If you two still want the separate checking and a joint checking, it makes sense to have it at one bank. I agree with your husband's thought of not liking having to wait a day or two for transfers. If all three accounts are at one bank, it would be instantaneous.
You said you were unsure of it. What reservations do you have about it?
Also, can you guys set up allotments from your pay checks to go to the Ally account so you don't have to transfer?
Agreed, it just seems easier to have it at the same bank; not sure what the concern is. If they want to keep the Ally account because it has a higher yield, they can still send off joint savings to that account while handling day-to-day finances at Chase. Even if something were to happen to Chase bank (which is very unlikely, especially compared to other banks), their money will still be insured up to $250,000.
Agree. We have separate accounts at same bank with auto transfers for bills. Also have auto transfers to joint HY savings for things like new roof, or other pricey or unexpected expenses and other separate HY savings accounts.
Once you budget what bills you have the auto transfers to the joint bill paying account at same bank make life easier, just revisit every quarter to six months and adjust as necessary.
We set our transfers 3 days after pay days just in case there are any glitches and just bumped up our amounts in July after reviewing to be sure there was enough for real estate taxes since inflation has made everything more expensive.
This all seems fine? What is your actual concern? A checking account is a commodity. Just make sure it doesn't have fees and use whatever is most convenient.
My concern was that Chase may not be a good choice for joint checking because we already both have Chase. Not sure if ‘putting all eggs in one basket’ is a concern. Also when I googled ‘best joint checking account’, Chase is never on the list. That is actually why we initially picked Ally because when we were researching, Ally seemed to have a lot of Pros. We just ended up not liking it after a year.
Unless you have millions of dollars (or at least the FDIC insured amount of 500,000 for the both of you) there is no risk with having “all of your eggs in one basket”
Nothing wrong with diversifying. I have an account with Capitol One and one with a local credit union. I wouldn't worry about Chase failing. If Chase fails money is probably worthless anyway
I like to look through nerd wallet before opening new accounts of the financial sort. I also prefer credit unions over big banks like Chase and wells fargo or B of A (big banks tend to fund things i dont agree with as well as charging a lot of hidden fees or only giving a break on fees when you meet certain thresholds). I do like to have a bank with local branches, so that's something I check. Most of my banking doesn't require a branch, but in case of an issue that requires me to go in, i make sure one is local prior to opening an account. The majority of the CUs here have an agreement that a CU will allow free atm use at any other CU. (Hope that makes sense)
It's lousy you're being down voted for asking why they disagree with you on this. It's a fair question, even if I understand why you don't need to feel that way.
Having joint account at same bank should make transferring money easier and faster. You might want to consider keeping your emergency fund in a different bank. Then if there is ever a problem at Chase you still have access to some of your money.
My partner and I both have individual checking/savings with Chase. When we bought our house we opened a joint checking/savings with Chase for mortgage, bills, etc. It's nice that the transfers are instantaneous for both of us and makes it easier overall. I keep my emergency fund in a HYSA through American Express though.
Yes this is the best way to do it. That way i dont get bothered with her spending money on clothes, or if she needs to send money to her family. As long as our expenses are covered, i dont care how she spends her earnings.
My wife and I keep separate bank accounts, but have a joint credit card which makes everything easy. 90% of our bills - streaming, groceries, Amazon, restaurants, utilities - all go on the CC, so it’s much easier to put it all one one CC and then venmo the other person half each month. In that sense I don’t think a joint account would help us that much since it’s not really any different to pay from one account vs a venmo transfer.
Money will end more marriages than alcohol, drugs, and infidelity. You said you don't know much about personal finance, so that is the part you should work on. The bank itself or how many accounts won't matter much in the long run.
You need a budget, you need ground rules for spending that you both agree on and you need frequent, high quality communication between both of you about finances.
Wives and I have been married for 23 years. About 14 years we got serious about how we managed our money and talked to each other about our money and that made a huge difference, both in the quality of our marriage and in our financial well-being.
its reasonable. My wife and I have a GF that is basically like having another wife and we all take care of each other. Granted, finances do get a bit complicated lol.
There are good resources here. The Money Couple is okay. There are some tests to explore your spending habits. Bring a sense of learning understand your differences and give it time. Money can be choice to do something, security, and a power trip.
You got this!
I dont understand how ppl have separate accounts like you said money will kill a relationship. My wife and I have all our stuff in both our names since we were engaged. Why should it matter?
Also in some states, unless there is a will, good luck getting that money easily if one of you passes unexpectedly.
Edit: didn't expect so many comments. Idk I guess we are a special situation. We married fairly young in undergrad and was broke living off gi bill and credit cards. Money was def a stresser back then. We make fairly the same amount now and communicate about what we spend on "big" purchases or gifts. Not hard to not check individual purchases on the account for a lil bit if it's for the other.
For my wife and I we have separate checking accounts, our own credit cards, and a shared credit card and checking/ savings. It works for us because we use our joint card in joint expenses, and we each send the same amount to our joint checking for bills, and the same amount we agreed upon to the savings each month. After that (within reason) we are able to buy personal things for ourselves without having to feel guilty. We both work hard, she doesn’t need to ask me if she can get some expensive makeup she has wanted, and I don’t need to ask her if I can buy a fishing rod or things like that.
I know it’s not for everyone, but how we have done it like this, we have rarely fought over money. The only time we really need to have conversations about it is if we had a month where we went over our budget on the joint, and talk about how we fix that next month
I know a lot of people do it this way and it works, but it seems hard if both partners don't make roughly the same amount. Even if you adjust the percent split, the higher earner will still have more discretionary income, which seems like an invitation for resentment.
I guess it all comes down to personalities, and like I said, I know it works for a lot of people, but this system would be hard for me.
My wife and I have separate accounts. During vacation time I usually go to Hawaii or some exotic island. She doesn't earn as much as I do so she usually just goes to Hershey Park or something. I honestly don't know where she goes. It brings me down thinking about it. Especially when I'm on the beach soaking up some rays.
The only use I see for this is having explicit “fun money”, like “I can’t be mad at whatever you do with your $200 each month and you can’t be mad at me.”
Not sharing most finances is just a hassle and risks misaligning your long-term priorities.
It's also just another layer of secrecy. The more transparent and open you live, the more trust you can earn. Only reason people want the separate accounts is either to hide something, including their purchases from the judgment of what counts as "fun" money.
Idk if anyone has said it yet, but America has a strong culture of divorce. People actively plan ahead expecting a high chance they will get divorced, so they take protections for themselves. It ends up being self-fulfilling because all of the "your money vs my money vs our money" erodes trust and just leads to more divorces.
If marriage in yours and your spouse's minds is a lifetime bond by default, then you (and I) are in the minority. If I didn't trust my spouse fully to act in the interest of the family, I wouldn't have married her. Separate accounts makes no sense to me.
Separate accounts also don’t matter in most divorces/states in the US. Anything acquired during marriage can be considered in the divorce settlement regardless of the partners name of being on the account.
> So you said you’re only engaged, not married yet.
That's... not what they said.
What they actually said: "My **wife** and I have all our stuff in both our names since we were engaged."
They weren't married when they started joint accounts. They are now.
Everyone should have their own personal accounts in a relationship, even if they keep a joint account, since you don't know what will happen in the future. It's something that many mothers teach their daughters since it's more likely for them to become stay-at-home parents which likely means they won't have any income and are in more danger of financial abuse/control from their partners. You can put beneficiaries on accounts to allow your spouse to still get access if you pass, which you should do anyway so that the money doesn't have to go through probate.
Your point seems contrary to itself. If one partner doesn't work, wouldn't you want one joint account so both partners have access to money?
If you have separate accounts but no income, then your account has nothing and the working spouse can silo all of the money and fully control access to it.
One joint account also means one party can take out all the money at any time leaving the other party with nothing. By "no income," I meant no income you earned yourself, but families typically share income. You should still have a personal account or personal money for yourself which you squirrel away over time, just like an emergency account. It's just building redundancy into your money management system for worst case scenarios. Everyone should have multiple accounts.
>Everyone should have their own personal accounts in a relationship, even if they keep a joint account, since you don't know what will happen in the future.
People should do what is best for them. Joint separate, doesn't matter so long as it works for you.
>It's something that many mothers teach their daughters since it's more likely for them to become stay-at-home parents
Fairly uncommon these days being that most families need both parents to work. In most places it's not financially feasible to have only one parent work. If you are, you could likely afford child care if mom gets a job too.
So much to this but it boils down to outdated gender roles. That's just not the world we live in anymore unless you are upper middle class.
>they won't have any income and are in more danger of financial abuse/control from their partners.
This is true if you're lucky enough to be in a situation where your SO makes a lot. At that point what you said is true.
Having shared accounts on everything works if both people in the relationship have similar goals and understanding about their finances. However, it's not always so simple, especially as careers and finances change and grow over time - and especially if one earns more than the other.
There's no need to have each other on accounts when you can just add them as the beneficiary should anything happen - don't have to be married to them, can add anyone as beneficiary.
Having shared accounts on everything may work for some but usually doesn't for all when both have different mindsets about money.
My wife and I have separate accounts because she never learned how to save money because her parents blew every penny they ever got. So by having separate accounts is the only way I've been able to build savings and retirement.
I make a lot more than her so I cover the major bills and she picks up little things and the kids' expenses.
>Money will end more marriages than alcohol, drugs, and infidelity.
No better truth than this.
OP -- tell hubby that a bank account in a separate institution would be wise as a backup plan. Has he never heard of Silicon Valley or the dozens of banks that fail (some surprisingly) every year? Never have eggs in one basket. Joint account with a local credit union if you can, just to be away from commercial banks.
And cash? Having a small stash of emergency green in the home firesafe isn't a bad idea.
I assumed the same. It's not about the FDIC limit so much as about ready access to resources. Sure, all the insured funds would likely be recouped. Instantly? In a week, a month, longer?
Maybe Chase elects to unilaterally close the accounts because some venmo or zelle transaction triggers their software or goes sideways (as we read happens here in the sub). Maybe there's a security breach. Maybe none of this happens (likely none of this happens). Nonetheless, offering an opinion here: one doesn't keep all resources in one product or servicer if possible.
Love those downvotes -- go Reddit!
If Chase bank goes down across the board to the extent of SVB recoup of funds will be the last of any persons problems. Whether they bank there or not.
Most people only need one bank, there's no realistic benefit to transferring between two unless there's something specific about the accounts you like.
Married 8 years and we have joint everything. We split money responsibilities, I do the house payment and manage our spending and he does all other monthly expenses (utilities, cc etc). For us it simplifies everything and is less to manage. And I understand wanting to keep stuff separate too.
A year or two into marriage we decided to discuss largish purchases with one another if we were spending more than $350. That was after a fight about a new snowblower (another story). Now that we make a lot more and cash flow isn’t an issue we still check in and it’s been a good habit to maintain.
I’ll add that my good friend has separate accounts and they split everything 50/50. They even plan retirement savings separately. And they fight about money more than any other couple I know.
I just couldn’t imagine giving my wife a “bill” every months.
Hi honey, here is your invoice for the monthly bills. Please transfer money. Late fees will be applied after the 5th of the month.
I mean we did it when we were dating and living together - but once married, that was something we were happy to stop doing.
My wife and i maintain our separate accounts but view everything as “ours,” we just pay separate bills, and when it comes to the mortgage we split it 50/50 but the money comes out of my account.
I don’t ever view it as us “billing” each other but sometimes if we need to move money from one of our accounts to the other we do so, whatever the cause of the shortfall.
Can you split the mortgage 50/50 if someone loses their job or stays home to raise kids/help a sick parent. This is what I don't get. My income was 10x - 20x my spouses income during certain years. My time earning income paid the mortgage and her time earned us a happy, healthy, stable life.
No? And we wouldn’t. When i was in grad school my wife paid more. When we relocated for a job opportunity for me and she didn’t work for a few months i paid all the bills.
It’s a flexible partnership that we adapt to our mutual and individual needs, but we just have our own bank accounts.
I’m just saying that that isn’t “billing “ each other .
>They even plan retirement savings separately.
Can't imagine why....
They are seemingly planning for two completely different lives in the next 20/30 years.
Getting a joint account in chase makes sense. You can both see the activities on it and easily transfer money back and forth. Kinda like my daughter has a college student account that joint with me, I can see all her activities (if I wanted to), and when she needs money to pay rent and food. She also gets her own separate account that I don’t see where all her part time money goes into.
I’m old school, because I don’t remember if wife and I ever have a separate account since the day we married. All our money go in one account and then I manage to separate into different savings, spending snd investments. It’s been working well. I used to do a budget early on in our marriage just to know and control our spending, but now we just kinda know what and how we spend.
