Poll: Do You have Separate Accounts or Joint for ALL Assets?

[REWahoo]

Joint - that's how we roll.

 

[kimcdougc]

Married DH at the ripe old age of 19 back in 1979. He was 21. Joint everything except IRA and Roth's. I handle our whole portfolio. He has the passwords etc to everything but shoes no interest in any of the bill paying etc. (He does on occasion when I am making a business phone call want to chime in....I am like do you want to handle the call? Let's get real, it is hard to hear the people on the phone to whom you are doing business when there is a little person chirping in the background his opinion. lol)

We do each have our own stash of cash to do with what we want. No questions asked.

 

[haha]

Also, whether or not you plan to keep a young mistress?

I doubt that she needs or wants a mistress, young or otherwise.

Ha

 

[athena53]

My son and his DW maintain a joint checking account that they transfer funds into from their individual a/c's to handle paying household/joint expenses. Their individual accounts handle their personal expenses. That makes sense to me because with constant ATM or debit card transactions coming from two parties, I think it would be too easy to overdraw an account. But they are on the same page vis a vis their financial goals, savings rates, etc.

I had that arrangement when I owned a 2-family house with a friend. We kept all the bills paid and had no problems agreeing on when to fund improvements to the house when there were funds available.

And yes, having the other person making ATM or debit card withdrawals out of a joint account would drive me nuts! As I said- I'm a financial control freak. I didn't know and didn't care how DH spent his "walking-around money" as long as it didn't affect an account in my name.

 

[Aerides]

It's a mix. Our pre-marriage stuff like 401ks and checking, some savings, stuff like that - separate, just never bothered to merge which would mean changing bill pays etc., so no real compelling reason to do it.

Joint is mostly stuff we opened for our taxable retirement savings - the big bucket. But we both also have small separate trading accounts, CD's, MM's. Just never been a reason to merge more than we do.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Joint everything except IRAs, 457, and inherited annuity. We might open separate bank accounts if needed to stay within FDIC insurance limits but that hasn't been necessary so far. She used to keep a separate credit card for buying xmas presents so I wouldn't see them on the bill, but we really don't do up xmas any more so we don't even have that now.

Before I got married I was good friends with a coworker and his wife. They had every last dime separate and it wasn't unusual to hear one say to the other, "you owe me fifteen dollars because I picked up your dinner last night." It wasn't surprising when they split up.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

When we were W$#k*&g, especially after we got married and bought a home together, DW handled all the bills and check writing, all accounts & assets were still joint, just the financial responsibilities were hers as I was always traveling.

After I ER'd , it swapped as she continued working for a couple of years after. So I manage all assets (Including her 427b). I have a spreadsheet with all account passwords and locations (encrypted, she can find the codes if she needs them). We keep it in a hidden safe.

DW has no idea what the numbers are and does not really care. I do try to tell he when we hit a milestone, but she is more interested in the celebratory bottle of nice wine than the numbers themselves. We buy most things together and usually consult on large items, unless it is a car and she has absolutely no interest in that, she just drives them. I usually force her to listen to my thought process for big items though, honestly I do not think she cares (Just go buy it already is a typical response). We have a joint CC (2 actually) and we both use them to get what we need when we need it. Occasionally we discuss monthly expenditures but VERY rarely. It Seems to have worked so far. If she buys something, occasionally she will tell me, but then I show little interest. So it works both ways.

 

[candrew]

I responded no, but for no good reason we have his, her and joint taxable brokerage accounts... however the his and her taxable accounts combined are only ~8.5% of the total. That said, I totally manage the individual accounts and have considered consolidating them through in-kind transfers.

All other separate accounts are just those required by law, such as tIRAs, Roths and HSAs.

+1

For the no good reason other than we each had his/her separate taxable accounts dating back to the wage slavery days that were funded through our respective employers' auto deposit. We did put both of those accounts into our trust and have one another as beneficiaries. Those accounts comprise about 5%.

 

[Montecfo]

Joint everything.

I can see a lot of reasons why people may have separate (not married, second marriage etc) but if you married young and made a life together, I’ll never understand why that wouldn’t include joint accounts. Yet, I know plenty of young people that don’t have joint accounts and always talk about his or her money. I find that odd...

I agree. We are all joint. We discuss our purchases but it is never a huge deal.

 

[calmloki]

After and through the last 40 unmarried years we are joint on everything - except a few banks where we wanted to have more than 250k FDIC insured, but there we were individual and beneficiary. Just in the last month or so it dawned on me that if we don't snuff it together it would be decent to recognize our respective families. Before we just had agreed that if one of us croaked the remaining person would disburse a set amount to the other's family. Now I've transferred Vanguard stocks held jointly into an individual account. That way I can set beneficiary percentages for my family members and that will transfer tax free TOD. If the market keeps going higher I can transfer shares back to the joint account now and again to keep the TOD amount where we want it.

So yeah - pretty much all joint except for accounts where we are playing insurance or tax avoidance games.

 

[Car-Guy]

Also, whether or not you plan to keep a young mistress?

Just a note, it might be best to keep that expense on a cash only basis.

