Pros and cons of shared bank account

We have one joint account together. Doesn’t mean you can’t have your own personal one either. Pro is that it goes towards shared things and it does make it easier like for bills and stuff instead of seeing who covers what or having to manually split the costs

I'm pro shares and separate. I think it's best to have an account you both have access to, but at the same time, I make less money, am more financially responsible, and don't balance my bank account.

We will be doing only joint accounts for savings and checking. For us it was the obvious choice. We are both responsible with money and we sit and do our budget together every month so there's no one of us handles the money. For our budget we pool all of our income together and then budget everything from bills to our separate fun budgets from that pooled income. Logistically joint accounts make sense because all of our spending and savings is pulling from the same pool of money so we want that money to be in one spot

We had separate bank accounts up until last week. FH makes 50k more than I do but it's never something that's been an issue between us. We already bought a house together and every month it was a pain to try and split bills and send money back and forth. One or the other always felt guilty about paying for something and felt the need to send money to the other. I can say it's been so much easier since combining. If he is worried then maybe have one that you both put money into for bills and then your own.

We joined everything because that is what we wanted to do but every couple is different. What if you had a joint one that you both contribute to for bills, rent, mortgage, groceries etc then have your own separate ones for your personal spending money.

The main thing I would be concerned with as far as keeping everything separate is if something were to happen, you have no access to his and he no access to yours.

That’s odd that he sees it as because he makes more. We are planning to do a joint checking and savings that we put a set percentage of what each of us makes in!

We have a joint credit card (our only credit card) and a joint savings & checkings account. We had them prior to being married and it never had anything to do with who makes more. We use our credit card for big purchases for the points, or just to have for emergencies. We pay our joint bills (mortgage mainly) out of our checking account. We both still have our individual bank account and I'm not sure it's because we want individual accounts, but it was a lot easier to keep our own accounts that we already had set up to automatic withdrawals or deposits, paying bills, etc. We added our names to each others bank accounts though so technically we have three joint accounts. We monitor our spending monthly pretty closely on joint Google Sheets anyway. We pay the exact same (we've literally added up every dollar) towards our joint household bills, then we each pay our individual credit card debt from before we met each other & our student loans.

I make more than 3x what my fiance does and we combined bank accounts when we got engaged. We have been living together for almost 2 years. That sounds like a controlling thing that he wants separate accounts, that's a red flag to me. Do a budget together and agree to only spend an "allowance" per week, or anything over $XXX you need to discuss.

We have two joint accounts - one for expenses and the other for saving (home and wedding). We also have our own separate accounts. We pay our individual bills from our own accounts and then put whatever remains to our spending account. That covers all of our joint bills such as electricity, rent, etc along with our, daily expenses and such. From that account we move the agreed upon amount in to our savings account. I think the key is communication. We agreed that we should be responsible with our money and that we would talk about any purchases over a certain amount. We're a team. When we first got engaged we both agreed that it's no longer my money or your money. It was now our money. I agreed to this even though I was earning almost double what my fiance earned. It's all going towards the same goals.

I'm a little confused by your post, with your wedding just a couple months away, does he not want to do a shared account BEFORE the wedding or does he not want a shared account even AFTER the wedding "because he makes more"? Especially if he doesn't want a shared account after the wedding, because of your income disparity, that would be a major red flag to me. Have you discussed if/how you will be joining/co-mingling your finances after marriage? Personally, unless either of your have significant assets or prior responsibilities (e.g., child or spousal support from a prior relationship, etc.), which should have been discussed and taken into consideration in a financial plan around the time you got engaged, I'd be very concerned about his attitude. Given your income disparity, how will you handle expenses? Do you both feel whatever the plan is is fair to both of you? If there are bigger questions than which checking accounts are you going to use, I'd stop and have a major discussion asap. To me, marriage is a partnership, and that includes the income, expenses, and savings priorities. Good luck!

