Which practice to keep finances after getting married: joint, or separate?
"If you ask ten different couples what they do, depending on a variety of factors, you'll get anywhere between two and ten different answers. One personal finance blogger that I read swears by the fact that he and his wife keep their finances totally separate.  His wife has her own retirement account, he has his.  His wife has her own checking and savings, he has his.  They pay fifty-fifty for expenses and each buy their own ""toys"" from their own accounts.  He views this as valuable for allowing them to have their own personal finance styles, as his wife is a very conservative investor and he is more generous. My spouse and I have mostly combined finances, and view all of our money as joint (even though there are a smattering of accounts between us with just one name on them as holdovers from before we were married).  Almost all of our purchasing decisions except regular groceries are joint.  I couldn't imagine it any other way.  It leaves us both comfortable with our financial situation and forces us to be on the same page with regards to our lifestyle decisions.  There's also the ideological view that since we believe marriage united us, we try to live that out.  That's just us, though.  We don't want to force it on others. Some couples find a balance between joint accounts and his and her fun money stashes.  You might find yet another arrangement that works for you, such as the one you already described. What's going to be important is that you realize that all couples have the same six basic arguments, finances being one of them.  The trick is in how you disagree.  If you can respectfully and thoughtfully discuss your finances together to find the way that has the least friction for you, you're doing well.  Some amount of friction is not just normal, it's almost guaranteed." Echoing Justkt, different approaches will work for different couples.  It also depends on your background, life experience, age, maturity.... Irrespective of the structure, any agreement must be based on a thorough understanding of the mechanism by which responsibility and accountability is apportioned. As in any financial relationship, when money is plentiful and covers all ends, then conflict hardly ever arises.  Problems only turn up when money vanishes. Business contracts are written with a view to such conflicts and agreements within a marriage must be equatable and based on a shared understanding. So, don't worry too much about the structure.  Think about thinkgs like the following: In other words, given that income between spouses is likely to be unbalanced, how do you manage this within a caring relationship so that neither feels like a charity case, a social worker, or dependent? There will not be one clear answer except that open and honest discussion on an ongoing bases can only serve to strengthen your relationship. I feel there are two types of answer: One: the financial. Suck all the emotion out of the situation, and treat the two individuals as individuals. If that works for the two of you, fantastic. Two: the philosophical. You're married, it's a union, so unify the funds. If that works for you, fantastic. Personally, my partner and I do the latter. The idea of separate pots and separate accounts and one mixed fund etc makes no sense to us. But that's us. The first step for you in deciding on an approach is to know yourselves as people - and everything else will follow. "We've had everything in one pot almost from day one of marriage. The key ingredients to making that arrangement work is to communicate about the money, and realize that you're in it together.  Everything one person does affects the other. Separating finances compartmentalizes the ""affecting one another"" part and makes it a little clearer perhaps, but I can also see it creating a sense of entitlement: ""This is my money.""  There should be a place for individual discretionary spending, of course, but I'm not sure that roping off that money is the best way to do it. It's less likely to be viable if there's one main breadwinner in the house.  In our house, this is me.  If we separated the finances like this, it would amount to giving my wife an allowance.  Since she works harder at home than I do at work most of the time (she keeps the house, does meals and shopping, raises and schools our daughter, etc.) but just doesn't get paid for it, it would border on insult to her to treat the finances this way." My wife and I have a different arrangement.  I like to track everything down to the transaction level.  She doesn't want everything tracked.  We have everything joint and I track everything except she has one credit card where I do not see the statements only the total.  She is more comfortable, because she can buy things without me seeing the price for individual transactions. Here are the main ways of doing this that I've encountered. I've met advocates of each. You might be interested in this set of articles: http://www.slate.com/id/2281885/ which looks at some different ways of doing this and the financial - and other - effects. "My wife and I maintain seperate accounts. We have the bills split between us so that certain bills are paid by one of us, and other bills by the other. This is not a perfect 50/50 split as we don't make the same amount of money, but comparable enough that neither feels like they're doing all the bills alone. Our investments are similar. That means we each have a pool of money that we can spend on toys or entertainment as we see fit without overspending. Once my bills are paid and my savings are paid for the month, if I want to go buy some DVDs and my wife