Will I ever get married?

[chadcharb]

I thought my wife and i were different because we don't have a joint account but i guess not. I pay mortgage, property taxes, insurance. She pays everything else so we have no need to combine our money until we have a child probably.

The biggest reason we had to actually get married was health insurance and other things mentioned above

 

[thsancho86]

I've been married 5 years now and the wife and I still have our separate accounts. She has her bills she pays I have mine and I write her a check for my half the mortgage every month since it is through her bank. We never fight about money and we each have our own spending ability without having to ask the other. People give us the crazy look when it comes up but it works for us.

Granted we are both listed on each others account in case something horrible happens to one of us but aside from that they are individual.

That pretty much describes my marriage, we have our own accounts and were both savers. We look at others and wonder how it can work any other way.

 

[jamesA]

Didn't think my comment would get you down or make you start thinking about this man. Sorry.

 

[sufikation]

Thanks for the reminder about the gf pic threads, I had forgotten about those.

I have been married for almost 4 years, it has its ups and downs like any real relationship will but thats life. We have our seperate accounts as well, I give her a set amount out of each paycheck every week and to go towards the house payment and other bills and the rest is mine to spend as I wish. We have a savings account together thats used for emergencies and vacations. I feel that doing things this way takes a HUGE strain off of the relationship.

 

[invisibledemon]

sounds like you really need to just sit down with your fiance and discuss it with her.
tell her to be very honest and ask her if she wants to get married, or if she is fine with how things are currently.
let her know that you arent objected, just want to know her feelings on it.

some girls will say that they arent interested, or that they are fine with how things are bc they think that thats what you want to hear. take cel's last relationship that he gave as an example. they will say everythings fine, but inside, they may be screaming for it.

she what she wants, and do that. if she is seriously happy with how things are, and you are too, then leave it alone. visit it again another day.
if not, then that opens the door for the next step.

do whats good for you, not whats worked for us.

 

[corvetteguy78]

IMO every married couple should have a joint checking and savings account and a joint credit card. It's the responsible thing to do. You need to remember you are now both responsible for each others debt. If you finance a car and die the next day, they will be going after your wife to pay for it.

My wife and I have a joint checking, savings and a credit card. We also have our own personal ones as well. I handle all of our shared bills and she handles her own personal bills.

Again just my opinion.

 

[Briansol]

I believe in merging.
and with the merge, sharing responsibility.

ie, set limits. $50 and over requires discussion.
not only does it establish limits, it opens up the idea of separating the impulse buys from the needs.

I may WANT something for my car, but I don't really need it.
I may WANT a new roof for my house, and I REALLY need it.

etc


at the same time, my g/f is SUPER thrifty. correction-- she's CHEAP. she would NEVER buy a $500 purse. nor a $50 one. she'd debate a $10 one. so i'm coming from the aspect where I don't really have to worry about her spending my money if I gave her access to it (I haven't). She on the other hands keeps me in check a lot of times.... never really telling me that I can't, but rather that it's not a priority.

 

[FLounder]

I talked to her yesterday about it. She says she does want get married, and does want to do it the way we have talked in the past. Pretty large party, figure spending $15k (i hope), and she wants to do it next year. We want to buy a house in the future, and get married first seems the logical way to do it.

As far as sharing money, I kinda like having it separate but i could see the advantages of a joint account. I hate managing money, i mostly just spend it lol. It would probably be to my advantage to let her manage ALL of the bills and other budgeting, she is better organized than me. But like corvette guy says, i think having separate and combined accounts would be best.

 

[corvetteguy78]

I believe in merging.
and with the merge, sharing responsibility.

ie, set limits. $50 and over requires discussion.
not only does it establish limits, it opens up the idea of separating the impulse buys from the needs.

I may WANT something for my car, but I don't really need it.
I may WANT a new roof for my house, and I REALLY need it.

etc


at the same time, my g/f is SUPER thrifty. correction-- she's CHEAP. she would NEVER buy a $500 purse. nor a $50 one. she'd debate a $10 one. so i'm coming from the aspect where I don't really have to worry about her spending my money if I gave her access to it (I haven't). She on the other hands keeps me in check a lot of times.... never really telling me that I can't, but rather that it's not a priority.

which reminds me of another very important thing, since you plan on buying a house. ....Build a budget spreadsheet. Once you figured it out. Delete it and build it again...double check it, then start over and re build it all over.

I made 5 Budget spreadsheets before we agreed that the one we had was final.

I actually just remade it again because added $35 a month alarm system bill.

 

[chadcharb]

I talked to her yesterday about it. She says she does want get married, and does want to do it the way we have talked in the past. Pretty large party, figure spending $15k (i hope), and she wants to do it next year. We want to buy a house in the future, and get married first seems the logical way to do it.

