Shared or One Person?

Hi S.,
I definitely think it's easier to have one person in charge of the money. I actually am the one that is in charge of paying the bills and balancing every month. I still keep my husband informed of $$$$ and so on but it works for us.

We have been married 28 years and one thing I know for sure is that money is the biggest reason for divorce. That said, what we have done is that my husband keeps track of when the bills come in and when they are due, he pays them. That gives me one less thing to think about. He does not however touch the register, we have carbons. I have Quicken and I keep track of the actual balance, that way we communicate and both have a function. We have only one checking and savings account, not his and hers. He knows what I spend and I know what he spends, openness is the best policy. We make most decisions together, however I know that if I want something, and it won't break the budget, I get it, and the same for him. We consult on the big things, but respect each others judgment.

S. ~

I think it is SO important that both spouses are involved in the financial planning of the household. To what extent is up to each of them. It's not just about the money; it's about partnership and trust. One person constantly handling the money and the other person having no idea how the whole thing works sets disasters in motion.

Dave Ramsey is a nationally syndicated talk radio host and financial advisor who has helped thousands of families through financial stages from getting out of serious trouble to building wealth. He makes so much sense and his thought process works! (Dave heads up a program called Financial Peace University. My husband and I began the program 2 1/2 years ago and it has meant the difference between living paycheck to paycheck and being financially stable. If you're interested, he's at daveramsey.com.)

Anyway, according to Dave, the "nerd" of the family (the number-cruncher, the reliable one = my husband) puts together a rough draft of the budget, then the "free spirit" (the one who would choose a root canal over a "money conversation" = me) shows up for a "budget committee meeting". The rule for the nerd is: you had your say by presenting your plan - now SHUT UP! The rule for the free spirit is: YOU MUST SHOW UP AND PARTICIPATE. "Whatever you want, dear" is not an option. According to Dave, the meeting should last about 17 minutes long, since that's about the most the average free spirit can handle. In our house, cut it in half. lol

Anyway, my husband has his color-coded, spit-shined, automatically-calculating spreadsheets and I have time for my home maintenance, games of Candy Land and bubble baths and I still have a say in where the money is going each month. And every penny is spent on paper before our account ever sees the paycheck. It's a great system and I believe our marriage is stronger because we've worked together on it!

Hope this helps ~
R.

I'm the one who makes sure all the bills are paid (I mostly do automatic bill-pay online through my bank) and keep track of that stuff, but my husband is very informed and involved in the decision-making process with money. We typically have a "quarterly meeting" where we sit down and discuss finances and readjust our spending plan as needed. We decide together how to spend our money and neither of us spends a large chunk of money without consulting with the other one (unless it's our "personal money." We decided on a certain amount that we each get each month that we can spend however we want).

Hi S. -

We just finished going through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University and through that we learned to budget really well and pay cash for most purchases. We agreed together on a budget and both stick to that using any left over money to build savings or pay down debt (like cars/house). Overall my husband manages the bank accounts but since we use cash, there really isn't an issue of "is there money??" and since starting this we havne't fought about money at all. I think it's healthy in marriage for the couple to decide on the budget together but one person has overall management of the money. My husband is that person because bills and our debt stresses me out. He uses mint.com to keep track of all our purchases. It's free and a wonderful resource and since I use cash for all my purchases, I know exactly what I have to spend. If what you are doing is working in your marriage, then stick to it. Every couple prefers something different and I encourage you to work together to find what works best in your marriage. It took us 7 years, hopefully you can find it quicker than us =)

Hi S.-

My husband makes most of the money, but i handle all the bills. He has nothing to do with the money. His checks go into our joint account, and from there I pay the bills and household items. He does have a separate account in which he gets a set amount of money from each paycheck and that is what he is allowed to spend on whatever. This was actually his idea as he is not good with money.

We each have our own accounts and a joint one, which is mostly used by me on maternity leave and as a place we can transfer money inbetween online. We each have our own bills we pay (my husband gets all the house bills). We basically leave each other alone and expect the other will do their part.

