We’re both strong advocates for Seperate finances working just fine thank you very much. He has personal reasons to not combine finances. Me? I think it sounds inefficient and we’d honestly have more trouble deciding HOW to budget than WHAT to budget. I can’t fathom non monthly budgets, or this nebulous slush fund thing people use. He would take one look at my short term savings accounting and throw his hands up.

Our advice? If its working for you, don’t mess with it!

You said:

“We each have “our” accounts from which we pay our personal expenses (haircuts, gas, credit card bill). And we have a “joint” household account, from which we pay the mortgage, taxes, food, utilities, vet bills, and vacation expenses.”

I’d just like to note a friendly warning: if you have both seperate and joint accounts, it might be easier for double-charges or unwanted charges or other types of grey charges to pass through unnoticed. Let’s assume you scan your bill statements to make sure they seem reasonably accurate. It’s possible that something seemingly accurate (like a magazine subscription) could pop up on two statements, and you’d think that it was legit, even though you’re actually getting double-billed.

By the way, this isn’t directed at “you,” specifically. I’m referring to the general “you,” as in, anyone who’s juggling managing multiple statements with a series of account holders. It’s tough to manage all those transactions … it’s work! So, just wanted to put that message out there.

We each have “our” accounts from which we pay our personal expenses (haircuts, gas, credit card bill). And we have a “joint” household account, from which we pay the mortgage, taxes, food, utilities, vet bills, and vacation expenses.

We are legally joint on all accounts, which helps with the longer-term issues, as well as transparency. But in practice, “his” is his, and “mine” is mine.

This has worked well for 16 years.

Now, as we get older, it’s getting trickier. I have always been a big saver, and have set aside more money than he in retirement. He has typically made a bit less, but he’s managed a business that we own jointly, so I feel that he’s doing that for our future, and it’s not an issue.

Where we’re beginning to hit the wall: a huge disparity in retirement savings, and in inheritance expectations.

DH inherited a bit of money a few years back, and I insisted that he keep it separate. He is likely to inherit substantially more funds in the future from his parents, and it’s unlikely I will inherit anything from mine.

I have to say it’s beginning to puzzle me as to how we’ll integrate those funds into our life. He’ll be benefiting from my extreme savings in retirement (and health care coverage!), so it’s beginning to make sense that his future inheritance be part of his retirement plans – from which, in fairness, I think I should benefit.

We haven’t solved this one yet, because we haven’t needed to. But the neat thing is – after all these years together, I have faith that we will.

However, when the two people truly aren’t at extremes, I think that it could be very possible to be very successful together if they are both highly committed to each other and have the ability to truly compromise.

Over the 4 years, we’ve gotten closer to the same page. I’ve always been the one reluctant to spend money, and she’s always loved spending it, and we’ve both come a little more toward the middle as time goes on.

He, on the other hand, puts in a lot of hour at our fledgling business. He doesn’t make much, but his time is where it needs to be right now. I realize there has to be some sort of give and take for us to make our ventures take off.

Still, it’s tough to work till the wee hours of the morning worrying about debts, medical bills, and yes – taxes. We don’t talk about it much, but when it’s really important, we seem to be able to do so without tearing each other’s heads off!

In the first year of marriage, my husband handed over the reins completely to me and I struggled with so much responsibility. It is very daunting to know that not only was I responsible for paying all the bills but saving for retirement as well.

It is much better now with both of us managing it jointly. We do not discuss spending too much because we trust each other but we have a monthly discussion where we take a detailed look over all our accounts.

The key is that we both understand being married means you have to take care of yourself, or else you will become a burden to your partner down the line. This applies to finances as well as taking care of your health.

It also helps that we have similar values in terms of financial goals, spending habits, etc.

Brian and I also split everything down the middle. I think it works because we put the other person first. We don’t let anything get in the way of making things financially fair for the other person. If one of us lost our job, for example, we know we could depend on the other. But we’d do everything we could to prevent that burden from happening. Essentially, I think we’re financially independent not just for ourselves, but for the sake of the other, too. If that makes sense.

Loved your writing, as always, and congrats on meeting your match!

Everyone’s comments are very encouraging

So my response is, there is little difference between how most separate or joint finances handle retirement.

The main possible difference I can thing of is when only a select person’s account is being funded in their name. There are couples who only max out one individual’s retirement account, or only FUND one retirement account, which is very dangerous for the one left out in the lurch.

I personally prefer to have separate financing, with a joint “bridge”. Each has their own retirement, savings, checking. Then there is a joint savings and checking which are used only for mutual or agreed expenses.

Given that people have such different ideas about what is appropriate for retirement savings, different risk tolerances and all that, I don’t see any problem with saving separately for retirement. I would assume that each would support the other in the end no matter what anyway, so why not let each handle things their own way? (If your spouse ‘does it wrong,’ you have bigger problems anyway.)

This line popped into my head as I started to comment here, because my dude and I are so perfectly matched in every way except financially– We were CLOSE to being matched perfectly financially, so we had to get creative.

We are both thrifty and can get along well with very little. However, he is fantastically generous with money and I am not. A big part of this is that he is on permanent disability and set for life without needing to work anymore, without needing to consider retirement savings, and without needing to consider things like disability insurance. I work an 8-5 job, sock lots of money into savings (I get paid a bit more than he does), and have a variety of insurances.

When he has money, he wants to buy me presents, he wants to take his friends out for drinks, and he wants to “loan” his brother money (that’s a whole ‘nother thing).

How we’ve worked this out is that after rent, he pays for the fun stuff and I pay for everything else.

At first I didn’t like the idea of having separate finances– but why not? Every couple works together differently, and it is up to each couple to figure out what works best for them.

What’s great about this arrangement? I get to totally relax when we go to happy hour, knowing that it’s on his dime. I can look the other way when Brother gets handed $20 here and there. I can stock our fridge with healthy, high-quality food, and when kale and quinoa look bleak to him, he can run to Taco Bell and I don’t get financially offended.

Basically, I get to be as frugal and financially savvy as if I were an independent, unattached woman, and I go out on lots of dates with an awesome dude and get lots of cool presents that I would NEVER have bought for myself. And he gets to spend whatever he wants on whatever he wants, knowing that his basic needs are taken care of, if he runs out of money before his next check.

It rocks.

There’s no reason why each couldn’t manage investing their own 401k, and make decisions together what to do with it when it’s time to take the funds out. That way if there is a separation, both are prepared.