How We Share The Money In Our Marriage

The experts agree that money is one of the biggest trouble makers in marriages today. It’s one of the most common things we argue about. It’s also sort of mysterious. If you’re lucky, you learn how to manage your money from your parents or you learn it through trial and error as a young adult. But how do you manage your finances once you’re married? How do two different people come together to handle the money without fighting about it? I don’t know about you but they didn’t cover that one in our marriage counseling.

I had never really talked with my parents about how they managed their money as a couple either. I knew that my mom complained from time to time about making sure bills were paid on time. I knew that my dad liked to have a little “squirrel money” as he called it in the back of his wallet. I knew instinctively that there were problems with the way they were doing it, but nobody talked about it.

I knew my husband was good with money before we got married. I knew that he always paid his bills on time. I knew that he had money in savings. I knew the sorts of things he liked to spend more money on and what sorts of things he didn’t think were worth his hard earned cash.  We talked about all that stuff, but we didn’t talk about how we would manage “our money” when the time came.

As a result, we sort of fell into a system that has mostly worked for us. Since those days, I’ve read a lot about what married couples should and shouldn’t do when it comes to managing their money.  Most advisors insist that married men and women need a joint account. That’s not the way we do it.

Because no one told us, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: find what works for you based on an honest evaluation of your individual strengths and weaknesses and stick to that.

We have three basic rules for governing finances in our home. They’re unspoken and always applied. Occasionally there’s a “wait I thought we…” but there’s never an argument despite times of plenty and many times of lean.

Read our 3 rules on the next page!

Next Page »