My husband's job is beyond full time so it just makes sense for me to handle our banking and bill paying.
I update him every few weeks or maybe monthly of "where we are" and..
When it comes to budgeting, we sit down and talk out what bills we have and what bills we will be expecting.
We discuss what we'd like to do for the year (we'd like to take a week long vacation without the kids) and work on a way to make it happen.
Most of the time when we set a goal like vacation or work on the house then I'll take a small amount from each of his paychecks and put it into a savings account until we can reach our goal.
I would vote on not letting finances get in the way of any relationship..remember that there's always more then one way to work on the budget-good luck.

I gave the job to my hubbie, basically by force - he didn't want it! I have discovered that having me do the finances just doesn't work for us. It makes me feel like his mother, and it makes him respond like a sullen adolescent to my reminders about financial responsibility. When he's in charge I respect him much more and he has much more impetus to think about financial responsibility himself, rather than having me nag. Our progress is slow, but I think it's better than having me drag him kicking and screaming.

Hi S.-
We have tried it "his" way & I let us go in the negative to show him I am the better one to "handle it". He now agrees that I know what I am doing & a better penny pincher than him. LOL I have ALOT of collections/financial/debt consultation work experience that has given me a sort of edge. I make sure I say something like:"we" just paid the light bill so I do not look like I get all the credit. As well as I include him or let him look at the balance online when I am there. It is not really a 50/50- I pay them all with our income together. We also tried paying certain bills with our checks but that was unreliable. Paying all your bills online can really be easier & less time consuming. Making them automatic withdrawls each month on the date agreed by payday etc. is also helpful.
Oh! I also tend not to "rub it in" that I pay. He does not really care unless something happened or he needs to be reassured (like all men do LOL).
Good Luck!

Even if there is one person in charge of the mechanics of your money you still need to make sure there is an open dialoug about your money. I take care of the bills and the investments etc, but I make sure that my husband is very aware of our financial picture. When one person takes care of it all and there is no communication it can be dangerous because the person who is not in the know is left to make uninformed financial decisions. It will work out. Try picking one night a week where you sit down and review your finances for the week so that you are both on the same page. it is important for your husband to be informed so that he can make wise choices for your family.

Hi S.-
Most of the time, it is easier for one person to handle budgeting and money. Sounds like you have a gift for it. Of course, any major purchase should be discussed by the two of you, and your husband will need some money for purchasing coffee at his work, etc. I've decided that in many ways, the old-fashioned roles each person played within a household were much easier to handle than the sort of sharing that precipitates disagreements. Hope it helps- S.

S.,

Whether it is a shared responsibility, or soley on you or soley on your husband to do the finances for the entire household, be ABSOLUTELY sure that the other of you know what is going on, what passwords are, where the investments are, and that you are both completely joint holders on your accounts. Why? Should the one doing the finances die, the other needs to be able to pick up where the other leaves off (or for long term illness, disability, etc.).

~D.
(I do our finances, fyi)

My husband and I keep our finances separate. It's not for everyone - we both work full time and we split the family bills down the middle. But we each have separate credit cards and car payments. This makes it easy for us to make personal purchases without having to answer to the other. For example, if I want to spend a lot of money on a pair of shoes or if he wants to buy new golf clubs, we make that decision on our own. based on whether we have the money in our individual accounts to do it. It works r
eally well for us, but like I said, it's not for everyone. The reason we do this - we started out sharing everything and my husband controlled the finances and we fought constantly about money. This solution probably saved our marriage.
I hope you find something that works for you.

we tried the sharing thing years ago and it didnt work. especially with both of us working so much and i sometimes changed shifts so we didnt see each other much. what we did is divide the bills in half. my husband pays for certain bills and I pay for others. we have three accounts. one for the household and we each have a personal one. we put most of our money intothe household acount. we have a good idea of what the expenses are going to be and we each contribute. we also put some money into a joint savings that we use for investments, vacations and emergencies. what is left over goes into our personal accounts. thatway if i want to gie the kids money i do it form my accountor if i want to go shopping i can buy what i want without having to answer to anyone. same goes for my hsuband. he tends ot spend more than i do out fo his discretionary account an he sometimes comeas and borrows but he does pay it back. at one time i found i was the only one putting maoney into savings so i also opened another savings account and i put the extra oney in there and when vacation comes or an major applicance breaks we have that to back us up or if i want to buy a bigger item.we always pay ourselves first which means that we dont create a debt the will ot allow us to put at least a couplehundred dollars each paycheck into our savings. for example my husband pays for the car payments and insurances and he wanted more money so he shopped for cheaper insurance. that also lowered our home insurance so i saved mony on my payments. i pay the mortgage and utilities. we doa biggrocery run once a month and we alternate so we both know that we have an extra expense every other month. andwe both buy dya to day things as theyrun our depending onwhoisout andabout when we run out fo milk or bread etc.

