tell me about how you deal with income unequality in a relationship

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > tell me about how you deal with income unequality in a relationship

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

I'm currently engaged and we've been talking about finances quite a bit as we move toward marriage. We both came to the conclusion that separate accounts would be easier. I'm a little confused by the sentiment that separate accounts are demeaning. For us it's not so much a difference in priorities and end results. It's more a difference in habits and tracking. I like to go all analytical with mint and spreadsheets. She prefers to roughly allocate things in her head. Our systems work for us individually. As long as we've discussed the broad strokes of the budget, why would we try to bend our tracking methods to one or the other person? When you're driving somewhere together do you have to sit down and agree to turn by turn directions? Because that seems like the same thing to me. As long as the individual money is equivalent to what people used to keep in personal wallets/sock drawers it seems fine to me.

In answer to the op, make sure she has some fun money but don't call it an allowance. I'd make another joint account and have some of the direct deposit go there. Everyone deserves a little bit of fun money and if she's in grad school it's understandable that that is her job right now. Then you start adding miscarriages into the story; no poo poo she has trouble concentrating on school. That takes a huge mental toll on anyone and you need to be very supportive after she's gone through something like that.

Leviathan Song fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Apr 21, 2015

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 15:32

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 01:39

Leviathan Song: Sep 8, 2010

Droo posted:

My decision to pool money came with marriage, because:

1. Assuming you stay married until you die, pooling money is easier, fairer, more efficient for investing, and more efficient for taxes
2. If you get divorced, your assets are generally considered pooled by the legal system anyway so I accomplish nothing by the added complexity of separating them

I made several specific points on point #1 that no one has really refuted (here and here). My impression is that people seem oddly attached to their separate finances and justify it by saying that separating is simpler, which makes literally no sense at all. My current impression is basically what Baja Mofufu said - people who are very strongly attached to the idea of separate finances must have a reason other than pure convenience or efficiency, and it probably comes down to how much they trust their partner.

Edit to add: There are also a lot of people that say they split, but then talk about each having $500 a month in spending money and loosely splitting up who pays what bill. I don't really view that as "splitting" so much as I view it as a less efficient form of combining, but I guess it depends on some of the other details in the relationship. I think the core trait that defines split finances would be that the higher income partner is allowed to spend more money per month on eating out/discretionary than the other partner, they both know this, and they are both OK with it.

You make a really good point. By your definition my fianc� and I don't really have split finances because we have about equivalent spending money and just keep it in separate accounts. I have a much higher income but I just pay more of the bills to compensate. My parents do pretty much the same thing but they just keep the money in their wallets instead of bank account. The convenience and efficiency are mostly in the eye of the beholder since different people are more comfortable with different methods of budgeting, even if it results in the same exact savings and spending.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 18:12

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > tell me about how you deal with income unequality in a relationship