Should You Combine Finances In Marriage?

Tackling finances with your partner can be tricky: What if one of you earns substantially more? What if you have different philosophies about money? What if you're tired of the "roommate" model of splitting costs down the middle? Katie and Henah share their respective approaches on money with their partners, and what to keep in mind when combining accounts.
Welcome back to #RichGirlRoundup, Money with Katie's weekly segment where Katie and MWK's Executive Producer Henah answer your burning money questions. Each month, we'll put out a call for questions on her Instagram (@moneywithkatie). New episodes every Friday.
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Mentioned in the Episode
Money with Katie blog on combining finances: moneywithkatie.com/blog/how-we-combined-finances-for-marriage
Money with Katie blog on how to consider combining money: moneywithkatie.com/blog/what-to-consider-when-combining-finances-with-your-partner
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0:00 Intro
3:30 Katie's approach to splitting expenses
6:45 Henah's approach
8:00 Prenuptials
10:00 Proportionally splitting expenses
13:30 Setting financial goals together
#MoneyWithKatie #Finances #PersonalFinance #Marriage #Budgeting #Saving #Lifestyle

[@saralang8805]

Part of the reason to have separate accounts goes beyond ownership - it's access to capital and especially if you have a safe place to accumulate wealth without your partner knowing. A lot of domestic violence victims, for example, don't have access to funds where they are able to leave. Even if it's community property, the few hundred dollars or a thousand dollars in their own name might allow them to safely escape. My mom and grandma and aunt were all very insistent that I always have, in my own name, a few thousand dollars for that reason (and when I got married, my husband and I discussed and agreed we'd each keep a set amount in our own accounts, in our own names, so that we'd never feel financially trapped to stay in the marriage).

[@hopedodson8058]

I got divorced in TX. What’s owned prior to marriage remains as the individual’s property. Everything accumulated during the marriage is split 50/50.

[@staceye8211]

I can't even imagine having a conversation with my husband about how we should split up our bills. Do people not understand the legal ramifications of marriage? It really doesn't matter what financial finagling you agree to amongst yourselves... It's all joint assets.

[@alejandravargas1130]

Everyone has to decide what is best for them. But thinking out into the future what if your not working during pregnancy or even after the baby is born. We got married late (29) and knew we wanted children soon. So we opened a combined checking/savings and credit card. All our spending goes on the credit card and all our income goes into the checking account. We pay our CC out of checking account so whether I was working or not the bills got paid. I didn’t want to feel stressed if I wasn’t working. I’m glad my husband agreed and didn’t make sense for us to nickle and dime and split everything. Our savings gets shuffled to investments/retirement/ and big purchases. But just something to consider when children start coming into the picture. Hard to split and can be stressful

[@bueller2295]

*Community property states 😊

[@randomguy9113]

It doesn't surprise me that Katie changed her tune about proportional spending once she started earning more than her partner.

[@albert1558]

We by % method suzi orman mentioned it. I agree with this method