#JointBankAccount #FinancialPlanning #HousePurchase
Hey everyone! 👋 My partner and I are currently in the process of buying a house and we’re toying with the idea of opening a joint bank account to manage our finances. We thought it would be convenient to have all our expenses for the mortgage, household items, utilities, and groceries come from one central place.
I’m curious to hear what others have done in similar situations. Have you and your partner opted for a joint bank account or kept your finances separate? How do you handle expenses and ensure equality in financial responsibilities? 🤔
Possible solution:
Here are a few ideas that we’re considering:
– Setting up automatic transfers from our individual accounts to the joint account for monthly expenses
– Creating a budget and tracking expenses together to stay on top of our finances
– Designating specific financial responsibilities based on income or preferences
Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated! Let’s open up the discussion and share our experiences to help each other out. 💡💰 #MoneyManagement #FinancialAdvice #BudgetingSuccess
Day we got married, joint bank account.
My wife and I make substantially different salaries. There was absolutely no way we were going to play any “your share, my share games”.
That may work for some, but not for us.
My feeling is separate accounts and “bill sharing” is for two people that make very similar incomes.
life doesn’t always work like that.
Joint account for expenses, separate accounts for personal spending. Balance equality and independence.
We moved to have bank, Simplii, and had separate primary chequing accounts for our pay and respective bills, but had a joint account for mortgage and related bills and expenses.
Joint finances from the beginning here. The only thing separate are the account that need to be separate: RRSP, TFSA.
Interesting seeing how these threads go. One thread everyone is screaming prenup from the hills, and then in this one suggesting that your pay goes into your own bank account is getting downvoted. 🤔
My husband and I bought a house together before we were married and opened joint accounts at the same time. We did a budget of “must pays” (student loans, car insurance, etc.) and then came up with a number that we would each put into the joint account leaving us with the same amount of spending/fun money after our individual mandatory bills were paid. We knew we were getting engaged/married soon though and so the idea was always to be building together. I made more, but also had higher student loans. It ended up being about a 60/40 split into the joint account, with 50/50 spending money after.
I would also spend an hour with a family law lawyer in your province. Property laws differ province to province and you want to find out what happens when you buy property, live together, etc.
We did this too. Shared expenses based on total net income percentage. One makes $50k the other makes $100k so the one who makes $100k pays a higher percentage of the bills and both people have leftover fun money to spend on whatever. if you run a Zero balance budget you can have 1 bills account and each your own personal accounts. Get paid to the bills accounts, transfer out or withdrawal your fun money and viola! Done.
We manage it without one for 15 years, for us just a personal CC each and another one shared we use for stuff like food, internet etc, at the end of the month we split the shared CC bill.
This arrangement is fine if your relationship is more of a business arrangement and you are looking out for your own best interests first.
If you are in a long term committed relationship where your spouse comes first be your self then why keep score? Merge your finances 100%. Single account for it all. I make double what my wife makes. We don’t have hidden account. We talk about our finances and make decisions together. It’s not my income – it’s our income.
We have this too. Joint account for shared expenses but also shared target savings, for example we’re currently saving for a big trip next year and are putting aside a certain amount each month in addition to planned monthly expenses. We use Wealthsimple bc of the attractive interest rate but also have a no-fee account with a credit union for the odd occasion we need bank drafts or cheques.
We do use personal CCs for groceries etc and net that out end of month to maximise points and cash-back. For instance, I’ll use my Amex for groceries, and he’ll use his card for gas.
Both have our personal spending, investment and savings accounts outside of that.
Are you with the same bank? My partner and I got a linked savings account to which we transfer a set amount for mortgage etc. monthly. It connects to both of our respective accounts and can be accessed from the banking app.
My wife and I have a joint chequing account that our paycheques go into and all of our bills and investments are paid out of including credit card… We then each have our own chequing account where we give ourselves kind of an allowance each week for personal stuff
My wife and I did this as well. Anything related to our expenses go to this account and we each have our own accounts to do as we wish. We have both agreed to have some emergency money in both our accounts just in case
As someone who is dealing with estate crap right now. Do it, dear Lord, do it. Makes life so much God damn easier on your S/O or loved one(s)
For mortgage, I’d recommend a joint account with EQ Bank.
