figuring out a way to transfer money and settle up monthly. Unless there are other options Iām not thinking of?
Ok. I wanted to try to sort out some of these thoughts by writing them all up, but I would also love thoughts from anyone who has felt similarly uncomfortable with combining things and the thought of losing control over individual spending, especially if that changed for you at some point? And definitely if anyone has advice for how to track cash spending! Such a pain 
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what if during this period with lots of cash and only one job you each had weekly/monthly cash allowances and you kept it in a separate wallet for those types of things you want to spend it on (and if it is big like a trip, you have an envelope that you deposit back for that purpose)?
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Something like that may end up being the best system for us. And to be clear, I do have a job also but my income gets direct deposited to my US bank account so itās just less accessible for daily spending!
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I never saw it so much as losing control over individual spending but more as combining forces! So I viewed it as gaining a teammate. Of course you can keep things separate, Iām not trying to convince you. Iām just offering an alternative view. Like with this situation:
My husband and I definitely spend differently, but I think sometimes that kind of āomg I would never do that!ā can be an opportunity* for growth and evolution. For example, I would never spend on little one offs like he does. But I do now when weāre together and like, sometimes itās so worth it for convenience! Or it results in a really fun random thing happening. And it also hasnāt destroyed our finances like I thought it would. I was being too rigid.
On the other hand he was not one to ever spend on major house stuff. He would never spend hundreds of dollars on pillows or a lot of money on a couch. Heād have deemed it unnecessary and maybe even stupid because you can just sit on the floor! But he married me so he agreed to such purchases and now he raves about the homey feeling in our place, how comfortable it is, and gloriously how right I am. Iāve also taught him more about longterm planning, he was super afraid of investing. And he has brought a lot of actual income into my life, which I wouldnāt have otherwise. So we have ālost our independenceā technically, but it doesnāt feel that way at all. We traded up in my opinion and neither of us feels, like, restrained or caged in- not in any way! Kind of like how when youāre young and single the idea of being married to ONE person forever is like, terrifying and grim, haha. But when you actually fall in love itās like, ohhhhhh, I get it now!
Being in a vacuum can be a way of not questioning yourself ever, and also not pushing out of your own comfort zone. That was true in our case anyway. So sometimes I think those differences that seems scary (losing independence, being judged for purchases, judging partner for purchases) can be really positive areas to get closer together.
*Obligatory Disclaimer: Of course I am not talking about people experiencing weird financial abuse scenarios. Iām assuming the difference in approach is relatively reasonable and not putting someone at actual risk.
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Great explanation of how it can go well!
Maybe @chavala your part of the joint money could be put into a ājoint savingsā US account and his part can be the stuff you actually live on in egypt, rather than trying to move money into 1 joint account and then out again?
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So I think I explained my system above, and I wonāt restate, but it sounds similar to your goals? But we can use joint accounts and CC so itās easier.
Question: how difficult is it to get more local accounts, a joint account, etc? YMO finances do work better if you have separate (fairly invisible to each other) places to keep them. We have individual and shared accounts at one online bank (Ally) , which is great for transfers. He also has 2 old accounts at a brick and mortar national bank chain. I keep procrastinating opening one at the credit union at work. I donāt like having too many accounts but these all have a purpose (at least mine and ours).
Question: Do you feel that if/because you merge finances you should do the same amount of money management work? What Iāve seen is the person who does/enjoys more granular tracking will do more tracking, spreadsheets, systems and just tell the other partner, āthis is where we are, this is what you have, etc.ā How would that feel? (He could take on a different chore in exchange.)
Comment: I havenāt lived in a cash based economy but I have done extended (1mo) travel in one. I had to get comfortable with having a lot more cash on hand than I was used to keeping. And yes, use a larger wallet 
.
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Iāve been avoiding this topic. We are Canadian. Weāve been married 42 years. At the time we were married, if the woman didnāt work, she could not get a credit card in her own name. It had to be in the husbandās name and based on his income. However, I had worked summers in remote areas in between years at university and had a credit card. Everyone was pushing me to get an auxiliary card to hubbyās. But I discovered if I did that my credit rating went down for some reason, and it affected my ability to borrow money, sayā¦for a business venture. So, much to many peopleās consternation, I kept my initial card and still have a separate credit rating from hubby to this day.