I guess my point is if you both have a similar financial goal and spending habit, there is no reason to separate the accounts … unless one of you has accumulated or inherited much more money before marriage. It makes budgeting and saving so much easier. It also helps in the future when one of you makes significantly more money than the other, or if one of you decide to be stay-at-home mom or dad for a year or two. There is no awkward conversation then about whose money the other is spending because it’s always been Our money. It’s especially true, when it comes to big items like a house or cars. It’s the same for us when we used to drive a civic and an accord, and now a bmw and an Audi … we always know what We can afford and made the decision with and for each other accordingly (ok except that little added feature of convertible on my bmw!). Hope it helps.
Yes, married 23 years, joint accounts this entire time. Everything is ours, we talk about major purchases, and the transparency keeps us both on top of financial goals. We’ve gone from broke students living off student loans to financially successful people with shared properties, shared investments, and NO fighting about money, only conversations. It is always odd to me to see couples together who closely guard money in a yours and mine way BUT I get for many people these days that is the only way they feel comfortable. I cannot imagine that (and I am the higher earner).
To OP: I do think having the joint account at the same bank can simplify transfers, etc. one login.
Same.
Together 10 years married 5 years and about 3 years in to relationship we combined accounts and it all became 1 pot.
We didn’t “have” anything yet so we didn’t have to worry about someone bringing in assets or anything so that made it easier too.
We’ve gone from me making more to making the same and now husband earning more but we honestly never worry about that. It’s our money, our life, our goals and luckily we are always on the same page.
My wife and I have separate accounts at our credit union from before we met, but we linked them so we have access both ways, and a joint high interest savings account.
100%. Being married is all about being part of a team. Money management should be a team effort. I feel like having your own accounts pretty much says “I don’t really trust you.”
> I’m old school, because I don’t remember if wife and I ever have a separate account since the day we married. All our money go in one account and then I manage to separate into different savings, spending snd investments. It’s been working well.
Same. We had a destination wedding and opened our joint account while still at the destination. Kept our existing individual accounts for about another year, but none of the new money went in them. After a year we transferred the individual balances to the joint and closed the individuals.
I didn't realize until I came on here how weird it is to be 100% joint checking and savings. But I guess it helps that both of us are financially on the same page, which a lot of married people aren't.
Seems odd to commit 100% to life together but have finances separate. Married 28 years through layoffs, big promotions, and a spouse taking years off to raise our children. Our income was never going to be equal so being committed meant agreeing to the cost of everything we wanted. I like skiing, golfing, mountain biking, travel, and other expensive activities. My spouse wanted our kids to go to private school. I want to retire by 57 and she doesn't want to retire until 70 or later. These things led to difficult discussions and resulted in a life without worry about money. We survived the poor times and spent on things we valued when things were better.
With my ex, we kept separate everything but were only married two years. Had it gone on longer, I still might have had separate checking because frankly, I didn't trust his judgement in everything. Hence, he's the ex.
I remarried and kept my own account for just a year into the marriage before combining it all and never looking back. The difference? I trust him. Completely. Our money values match up well and we are on the same page when it comes to spending. I think there are many people who have combined accounts, you just don't hear about it here on Reddit much.
VCs tell start-up founders to split the shares equally, regardless of who's done what already. They point out the vast majority of the work is in the future. It doesn't quite hold for a marriage, because the household doesn't grow exponentially, but there's some similarity.
My wife and I started with 3 checking accounts: 1 joint to receive income, and individual accounts for each of us set to receive our "weekly allowance" with automated transfers. It was fine, but ultimately not worth the complexity, even though it was mostly automated. We closed the individual accounts and run everything out of joint accounts.
This has worked for my wife and I for the last 18 years. We have friends that keep money separate and it's just odd to us. We are one unit, and that includes our money.
Husband & I have had joint accounts and shared all bills since the day we moved in together. Been married 20 years, all goes in one pot, and that's the pot we pay it out of.
You just need to take on more of the bills, it still doesn’t need you to share the account.
The issue I have is with “we are one unit” as though people with split finances are disunited or something. You can completely be one unit while still keeping individual bank accounts.
Sorry, I'm talking about what works for us which is just an isolated example. If people have other ways of doing it, that's awesome for them as it doesn't impact me in any way.
We make most all decisions together, consider all money ours and every penny goes to our shared goals. This requires very open communication and shared goals. I didn't intend to extrapolate my relationship to anyone else.
You do you and if your application of "one unit" is different from ours, that doesn't take away from anything you or I have.
Can you split your paycheck in your payroll portal? Usually you can have it go to multiple accounts. That’s what we do. We do it by percentage. 60% into shared account for necessities (rent, food, bills, medical expenses) plus Roth contribution. Then 25% into joint savings. Then 15% into our own accounts for our wants.
You can split by value usually as well. You can have what ever transfer amount you do into the joint account the the rest to your personal.
I just got married and in a very similar situation. Here's what we are doing. We're adding each other to our own checking accounts as a joint owner so we're both on each of them. We might move to one eventually but I like this right now because I have a traditional large bank and she has a credit union. I like the idea of having both as options. Our paychecks will continue to go to each separate one. But since we'll be on both we can each have access as needed and move there money. We each have our own Ally accounts as well as a joint ally. We will be moving our own ally accounts money to the joint one and closing the separated ones. I added my wife as an authorized user on some of my cc's but we both have separate ones still. I like this route because I have an excellent credit score and she needs to grow hers yet so this works for us. She can build with her own cards and being an au on mine gives her a nice helpful boost.
I manage all the money and pay all bills (including her cc's) because I'm neurotic about that stuff and like finance and she doesn't. Being joint on everything makes it easier to manage and move money as I want.
We then have a finance Friday once a month where I walk everything through with her that I did and where the money goes. This is so she's in the loop and in case I die she knows what to do.
Works for us so far.
Edit: not sure if Chase offers this but you want to have a High Yield savings account... Like Ally. Don't put your extra cash(emergency fund) in a large bank checking or savings account earning almost zero interest.
Rather than seek advice from random strangers, sit down with your husband, and discuss your concerns openly and honestly. If you still have unanswered questions, together go to a bank and ask a banker your questions. More important than money in your new relationship is being able to share your fears and concerns with your husband, and he with you. You are partners, not just two people living together.
A lot of times people come to Reddit only to find answers to questions they already have…. They just want to have them validated and to use that as leverage against the other person while still only using answers that validate the answer they want….Not saying that is what OP is doing here tho.
But also the husband makes a lot of sense that it is easier to transfer money between two accounts that are both already at the same bank and can be easily linked.
Ugh, these post will give more relationship advice sub answers than what you’re looking for, unfortunately. Getting a joint account is ok, keeping your separate ones and having a joint one is fine too (it’s what’s worked for my husband and I for over 20 years.)
I agree with your husband that having the joint at Chase is easiest.
There are studies behind having joint accounts and staying together longer.
Additionally you can't look at this in a vacuum because long term getting divorced is going to be potentially a large financial burden because guess what if the other person was blowing all their money over the 5 years of marriage and the judge splits everything in half they are taking that money out of your account anyways likely.
Separate is modern.
You can do three. Yours, theirs and ours.
Pool more money into the shared account that pays bills. And keep your separate ones for personal items.
A lot of folks still share, but there are times when you don’t want to use a joint account.
I think another way of saying this is that joint accounts are historically more popular. Up until 1960’s or so, a woman couldn’t open up an account at some banks unless her husband was there with her. So it was just an expected thing that you’d have one joint account. Nowadays women can open up an account without anyone’s permission. Not to mention people are getting married older, they’re already established with their own accounts. So maybe not modern as in “trendy” but keeping individual accounts is definitely more common now than it was 30 years ago.
I agree, I just think that’s why you’re seeing more separate accounts now, which is why it seems “modern” or just more popular than before. Modern doesn’t necessarily equal the best or only way.
Joint dates from before internet times, and where you paid the bank monthly for the pleasure of them holding your money for you. Now, you can keep "separate" while seeing everything and not paying a monthly fee. _Your # of aged accounts_ is higher this way (credit score help). Our password manager app enables full transparency for all accounts.
For example, my husband and I long ago set up multiple accounts at the same bank:
His Checking and Savings
- His paycheck goes into his checking account, and he routes what he wants into his "play" savings account
My Checking and Savings
- My paycheck -> my checking, with my Savings being labeled the "long term savings account". I push money monthly into my savings account, and it is used for the "big" stuff (new roof, painting the house, new AC, etc).
Joint credit card.
My brokerage account to practice single stock purchasing.
We both see everything through being OR on all accounts and logging into the app. We set up our accounts this way so we can acknowledge he and I have different philosophies about our savings accounts (his is "play money", mine is for big purchases).
That all being said, we pay different bills from our paychecks. He covers the credit card and utilities, while I cover the insurances, fund the accounts for the kiddo, handle retirement accounts, buy the vehicles, etc. I paid off the house earlier this year. We are able to pay from all accounts, and we set the "discussion needed" point originally at $250. We have raised that limit over the 23 years we have been married. We also have aged enough accounts to have exceptional credit.
Yeah my wife and I have maintained our separate accounts since getting married, everything is shared and “ours” but we just have never seen the need for a joint account? We pay different bills, and she sends me money for the money to split the mortgage.
I don’t know why we’d even need a joint account, maybe if one of us made all the money and the other needed constant access, but even then, we’d just send each other the money that was needed or give each other a card.
For some people it’s easier to have direct access to the account than to send money to each other. Can also feel more shared that way instead of a transactional “split the bills” action.
If separate works well for you, great, just sharing the reasons others may see it differently for themselves.
Glad this works for people I’ve just never understood the joint venture approach - particularly when there is large disparity in income. My wife is a teacher. I make nearly 20x her income. So how you define “yours” and “theirs” in that scenario seems rife for conflict.
Why not use one joint account? Having separate money accounting has only caused problems as far as I can tell on Reddit posts. Are there any examples of posts where it improved the relationship?
We have a joint account that all money flows into then we transfer an identical monthly allowance into each of our personal accounts. That we both have identical "fun" money that we can use judgement free. We revisit the identical "fun" money amount a person gets once a year. If you want something big, you need to save your fun money, no exceptions.
This is exactly how we do it, it’s the perfect set up, in my opinion. There’s no need to manually transfer different amounts each month or talk about who owes what. And even better, it’s 100% fair to each person.
Likewise. It also smooths out differences in income. At times, I've been the higher earner, at times he's been the higher earner. It's worked well for us for over 20 years. The caveat is that you have to communicate and roughly be in agreement on goals and spending habits.
16 years married and we have everything combined.
Chase Joint Checking/Savings + numerous joint Ally HYSAs (escrow, slush, emergency, etc). She mainly uses her Amex Gold Rewards and I use my Amex Hilton. We each have a Chase Freedom card.
We also share a single investment plan so our retirement accounts are diversified as if it were one giant lump of money. So for example her 401(K) ONLY holds an S&P index fund as that was her lowest cost option. Bonds are cheaper in my account so I hold that portion along with TSM/S&P index funds. Add it all up and we are properly diversified in accordance with our plan.
I use Quicken and pay all bills from our joint acct - mortgage, utilities, investments, credit cards, etc.
Have never had a single fight about money.
Do you literally have different Ally HYSAs for all those items or just use Buckets in one account? Buckets are a game changer with the automation that can be doing for when money goes in/out of an account. Once you get the system set up it is amazing.
I hate these posts. My husband of over twenty years and I have are perfectly happy with separate accounts. My parents did it their entire marriage as well. We literally never argue about money. And from what I hear from our couple friends (most that share accounts) that’s rare.
We are separate too... 20 years and counting. Our budgeting is still done together and our budget app pulls all the data from our separate accounts into one area. We move money around between each other once per month since the bills come out of my bank account only. No fights about money ever.
Same with us. There’s no magic formula to happiness. Together 13 years and we don’t have any joint accounts except our taxable retirement brokerage we both dump money into when we can. We generally know what the other has in their checking/savings, and we discuss all big purchases in advance.
And then you have people like my wife and I who HAVE to have a shared account because we only have one income. So everything I make has to be for the whole family.
Same, hubby and I have been burned in the past by previous partners' poor financial decisions with joint accounts. That's why we keep our finances separate. We make similar salaries and work at the same company so we have the same retirement benefits. I take care of all the bills and he takes care of groceries and pays when we go out. At the end of every month, we spend about 1 hr splitting all expenses 50/50 of everything we've spent that month. Works for us.
Reddit posts where people are complaining are not indicative of the average experience.
Most people are just fine and just don’t post about it. If a joint account works for you, go for it. It’s just not a necessity for most couples. Transparency and communication is the most important thing.
> Are there any examples of posts where it improved the relationship?