My wife and I have that, and we each out in money every month, more than what covers our mortgage, so the extra balance accumulates and gets decent interest.
Wife and I have just one joint bank account. Everything is 50/50 anyways so no point in keeping our own personal accounts imho.
me and my boyfriend just bought a house and have one bank account where all money goes. When you have separate accounts it has an undertone of things being separate. You are sharing a life together. There is no need for either of you to feel stressed about finances. Its a joint effort. Money is a huge reason why relationships don’t work out. Personally if I was going to have a separate bank account I might as well just do everything by myself anyways. I don’t want to feel like I’m not an equal part of the relationship (we are both millennials) if you guys don’t agree on how things should run pre house purchase its a good time to reconsider.
Married 35 years and both of us worked full time until we retired. All money has gone into one account with each of us taking an “allowance” and it’s a system that has worked really well for us.
1) one for you (savings, chequing, personal CC)
2) one for them (savings, chequing, personal CC)
3) one for all joint expenses (joint CC)
4) one for emergency savings
My husband and I each have our own chequing accounts that we keep anywhere from $100 to $500 in, a joint account for basics like groceries and gas and fun stuff, and I keep separate accounts each for housing expenses and insurance, car payment, emergency fund, renovation fund, and travel fund. The house account and cat account have a 3-4 month buffer in them. We have separate credit cards that we pay off out of the joint account.
That’s what we’ve done and it is working well. We keep each our accounts for our personal expenses. It’s important to maintain financial independence in case things go south.
My partner and I put everything into a joint account, and then we each have a personal credit card that we get to spend $500 a month on for ‘fun’ money (basically anything that’s not a household expense; dinners out with friends, clothing and shoes, buying lunch or coffee at work, gifts for each other, video game stuff.. etc.).
So basically the $500 is ours to do as we please and the other person gets no input or visibility. All other expenses are shared and we have a combined budget that we update weekly to track our expenses.
We’ve been doing it this way since we purchased a house. Prior to that we just split rent/grocery/dates equally.
It’s a great idea. Use it ONLY to pay fixed expenses.
Maybe im an old fashioned millenial but i never understood separate bank accounts? You share a life together, a house, you eat meals together, maybe you have kids together, you literally share everything but a bank account?
Adding in that separation just increases the feeling of separation elsewhere in the relationship. I can share a bed, sex life, house, vacation, meals, etc everything with you except money? So odd. Get married/live together and combine your finances, just make sure you both have the same expectations around spending (ie. if you’re about to make a purchase above $X dollars, you will talk about it first). So what if someone makes more/less, you are sharing a LIFE together.
My work allows me to split my paycheque to different bank accounts, so 50% of pay goes to joint account and we pay all household bills from joint account.
We have a ‘house account’ and separate personal accounts.
Good luck separating out who is becoming a ‘problem spender’ even if they don’t know they are doing it.
Also it’s easier to not show how much money I spend on my motorcycle that way.
When my fiancée and I bought 4 years ago we did pretty much what you are suggesting. We have the joint account setup for all our fixed bills with a 1 month buffer. ($4400/month, $2200 each goes in). For other non regular home expenses we have a joint CC on the same accounts we will use that and then additionally contribute to cover that each month. Its nice to still have your own financial independence outside of paying the essentials.
This is exactly what my wife and I do, and it’s worked well for us for 20 years.
We each maintain our own private accounts and credit cards, and have a joint account we dump money into for all shared expenses.
We just combined all our money into a joint account (all pay to the same account) and had all bills come from that account. Simple and easy.
the norm is just the women take charge of the joint account, keep track of expenses, pay monthly bills, make other purchases…etc
the guy just needs to work and deposit money in there
there’s a saying guys with too much money is not good as they’ll start gambling, cheating and stuff