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I've always been told that before you marry someone you should discuss money.

Whether that be how much credit card debt and student loans they have outstanding, how much money they have saved up, or whether they have declared bankruptcy it is important to know the financial history of someone you are legally tied to.

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I shared a bank account with Abby before getting married. Having intertwined finances is actually good practive. It's also a dead simple way to split things down the middle. Get a join account, each put in $X/mo., and don't worry about having to split anything after that. Just pay with the joint account. If someone makes Y times more, just put in Y*$X, if you're into punishing success :)

In your plan, do you each have individual accounts in addition to the shared account?

We sort of go the opposite route, with individual accounts for discretionary spending, and a separate account for paying the fixed costs, including the allowances to discretionary spending. We found that spending from a shared account required excessive coordination. It was easier for us to separate the responsibilities and manage our own budgets, like departments in a corporation.

We lived together, making a lot of the fixed costs shared. We also had individual accounts, but were students, making discretionary income smaller.

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