When you are getting married, you always hear the topic couples fight the most about is…drumroll please…money. Brent and I felt like we were prepared – or as prepared as two 24 year-olds could be who had been working for about a year! {grin} We had separate checking accounts and always intended to join them…eventually. But we didn’t. And it worked great! We allocated bills and had family goals (for retirement, savings accounts, etc.), and we each knew exactly how much money we had and if we could afford to buy something. We still discussed ‘major’ purchases, but we both felt like it ensured we knew exactly where we stood – individually and as a family.
Fast forward 7 years into our marriage, and Brent changed jobs to a commission-only job. Talk about a scary jump but one we were very excited to be taking! However, it is kind of hard to have separate checking accounts when one person may or may not make any money, ha. So we decided to go the joint checking account route.
And it has been a battle ever since. What is our balance? What is this charge? Why did you buy that? We can’t pay that bill yet!
It culminated in me {a very embarrassed CPA} paying a bill too early and causing us to overdraft our account by hundreds of dollars…and being hit with hundreds of dollars of fees. Oops.
So as of yesterday, we are back to separate checking accounts.
I don’t think we are having fights about money by any means, but it has been a very big learning curve for us the past 2 ½ years of having a joint account. And what we learned is we are better off apart…at least when it comes to balancing the checkbook!
What has been your biggest financial debate with your significant other?
