How do married couples manage their money?

One solution: All money is shared. There is no ‘who’s paying for what’ because everything earned goes into one account, and everything spent comes out of that one account. Everything is joint, so there is no ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ to fight about. [Obviously there must be basic trust in decisions/expenses, and who takes care of what bills/paperwork is delegated.]

I’ve heard of other approaches, but most of the time I hear about feelings of unfairness, resentment, etc.

By having great communication. Before marriage a couple should talk about how it’s going to be split, if there’s going to be joint accounts or seperate.. Etc.

My parents have a joint account, and personal accounts. I think they put 30% of what they both earn into the joint account, and then the rest is personal. The joint account is for joint spending (food .etc), and the personal account is for personal stuff.

hey wow, lots of great ideas and opinions here! :P

My parents go… one pays for groceries, furniture etc. and one pays for taxes. haha, or i think that’s what they do..

Not overspending and avoiding going into debt is very important. When you have enough money for the things you need, and a bit of what you want, there is nothing to argue about.

My wife and I share everything. There have been times when one of us has been out of work, and if we had separate accounts, that would have been awkward.

My brother and his wife use some strange envelope solution. Money goes to pay bills first but then they have envelopes for Entertainment, Gas, Shopping, and other things. I don’t know where they got this system but they have been doing it for years. Its funny when they run out of money in one envelope and then negotiate (lovingly of course) for extra money from each other.

I earn all the money and my wife is a stay at home mom/wife. We pay all the bills first using a budget then decide how we will spend the leftovers. We honestly never fight over money because it’s ours not mine or hers.

We used to pool all our monies: salaries, gifts from family, dividends, interest, and do a yearly budget. Whatever was left over we divided in half. It was discretionary money for each of us; no questions asked and no criticisms. My husband used to spend his on refinishing or refurbishing antique wooden boats, and I used mine for the garden and plants. The marriage eventually crashed but not because of money.

It turned out that it was vital that I had money of my own when we got divorced.

One thing about money is that couples (all people) have certain ideas about money and its meaning. It is important as TheHaight said to talk about all of these issues beforehand. We have separate bank accounts. Mine is the one we pay most bills out of. My husband transfers money in when he gets paid.

I’ve often had debates around this! It varies a lot whether people have shared finances or not.
We don’t. It wasn’t even a conscious decision, it just would seem like a lot of hassle to set up.
Since we were living together and splitting bills between us for about 6 years before getting married, it just doesn’t make sense to go out of our way to change it, just because we now have ‘a certificate for our relationship’.

make a list of all the necessities. also make a list of all the luxuries. define between the two lists what you need to survive and at almost bare minumum. if you must have cable TV, live with basic cable instead of the full package. if you can live without a cell phone and handle calls on land lines, make it happen. pool your funds together in one big pot. you’ll be surprised how much more you have. allow the money-conscious spouse to handle bill payments and pay on time. stop charging and pay with cash. practice this and you will eventually see the dollar go farther and where you can channel money for whatever you want to do.

I am married and we both have jobs, so we split bills between us, since my job is paying less, i am paying less of the bills, but our money is separate.

Whats mine is hers, and what’s hers is hers

We have a joint account and separate personal accounts. Everything we make goes into the joint account, which we use to pay for bills, groceries, etc., and then we each get a monthly allowance that we take from the joint account and put into our personal accounts to use however we want. It makes paying for household expenses easier, because the money is all “ours”, but we don’t have to worry about whether one of us is spending an unfair share on knitting supplies (me) or photography equipment (him).

Different people are different, but I think the system richard, gail, and sdeutsch have mentioned works well to provide for needs and independent choices well. Pooled accounts can become an occasion for resentment or increased need to agree.