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Comment by Scubabear68 | Hacker News Reader

I think this strongly depends on the couple.

My wife and I have had separate checking accounts for 20 years, and a shared savings account, and a second shared checking account we use strictly for transferring money back and forth (we can’t use savings for that due to stupid banking rules).

We also have split the hills according to our relative incomes. I make a lot more so I have the mortgage and a few big ticket items, she has several of the other bills plus her own car payment.

We make joint decisions on big things like vacations, or more recently, private school for our kids.

I know other couples do it completely differently. Some have totally shared accounts. I know husbands on a strict allowance.

Do what works for you.

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> Do what works for you.

This study is saying couples randomly chosen to merge finances had better relationships, which doesn’t really align with your advice.

Better relationships on average. What works best for you might not align with the average for your cohort. Adapting average-based advice to your individual characteristics often results in a better match to what's best for you than following the average ignoring your individual characteristics.

> Better relationships on average.

And exercising more and smoking less increases health, longevity, and well-being on average—unless you get hit by a truck.

There are no guarantees in life except that it will end, so you might as well try to stack the averages and odds in your favour whenever you can.

Smoking is never good for you, and exercising virtually always is. By contrast, "stacking the deck" on the specific issue of finances may or may not be helpful for a particular relationship and should be assessed case by case.

So, I don't think they're the best analogies.

Relationships are about trust, not blind trust but a good history of verifiable trust.

we have less than <1% of our wealth in checking account, rest is distributed amongst various accounts and investments.

“Do what works for you” is the pragmatic advice.

Very similar situation with my partner and I, except we use budgeting software - I manage my own personal budget and our "joint" budget separately. My partner isn't interested in using the software for her own expenses, which is fine.

We can both see how much money is allocated to everything, if there's anything one of us wants to spend money on that would be a shared thing - we budget for it.

Same for us. We both have our own checking and savings accounts, plus a joint checking and a joint savings one. We each put a certain amount every month to the joint account, based on our revenue (I earn more so I contribute more). Everything is then paid from the joint account. For big expenses, we both decide how to spread the money in different categories.

We both have money left on our own accounts to use however we want.

I would say this works quite well for us, and allow us to plan and budget for our expenses (I mainly do it, she doesn't really care about the software, but she can access it and see how much we have for each category).

This sound like what I do. Wife originally wanted a shared account. Then didn't want to change banks (she'd moved and there was no nearby branch).

We have a shared account that we pay for the house and daycare with.

???

> I think this strongly depends on the couple

This is a study of macro level differences not what each individual is going through…

This is what we do, minus the shared savings account. My partner has an app on her phone that she uses to track our expenses and we just share paying for things so we're 50/50, except for big ticket items like rent which we split based on income.

Worked for us for almost 15 years.

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