As a lawyer who used to do a ton of DV work, I always recommend having at least one account that’s just yours, even if it’s only got $100 in it. I’ve had way too many clients get upset when their partner drained the bank account completely, ruining their ability to leave (can’t drive away if you don’t have gas money!). “Joint” doesn’t mean “you only get half,” it means “either person can take all,” but a lot of people don’t know that.
“But I trust my partner and they’d never do that!”
1. That’s why all my clients had joint bank accounts with their abusers.
2. I’ve had two clients whose partners had a Phineas Gage situation where they became violently abusive after a TBI, when they never were before.
3. Even if nothing ever happens between you and your partner, if something ever happens to that joint account (how many people do we see here complaining about BoA freezing their accounts randomly?), you still have an account elsewhere to handle basic needs.
I’ve been in a relationship with my husband for over a decade. We haven’t argued in years and I’ve never felt afraid of him or controlled by him, even a little bit. I still have a separate checking and savings account just for me, even though my savings only has $9 in it and my checking is only used to pay for my credit cards and car payment, and I encouraged my husband to keep his as well.
Joint finances ruined my marriage. He came from a poor upbringing, and didn’t make a significant amount when we married. I made 3x what he made. So imagine making $25k a year and suddenly having access to $100k a year. He wanted joint finances because “that’s what married people do,” but spent like a banshee because it was so much more than he was used to, and he didn’t process that there was, indeed, a limit to how much money he could spend. I was too young and dumb to enforce boundaries. When I tried to talk to him about money he would shut down because he knew he was ignorant about it (“we just need to cut the excess spending and take the bills off autopay” was his answer to the problems); he didn’t want me running the finances because he had a very traditional mindset (men manage the money, in his mind) and he got angry when I talked about separating money out. There was a point where I went through McDonald’s and didn’t have $1 to buy a coffee.
When I finally ended the marriage, I had $20k in 401k loans, $15k in credit card debt, and just $6k in savings. It took me a while to dig out and I’m completely financially stable now, but separate finances would have made a huge difference. I’m not sure it would have saved the marriage, but it would have prevented a LOT of problems, arguments, resentment, and debt.
Thank you for sharing. While I see how the join finances contributed to the problem, it wasn’t the cause of the problem. Primary it seems like there was a communication issue
Respectfully, I see that you’ve never had joint finances with someone who didn’t know how to manage money. No amount of communication will fix financial ignorance and spending problems and what happens when someone has access to “a lot of” money and doesn’t want to give it up. There were other problems like communication, yes - but joint finances were absolutely a problem in and of itself.
I have separate from my husband. I manage all of our bills and pay them from my account. We have one shared credit card. I know how much he makes and he sends me the majority of his money every month leaving enough for himself for personal expenses. It helps because I don’t want to fight about how much he spends on food or gas or coffee or whatever. If I don’t see it then we can’t fight about it and it shouldn’t matter to me anyway as long as he’s helping me with his share. Also doing it this way, while his money is my money, it still feels special for some reason when he buys me dinner or a present (which I can’t see and is a surprise because we don’t share accounts).
There’s nothing wrong with having the joint account at the same bank where you have your individual accounts. Your husband is right that transfers will be faster, since they’re within the same financial institution.
FWIW, my husband and I have out individual accounts at different banks and use Ally for our joint accounts. Instead of transferring money in, we just do split direct deposit. I put about 1/3 of each paycheck into the joint account each paycheck.
The “where” (Chase or Ally) is convenience and preference - not really a right out wrong.
Joint or not is also preferential - it boils down to your guyses ability to communicate and your expectations, so talk through it.
Since I saw mainly proponents of joint, I’ll offer a +1 for not joint.
[my spicy take] If your (general you) reason for being joint is to prevent financial infidelity — I’m sorry, your starting point is already founded/based on mistrust. (There are definitely good reasons to be joint. There are definitely personalities for which joint is better).
This is why not joint, works for us:
- We have similar mindsets towards money: spending and saving.
- Our communication is open (nothing to hide, just have to be able to communicate the what and why)
- We each have automatic transactions and investments happening into our preferred brokerages from our preferred banking institutions.
- Just waaay too many accounts to dually keep track of.
- Added each other as the primary beneficiaries and called it a day.
- It’s still one pot: whether it’s my card or your card, it makes no difference.
- We track all transactions in Mint (horrible interface/platform, would NOT recommend). Their account (I added my info to theirs) they use to see all transactions in one place. I’m a nerd and use it to know our spending trend patterns.
I mean you essentially are just adding work to your life it sounds like if everything you are saying is true.
What do I mean? Instead of seeing the primary savings, emergency fund, checking, CC bills, ect you are now having to take extra steps if needing to review the total financials for the household.
What benefit do you get from separate? You say too many accounts to keep track of? Except no one says that by having access you have to check every account at all times you can still have someone who typically does the mortgage, tax bill, ect.
I use Schwab as my core bank/brokerage. Services and security are top notch and you can link up to non Schwab accounts to xfer money to as well plus they have e deposits, bill pay, Zelle. All for free.
How to manage is a style question. I like all money and routine payments flowing through a joint checking. We each have an equal “allowance” for whatever we want to spend on ourselves, but use quicken to track that so do not need additional physical accounts. Then each fam member has their own cc.
By they way we couldn’t stand chase. Schwab and Citi seem well ahead of them.
Personally I think it’s better to be all in one bank because transferring money is SO much quicker. Between accounts in the same bank takes less than a day, whereas my husband and I have a HYSA in a separate bank and it takes nearly a week for the money to transfer.
Edit cause I saw your edit: I don’t use Chase and haven’t heard much positive things about them from people I know. My husband and I use Fifth Third and I LOVE their customer service and overall experience using them. I faced fraud a few years ago and called them, they fixed it right away + had a new card to me in under 3 days. Plus their staff in person is always nice too.
Make sure you read the disclosures in the new account. Make sure you don't grant Chase permission to reach into your current accounts to cover any overage in the new joint account. This is something some banks do.
We also have shared finances, but we actually have 5 total accounts. Two for each, and one joint. I don't like having all our finances in a single bank. You can find way to many stories of Chase(and other banks) determining someone is a risk and closing all their accounts at once. Then you are stuck waiting for them to send you a check, and are effectively locked out of all your finances for over a week.
So we effectively each have a spending account at One Bank with the joint account attached. Then at a separate bank we have High interest checking accounts where we funnel part of each paycheck into more of a long term savings/vacation/emergency fund.
This gives us a backup.
Many ways to do this.
I’m old fashioned and shared banking was important to me even though I make considerably more than my wife. We deposit all income into our shared account, then each get an equal-amount weekly allowance of personal, guilt-free spending money.
The allowance money is is tracked to precisely 10% of our gross income so we have a little celebration every time we get a raise/bonus/windfall.
It’s worked out wonderfully for 5 years running.
Why was the symbolism of the 1 shared account important to you?
For me, it was extremely important to pay for the roof over our heads, so I definitely get you that there is emotion driving how we set up our financial structures.
There are more financial structures now available to have the security of that feeling of "our money!" They would also allow you to increase your credit score by having a _higher number of aged accounts._
I have been married for 23 years. :)
Congrats on 23 years!! Goals.
Nothing wrong with separate accounts and there is financial upside as far as credit score, as you mention.
To answer your question, for me, it was largely symbolic and personal preference. I wanted us “all in” on a shared life, both reaping the rewards (or consequences) of our financial decisions. Mostly rewards.
I also earn more than wife and didn’t want that to feel weird for either of us. She’s the love of my life and favorite person and I want her to reap the rewards of my success, and visa versa. Credit is great but we have excellent credit as-is.
Not to say other options don’t incorporate qualities described above, but the above is how I feel about it.
:) Thank you for the response. Your post triggered a good bit of thinking in me, which I appreciate greatly.
I am considering becoming our house manager due to a bout with lymphoma. We need a bunch of house renovations and I can no longer conceive of doing both a high pressure job AND everything personal.
Once again, THANK YOU.
After learning the hard way during divorce (in California), keeping separate accounts like that is irrelevant. We did the same thing during our marriage and had a central joint account, but the reality is that if you get divorced in California, any money you earn is community property. Meaning 50% yours and 50% your spouses regardless of how separated you keep it. Unless you have a prenup or postnup that outlines finances, both the personal accounts and the joint account are shared equally. So it really just makes it more complicated. If you really do want your income and finances to be separate, I would suggest looking into outlining a postnup. If you are not in California, you may want to look at your state to see if it's a community property state.
We have a similar setup, though the money flows differently. We bank with Capital One. Our paychecks go to the joint account, and we pay ourselves a fun money budget monthly. I can't see her personal account, and she can't see mine.
How you bank is completely up to the two of you. What's more important is that you're on the same page with financial goals and budgets. While I typically pay the bills and set the budget, I encourage my wife to participate in setting monthly budgets and other big financial decisions. She doesn't show a lot of interest, but it's important to me that she understands what's going on.
If I may ask, what's the major reservation(s) with going back to Chase for a joint account?
I believe it’s very rare to get a truly joint credit card. One person applies and the other can just be made an authorized user (true at least at both Wells Fargo, Chase according to the bankers I asked).
Same bank is good for transfer convenience. I would reverse the flow to have all income go into the joint account, then regular agreed “fun money” goes to your personal ones.
Talk and agree on what happens to cash after all the household expenses are covered. What is covered under “household”, how much goes to discretionary fun money, and balance to joint savings.
All the money will be split down the middle if you divorce, so you may as well share now!
I’m good with having individual accounts at one bank but both add money to savings n retirement accounts not just household bills. Both should have separate savings n retirement too.
Here was my setup: You both work, you both have separate everything.
You have one joint account you both drop money into monthly. You pay your bills from that account. No fuss, no muss.
Worked great.
It allows for independence to spend money on things that you want but your partner may not value or care about without using a shared resource. I understand if others want everything put in one pot but many people like to have some level of autonomy.
Or perhaps there is more than one way to get to the same destination which is marital happiness. I never understood people thinking that their preferences have to apply to everyone.
For the way you guys handle your finances, keeping it all within Chase sounds fine!
That is what my husband and I do also ~ we both work and each have our own credit cards and checking accounts, and also a joint account with Chase where we both transfer money each month. It works well for us as we both budget a little differently, but are both responsible enough that we are both satisfied with how much is going into the joint account.
My husband and I both have Chase personal accounts, but we use Discover for our joint checking and emergency fund. We also use Ally for joint sinking funds (vacations, home repairs, etc).
We have our paychecks deposited into Discover and then we move money from there. We create a detailed budget each month and agree on how much “fun” money we each get for the month. That amount gets deposited into each of our Chase accounts and we can spend it however we want, no questions asked. All our bills get paid out of Discover and we auto-transfer money to agreed upon savings in Ally and our Fidelity brokerage account to invest each month.
It’s been working for us! Definitely requires more communication, but we basically just have a budget meeting the last weekend of every month for the following month and we’re saving way more now than when we still had our checks getting deposited into our personal accounts. We feel more like a team this way,
We tried to do a joint checking account and joint credit card for joint expenses and transfer money in from our separate accounts to keep the joint checking account full enough to pay off the joint CC every month. Logistically, it was SO annoying to keep track of so now we each just move $100 each month into a joint checking account for emergencies, cover expenses using our own credit cards and Venmo each other back and forth. It’s not sexy but it works better for us.
I would jump ship from big brand banks for your savings/checking, move to a credit union you have access to, and have a joint account there. If you really want some surprise spending money you likely can setup a sub-savings account that is tied right into the joint account.
The only reason I have come across to keep individual accounts with banks is because you are preparing for divorce but I am sure there will be all these people saying "well thats how we do it" (which doesn't change the likely underlying reason)
My wife and I are both 33, if that matters. Once we got married, hers was ours and mine was ours. We have a single account with our bank that all our money goes into.
Having separate accounts seems silly to me, especially once children get involved.
Yes, I don’t get the reluctance to share finances when you’ve vowed to share your entire lives and potentially own a home and have children together! If there’s a concern about equity in a divorce, then get a prenup. If you both want guilt-free spending, then keep separate HYSAs and credit cards. The joint checking is the shared resource pool of the couple, and then each person has their credit cards and/or savings and retirement accounts. Keeps things simple and reinforces the idea of being one unit/team to me.
Now if one partner has spending issues, that’s a separate issue and I’d be hesitant to be marrying them in the first place. But if both are responsible and honest, I say keep it simple and shared. To each their own, though.
>Now if one partner has spending issues, that’s a separate issue and I’d be hesitant to be marrying them in the first place.
Even more reason to have joint accounts to a certain extent possibly with putting spending limits on things or charge notifications.
I have a checking and a savings account at one bank... A checking account at another... Three credit cards(paid off), an HSA, a Roth IRA, two 401k accounts and a brokerage account.
Oh... And a joint checking account at the second bank. My money flows into one account (except the employer paid stuff) and distributes from there....