 

[big-papa]

Nearly 30 years ago we got married. At the time, we were both earning engineer's salaries and had been fully independent for the better part of a decade. So we started off with his, hers, and ours. The original idea what that was whatever was in his was his to spend without question and likewise with her. Seemed great on paper but what a pain in the butt to keep up with! At the end of the day, after a year or so, we ditched that and everything became joint: savings, checking, the house, etc. Only things separate are those which much be: retirement accounts.

And that thing we were trying to deal with by having his and hers? Solved via communication. duh.

 

[sengsational]

I read the question as "separate spending accounts". The ones separate by law are boring in this context...everyone has separate ones. So the spending accounts, or I suppose savings accounts could be separate. Anyway...

I answered "yes", separate, even though technically it's joint. She spends out of one account, and I spend out of another, but both are owned jointly.

Originally we spent out of the same account, but that meant much more pain at reconciliation time, gathering her receipts and check stubs and stuff, along with mine. It's much simpler to let her reconcile her own, and me mine. Also, as Old Shooter says, life is so much happier if my "stupid purchases" don't have attention called to them, and her "wise spending decisions" never get my attention. The level of funding gets discussed and adjusted occasionally.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

Originally we spent out of the same account, but that meant much more pain at reconciliation time, gathering her receipts and check stubs and stuff, along with mine. It's much simpler to let her reconcile her own, and me mine. Also, as Old Shooter says, life is so much happier if my "stupid purchases" don't have attention called to them, and her "wise spending decisions" never get my attention. The level of funding gets discussed and adjusted occasionally.

This is way too granular for us. The day we need (want, or feel the need) to go through each individual expenditure is the day one of us considers going back to w#$k. It is way to complicated. In ER our life should be easy. Tracking every expenditure is also not really needed once you know what your average burn rate is. We do not keep any receipts (Unless there is a warranty or rebate) or write any checks.

 

[sengsational]

So SWR, when the bank statement comes in, or credit card statement comes in, you just pay it / accept it? Not that I've found too many, but I've had a few double-charges and outright fraud from restaurant employees. It's just a few clicks and it's reconciled....no big deal. And frankly, we don't really use the data. Once a year I'll dump her data and my data and run a few reports, but never anything we act upon, so just "gee wiz" stuff. But we do enter the numbers, assign a "budget category" (usually self-assigns because the vendor has been used before).

 

[davebarnes]

38 years of marriage with separate accounts.
But:
1. Our checking/[small] savings accounts (13 in total) are in the same credit union and we each have complete visibility and can transfer money.
2. Our retirements accounts are at Fidelity and we each have complete visibility and can transfer money.

 

[mickeyd]

We have always used a joint account when appropriate. Of course, we can't take that action with IRA and Roth accounts. It has worked out very well and is a snap to account for.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

So SWR, when the bank statement comes in, or credit card statement comes in, you just pay it / accept it? Not that I've found too many, but I've had a few double-charges and outright fraud from restaurant employees. It's just a few clicks and it's reconciled....no big deal. And frankly, we don't really use the data. Once a year I'll dump her data and my data and run a few reports, but never anything we act upon, so just "gee wiz" stuff. But we do enter the numbers, assign a "budget category" (usually self-assigns because the vendor has been used before).

Not exactly. It is the receipt and checks part we do not do. The only bill we have is CC and the statement is electronic. Monthly I look at the total, if it looks OK, I do just pay it. I actually set up an on line payment for 5 days before it is due. I then look at the on line statement and see if there is anything out of the ordinary. I do not analyze each individual charge. If there is something I do not recognize I ask DW if she knows. If she does not I call the CC company and dispute it or ask for more info. I can usually tell now by simply looking at the vendor.

 

[Walt34]

All of ours are joint (except for the IRA and her TSP). This is a second marriage for me and first for her (brave girl!) but since it's going on 30+ years now I think it's gonna work. She wrote up a spreadsheet that takes our income, estimated expenses like groceries & utilities and every time one of us makes an ATM withdrawal or charges anything on a credit card we enter that in the spreadsheet and it recalculates what the remaining discretionary income is for the rest of the month. If we do blow through the discretionary income, then spending stops for the rest of the month. If extra money is needed for something occasional like a new water heater we either cash flow it or take some or all out of savings after a discussion, depending on what else is going on at the time.

I'm sure some people wouldn't like that but it works fine for us.

 

[Moemg]

We have been together 18 years and living together 16 years . Investments are separate but household things are combined and the rest is up for grabs .It works for us but it is a weird system. We were both married before and met in our early 50's

 

[pacergal]

Joint savings and checking since marriage. Individual pension and 457 acct. with each other 100% beneficiary.

 

[523HRR]

Happily married more than 22 years and never had a jointly owned account. DW pays for some things; I pay for others. Not a big deal. Has worked well for us.

 

[38Chevy454]

All joint accounts except for the IRA type accounts which law requires to be individual.

 

[Corporateburnout]

Joint accounts for everything except IRAs. I manage the finances but with her ATM and CCs she spends on whatever she wants and needs and I do the same. No questions asked.


It has worked for us for 40+ years....

 

[gerntz]

Taxable Brokerage Trust Accounts are titled individually for estate reasons but joint trustees. Net, for practical purposes, all is joint. Been that way all 48 years.