wants to buy a new lens for the camera, we don't have to agree. We just use our own money and do it. For us that's led to minimal friction or arguments over what to spend money on, simply because we aren't using the same pool. Getting it work requires getting the split right AND having the mindset that the other person is just as entitled to spend their share of the money as you are to spend yours. It really helps to eliminate issues where she spent money that I expected to be able to spend before I could, which can happen in a joint account. (We have no joint accounts, only things like the mortgage are in both our names.) I've been told by more then one person that how we're doing it is ""wrong"", but it works a lot better for us then trying to combine finances ever did. I think it also helps that we're younger, and this seems far less common amongst older couples." "This particular topic has probably been beaten to death already.  But from the other comments, it seems that splitting finances them is a popular solution on this forum.  I can see the individual benefit of this - makes it easy to go buy whatever you want.  But it can hurt too.  What if the situation changes, and you are no longer employed?  Your setup will cause stress because now you are having to ask your spouse to pay for everything.  If this works for you - congratulations.  But, fights may ensue - divorce may follow. I would like to offer an alternative.  In my situation, I bring home a paycheck, while my wife does not.  In this case, each of us paying 50% would simply not work.  Not to say my wife doesn't work - she works her butt off cleaning house, raising kids, etc. What we do is have any money that comes in go into a pot.  We budget (Oh no, the B-word!) out regular expenses (lights, gas, rent).  Anything that isn't allocated goes towards retirement savings (In the US, an IRA is an Individual Retirement Account), or towards a war-chest for big project (such as home ownership).  And each of us gets the same ""blow money"" allowance every week that we can do with as we please. Keep in mind, using this mentality allows the possibility of me staying home at some point in the future when my wife goes back to her dream job.  And there is no financial stress about ""whom owns what"", or ""who paid for what"".  We own it because we decided to pay for it." I personally think that you should do whatever you believe works best. I am not married but when I get married I would also want to do what you are doing with having a joint account for certain things but also still having seperate accounts. I find this is a good approach so that neither of you is dependent finanically on the other one. Also, if you want to buy a present for your wife you would do it with your own money and not the joint account money. I hope my answer helps.
"The IRS isn't going to care how you filed for benefits - they're effectively the high man on the totem pole.  The agency that administers the SNAP program is the one who might care.  File the 1040 correctly, and then deal with SNAP as you note.  Do deal with SNAP, though; otherwise they might be in trouble if SNAP notices the discrepancy in an audit of their paperwork. Further, SNAP doesn't necessarily care here either.  SNAP defines a household as the people who live together in a house and share expenses; a separated couple who neither shared expenses nor lived together would not be treated as a single household, and thus one or both would separately qualify.  See this Geeks on Finance article or this Federal SNAP page for more details; and ask the state program administrator.  It may well be that this has no impact for him/her.  The details are complicated though, particularly when it comes to joint assets (which may still be joint even if they're otherwise separated), so look it over in detail, and talk to the agency to attempt to correct any issues. Note that depending on the exact circumstances, your friend might have another option other than Married Filing Jointly.  If the following are true: Then she may file as ""Head of Household"", and her (soon-to-be) ex would file as ""Married Filing Separately"", unless s/he also has dependents which would separately allow filing as Head of Household.  See the IRS document on Filing Status for more details, and consider consulting a tax advisor, particularly if she qualifies to consult one for free due to lower income." Ultimately the bank will have first call on the house and you will be the only one on the hook directly to the bank if you don't make the mortgage payments. There's nothing you can do to avoid that if you can't get a joint mortgage. What you could do is make a side agreement that your girlfriend would be entitled to half the equity in the house, and would be required to make half the payments (via you). You could perhaps also add that she would be part responsible for helping you clear any arrears. But in the end it'd just be a deal between you and her. She wouldn't have any direct rights over the house and she wouldn't be at risk of the bank pursuing her if you don't pay the mortgage. You'd probably also need legal advice to make it watertight, but you could also not worry about that too much and just write it all down as formally as possible. It really depends if you're just trying to improve your feelings about the process or whether you really want something that you could both rely on in the event of a later split. I don't think getting married would make any make any real difference day-to-day. In law, with rare exceptions, the finances of spouses are independent from each other. However in the longer term, being married would mean your now-wife would have a stronger legal claim on half the equity in the house in the event of you splitting up. Generally speaking, granting rights to one bank account (e.g. making a joint account) does not extend rights to other accounts or otherwise let one joint owner create new obligations on the other owner (e.g. opening a line of credit that the other owner must pay for), except to the extent of the joint account.  