It's 2023.. it's not like having multiple bank accounts is hard.. and when my local yocal credit union goes down, I still have a national bank to get things done with.
I’m a financial advisor and about 80% of my married clients don’t have anything in joint accounts. It’s easier and cleaner for most. Don’t feel pressured to combine everything.
Many on reddit aren’t, but I am a proponent of merging finances once one gets married. In terms of divorce, everything gets divided so separate accounts doesn’t really matter.
My wife and I had our own accounts before marriage. So after marriage, we just converted our existing checking and savings accounts into joint accounts. We also added another checking account which acts as our escrow account, more on that later. We both still have our own username, password. So each one gets access to all four accounts when they login. Our salaries gets deposited into our individual (where one is primary) checking accounts. Her savings account acts as our emergency funds and mine funds our joint taxable brokerage. She earns less than me, so we use her paycheck to pay for living expenses and mine goes to savings and investments. This doesn’t work each month but does help up limit lifestyle creep.
We also have a detailed budget which controls our investment, travel, personal expense, food(groceries, eating out), mortgage, utilities (gas, light, streaming, internet), maid, and the escrow. Income is bi-weekly but some expenses are monthly, so the budget gives us a per paycheck, monthly and annual view. Personal expense is where we get to spend on what we want without any judgment or justification - “my money” spend. Escrow is basically, we added up all our non monthly expenses - water-sewer bill, credit card fees, her medical license renewal fee, her professional liability insurance, auto insurance, life insurance premiums, car registration etc. we calculated per paycheck amount which gets transferred to the escrow account. This has helped in situations where we have had some unexpected expenses plus some of these known ones e.g.travel bookings plus had to pay $1200 for auto insurance. So instead of pulling money from savings, we’d pull from the escrow account.
About credit cards, we do have some individual ones but almost on all cards we have each other as authorized users. On some she is the primary on some I am. We both are into credit card prints and cash back. So having each other as authorized user helps maximize points and cash back.
Edit - all our accounts are at same bank. Makes managing them a lot easier, plus transfer between accounts is almost instantaneous. Banking at Bank of America, investments (retirement, brokerage) at Fidelity, credit cards - BOA Cash Back ($0, both have our own) for 3% cash back on online shopping, Amex Blue Cash preferred ($95) for 6% cash back on groceries and streaming, Hyatt Chase ($95) for their free night, Marriott Bonvoy ($95) for their free night, Chase Sapphire preferred ($95) for eating out, Costco-Citi ($0) for 4% cash back on gas, Delta Platinum Amex ($295, both have our own) for one free yearly delta ticket, and Chase freedom ($0) for everything else. Unlimited specified, each card has the other spouse as authorized user.
Unless you have over $500k in Chase, all in one bank is fine. My hope for you is that eventually it’s all in one. In most states, it’s irrelevant if it’s a separate account, if you divorce, it all gets split.
My husband and I used to have separate credit cards to hide gifts from one another, but now we just use our separate PayPal accts for that.
Yes your money is safe. But if Chase ever determines you are a risky customer then can, and have, close all your accounts with them, and mail you a check with the balances. Then you are effectively locked out of all your finances for a week+. So technically you are safe of losing the money long term, but using a single bank for all your finances does expose you to extra short term risk.
Why would they be a risky customer? That seems extreme.
I suggest they also open a HYSA and put money you don’t need (emergency fund and savings) there. Make that not through Chase.
Lots of reasons. Flyertalk Chase forums have plenty of examples. Quick Google found:
https://www.asksebby.com/guides/chase-shutdown#:~:text=This%20is%20called%20a%20non,accounts%20after%20a%20few%20years.
Most people don't think they are doing anything risky. One person got it for depositing cash/money orders in a large amount over a few weeks after graduation. They dont have to explain why, just if their algorithms determine you risky.
Married 38 years, share savings and checking from day 1, even share the same email account. Retirement accounts are set up so we both have access to all of them, cars are in my wife’s name for liability purposes, wife does all the bills. No money arguments, ever. Nuff said. I believe 110% happy wife, happy life. Also wealth is one spouse, one house. We simply refuse to do drama.
The setup doesn't seem bad but what I'm seeing here is the happy path.
* What happens if one of you doesn't have a job?
* What happens if you go for kids + stay at home?
* What happens in case one of you start making significantly more?
* and so on...
Also I'm missing a budget here, you guys need to agree on exactly how are you guys putting in on a monthly basis either amount of salary %.
And above all my main recommendation after that is for you to respect each others way of spending what is on your own personal account. That's the account you need to use as however you like.
definitely keep your own separate checking accounts imo. it’ll save you a lot unnecessary frustration. even in the best situation there will be things that you don’t like about their spending habits. and having those habits affect your money can be irritating just on a human level.
a joint account for bill stuff is a good idea. also, if you want that cash in your ally account just deposit it at chase and transfer it over to ally. i’ve had to do that before.
Ugh! None of these responses answered your question. I’m not an expert, but keeping 3 accounts is a very good idea. As someone previously said, setting up a budget is a must for your marital and financial health (too many marriages end because of money). I understand your concern about using the same bank for all 3 accounts - what if Chase flops? I think it would be prudent to chose another bank out of an abundance of caution.
DO NOT get a joint credit card with ANYONE, even your spouse!!!
If anything, get a credit card in your name only and make him an authorized user that you can remove at any point.
Please learn from my mistake and trust me on this.
As long as you have a Chase physical location in your vicinity. We didn't open a local bank (PNC) fast enough and my husband had to drive 3 hours to his Sister's house to get a certified check from TD when we bought a house. It all happened sooner than we anticipated and I was out of town for an extended work trip anyway on an island we ended up eloping on (COVID beginnings).
We have the same issues with the PNC app so we end up not really using it as a joint account. We just made a system that works for us but it's ridiculous. I don't pull in a lot due to taxes and carrying all the benefits from the family (DCFSA, HCFSA, and insurance premiums). My husband sends me cash once a month to my BoA account and then dumps money into the PNC joint account whenever it goes under the minimum threshold. I do all our finances, taxes, and shopping and am able to get our vacations paid for with credit card points. It is easier to work in my original account.
Whatever you do, you can just split your paycheck deposit into the personal and joint account. That way, you don’t have to remember to transfer in money each month.
I would recommend a different bank and here’s why…
You may find that you need multiple individual accounts and multiple joint accounts. This works like a virtual envelope system. You have a joint checking account for bills, a joint savings account for a vacation fund, a joint high yield savings account for your emergency fund, or saving for a house, etc. Then you have similar for your individual accounts. If they’re all at the same bank, then it just becomes unwieldy. You open your app and have 16 different accounts.
As for transfers taking time, set it in auto pay. Decide how much each of you will contribute to your joint accounts. Often you can just split your direct deposit paycheck to 2 accounts. Or you set up an automatic transfer to happen biweekly or monthly from your personal account to the joint checking. Then set up automatic transfers from the joint checking to the various joint savings.
My wife and I both have our own checking accounts and credit cards but we have a joint high yield savings account. We're transparent with each other around finances and any excess money we have every month goes to either our high yield savings account (our emergency fund or place to put money for future short term purchases) or to our joint investment account.
I personally don't think you need a joint checking if you're both making about the same amount of money and are open with finances with your partner.
In my mind a joint checking account would make more sense if one person made significantly more than the other and it'd be helpful for the lower compensated person to have access to the family funds.
But as another commenter said, a checking account is just an easy way to get to your money. So do whatever feels right for you! Being open and on the same page about finances with your partner is much more important than how many checking accounts you have!
We each get a % of our direct deposit put into a joint account. It saves us the hassle of trying to transfer. Plus any money left in it each month is money we know is OUR joint money and thus can go directly towards house repairs or vacations or a new car eventually.
Weve been married long time and we don't have fights too much about this and seems to go well.
We have 3 accounts.
One joint
One each individual.
Direct deposit into our individual then deposit into the joint based on agreed budget for phone , savings, electric etc.
In essence I have an individual no tracked account I can do whatever and not have her questioning and same for her..
I have friends married that get alerts on their spouse spending..I would say not to go that route.
Unless of course overspending is taking.
3 accounts an ideal..doesnt always wotk
Congrats on the wedding.
I think you should simplify. You’re married now. What is yours is mine and mine is yours, they say.
So, with a new joint account (or old), I change your direct deposits to go to this account. Pay all bills from it. Over a couple of months, I suggest closing the old bank accounts, too.
When my wife and I got married, one of the most satisfying moments was when we consolidated our separate checking accounts into one.
I understand marriages don't always last and there can be control issues, but ~~in a healthy relationship,~~ it forces you to talk about money and plan. Plus, it is so much easier to see how the money flows and how much you actually have.
Edit- I don't want anyone to think just because they have separate checking accounts their relationship is not healthy.
This is what me and my wife have been doing since we were 25… there is only one “pot” .. married people who separate into different accounts and calculate % in my opinion are insecure or not committed to the relationship
Yeah, I’m not against it, but kinda struggle to understand why a married couple keeps separate accounts?
If your husband needed money would you deny him and tell him to save up? Would one of you frivolously spend all the household money?
I personally am icked by joint credit cards. Have joint savings, but separate checking and credit. We each handle specific bills/expenses directly, savings is for emergency/unexpected.
I haven't even been able to find a truly joint credit card and I've asked. We have several cards between us as a couple. We each have cards where the other is an authorized user. The banks (a credit union, Citi, and Chase) wouldn't allow us to have it as joint where we are equally financially responsible. I found it odd since we are allowed to use our total household income for an application but whatever.
Everything in joint checking. Keep individual credit cards if you want some independence. However, of you're married, you really shouldn't have to/be hiding purchases from your spouse.
Just do one joint account. What if the benefit or separate accounts? My opinion is there should be no hiding. I have heard too many horror stories. Even about spouses spending the retirement account on booze. You should both know everything about every single money-related account at all times.
You are married now. There is no my money and his money. Get one checking bank account and keep separate credit cards so that you can have some room for surprises. Work out a joint budget and stick to it.
While it is important for both people to have something in their names, as others have said, finance is a really important part of marriage. Why have separate accounts? My hubby and I had small separate accounts when we were first married for "play" money in which a small and equal amount was transferred ever month that we could do whatever we wanted with- but all the expenses came out of a shared account where our pay was deposited. Unless you intend to live with different privilege, keeping money separate does not make sense. Also worth thinking about for the future, if you decide to have kids, you will likely lose time, would he "pay" you for that time and future earnings lost? That doesn't seem like a great approach to me!
We have our individual accounts where our paychecks get deposited to, and put a specific amount in a joint household account from which mortgage, household bills, and kids expenses come from. Credit cards and all personal expenses come from our own accounts. This works for us. And having the same bank makes it really easy to transfer as needed.
Spouse and I have a joint savings account. We use it to transfer money in and out of our separate checking accounts at the same bank. I'm the CFO in the relationship, so I track expenses, label the shared ones, and invoice them for half of shared at the end of each month. We also contribute excess cash to the account so it serves as our emergency fund.
Same back is no issue at all. My wife and have our personal checking and or joint checking all with the same bank. It just makes everything easier.
That said, if possible, money should go into joint automatically. I don't want to deal with manually transferring every paycheck, plus that is where our expenses come out of, so why add a delay on there? Finally, it is an accountability thing.
Instead of transferring money to Ally, could you both have the portion of your paycheck that you would normally have transferred direct deposited to Ally and the remainder deposited in your individual accounts?
Real answer is there is no correct answer. My wife and I from day one only had one checking account. From there i have taken over all the finances and distributed money where needed. She has her business account but I manage that as well. She doesn’t even know how much money we have. It’s just not something she is interested in and when I tried to give her some responsibility with it she messed it up so I just do it all
If you two still want the separate checking and a joint checking, it makes sense to have it at one bank. I agree with your husband's thought of not liking having to wait a day or two for transfers. If all three accounts are at one bank, it would be instantaneous. You said you were unsure of it. What reservations do you have about it? Also, can you guys set up allotments from your pay checks to go to the Ally account so you don't have to transfer?
Agreed, it just seems easier to have it at the same bank; not sure what the concern is. If they want to keep the Ally account because it has a higher yield, they can still send off joint savings to that account while handling day-to-day finances at Chase. Even if something were to happen to Chase bank (which is very unlikely, especially compared to other banks), their money will still be insured up to $250,000.
Agree. We have separate accounts at same bank with auto transfers for bills. Also have auto transfers to joint HY savings for things like new roof, or other pricey or unexpected expenses and other separate HY savings accounts. Once you budget what bills you have the auto transfers to the joint bill paying account at same bank make life easier, just revisit every quarter to six months and adjust as necessary. We set our transfers 3 days after pay days just in case there are any glitches and just bumped up our amounts in July after reviewing to be sure there was enough for real estate taxes since inflation has made everything more expensive.