Hi S.-

When my husband and I got married over seven years ago we decided that we didn't want to share all of our accounts, but didn't want everything to be totally separate either. What we decided to do is open a joint checking and savings account for household and family things and keep each of our own checking and savings accounts for our own money and bills. For the joint accounts, we both make deposits to pay household bills and to save for vacations, etc. Monthly, I pay all of the bills out of our joint checking account and put any left over money into our joint savings account. My husband balances both accounts when our statements come every month. This has worked out really well and both of us know what is going on with our "joint" money so there is never any question on either side. We have caught each others mistakes on occassion as well. Good luck with what ever you decide to do. I think you are smart to think about these sorts of things. Lots of people don't and problems arise because they didn't.

My husband and I share the responsibility and we use Quicken to keep track of things. We use it to track of our bill due dates and when we pay them-- whether we pay online, over the phone, or by check-- it all goes into the checking log in the program. We enter all of our credit/debit receipts and paycheck info (we each enter our own receipts individually) every week or so, then we match our Quicken info to our checking/savings account statements online to make sure everything is correct. You can also set budgeting limits for certain categories so you can see where you need to make improvements in your spending habits.

It's not a perfect system as it requires you to enter your info and track it often but it's better than other systems. One of our friends just has all of his bills set up for auto pay and then he checks his account balances every couple of days to see how much money he has. He doesn't pay attention to where his money goes or when anything is due! Says that as long as he's getting a paycheck, it doesn't matter... scary.

I think Quicken has helped us a lot. It wasn't too expensive and is pretty easy to use. Maybe give it a try. :)

S.,
My husband and I share roles in our finances. I do the bill paying, but he manages the bank accounts. Basically I am responsible to make sure that the bill payments are sent out on time and let him know when and what they will be. His responsibility is to make sure that the bank account can handle those expenditures when they happen, if that means moving money from savings to checking just before a payday, or moving excess from checking to saving, setting up auto transfers to savings, etc. We sat down and worked through a budget so that we were on the same financial page to reach COMMON GOALS, i.e. monthly expenses, vacations, major purchases, college savings, etc.

Placing the responsibility on my husband of making sure that the funds are available when I need to pay bills has reduced my stress in that area. He works outside the home, and I work from home so he does have more opportunities to spend on lunches and gas, so he needs to know what is available to him as well and when he needs to make sacrifices (Subway instead of Outback for lunch) to help make ends meet.

In my home I am the only person that handles the finances. Whenever a bill comes in or when either of us gets paid I make a list ahead of time of the bills that have to be paid and the ones that have been paid. So for instance at the top of the page I write bills and the pay period and what pay check that's coming in to pay what. I also give a previous balace of what's left in the account from last time. When I add up and calculate all bills I send my husband a copy of everything by email or I give him a hard copy so he can't say he did not know what was going on or what was paid or or how much we now have after bills are paid. If you would like to see an example of what I am talking about please email me privately. Remember this is in real generic format. I hope this helps. Also my husband and I both have separate accounts but our paychecks go into our joint main account. Once we get paid I transfer money into each account for us to do with what we wish. But one person should be over the account.

I do all the bills and financial things in our house. My husband really has no clue what is going on and really does not care to. I have tried to go over it with him in the past but he just likes to know that I have it all taken care of and everything is paid. It works well for us since he does not care and I like to be in control to make sure everything is done right.