I assume there are no UK rules that would change this feature. The other party can of course withdraw all the money without need for your approval.  This also means that the joint account could be exposed to all the creditors of either party.  If your account joint tenant has huge debts, the creditors could theoretically look to the joint account for satisfaction.  At least, that would be an issue under US law. Frankly, it may be simpler to get a separate account for the other person (if possible) and make transfers with online banking.  It could also make sense to get a rechargeable banking card, if those are in the UK, which works like a debit card and can be reloaded through various means (sometimes a call, sometimes online deposits, sometimes in physical stores).  There may be fees to getting such a card or a second account, of course.  The benefit is that the cardholder has no access to your account and you control recharging.  Such cards are widely available in the US to people who otherwise would not qualify for traditional bank accounts. Note also the FATCA complication with adding a US person to your account.  My understanding is that a number of non-US banks will simply close the accounts of Americans, rather than deal with FFI hassles under FATCA. "Yep. You're single, you're possibly still a dependent on your parent's taxes (in lieu of rent), and you're finally bringing home bacon instead of bacon bits. Welcome to the working world. Let's say your gross salary is the U.S. median of $50,000. With bi-weekly checks (26 a year; common practice) you're getting $1923.08 per paycheck. In the 2013 ""Percentage Method"" tax tables, here's how your federal withholding is calculated as a single person paid biweekly: Federal taxes are computed piecewise; the amount up to A is taxed at X%, then the amount between A and B is taxed at Y%, so if you make $C, between A and B, the tax is (A*X) + (C-A)*Y. The amount A*X is included in the ""base amount"" for ease of calculation. Back to our example; let's say you're getting $1923.08 gross wages per check. That puts you in the 25% marginal bracket. You pay the sum of all lesser brackets (which is the ""base amount"" of the 25% bracket), plus the 25% marginal rate on every dollar that falls within the bracket. That's 191.95 + (1923.08 - 1479) * .25 = 191.95 + (444.08 * .25) = 191.95 + 111.02 = $302.97 per paycheck. The ""effective"" tax rate on the total amount, as if you were being charged a flat tax, is 15.75%, and this is just for the federal income tax. Add to this MA state income taxes (5.25% flat tax), FICA (aka Medicare; 1.45% flat) and SECA (aka Social Security; 6.2% up to a ""wage base"" that $50k doesn't even approach), and your effective tax rate on each dollar you earn is 15.75% + 5.25% + 1.45% + 6.2% = 28.65%. This doesn't include any state unemployment taxes that may be withheld separately, but as the rate I come up with is pretty darn close to what you've figured (meaning I slightly overestimated your gross income and thus your effective tax rate), my bet is that SUTA's either employer-paid in MA, or it's just part of MA state income tax. It gets better, at least at the federal level: The amount of your state income taxes is tax-deductible at the federal level if you itemize your deductions. That may not be a factor for you as you'd have to come up with more than $6,100 of other tax-deductible expenses to make itemizing the better option than taking the standard deduction (big-ticket items are mortgage expenses other than principal payments, hospital stays such as for childbirth or major accident, and state and local taxes such as sales, property and income). If you can claim yourself as a dependent (meaning your parents can't), then $150 of each check ($3,900 of your annual salary) is no longer taxed for federal withholding, lowering the amount of money taxed at the 25% marginal rate. You effectively save $37.50 biweekly ($975 annually) in taxes. Get married and file jointly, and your spouse, her personal exemption, and an extra standard deduction amount (if you don't itemize) go on your taxes. The tax rates for married couples filing jointly are also lower; they're currently calculated (or were in 2012) to be the same as if two equal earners were to file separately, so if your spouse doesn't work, your taxes on the single income are calculated at the rates you'd get if you earned half as much. It doesn't work out to half the taxes, but it is a significant ""marriage advantage"". Have kids, and each one is another little $3,900 tax write-off. It's nowhere near the cost of having or raising the child, but it helps, and having kids isn't about the money. Owning a home, making charitable deductions, having medical expenses, etc are a toss-up. The magic number in 2013 is $12,200 for a married couple, $6,100 for a single person. If your mortgage interest, insurance premiums, property taxes, medical expenditures, charitable donations, any contributions from your take-home pay to a tax-deferred savings account (typically these accounts are paid into by your employer as a ""pre-tax deduction"" and never show up as taxable income, but you could just as easily move money from your take-home pay into tax-deferred savings) and any other tax-deductible payments add up to more