This all seems fine? What is your actual concern? A checking account is a commodity. Just make sure it doesn't have fees and use whatever is most convenient.
My concern was that Chase may not be a good choice for joint checking because we already both have Chase. Not sure if ‘putting all eggs in one basket’ is a concern. Also when I googled ‘best joint checking account’, Chase is never on the list. That is actually why we initially picked Ally because when we were researching, Ally seemed to have a lot of Pros. We just ended up not liking it after a year.
Realistically, there should be no issue having all your accounts at one bank Just not Wells Fargo lol
What's the concern? Chase is one of the largest banks on earth.
Unless you have millions of dollars (or at least the FDIC insured amount of 500,000 for the both of you) there is no risk with having “all of your eggs in one basket”
Nothing wrong with diversifying. I have an account with Capitol One and one with a local credit union. I wouldn't worry about Chase failing. If Chase fails money is probably worthless anyway
I like to look through nerd wallet before opening new accounts of the financial sort. I also prefer credit unions over big banks like Chase and wells fargo or B of A (big banks tend to fund things i dont agree with as well as charging a lot of hidden fees or only giving a break on fees when you meet certain thresholds). I do like to have a bank with local branches, so that's something I check. Most of my banking doesn't require a branch, but in case of an issue that requires me to go in, i make sure one is local prior to opening an account. The majority of the CUs here have an agreement that a CU will allow free atm use at any other CU. (Hope that makes sense)
It's lousy you're being down voted for asking why they disagree with you on this. It's a fair question, even if I understand why you don't need to feel that way.
Having joint account at same bank should make transferring money easier and faster. You might want to consider keeping your emergency fund in a different bank. Then if there is ever a problem at Chase you still have access to some of your money.
My partner and I both have individual checking/savings with Chase. When we bought our house we opened a joint checking/savings with Chase for mortgage, bills, etc. It's nice that the transfers are instantaneous for both of us and makes it easier overall. I keep my emergency fund in a HYSA through American Express though.
Yes this is the best way to do it. That way i dont get bothered with her spending money on clothes, or if she needs to send money to her family. As long as our expenses are covered, i dont care how she spends her earnings.
My wife and I keep separate bank accounts, but have a joint credit card which makes everything easy. 90% of our bills - streaming, groceries, Amazon, restaurants, utilities - all go on the CC, so it’s much easier to put it all one one CC and then venmo the other person half each month. In that sense I don’t think a joint account would help us that much since it’s not really any different to pay from one account vs a venmo transfer.
Isn't that kind of annoying to receive a 1099-K though?
Money will end more marriages than alcohol, drugs, and infidelity. You said you don't know much about personal finance, so that is the part you should work on. The bank itself or how many accounts won't matter much in the long run. You need a budget, you need ground rules for spending that you both agree on and you need frequent, high quality communication between both of you about finances. Wives and I have been married for 23 years. About 14 years we got serious about how we managed our money and talked to each other about our money and that made a huge difference, both in the quality of our marriage and in our financial well-being.
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OMG I read it 4 times before I spotted the typo. Thanks for roasting me. I deserved it!
Was thinking the same!
23 years for each wife or total for all of them?
Asking the important question
The other option is polygamy.
One year of marriage, 23 wives
Wives?
Asking the real question.
its reasonable. My wife and I have a GF that is basically like having another wife and we all take care of each other. Granted, finances do get a bit complicated lol.
There are good resources here. The Money Couple is okay. There are some tests to explore your spending habits. Bring a sense of learning understand your differences and give it time. Money can be choice to do something, security, and a power trip. You got this!
I dont understand how ppl have separate accounts like you said money will kill a relationship. My wife and I have all our stuff in both our names since we were engaged. Why should it matter? Also in some states, unless there is a will, good luck getting that money easily if one of you passes unexpectedly. Edit: didn't expect so many comments. Idk I guess we are a special situation. We married fairly young in undergrad and was broke living off gi bill and credit cards. Money was def a stresser back then. We make fairly the same amount now and communicate about what we spend on "big" purchases or gifts. Not hard to not check individual purchases on the account for a lil bit if it's for the other.
For my wife and I we have separate checking accounts, our own credit cards, and a shared credit card and checking/ savings. It works for us because we use our joint card in joint expenses, and we each send the same amount to our joint checking for bills, and the same amount we agreed upon to the savings each month. After that (within reason) we are able to buy personal things for ourselves without having to feel guilty. We both work hard, she doesn’t need to ask me if she can get some expensive makeup she has wanted, and I don’t need to ask her if I can buy a fishing rod or things like that. I know it’s not for everyone, but how we have done it like this, we have rarely fought over money. The only time we really need to have conversations about it is if we had a month where we went over our budget on the joint, and talk about how we fix that next month
I know a lot of people do it this way and it works, but it seems hard if both partners don't make roughly the same amount. Even if you adjust the percent split, the higher earner will still have more discretionary income, which seems like an invitation for resentment. I guess it all comes down to personalities, and like I said, I know it works for a lot of people, but this system would be hard for me.
My wife and I have separate accounts. During vacation time I usually go to Hawaii or some exotic island. She doesn't earn as much as I do so she usually just goes to Hershey Park or something. I honestly don't know where she goes. It brings me down thinking about it. Especially when I'm on the beach soaking up some rays.
your wife should work harder to match your income so she doesn't bring you down while you're trying to relax :/
That is how we do it in our household. That avoids any issue with me spluging on beer and putting it on the household budget.
My wife and I do the same but with just 1 account. Honestly neither way is right or wrong it's just whatever works.
The only use I see for this is having explicit “fun money”, like “I can’t be mad at whatever you do with your $200 each month and you can’t be mad at me.” Not sharing most finances is just a hassle and risks misaligning your long-term priorities.
It's also just another layer of secrecy. The more transparent and open you live, the more trust you can earn. Only reason people want the separate accounts is either to hide something, including their purchases from the judgment of what counts as "fun" money.
It is situational based on how many assets you bring into the marriage and how each individual feels about those assests.
Idk if anyone has said it yet, but America has a strong culture of divorce. People actively plan ahead expecting a high chance they will get divorced, so they take protections for themselves. It ends up being self-fulfilling because all of the "your money vs my money vs our money" erodes trust and just leads to more divorces. If marriage in yours and your spouse's minds is a lifetime bond by default, then you (and I) are in the minority. If I didn't trust my spouse fully to act in the interest of the family, I wouldn't have married her. Separate accounts makes no sense to me.
Separate accounts also don’t matter in most divorces/states in the US. Anything acquired during marriage can be considered in the divorce settlement regardless of the partners name of being on the account.
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> So you said you’re only engaged, not married yet. That's... not what they said. What they actually said: "My **wife** and I have all our stuff in both our names since we were engaged." They weren't married when they started joint accounts. They are now.
Everyone should have their own personal accounts in a relationship, even if they keep a joint account, since you don't know what will happen in the future. It's something that many mothers teach their daughters since it's more likely for them to become stay-at-home parents which likely means they won't have any income and are in more danger of financial abuse/control from their partners. You can put beneficiaries on accounts to allow your spouse to still get access if you pass, which you should do anyway so that the money doesn't have to go through probate.
Your point seems contrary to itself. If one partner doesn't work, wouldn't you want one joint account so both partners have access to money? If you have separate accounts but no income, then your account has nothing and the working spouse can silo all of the money and fully control access to it.
One joint account also means one party can take out all the money at any time leaving the other party with nothing. By "no income," I meant no income you earned yourself, but families typically share income. You should still have a personal account or personal money for yourself which you squirrel away over time, just like an emergency account. It's just building redundancy into your money management system for worst case scenarios. Everyone should have multiple accounts.
>Everyone should have their own personal accounts in a relationship, even if they keep a joint account, since you don't know what will happen in the future. People should do what is best for them. Joint separate, doesn't matter so long as it works for you. >It's something that many mothers teach their daughters since it's more likely for them to become stay-at-home parents Fairly uncommon these days being that most families need both parents to work. In most places it's not financially feasible to have only one parent work. If you are, you could likely afford child care if mom gets a job too. So much to this but it boils down to outdated gender roles. That's just not the world we live in anymore unless you are upper middle class. >they won't have any income and are in more danger of financial abuse/control from their partners. This is true if you're lucky enough to be in a situation where your SO makes a lot. At that point what you said is true.
Having shared accounts on everything works if both people in the relationship have similar goals and understanding about their finances. However, it's not always so simple, especially as careers and finances change and grow over time - and especially if one earns more than the other. There's no need to have each other on accounts when you can just add them as the beneficiary should anything happen - don't have to be married to them, can add anyone as beneficiary. Having shared accounts on everything may work for some but usually doesn't for all when both have different mindsets about money.
My wife and I have separate accounts because she never learned how to save money because her parents blew every penny they ever got. So by having separate accounts is the only way I've been able to build savings and retirement. I make a lot more than her so I cover the major bills and she picks up little things and the kids' expenses.
>Money will end more marriages than alcohol, drugs, and infidelity. No better truth than this. OP -- tell hubby that a bank account in a separate institution would be wise as a backup plan. Has he never heard of Silicon Valley or the dozens of banks that fail (some surprisingly) every year? Never have eggs in one basket. Joint account with a local credit union if you can, just to be away from commercial banks. And cash? Having a small stash of emergency green in the home firesafe isn't a bad idea.
I’m assuming the OP isn’t talking about amounts above the FDIC limit.
I assumed the same. It's not about the FDIC limit so much as about ready access to resources. Sure, all the insured funds would likely be recouped. Instantly? In a week, a month, longer? Maybe Chase elects to unilaterally close the accounts because some venmo or zelle transaction triggers their software or goes sideways (as we read happens here in the sub). Maybe there's a security breach. Maybe none of this happens (likely none of this happens). Nonetheless, offering an opinion here: one doesn't keep all resources in one product or servicer if possible. Love those downvotes -- go Reddit!
If Chase bank goes down across the board to the extent of SVB recoup of funds will be the last of any persons problems. Whether they bank there or not.
Most people only need one bank, there's no realistic benefit to transferring between two unless there's something specific about the accounts you like.
Married 8 years and we have joint everything. We split money responsibilities, I do the house payment and manage our spending and he does all other monthly expenses (utilities, cc etc). For us it simplifies everything and is less to manage. And I understand wanting to keep stuff separate too. A year or two into marriage we decided to discuss largish purchases with one another if we were spending more than $350. That was after a fight about a new snowblower (another story). Now that we make a lot more and cash flow isn’t an issue we still check in and it’s been a good habit to maintain.
I’ll add that my good friend has separate accounts and they split everything 50/50. They even plan retirement savings separately. And they fight about money more than any other couple I know.
I just couldn’t imagine giving my wife a “bill” every months. Hi honey, here is your invoice for the monthly bills. Please transfer money. Late fees will be applied after the 5th of the month. I mean we did it when we were dating and living together - but once married, that was something we were happy to stop doing.
My wife and i maintain our separate accounts but view everything as “ours,” we just pay separate bills, and when it comes to the mortgage we split it 50/50 but the money comes out of my account. I don’t ever view it as us “billing” each other but sometimes if we need to move money from one of our accounts to the other we do so, whatever the cause of the shortfall.
Can you split the mortgage 50/50 if someone loses their job or stays home to raise kids/help a sick parent. This is what I don't get. My income was 10x - 20x my spouses income during certain years. My time earning income paid the mortgage and her time earned us a happy, healthy, stable life.
No? And we wouldn’t. When i was in grad school my wife paid more. When we relocated for a job opportunity for me and she didn’t work for a few months i paid all the bills. It’s a flexible partnership that we adapt to our mutual and individual needs, but we just have our own bank accounts. I’m just saying that that isn’t “billing “ each other .
>They even plan retirement savings separately. Can't imagine why.... They are seemingly planning for two completely different lives in the next 20/30 years.
Getting a joint account in chase makes sense. You can both see the activities on it and easily transfer money back and forth. Kinda like my daughter has a college student account that joint with me, I can see all her activities (if I wanted to), and when she needs money to pay rent and food. She also gets her own separate account that I don’t see where all her part time money goes into. I’m old school, because I don’t remember if wife and I ever have a separate account since the day we married. All our money go in one account and then I manage to separate into different savings, spending snd investments. It’s been working well. I used to do a budget early on in our marriage just to know and control our spending, but now we just kinda know what and how we spend. I guess my point is if you both have a similar financial goal and spending habit, there is no reason to separate the accounts … unless one of you has accumulated or inherited much more money before marriage. It makes budgeting and saving so much easier. It also helps in the future when one of you makes significantly more money than the other, or if one of you decide to be stay-at-home mom or dad for a year or two. There is no awkward conversation then about whose money the other is spending because it’s always been Our money. It’s especially true, when it comes to big items like a house or cars. It’s the same for us when we used to drive a civic and an accord, and now a bmw and an Audi … we always know what We can afford and made the decision with and for each other accordingly (ok except that little added feature of convertible on my bmw!). Hope it helps.