As far as sharing money, I kinda like having it separate but i could see the advantages of a joint account. I hate managing money, i mostly just spend it lol. It would probably be to my advantage to let her manage ALL of the bills and other budgeting, she is better organized than me. But like corvette guy says, i think having separate and combined accounts would be best.

Sound s like she had a good head on her shoulders. Buying a house before our after marriage doesn't really make a difference financially. I wish i had not put my wife on my mortgage so it wouldn't show on her credit report for car loans and such lol

 

[chestercheeto48]

Sound s like she had a good head on her shoulders. Buying a house before our after marriage doesn't really make a difference financially. I wish i had not put my wife on my mortgage so it wouldn't show on her credit report for car loans and such lol

It sure does make a difference if you purchase a house before or after marriage. Not only in the paperwork but also in the financing.

 

[reckedracing]

that will be 15k that you spend on the wedding so you'll be paying it off over 30 years when you don't have it to put down on the mortgage... just sayin

the real world value of that wedding will be 30k by the time its paid off over 30 years, plus 50% of all your shit when she leaves, and she'll get the house too

 

[chadcharb]

It sure does make a difference if you purchase a house before or after marriage. Not only in the paperwork but also in the financing.

How? It made no difference for me?

 

[Briansol]

I also don't see how the house matters... you don't get a better rate when you're married... only positive is that you may have more assets, or higher income to debt.
but that's only if you have merged accounts in the first place lol

I like the budget spreadsheet idea. I want to have one but my bills are far too volatile to really get to one without having to change half of it all the time.

 

[B16]

I believe in merging.
and with the merge, sharing responsibility.

ie, set limits. $50 and over requires discussion.
not only does it establish limits, it opens up the idea of separating the impulse buys from the needs.

I may WANT something for my car, but I don't really need it.
I may WANT a new roof for my house, and I REALLY need it.

etc


at the same time, my g/f is SUPER thrifty. correction-- she's CHEAP. she would NEVER buy a $500 purse. nor a $50 one. she'd debate a $10 one. so i'm coming from the aspect where I don't really have to worry about her spending my money if I gave her access to it (I haven't). She on the other hands keeps me in check a lot of times.... never really telling me that I can't, but rather that it's not a priority.

My wife and I have separate checking accounts and a shared savings account. She doesn't work, so I deposit $X into her checking each pay period. She takes care of groceries and kids stuff with that money.

I pay all bills through my checking account. I deposit a $X into our shared savings which is used towards big trips and house repairs (greater than $1,000).

All other money is up to me how it gets spent. I max out my 401k every year and I have over $1mil in life insurance. These are the minimums we have agreed for what we need. Bills, Savings, 401k, life insurance. Once all these are met the rest is for entertainment.

One year she wanted visibility into my "racing budget", now she would rather not know. It was a bit of sticker shock to her. lol. But as long as I meet our agreed upon minimums and we still have enough to do things (go out to dinner, zoo, etc.) then she doesn't really care what I do with the rest.

 

[Celerity]

Ok, listen. People.

This is Celerity speaking.


If a bank tells you to do something,
If a credit card company tells you to do something,
If "It's reasonable and traditional" to do something,


MY god, DO THE FUCKING OPPOSITE.


These companies, these habits and these "rules of thumb" are NOT THERE TO HELP YOU.

If a bank offers you anything, if they tell you that you will save money by doing "x", or if you are told that it is smarter to buy a home with joint accounts, joint credit or joint anything - THEY ARE LYING TO YOU.

If you save money, it's less money in their pockets. No company, no savings plans, no special loans and no credit (NO CREDIT EVER) is there to help you.


I have worked in the credit and banking industry for 15 years. Credit exists to hurt you. Period.

 

[chestercheeto48]

How? It made no difference for me?

It depends on your state law but it all depends on the way the title is looked legally. If you are not married the title to the deed can have different outcomes to various situations as compared to the 50/50 of marriage. Don't believe me look up "ways to hold title to real estate". Financially if you are two separate entities the your credit scores can be separately vs combined/the better one if you are married. Higher score = more interest, difficulty securing financing, etc? Some banks won't work with "couples" the will put in one persons name the the other is their tenant. This is what happened to some friends of ours.

 

[chadcharb]

but if your both on the loan then is goes off of both scores equally as if your married. but i can still go get a personal loan or car loan or whatever loan with out my wife and it doesnt show on her credit

 

[FLounder]

that will be 15k that you spend on the wedding so you'll be paying it off over 30 years when you don't have it to put down on the mortgage... just sayin

the real world value of that wedding will be 30k by the time its paid off over 30 years, plus 50% of all your shit when she leaves, and she'll get the house too

Not going to finance the wedding, or at least not much of it. Found out in our talk yesterday that her parents recently told her they have been saving money for a while, and the $5k offer a good while back has grown a good bit. Also, the two of us think we could scrape together $5k or so to put towards the wedding that will be at least a year off.

Lots of good advice in this thread though!

 

[chadcharb]

i think hes saying you could put the 15k down on the house instead.