than 12 large, then itemize. If not, take your standard deduction. As a single taxpayer just starting out in life, you probably don't have any of these types of expenditures, certainly not enough to give up the SD. I did the math on my own taxes in 2012, and was surprised at how little the government actually gets of my paycheck when all's said and done. Remember back in the summer of 2012 when everyone was mad at Romney for making millions and only paying an effective income tax rate of 14%, which was compared to the middle class's marginal rate of 25-28%? Well, my family of 3, living on a little more than the median income from one earner (me), taking the married standard deduction, three personal exemptions, and a little extra for student loan interest, paid an effective federal income tax rate of something like 3.5%. Of course, the FICA and SS taxes don't allow any deductions (not even for retirement savings), so add in the 4.2% SS (in 2012) and 1.45% FICA and the full federal gimme was more like 9-10%." If you're a sole proprietor there's no reason to have a separate business account, as long as you keep adequate records, as you are one and the same for tax purposes. My husband and I already have 5 accounts and a mortgage with one bank. I don't see the need to open up yet another account.  As a contracted accountant, I don't need to write business checks, and my expenses are minimal. As long as I have an present my assumed business name certificate and ID, there's no reason for a bank not to deposit into my personal account. "I can only share with you my happened with my wife and I. First, and foremost, if you think you need to protect your assets for some reason then do so. Be open and honest about it. If we get a divorce, X stays with me, and Y stays with you.  This seems silly, even when your doing it, but it's important. You can speak with a lawyer about this stuff as you need to, but get it in writing. Now I know this seems like planning for failure, but if you feel that foo is important to you, and you want to retain ownership of foo no mater what, then you have to do this step. It also works both ways. You can use, with some limitations, this to insulate your new family unit from your personal risks. For example, my business is mine. If we break up it stays mine. The income is shared, but the business is mine. This creates a barrier that if someone from 10 years ago sues my business, then my wife is protected from that. Keep in mind, different countries different rules. Next, and this is my advise. Give up on ""his and hers"" everything. It's just ""ours"". Together you make 5400€ decide how to spend 5400€ together. Pick your goals together. The pot is 5400€. End of line. It doesn't matter how much from one person or how much from another (unless your talking about mitigating losses from sick days or injuries or leave etc.). All that matters is that you make 5400€. Start your budgeting there.  Next setup an equal allowance. That is money, set aside for non-sense reasons. I like to buy video games, my wife likes to buy books. This is not for vacation, or stuff together, but just little, tiny stuff you can do for your self, without asking  ""permission"". The number should be small, and equal. Maybe 50€.  Finally setup a budget. House Stuff 200€, Car stuff 400€. etc. etc. then it doesn't matter who bought the house stuff. You only have to coordinate so that you don't both buy house stuff. After some time (took us around 6 months) you will find out how this works and you can add on some rules. For example, I don't go to Best Buy alone. I will spend too much on ""house stuff"". My wife doesn't like to make the budget, so I handle that, then we go over it. Things like that." Do you have a separate bank account for your business?  That is generally highly recommended. I have a credit card for my single-member LLC.  I prefer it this way because it makes the separation of personal and business expenses very clear. Using a personal credit card, but using it for only business expenses seems to be a reasonable practice.  You may be able to do one better though... For your sole proprietorship, you can file a DBA which establishes the business name.  The details of this depend on your state.  With a DBA, I believe you can open a bank account in the name of your business and you may also be able to open a credit card account in the name of the business.  I'm not sure what practical difference it makes, but it does make the personal/business distinction clearer.  Though, at that point, you might as well just do the LLC... You'll have much more flexibility and peace of mind if your expenses are based on your current income and that income increases in the future. It's great that you aren't comfortable with spending more, you don't want to end up in the position you just removed yourself from.  That said, you don't just ignore planned income altogether. Personally, my wife and I feel best knowing that I have the essentials covered with my income, and that her income primarily helps us put away more for retirement, home renovations, and vacations, because she likely won't work for a long while if we have kids. How you plan depends on your wife's career aspirations and prospects, if your wife has high income potential and you don't plan to buy until after she resumes work, then it may suit you to plan on her income too. You'll have to balance the certainty and amount of her income with your goals.  If you're trying to make up ground on savings/retirement, then a less expensive house seems wise anyway. It's a much easier problem to decide what to do with excess funds than feeling trapped/stressed by a high mortgage payment.