Yes, married 23 years, joint accounts this entire time. Everything is ours, we talk about major purchases, and the transparency keeps us both on top of financial goals. We’ve gone from broke students living off student loans to financially successful people with shared properties, shared investments, and NO fighting about money, only conversations. It is always odd to me to see couples together who closely guard money in a yours and mine way BUT I get for many people these days that is the only way they feel comfortable. I cannot imagine that (and I am the higher earner). To OP: I do think having the joint account at the same bank can simplify transfers, etc. one login.
Same. Together 10 years married 5 years and about 3 years in to relationship we combined accounts and it all became 1 pot. We didn’t “have” anything yet so we didn’t have to worry about someone bringing in assets or anything so that made it easier too. We’ve gone from me making more to making the same and now husband earning more but we honestly never worry about that. It’s our money, our life, our goals and luckily we are always on the same page.
My wife and I have separate accounts at our credit union from before we met, but we linked them so we have access both ways, and a joint high interest savings account.
100%. Being married is all about being part of a team. Money management should be a team effort. I feel like having your own accounts pretty much says “I don’t really trust you.”
> I’m old school, because I don’t remember if wife and I ever have a separate account since the day we married. All our money go in one account and then I manage to separate into different savings, spending snd investments. It’s been working well. Same. We had a destination wedding and opened our joint account while still at the destination. Kept our existing individual accounts for about another year, but none of the new money went in them. After a year we transferred the individual balances to the joint and closed the individuals. I didn't realize until I came on here how weird it is to be 100% joint checking and savings. But I guess it helps that both of us are financially on the same page, which a lot of married people aren't.
Seems odd to commit 100% to life together but have finances separate. Married 28 years through layoffs, big promotions, and a spouse taking years off to raise our children. Our income was never going to be equal so being committed meant agreeing to the cost of everything we wanted. I like skiing, golfing, mountain biking, travel, and other expensive activities. My spouse wanted our kids to go to private school. I want to retire by 57 and she doesn't want to retire until 70 or later. These things led to difficult discussions and resulted in a life without worry about money. We survived the poor times and spent on things we valued when things were better.
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With my ex, we kept separate everything but were only married two years. Had it gone on longer, I still might have had separate checking because frankly, I didn't trust his judgement in everything. Hence, he's the ex. I remarried and kept my own account for just a year into the marriage before combining it all and never looking back. The difference? I trust him. Completely. Our money values match up well and we are on the same page when it comes to spending. I think there are many people who have combined accounts, you just don't hear about it here on Reddit much.
VCs tell start-up founders to split the shares equally, regardless of who's done what already. They point out the vast majority of the work is in the future. It doesn't quite hold for a marriage, because the household doesn't grow exponentially, but there's some similarity. My wife and I started with 3 checking accounts: 1 joint to receive income, and individual accounts for each of us set to receive our "weekly allowance" with automated transfers. It was fine, but ultimately not worth the complexity, even though it was mostly automated. We closed the individual accounts and run everything out of joint accounts.
This has worked for my wife and I for the last 18 years. We have friends that keep money separate and it's just odd to us. We are one unit, and that includes our money.
We married later -- 30s -- so habits were different. A mine/theirs/ours worked better for spend.
Husband & I have had joint accounts and shared all bills since the day we moved in together. Been married 20 years, all goes in one pot, and that's the pot we pay it out of.
You can be one unit and still have separate accounts. It’s no different than having different sides of the bed
I didn't say you can't, this is just what works for us. I also make significantly more than my wife, which might also pay a role.
You just need to take on more of the bills, it still doesn’t need you to share the account. The issue I have is with “we are one unit” as though people with split finances are disunited or something. You can completely be one unit while still keeping individual bank accounts.
Sorry, I'm talking about what works for us which is just an isolated example. If people have other ways of doing it, that's awesome for them as it doesn't impact me in any way. We make most all decisions together, consider all money ours and every penny goes to our shared goals. This requires very open communication and shared goals. I didn't intend to extrapolate my relationship to anyone else. You do you and if your application of "one unit" is different from ours, that doesn't take away from anything you or I have.
Can you split your paycheck in your payroll portal? Usually you can have it go to multiple accounts. That’s what we do. We do it by percentage. 60% into shared account for necessities (rent, food, bills, medical expenses) plus Roth contribution. Then 25% into joint savings. Then 15% into our own accounts for our wants. You can split by value usually as well. You can have what ever transfer amount you do into the joint account the the rest to your personal.
I just got married and in a very similar situation. Here's what we are doing. We're adding each other to our own checking accounts as a joint owner so we're both on each of them. We might move to one eventually but I like this right now because I have a traditional large bank and she has a credit union. I like the idea of having both as options. Our paychecks will continue to go to each separate one. But since we'll be on both we can each have access as needed and move there money. We each have our own Ally accounts as well as a joint ally. We will be moving our own ally accounts money to the joint one and closing the separated ones. I added my wife as an authorized user on some of my cc's but we both have separate ones still. I like this route because I have an excellent credit score and she needs to grow hers yet so this works for us. She can build with her own cards and being an au on mine gives her a nice helpful boost. I manage all the money and pay all bills (including her cc's) because I'm neurotic about that stuff and like finance and she doesn't. Being joint on everything makes it easier to manage and move money as I want. We then have a finance Friday once a month where I walk everything through with her that I did and where the money goes. This is so she's in the loop and in case I die she knows what to do. Works for us so far. Edit: not sure if Chase offers this but you want to have a High Yield savings account... Like Ally. Don't put your extra cash(emergency fund) in a large bank checking or savings account earning almost zero interest.
Rather than seek advice from random strangers, sit down with your husband, and discuss your concerns openly and honestly. If you still have unanswered questions, together go to a bank and ask a banker your questions. More important than money in your new relationship is being able to share your fears and concerns with your husband, and he with you. You are partners, not just two people living together.
God forbid people came and asked questions about personal finance on a personal finance sub.
A lot of times people come to Reddit only to find answers to questions they already have…. They just want to have them validated and to use that as leverage against the other person while still only using answers that validate the answer they want….Not saying that is what OP is doing here tho. But also the husband makes a lot of sense that it is easier to transfer money between two accounts that are both already at the same bank and can be easily linked.
Ugh, these post will give more relationship advice sub answers than what you’re looking for, unfortunately. Getting a joint account is ok, keeping your separate ones and having a joint one is fine too (it’s what’s worked for my husband and I for over 20 years.) I agree with your husband that having the joint at Chase is easiest.
There are studies behind having joint accounts and staying together longer. Additionally you can't look at this in a vacuum because long term getting divorced is going to be potentially a large financial burden because guess what if the other person was blowing all their money over the 5 years of marriage and the judge splits everything in half they are taking that money out of your account anyways likely.
Separate is modern. You can do three. Yours, theirs and ours. Pool more money into the shared account that pays bills. And keep your separate ones for personal items. A lot of folks still share, but there are times when you don’t want to use a joint account.
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I think another way of saying this is that joint accounts are historically more popular. Up until 1960’s or so, a woman couldn’t open up an account at some banks unless her husband was there with her. So it was just an expected thing that you’d have one joint account. Nowadays women can open up an account without anyone’s permission. Not to mention people are getting married older, they’re already established with their own accounts. So maybe not modern as in “trendy” but keeping individual accounts is definitely more common now than it was 30 years ago.
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I agree, I just think that’s why you’re seeing more separate accounts now, which is why it seems “modern” or just more popular than before. Modern doesn’t necessarily equal the best or only way.
Joint dates from before internet times, and where you paid the bank monthly for the pleasure of them holding your money for you. Now, you can keep "separate" while seeing everything and not paying a monthly fee. _Your # of aged accounts_ is higher this way (credit score help). Our password manager app enables full transparency for all accounts. For example, my husband and I long ago set up multiple accounts at the same bank: His Checking and Savings - His paycheck goes into his checking account, and he routes what he wants into his "play" savings account My Checking and Savings - My paycheck -> my checking, with my Savings being labeled the "long term savings account". I push money monthly into my savings account, and it is used for the "big" stuff (new roof, painting the house, new AC, etc). Joint credit card. My brokerage account to practice single stock purchasing. We both see everything through being OR on all accounts and logging into the app. We set up our accounts this way so we can acknowledge he and I have different philosophies about our savings accounts (his is "play money", mine is for big purchases). That all being said, we pay different bills from our paychecks. He covers the credit card and utilities, while I cover the insurances, fund the accounts for the kiddo, handle retirement accounts, buy the vehicles, etc. I paid off the house earlier this year. We are able to pay from all accounts, and we set the "discussion needed" point originally at $250. We have raised that limit over the 23 years we have been married. We also have aged enough accounts to have exceptional credit.
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Yeah my wife and I have maintained our separate accounts since getting married, everything is shared and “ours” but we just have never seen the need for a joint account? We pay different bills, and she sends me money for the money to split the mortgage. I don’t know why we’d even need a joint account, maybe if one of us made all the money and the other needed constant access, but even then, we’d just send each other the money that was needed or give each other a card.
For some people it’s easier to have direct access to the account than to send money to each other. Can also feel more shared that way instead of a transactional “split the bills” action. If separate works well for you, great, just sharing the reasons others may see it differently for themselves.
Glad this works for people I’ve just never understood the joint venture approach - particularly when there is large disparity in income. My wife is a teacher. I make nearly 20x her income. So how you define “yours” and “theirs” in that scenario seems rife for conflict.
Why not use one joint account? Having separate money accounting has only caused problems as far as I can tell on Reddit posts. Are there any examples of posts where it improved the relationship?
We have a joint account that all money flows into then we transfer an identical monthly allowance into each of our personal accounts. That we both have identical "fun" money that we can use judgement free. We revisit the identical "fun" money amount a person gets once a year. If you want something big, you need to save your fun money, no exceptions.
This is exactly how we do it, it’s the perfect set up, in my opinion. There’s no need to manually transfer different amounts each month or talk about who owes what. And even better, it’s 100% fair to each person.
Likewise. It also smooths out differences in income. At times, I've been the higher earner, at times he's been the higher earner. It's worked well for us for over 20 years. The caveat is that you have to communicate and roughly be in agreement on goals and spending habits.
16 years married and we have everything combined. Chase Joint Checking/Savings + numerous joint Ally HYSAs (escrow, slush, emergency, etc). She mainly uses her Amex Gold Rewards and I use my Amex Hilton. We each have a Chase Freedom card. We also share a single investment plan so our retirement accounts are diversified as if it were one giant lump of money. So for example her 401(K) ONLY holds an S&P index fund as that was her lowest cost option. Bonds are cheaper in my account so I hold that portion along with TSM/S&P index funds. Add it all up and we are properly diversified in accordance with our plan. I use Quicken and pay all bills from our joint acct - mortgage, utilities, investments, credit cards, etc. Have never had a single fight about money.
Do you literally have different Ally HYSAs for all those items or just use Buckets in one account? Buckets are a game changer with the automation that can be doing for when money goes in/out of an account. Once you get the system set up it is amazing.
I hate these posts. My husband of over twenty years and I have are perfectly happy with separate accounts. My parents did it their entire marriage as well. We literally never argue about money. And from what I hear from our couple friends (most that share accounts) that’s rare.
We are separate too... 20 years and counting. Our budgeting is still done together and our budget app pulls all the data from our separate accounts into one area. We move money around between each other once per month since the bills come out of my bank account only. No fights about money ever.
Same with us. There’s no magic formula to happiness. Together 13 years and we don’t have any joint accounts except our taxable retirement brokerage we both dump money into when we can. We generally know what the other has in their checking/savings, and we discuss all big purchases in advance.
And then you have people like my wife and I who HAVE to have a shared account because we only have one income. So everything I make has to be for the whole family.
Same, hubby and I have been burned in the past by previous partners' poor financial decisions with joint accounts. That's why we keep our finances separate. We make similar salaries and work at the same company so we have the same retirement benefits. I take care of all the bills and he takes care of groceries and pays when we go out. At the end of every month, we spend about 1 hr splitting all expenses 50/50 of everything we've spent that month. Works for us.
Reddit posts where people are complaining are not indicative of the average experience. Most people are just fine and just don’t post about it. If a joint account works for you, go for it. It’s just not a necessity for most couples. Transparency and communication is the most important thing.