I also discovered, in the process of canceling old cards I no longer used, that my credit rating took a significant hit. And if I put a self-imposed limit on my credit card, the credit rating also took a hit. So after whittling my credit card down to one, and putting a limit on that, Iāve finally got my credit rating back up where it belongs.
To be clear, I never carried debt on my credit cards. I view this as out and out discrimination against stay-at-home wives by the credit rating industry.
As for bank accountsā¦
Operating = joint chequing
Business/personal = my personal chequing. This will eventually need to be split into two chequing accounts.
Car & House = joint savings
Taxes & Insurance = joint savings
TFSA #1 = mine. Hubby wonāt get a TFSA. He thinks the government will just find a way to rip us all off through them.
TFSA #2 = mineā¦being transferred from another institution as products come due. While Iām a stay-at-home wife I did have two small inheritances from my parents when they passed away. Hubby said it was my money and to do what I wanted with it. So it has paid for some renovations and setting myself up in an art practice.
Emergency Fund = in a different bank from our other accounts, and supposedly joint. While I can see the balance in the account online, I have difficulty depositing to it and frankly, have never tried withdrawing from it. That makes me nervous. Itās the money for our funerals and burials.
RRSP = hubbyās
SRSP = mine
Hubby and I have had major disagreements about money over the years, and my parents noticed. When they, then separated and divorced, made their wills, they both came to me separately about my situation. They had both discussed the family situation with their lawyers, and both lawyers had pointed out I was the child most āat riskā.
Mom specified she wanted me to spend any inheritance on my ācraftsā, because she knew hubby was not supportive (heās since changed his tune).
Dad was more concerned about me actually living off less than he was in retirement. He had a different view of retirement than I did. I donāt particularly like to travel. He did.
I think there is a fine line to walk in marriage. It pays to know ahead of time which side of the line your SO is coming from. Hubby had a scarcity mindset and never discussed money or finances unless it was to criticize. I assumed everything was okay until he got angry about me spending money. As we werenāt even tracking our expenses at the time, I thought it highly unfair of him to get angry at me about spending money. I had no way to know how much we had, and he controlled the bills.
To this day he controls the bills, but we have a budget now and a monthly budget meeting. So I can kind of see whatās happening in retrospect. I still donāt have access to Quicken. Itās on his computer, which I am discouraged from touching. Itās frustrating, but it is what it is. I have my own cc and my own chequing account, so I just make sure I donāt overspend them.
Thatās us. Itās complicated. Sorry itās so long folks!
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I really enjoyed that, thank you!
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my husband and i got together when i was 35 and married when i was 39 (he is 3 years older than me).
at first when we got married, we combined our assets and debts (we each had low 5 figures ā student loans for me and cc debt for him). it worked great ā we paid off all our debts and got out of a bad house purchase heād made before we got together. then he lost his job and felt weird about spending money i was earning and ran up 5 figures of secret credit card debt over his 2 years of unemployment and mental health struggles.
we separated for a while, and i wasnāt sure we were gonna make it. financial chaos and secrets are not acceptable to me after having grown up with a super irresponsible single dad who ruined my credit and stole from me on several occasions while i was still a minor. and on his side, sharing all of his money with me triggered some weird shame/secrecy stuff.
but we figured it out and now we are back together. we no longer have joint finances. i pay the bills and he pays me a flat rate per month to cover his share. we then settle up at the end of the month on our household/joint spending categories and transfer over whatever difference there was in our spending ā itās usually only a couple hundred bucks, stuff tends to even out.
itās not financially optimal but it works for us emotionally. we show each other our stuff on mint every now and then just so i can feel ok that nothing secret is going on, and i am making a good amount of money these days (about twice what he makes) so i can meet my savings and investment goals on my own.
