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Amadeus_Narrates t1_j9vg2jy wrote

Reply to comment by KingOfTerrible in LPT: Maintain separate bank accounts when you get married by The_Stein244

I really don't get the point of a joint account.

Husband/boyfriend has Account 1, wife/girlfriend has Account 2.

Example bill costs 100$.

Solution 1: I pay the full 100$ and my wife/girlfriend sends me the 50$ so we split 50/50.

Solution 2: She pays the full 100$ and I send her the 50$.

This is what my girlfriend and I have been doing for 4 years now. Is there something I'm not seeing?

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KingOfTerrible t1_j9vkm6y wrote

If what you're doing works for you, then it's fine. There's no one right way to do it. It's not like it's a life changing thing but it just makes things a little easier imo.

The advantages I’ve personally had are:

  1. It helps with budgeting. Having a separate account ONLY for bills is handy, even if you're single. Figure out how much your bills are, put that amount in every month, and then you know your bills are covered and don't have worry about it, and can spend/save the money in your other accounts however you want without thinking about your bills. Obviously this depends on your income level, if you're both making so much (and have good enough spending habits!) that you never need to worry about it, then that's not necessarily a problem that needs solving.
  2. Don't have to keep track of who owes who. "I paid the water this month, you paid the power, so who owes who what now?" Sure the math's not complicated, but it's just one less thing to have to do.
  3. On that note, if you want to split things other than 50/50 due to income differences, it makes it more straightforward. Each person just contributes however much per month, and it all just gets paid from one big pot without worrying about splitting each individual bill.
  4. Putting all the bills under one account lets you review them and keep track of them more easily without having to go back and forth between each others' accounts.
  5. If you 're saving up for something big together, a joint savings account is a good way for you both to contribute, have access to, and have that money stay separate from your other money.
  6. Joint accounts automatically (usually, laws very by locality) go to the other account holder if the other one dies. No one likes to think about this, but it can happen. My wife died very unexpectedly at 31 and getting the money from her sole account has been a lengthy process involving lots of paperwork, even in my simple situation without kids or any other heirs or claimants. Meanwhile, I already had access to our joint account money and I could use it exactly like I could have before she died. Also, because none of the bills were paying from her account, I didn’t have to worry about that.
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Amadeus_Narrates t1_j9xkg7s wrote

Thank you very much for the explanation and I'm sorry to hear about your wife. I can see now how they can be beneficial.

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