We opened a joint savings account and a joint checking account when we bought our home about a year before getting engaged, but we still maintain separate accounts as well. Our joint checking is used for household expenses and our joint savings is for home repairs, vacations, etc. Our money is our money to spend as we please. I don't think there's any right or wrong way to handle your finances and you should definitely figure out what works best for you as a couple, but I would be concerned that his main reason is because he makes more money. Have you had conversations about how future finances will be handled? Maybe seeing a financial counselor would be helpful.

We will be setting up a joint account next month. To us it wasn't even a question, now that we are getting married everything is shared be that assets, income, expenses, or debt. It is also less of a hassle than splitting up bills and transferring money to each other. We are working towards common financial goals, and even though we don't earn the same amount neither of us feel that our money being shared is unfair.

Every couple is different though, so it's important to figure out what will work best for the two of you. I agree with Caytlyn that seeing a financial counselor could be really beneficial if you aren't on the same page about this right now.

There are pros and cons to each (and many variations of having a combined account and keeping separate accounts), so there are no real wrong answers there.

But I heartily agree with everyone who expressed concern about your future spouse's reason for keeping accounts separate. That type of thinking (yours vs. mine) can be very damaging to marriages and I think you should have some very direct conversations now, before the wedding, to figure out each person's financial goals, priorities, worries, and hang-ups. It sounds like it would be really helpful to bring in an impartial professional (e.g., a financial planner or counselor) for this.

We have a joint checking and savings but we also each have our own checking and savings accounts. Pros to joint accounts is being able to pay/split bills easily. Cons, you do not have complete control over your money.

If he is really concerned about the fact that he makes more many than you, I would reevaluate the relationship. Once you are married, you should be sharing your long term goals and therefore sharing your fiances. How do you save for a house, save for retirement, pay for children's cost, etc.? I think you really need to dig into why he doesn't think you should have a shared account.

If he wants to keep his old account private, I think that is fine, but any earnings after you are married should go into a joint account. We both are keeping our old accounts and have opened a new one together. After we are married, we will both have our checks direct deposit into the new shared account. We also plan on each of us getting some "fun money" no questions asked each month into our old accounts. It will be the same amount of money for each of us.

We also plan to have joint accounts, money will be “ours” not yours or mine after the wedding (maybe a little before).
Since we also have a big disparity between our salaries, this was one of the points that stuck out to be discussed during our religious counseling. We are pretty much on the same page, but need to discuss goals and budgeting further (I’m a budgeter, he’s not - but still frugal).
You should discuss this in detail and if you can’t agree, work with an outside party.

What a lot of people do is to have a joint account for shared expenses, and separate accounts for everything else. The joint account is convenient, because you don't have to figure out who bought the groceries this time and apportion it accordingly. But the separate account means you don't have to consult with your spouse on purchases. If he wants to buy something you think frivolous, or vice versa, you still have a way of doing it.

Given that he makes more than you do, he should contribute more to the joint account. When I did it, the contributions to the joint account were in proportion to income. But if that leaves you with almost nothing (e.g., you're at home with small children and only getting a few dollars here and there), you could work out his contributing more than that. The point is, each of you should contribute to joint expenses, but still have some freedom to do what you want with your own money.

We have both. We contribute the same amount to our joint account every month, and the rest we keep separate. It was just way easier to pay shared expenses (rent, utilities, groceries, when we go out to dinner or do activities together, etc) from the same account. But also like when I go clothes shopping or my husband goes out to eat with his friends or something we don’t want to have to feel guilty about that and like we’re spending the other person’s money, so we keep our own accounts that we use for separate expenses.

We are joining. Honestly, I make more (by 13k) and I also have (student loan) debt. We haven't joined yet (but we are going to any time now) and it's because he and I both see it as our money, our debt, our house etc. We are going to keep my individual account open (credit union) to maintain the perks of having an account through a credit union but reroute all of our paychecks to his account. We already have a joint credit card.

^But also I should add, we make about the same amount of money (he makes like $3k more than I do, but he also has monthly car payments and I don’t, so that honestly makes it about even). Though if one of us made more than the other I can’t imagine thinking of it like “I make more than you so I don’t want to share it.” When we have kids theres a good chance I’ll only work part time so he’ll make much more than I will and then I’m sure the arrangement we have now will change... even though he’s making the money it’s still “our” money.