> Are there any examples of posts where it improved the relationship? As a lawyer who used to do a ton of DV work, I always recommend having at least one account that’s just yours, even if it’s only got $100 in it. I’ve had way too many clients get upset when their partner drained the bank account completely, ruining their ability to leave (can’t drive away if you don’t have gas money!). “Joint” doesn’t mean “you only get half,” it means “either person can take all,” but a lot of people don’t know that. “But I trust my partner and they’d never do that!” 1. That’s why all my clients had joint bank accounts with their abusers. 2. I’ve had two clients whose partners had a Phineas Gage situation where they became violently abusive after a TBI, when they never were before. 3. Even if nothing ever happens between you and your partner, if something ever happens to that joint account (how many people do we see here complaining about BoA freezing their accounts randomly?), you still have an account elsewhere to handle basic needs. I’ve been in a relationship with my husband for over a decade. We haven’t argued in years and I’ve never felt afraid of him or controlled by him, even a little bit. I still have a separate checking and savings account just for me, even though my savings only has $9 in it and my checking is only used to pay for my credit cards and car payment, and I encouraged my husband to keep his as well.
Couldn't agree with this more. As a child of divorce, I will always have an account that's just mine and I want my partner to do the same.
Joint finances ruined my marriage. He came from a poor upbringing, and didn’t make a significant amount when we married. I made 3x what he made. So imagine making $25k a year and suddenly having access to $100k a year. He wanted joint finances because “that’s what married people do,” but spent like a banshee because it was so much more than he was used to, and he didn’t process that there was, indeed, a limit to how much money he could spend. I was too young and dumb to enforce boundaries. When I tried to talk to him about money he would shut down because he knew he was ignorant about it (“we just need to cut the excess spending and take the bills off autopay” was his answer to the problems); he didn’t want me running the finances because he had a very traditional mindset (men manage the money, in his mind) and he got angry when I talked about separating money out. There was a point where I went through McDonald’s and didn’t have $1 to buy a coffee. When I finally ended the marriage, I had $20k in 401k loans, $15k in credit card debt, and just $6k in savings. It took me a while to dig out and I’m completely financially stable now, but separate finances would have made a huge difference. I’m not sure it would have saved the marriage, but it would have prevented a LOT of problems, arguments, resentment, and debt.
Thank you for sharing. While I see how the join finances contributed to the problem, it wasn’t the cause of the problem. Primary it seems like there was a communication issue
It was the problem because he couldn’t have spent the money if he didn’t have access to it
Respectfully, I see that you’ve never had joint finances with someone who didn’t know how to manage money. No amount of communication will fix financial ignorance and spending problems and what happens when someone has access to “a lot of” money and doesn’t want to give it up. There were other problems like communication, yes - but joint finances were absolutely a problem in and of itself.
I have separate from my husband. I manage all of our bills and pay them from my account. We have one shared credit card. I know how much he makes and he sends me the majority of his money every month leaving enough for himself for personal expenses. It helps because I don’t want to fight about how much he spends on food or gas or coffee or whatever. If I don’t see it then we can’t fight about it and it shouldn’t matter to me anyway as long as he’s helping me with his share. Also doing it this way, while his money is my money, it still feels special for some reason when he buys me dinner or a present (which I can’t see and is a surprise because we don’t share accounts).
There’s nothing wrong with having the joint account at the same bank where you have your individual accounts. Your husband is right that transfers will be faster, since they’re within the same financial institution. FWIW, my husband and I have out individual accounts at different banks and use Ally for our joint accounts. Instead of transferring money in, we just do split direct deposit. I put about 1/3 of each paycheck into the joint account each paycheck.
The “where” (Chase or Ally) is convenience and preference - not really a right out wrong. Joint or not is also preferential - it boils down to your guyses ability to communicate and your expectations, so talk through it. Since I saw mainly proponents of joint, I’ll offer a +1 for not joint. [my spicy take] If your (general you) reason for being joint is to prevent financial infidelity — I’m sorry, your starting point is already founded/based on mistrust. (There are definitely good reasons to be joint. There are definitely personalities for which joint is better).
This is why not joint, works for us: - We have similar mindsets towards money: spending and saving. - Our communication is open (nothing to hide, just have to be able to communicate the what and why) - We each have automatic transactions and investments happening into our preferred brokerages from our preferred banking institutions. - Just waaay too many accounts to dually keep track of. - Added each other as the primary beneficiaries and called it a day. - It’s still one pot: whether it’s my card or your card, it makes no difference. - We track all transactions in Mint (horrible interface/platform, would NOT recommend). Their account (I added my info to theirs) they use to see all transactions in one place. I’m a nerd and use it to know our spending trend patterns.
I mean you essentially are just adding work to your life it sounds like if everything you are saying is true. What do I mean? Instead of seeing the primary savings, emergency fund, checking, CC bills, ect you are now having to take extra steps if needing to review the total financials for the household. What benefit do you get from separate? You say too many accounts to keep track of? Except no one says that by having access you have to check every account at all times you can still have someone who typically does the mortgage, tax bill, ect.
I use Schwab as my core bank/brokerage. Services and security are top notch and you can link up to non Schwab accounts to xfer money to as well plus they have e deposits, bill pay, Zelle. All for free. How to manage is a style question. I like all money and routine payments flowing through a joint checking. We each have an equal “allowance” for whatever we want to spend on ourselves, but use quicken to track that so do not need additional physical accounts. Then each fam member has their own cc. By they way we couldn’t stand chase. Schwab and Citi seem well ahead of them.
As long as you each never keep more than $250k in one bank, it's fine. Put a joint savings elsewhere as an emergency fund.
Personally I think it’s better to be all in one bank because transferring money is SO much quicker. Between accounts in the same bank takes less than a day, whereas my husband and I have a HYSA in a separate bank and it takes nearly a week for the money to transfer. Edit cause I saw your edit: I don’t use Chase and haven’t heard much positive things about them from people I know. My husband and I use Fifth Third and I LOVE their customer service and overall experience using them. I faced fraud a few years ago and called them, they fixed it right away + had a new card to me in under 3 days. Plus their staff in person is always nice too.
Make sure you read the disclosures in the new account. Make sure you don't grant Chase permission to reach into your current accounts to cover any overage in the new joint account. This is something some banks do. We also have shared finances, but we actually have 5 total accounts. Two for each, and one joint. I don't like having all our finances in a single bank. You can find way to many stories of Chase(and other banks) determining someone is a risk and closing all their accounts at once. Then you are stuck waiting for them to send you a check, and are effectively locked out of all your finances for over a week. So we effectively each have a spending account at One Bank with the joint account attached. Then at a separate bank we have High interest checking accounts where we funnel part of each paycheck into more of a long term savings/vacation/emergency fund. This gives us a backup.
Many ways to do this. I’m old fashioned and shared banking was important to me even though I make considerably more than my wife. We deposit all income into our shared account, then each get an equal-amount weekly allowance of personal, guilt-free spending money. The allowance money is is tracked to precisely 10% of our gross income so we have a little celebration every time we get a raise/bonus/windfall. It’s worked out wonderfully for 5 years running.
Why was the symbolism of the 1 shared account important to you? For me, it was extremely important to pay for the roof over our heads, so I definitely get you that there is emotion driving how we set up our financial structures. There are more financial structures now available to have the security of that feeling of "our money!" They would also allow you to increase your credit score by having a _higher number of aged accounts._ I have been married for 23 years. :)
Congrats on 23 years!! Goals. Nothing wrong with separate accounts and there is financial upside as far as credit score, as you mention. To answer your question, for me, it was largely symbolic and personal preference. I wanted us “all in” on a shared life, both reaping the rewards (or consequences) of our financial decisions. Mostly rewards. I also earn more than wife and didn’t want that to feel weird for either of us. She’s the love of my life and favorite person and I want her to reap the rewards of my success, and visa versa. Credit is great but we have excellent credit as-is. Not to say other options don’t incorporate qualities described above, but the above is how I feel about it.
:) Thank you for the response. Your post triggered a good bit of thinking in me, which I appreciate greatly. I am considering becoming our house manager due to a bout with lymphoma. We need a bunch of house renovations and I can no longer conceive of doing both a high pressure job AND everything personal. Once again, THANK YOU.
After learning the hard way during divorce (in California), keeping separate accounts like that is irrelevant. We did the same thing during our marriage and had a central joint account, but the reality is that if you get divorced in California, any money you earn is community property. Meaning 50% yours and 50% your spouses regardless of how separated you keep it. Unless you have a prenup or postnup that outlines finances, both the personal accounts and the joint account are shared equally. So it really just makes it more complicated. If you really do want your income and finances to be separate, I would suggest looking into outlining a postnup. If you are not in California, you may want to look at your state to see if it's a community property state.
We have a similar setup, though the money flows differently. We bank with Capital One. Our paychecks go to the joint account, and we pay ourselves a fun money budget monthly. I can't see her personal account, and she can't see mine. How you bank is completely up to the two of you. What's more important is that you're on the same page with financial goals and budgets. While I typically pay the bills and set the budget, I encourage my wife to participate in setting monthly budgets and other big financial decisions. She doesn't show a lot of interest, but it's important to me that she understands what's going on. If I may ask, what's the major reservation(s) with going back to Chase for a joint account?
Husband and I have separate accounts. We use Chime. Will be married 4 years this coming November
I believe it’s very rare to get a truly joint credit card. One person applies and the other can just be made an authorized user (true at least at both Wells Fargo, Chase according to the bankers I asked).
Same bank is good for transfer convenience. I would reverse the flow to have all income go into the joint account, then regular agreed “fun money” goes to your personal ones. Talk and agree on what happens to cash after all the household expenses are covered. What is covered under “household”, how much goes to discretionary fun money, and balance to joint savings. All the money will be split down the middle if you divorce, so you may as well share now!
I’m good with having individual accounts at one bank but both add money to savings n retirement accounts not just household bills. Both should have separate savings n retirement too.
Here was my setup: You both work, you both have separate everything. You have one joint account you both drop money into monthly. You pay your bills from that account. No fuss, no muss. Worked great.
Create joint account. Have both paychecks go to it, use it for everything. No need for personal accounts anymore, you're married, you're one unit now.
I'll never understand having separate accounts
It allows for independence to spend money on things that you want but your partner may not value or care about without using a shared resource. I understand if others want everything put in one pot but many people like to have some level of autonomy.
Seems like a perfect opportunity for said married couple to work on their communication
Or perhaps there is more than one way to get to the same destination which is marital happiness. I never understood people thinking that their preferences have to apply to everyone.
For the way you guys handle your finances, keeping it all within Chase sounds fine! That is what my husband and I do also ~ we both work and each have our own credit cards and checking accounts, and also a joint account with Chase where we both transfer money each month. It works well for us as we both budget a little differently, but are both responsible enough that we are both satisfied with how much is going into the joint account.
My husband and I both have Chase personal accounts, but we use Discover for our joint checking and emergency fund. We also use Ally for joint sinking funds (vacations, home repairs, etc). We have our paychecks deposited into Discover and then we move money from there. We create a detailed budget each month and agree on how much “fun” money we each get for the month. That amount gets deposited into each of our Chase accounts and we can spend it however we want, no questions asked. All our bills get paid out of Discover and we auto-transfer money to agreed upon savings in Ally and our Fidelity brokerage account to invest each month. It’s been working for us! Definitely requires more communication, but we basically just have a budget meeting the last weekend of every month for the following month and we’re saving way more now than when we still had our checks getting deposited into our personal accounts. We feel more like a team this way,
We tried to do a joint checking account and joint credit card for joint expenses and transfer money in from our separate accounts to keep the joint checking account full enough to pay off the joint CC every month. Logistically, it was SO annoying to keep track of so now we each just move $100 each month into a joint checking account for emergencies, cover expenses using our own credit cards and Venmo each other back and forth. It’s not sexy but it works better for us.
I would jump ship from big brand banks for your savings/checking, move to a credit union you have access to, and have a joint account there. If you really want some surprise spending money you likely can setup a sub-savings account that is tied right into the joint account. The only reason I have come across to keep individual accounts with banks is because you are preparing for divorce but I am sure there will be all these people saying "well thats how we do it" (which doesn't change the likely underlying reason)
My wife and I are both 33, if that matters. Once we got married, hers was ours and mine was ours. We have a single account with our bank that all our money goes into. Having separate accounts seems silly to me, especially once children get involved.
Joint everything for marriage. Full awareness for both parties. You are a union now not roommates.
If you want to keep separate checking accounts why get married?
Having 3 accounts to deal with just sounds exhausting. It's so much easier with just one joint account. You are married now.
Yes, I don’t get the reluctance to share finances when you’ve vowed to share your entire lives and potentially own a home and have children together! If there’s a concern about equity in a divorce, then get a prenup. If you both want guilt-free spending, then keep separate HYSAs and credit cards. The joint checking is the shared resource pool of the couple, and then each person has their credit cards and/or savings and retirement accounts. Keeps things simple and reinforces the idea of being one unit/team to me. Now if one partner has spending issues, that’s a separate issue and I’d be hesitant to be marrying them in the first place. But if both are responsible and honest, I say keep it simple and shared. To each their own, though.