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Itās definitely good for a laugh! And I havenāt told you the half of it! You should have seen hubby gyrate and procrastinate and weasel out of doing a budget! It took over a year from the time I suggested it for him to actually agree to implement one. AND, he still doesnāt budget right.
He works on past expenses because he hates setting goals. To him itās all or nothing. You either spend no money (not possible if you have kids, a place to live and want to eat), or just ignore the bank balance and say āoh! We spent this much last month or last year. Itāll be the same this month or next year.ā
I finally sat him down, just this month, to do a projected expenses for the month of October. Good thing too. We are spending majorly out of our savings for once in a lifetime or once every five years stuff. Itās incredible. But I am thankful that we have the savings to cover it allā¦again those savings account ideas were initiated by me.
The kicker to all this? This guy took two years in accounting at post secondary level before leaving to eventually become a mid-level manager, handling finances for a fairly large branch of a government institution. Iām just a shaking my head here.
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Lmao Iām dying that your hubby studied accounting. My dad was an accountant and he is THE WORST with his own money, itās astonishing!
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reminds me of this quote from a Sarah Caudwell book, āJuliaās unhappy relationship with the Inland Revenue was due to her omission, during four years of modestly successful practice at the Bar, to pay any income tax. The truth is, I think, that she did not, in her heart of hearts, really believe in income tax. It was a subject which she had studied for examinations and on which she had thereafter advised a number of clients: she naturally did not suppose, in these circumstances, that it had anything to do with real life.ā
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. Yep!
The choice you make now doesnāt have to be your choice forever.
My now-husband and I moved in together in our late 20s and started with a shared account for big joint expenses (rent, food) and individual accounts for everything else.
For me, it was partly due to practicalities and partly due to similar feelings of losing independence. Historical gender-based power dynamics probably played a role too. After 2 years we started gradually switching to mostly joint, around the same time as getting legally married. Now, almost 15 years and many life changes later that increasingly built shared habits & trust, we have a fully shared approach. There are actually some assets technically in my name only but we rely on our stateās marriage property laws to mean theyāre shared (and budget accordingly). We still have some individual accounts around that are rarely used - a CC for him, a checking account for me. Retirement accounts are also in each personās name.
Do you have any US-based retirement accounts? By nature those are in 1 personās name only, so while theyāll be a little trickier to access in case of emergency (early withdrawal penalties), they provided a measure of psychological comfort for me.
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A few follow up questions: what about this is making you uncomfortable? Is it that you have different spending patterns and you are worried that he will spend more than you and compromise your ability to spend on things you personally want? What would give you the feeling of control over individual spending? Making sure that you have budgeted enough for you too?
It seems like for this scenario an āallowanceā or āagreed upon amount of personal fun money per monthā could be a good solution? We have a rule in our house that any spending above $500 we need to talk to the other partner. This works well for us because anything under that limit cannot change our situation and we both know that the other isnāt going to rack up a bunch of $499 purchases. This is an intent of the law not letter of the law situation.
It can be easy to look at where my partner spends more money than me but looking at the full picture it really does balance out. He spends more on his hobbies and I spend more on mine.
With mostly cash I think each of you pulling out $XXX dollars on the first of every month and putting it in your own wallet/envelope could be a great option. No need to track where each of you spend it. If you want to hold on to yours for 3 months and buy something bigger no problem, if he wants to spend it on wallets and other smaller things no problem. With this strategy all other cash spending will be on the combined stuff and you donāt have to track for payback (groceries, etc that you mentioned).
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This week ended up being too busy for me to fully read and respond to everything here but I will block time for that later and really appreciate all the responses in the meantime!
As a quick thought, I think that a big part of what makes me uncomfortable is the tracking issue, not necessarily the joint finances issue. If I know what weāre spending and what itās being spent on and itās all amounts that I feel comfortable with then thatās fine. But the combination of not having a good tracking system and having to consider spending decisions by a person who is not me is whatās really getting to me, I think.
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This is an interesting point. When Husband and I combined finances, we actually combine our tracking before we ever formally combined our finances. We threw all of our accounts in Mint and tracked them all together. That definitely makes me more comfortable. I think I would have a harder time not having any idea what was being spent.
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