Hi, my husband does the bills because he is better with technical stuff and was able to set up a system on the computer to print check and manage our account online. I have the checkbook because he hardly writes checks. We went over the budget awhile ago and I know how much I have to spend for activities and "extras" with the kids. I write down what I spend, so I don't go over the budget.

I too do the bills and check book balancing in our house. We use 'Microsoft Money' and have used this for years to track everything. I usually report to him how the finances are looking and we discuss any major purchases. If it were in his hands everything would be on autopay and checkbooks unbalanced and I don't like that, he can be pretty lazy if you let him. Most of our bills can be paid online or delivered directly so we don't use many stamps either. He does the taxes but since I have kept everything up to date with MM it isn't too difficult for him.

I am a SAHM and I also do all the money handling in our house. It is easier to have one account and one person take care of everything. I tried to get my husband on board. I figured it was our bills and our budget, but I swear I could see his eyes glaze over whenever I talked about it. So its just me and I think thats better. I certainly feel more secure knowing its all taken care off. I think most households have one money person. The other spouse is blissfully ignorant as to what the bills even are..atleast mine is lol.

Hi S.,

I handle all of the finance for our home and business. It can be a daunting task with the tough financial times. Up until this week, my husband of 3 years and I had seperate accounts which was good when we both worked but I stay home with our daughter and since he brings home all the money it was silly to have two accounts and have to move money around each week. I am looking forward to only having one personal account and one business account to manage. I think it will be much easier. I have one concern about getting the receipts from him (he is bad about that) so what I will do is check our account on line every day or two to see what is happening. If I can do it once a week that will be better but until I see how this is going to work I want to monitor it close.

The good thing is we never spend money on anything major without discussing it. My husband doesn't spend too much during the week so it should be find.

I think it is best to have one person handle the money but you have to be in agreement and you have to discuss things and you both need to understand your budget and how much money is coming in and going out and where. As long as your husband understands and can help you make choices you shoud be fine.

Good luck!

my husband does it, because he is the one that pays attention to the calendar and gets the bills paid on time!

We do have an agreement with each other to discuss any large purchases and we are both pretty good about not spending small amounts on non-necessary items as well. We make decisions jointly about what we are saving for, what major purchases to make, and so on. I am happy to let him do the bill paying and checkbook balancing.

Communication is vital.

Great question! I took over all bill paying etc when I started working from home. It was a matter of me having more of the time (and organizational skills) to do it. I have learned over the last 3 years that the important thing is communication. I know that sounds simple but even though my husband doesn't see everything, I check in with him every couple of months to make sure he knows where we are. Obviously, if you have issues of one spouse being a bigger spender or having control issues, you need to communicate even more!!

Hi S.:
My husband and I have recently begun using a budget system that really accounts for our pennies, really down to the penny. We use the system of Phoenix locals The Economides, dubbed "Americas Cheapest Family". Each month we sit down together and go through all of our receipts, cross reference these with our bank statement, and log where we're spending our money, broken down into categories. I'd really recommend the book "America's Cheapest Family" from your library, just for ideas. Good luck, let me know if you'd like to know more :)

I like numbers so I do it, but any major decisions I ask my husband. I also show him from time to time how our spending is going, so that he knows when to cut back on extras and when it's okay.

I am currently enrolled in Financial Peace University with Dave Ramsey. Mainly because after 7 years of marriage and letting my husband be in charge of our finances we are now in a financial mess. I had no clue until this past January. I suggest you take this seminar. I am only 3 classes into it and it has opened my eyes! It also shares with statistics that money problems are the root of most failed marriages. Sharing the finances means agreeing on a budget.Take this seminar...it is a breath of fresh air and may one day save your marriage!

I think this is a great question - but the "right" answer depends on what is most important for your family. If efficiency is really important, then one person doing everything seems like an effective solution. However, if it is important for everyone to feel involved and informed, then I think you might be wise to consider sharing the responsibility. Sharing is not as efficient, but the other benefits are considerable.

Personally, I think it is important for everyone in a family to know how the finances "work". If anything should ever "happen" to the main money person, then someone else absolutely needs to be comfortable stepping in and taking care of business. No one wants to think about that, but things do happen.