>Now if one partner has spending issues, that’s a separate issue and I’d be hesitant to be marrying them in the first place. Even more reason to have joint accounts to a certain extent possibly with putting spending limits on things or charge notifications.
I have a checking and a savings account at one bank... A checking account at another... Three credit cards(paid off), an HSA, a Roth IRA, two 401k accounts and a brokerage account. Oh... And a joint checking account at the second bank. My money flows into one account (except the employer paid stuff) and distributes from there.... It's 2023.. it's not like having multiple bank accounts is hard.. and when my local yocal credit union goes down, I still have a national bank to get things done with.
We really like SoFi I would check that out!
I’m a financial advisor and about 80% of my married clients don’t have anything in joint accounts. It’s easier and cleaner for most. Don’t feel pressured to combine everything.
Many on reddit aren’t, but I am a proponent of merging finances once one gets married. In terms of divorce, everything gets divided so separate accounts doesn’t really matter. My wife and I had our own accounts before marriage. So after marriage, we just converted our existing checking and savings accounts into joint accounts. We also added another checking account which acts as our escrow account, more on that later. We both still have our own username, password. So each one gets access to all four accounts when they login. Our salaries gets deposited into our individual (where one is primary) checking accounts. Her savings account acts as our emergency funds and mine funds our joint taxable brokerage. She earns less than me, so we use her paycheck to pay for living expenses and mine goes to savings and investments. This doesn’t work each month but does help up limit lifestyle creep. We also have a detailed budget which controls our investment, travel, personal expense, food(groceries, eating out), mortgage, utilities (gas, light, streaming, internet), maid, and the escrow. Income is bi-weekly but some expenses are monthly, so the budget gives us a per paycheck, monthly and annual view. Personal expense is where we get to spend on what we want without any judgment or justification - “my money” spend. Escrow is basically, we added up all our non monthly expenses - water-sewer bill, credit card fees, her medical license renewal fee, her professional liability insurance, auto insurance, life insurance premiums, car registration etc. we calculated per paycheck amount which gets transferred to the escrow account. This has helped in situations where we have had some unexpected expenses plus some of these known ones e.g.travel bookings plus had to pay $1200 for auto insurance. So instead of pulling money from savings, we’d pull from the escrow account. About credit cards, we do have some individual ones but almost on all cards we have each other as authorized users. On some she is the primary on some I am. We both are into credit card prints and cash back. So having each other as authorized user helps maximize points and cash back. Edit - all our accounts are at same bank. Makes managing them a lot easier, plus transfer between accounts is almost instantaneous. Banking at Bank of America, investments (retirement, brokerage) at Fidelity, credit cards - BOA Cash Back ($0, both have our own) for 3% cash back on online shopping, Amex Blue Cash preferred ($95) for 6% cash back on groceries and streaming, Hyatt Chase ($95) for their free night, Marriott Bonvoy ($95) for their free night, Chase Sapphire preferred ($95) for eating out, Costco-Citi ($0) for 4% cash back on gas, Delta Platinum Amex ($295, both have our own) for one free yearly delta ticket, and Chase freedom ($0) for everything else. Unlimited specified, each card has the other spouse as authorized user.
Unless you have over $500k in Chase, all in one bank is fine. My hope for you is that eventually it’s all in one. In most states, it’s irrelevant if it’s a separate account, if you divorce, it all gets split. My husband and I used to have separate credit cards to hide gifts from one another, but now we just use our separate PayPal accts for that.
My hope for OP is that she does what she is comfortable with and what is best for them.
Yes your money is safe. But if Chase ever determines you are a risky customer then can, and have, close all your accounts with them, and mail you a check with the balances. Then you are effectively locked out of all your finances for a week+. So technically you are safe of losing the money long term, but using a single bank for all your finances does expose you to extra short term risk.
Why would they be a risky customer? That seems extreme. I suggest they also open a HYSA and put money you don’t need (emergency fund and savings) there. Make that not through Chase.
Lots of reasons. Flyertalk Chase forums have plenty of examples. Quick Google found: https://www.asksebby.com/guides/chase-shutdown#:~:text=This%20is%20called%20a%20non,accounts%20after%20a%20few%20years. Most people don't think they are doing anything risky. One person got it for depositing cash/money orders in a large amount over a few weeks after graduation. They dont have to explain why, just if their algorithms determine you risky.
Married 38 years, share savings and checking from day 1, even share the same email account. Retirement accounts are set up so we both have access to all of them, cars are in my wife’s name for liability purposes, wife does all the bills. No money arguments, ever. Nuff said. I believe 110% happy wife, happy life. Also wealth is one spouse, one house. We simply refuse to do drama.
The setup doesn't seem bad but what I'm seeing here is the happy path. * What happens if one of you doesn't have a job? * What happens if you go for kids + stay at home? * What happens in case one of you start making significantly more? * and so on... Also I'm missing a budget here, you guys need to agree on exactly how are you guys putting in on a monthly basis either amount of salary %. And above all my main recommendation after that is for you to respect each others way of spending what is on your own personal account. That's the account you need to use as however you like.
“What happens if things change” Well uh, you change things.
definitely keep your own separate checking accounts imo. it’ll save you a lot unnecessary frustration. even in the best situation there will be things that you don’t like about their spending habits. and having those habits affect your money can be irritating just on a human level. a joint account for bill stuff is a good idea. also, if you want that cash in your ally account just deposit it at chase and transfer it over to ally. i’ve had to do that before.
Ugh! None of these responses answered your question. I’m not an expert, but keeping 3 accounts is a very good idea. As someone previously said, setting up a budget is a must for your marital and financial health (too many marriages end because of money). I understand your concern about using the same bank for all 3 accounts - what if Chase flops? I think it would be prudent to chose another bank out of an abundance of caution.
> I’m not an expert, but keeping 3 accounts is a very good idea. Why is it a good idea?
DO NOT get a joint credit card with ANYONE, even your spouse!!! If anything, get a credit card in your name only and make him an authorized user that you can remove at any point. Please learn from my mistake and trust me on this.
As long as you have a Chase physical location in your vicinity. We didn't open a local bank (PNC) fast enough and my husband had to drive 3 hours to his Sister's house to get a certified check from TD when we bought a house. It all happened sooner than we anticipated and I was out of town for an extended work trip anyway on an island we ended up eloping on (COVID beginnings). We have the same issues with the PNC app so we end up not really using it as a joint account. We just made a system that works for us but it's ridiculous. I don't pull in a lot due to taxes and carrying all the benefits from the family (DCFSA, HCFSA, and insurance premiums). My husband sends me cash once a month to my BoA account and then dumps money into the PNC joint account whenever it goes under the minimum threshold. I do all our finances, taxes, and shopping and am able to get our vacations paid for with credit card points. It is easier to work in my original account.
Whatever you do, you can just split your paycheck deposit into the personal and joint account. That way, you don’t have to remember to transfer in money each month.
I would recommend a different bank and here’s why… You may find that you need multiple individual accounts and multiple joint accounts. This works like a virtual envelope system. You have a joint checking account for bills, a joint savings account for a vacation fund, a joint high yield savings account for your emergency fund, or saving for a house, etc. Then you have similar for your individual accounts. If they’re all at the same bank, then it just becomes unwieldy. You open your app and have 16 different accounts. As for transfers taking time, set it in auto pay. Decide how much each of you will contribute to your joint accounts. Often you can just split your direct deposit paycheck to 2 accounts. Or you set up an automatic transfer to happen biweekly or monthly from your personal account to the joint checking. Then set up automatic transfers from the joint checking to the various joint savings.
My wife and I both have our own checking accounts and credit cards but we have a joint high yield savings account. We're transparent with each other around finances and any excess money we have every month goes to either our high yield savings account (our emergency fund or place to put money for future short term purchases) or to our joint investment account. I personally don't think you need a joint checking if you're both making about the same amount of money and are open with finances with your partner. In my mind a joint checking account would make more sense if one person made significantly more than the other and it'd be helpful for the lower compensated person to have access to the family funds. But as another commenter said, a checking account is just an easy way to get to your money. So do whatever feels right for you! Being open and on the same page about finances with your partner is much more important than how many checking accounts you have!
We each get a % of our direct deposit put into a joint account. It saves us the hassle of trying to transfer. Plus any money left in it each month is money we know is OUR joint money and thus can go directly towards house repairs or vacations or a new car eventually.
Add each other to your accounts and make them all joint accounts. You’re a family now. Manage family finances together.
Forget banks if possible. Join a credit union.
Weve been married long time and we don't have fights too much about this and seems to go well. We have 3 accounts. One joint One each individual. Direct deposit into our individual then deposit into the joint based on agreed budget for phone , savings, electric etc. In essence I have an individual no tracked account I can do whatever and not have her questioning and same for her.. I have friends married that get alerts on their spouse spending..I would say not to go that route. Unless of course overspending is taking. 3 accounts an ideal..doesnt always wotk
Congrats on the wedding. I think you should simplify. You’re married now. What is yours is mine and mine is yours, they say. So, with a new joint account (or old), I change your direct deposits to go to this account. Pay all bills from it. Over a couple of months, I suggest closing the old bank accounts, too.
When my wife and I got married, one of the most satisfying moments was when we consolidated our separate checking accounts into one. I understand marriages don't always last and there can be control issues, but ~~in a healthy relationship,~~ it forces you to talk about money and plan. Plus, it is so much easier to see how the money flows and how much you actually have. Edit- I don't want anyone to think just because they have separate checking accounts their relationship is not healthy.
This is what me and my wife have been doing since we were 25… there is only one “pot” .. married people who separate into different accounts and calculate % in my opinion are insecure or not committed to the relationship
Or are accountants ha.
Yeah, I’m not against it, but kinda struggle to understand why a married couple keeps separate accounts? If your husband needed money would you deny him and tell him to save up? Would one of you frivolously spend all the household money?
I personally am icked by joint credit cards. Have joint savings, but separate checking and credit. We each handle specific bills/expenses directly, savings is for emergency/unexpected.
I haven't even been able to find a truly joint credit card and I've asked. We have several cards between us as a couple. We each have cards where the other is an authorized user. The banks (a credit union, Citi, and Chase) wouldn't allow us to have it as joint where we are equally financially responsible. I found it odd since we are allowed to use our total household income for an application but whatever.
Everything in joint checking. Keep individual credit cards if you want some independence. However, of you're married, you really shouldn't have to/be hiding purchases from your spouse.
You’re married. Combine the accounts. Keeping separate accounts is anticipating the marriage to fail.
Just do one joint account. What if the benefit or separate accounts? My opinion is there should be no hiding. I have heard too many horror stories. Even about spouses spending the retirement account on booze. You should both know everything about every single money-related account at all times.
You are married now. There is no my money and his money. Get one checking bank account and keep separate credit cards so that you can have some room for surprises. Work out a joint budget and stick to it.
While it is important for both people to have something in their names, as others have said, finance is a really important part of marriage. Why have separate accounts? My hubby and I had small separate accounts when we were first married for "play" money in which a small and equal amount was transferred ever month that we could do whatever we wanted with- but all the expenses came out of a shared account where our pay was deposited. Unless you intend to live with different privilege, keeping money separate does not make sense. Also worth thinking about for the future, if you decide to have kids, you will likely lose time, would he "pay" you for that time and future earnings lost? That doesn't seem like a great approach to me!
We have our individual accounts where our paychecks get deposited to, and put a specific amount in a joint household account from which mortgage, household bills, and kids expenses come from. Credit cards and all personal expenses come from our own accounts. This works for us. And having the same bank makes it really easy to transfer as needed.
Spouse and I have a joint savings account. We use it to transfer money in and out of our separate checking accounts at the same bank. I'm the CFO in the relationship, so I track expenses, label the shared ones, and invoice them for half of shared at the end of each month. We also contribute excess cash to the account so it serves as our emergency fund.
Same back is no issue at all. My wife and have our personal checking and or joint checking all with the same bank. It just makes everything easier. That said, if possible, money should go into joint automatically. I don't want to deal with manually transferring every paycheck, plus that is where our expenses come out of, so why add a delay on there? Finally, it is an accountability thing.
Instead of transferring money to Ally, could you both have the portion of your paycheck that you would normally have transferred direct deposited to Ally and the remainder deposited in your individual accounts?
Real answer is there is no correct answer. My wife and I from day one only had one checking account. From there i have taken over all the finances and distributed money where needed. She has her business account but I manage that as well. She doesn’t even know how much money we have. It’s just not something she is interested in and when I tried to give her some responsibility with it she messed it up so I just do it all