• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Ask Liz Weston

Get smart with your money

  • About
  • Liz’s Books
  • Speaking
  • Disclosure
  • Contact

Follow Up

Q&A: Different approaches to marital finances

March 2, 2020 By Liz Weston

Dear Liz: Thank you for mentioning that many couples like to keep their finances entirely or mostly separate. Our solution was to create a joint bank account just for paying joint expenses, such as rent, food, entertainment together, vacations and so on. We each funded this account proportionately, based on our income (for example, the person earning 65% of the total income contributed 65% of the funds). Expenses, such as gifts to our separate children, entertainment on our own, car payments and all personal expenses were paid out of our own separate accounts. Each year at tax time, we’d revise the proportion of the joint account, if necessary, based on our separate tax return figures. It was so simple and tension-free. This was a second marriage for both of us, and we never had disagreements about money.

Answer: Congratulations for finding an approach that worked so well for both of you. As you demonstrate, there’s no one right way for couples to handle their money. Some prefer to have everything in joint accounts, others keep everything separate, and most are somewhere in between.

Filed Under: Couples & Money, Follow Up, Q&A Tagged With: couples and money, follow up, q&a

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 4
  • Page 5
  • Page 6

Primary Sidebar

Search

Copyright © 2025 · Ask Liz Weston 2.0 On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in