After this amazing news from last weekend, I’ve been busy dreaming of my wedding and, more importantly, the end goal: married life after we tie the knot.
My partner and I have been together for six and a half years, five of which we have been living together. As a good friend of ours says, we’re “already practically married”. What will change? How will we go about conducting ourselves as a married couple that is different from how we are as a couple living in proverbial sin?
We already have the house, though we will be getting things with which to decorate and fill said house. We already have two adorable little dogs in replacement of children (for now).
Since I tend to talk a lot about finance on this site, and since many of my readers are interested in personal finance, here’s what will likely change:
We’ll Be (Partially) Combining Finances
In 2011, I wrote a post about all of the reasons why we don’t have combined finances. This was on my old Blogger blog, but the reasons included (but were not limited to):
- We were not on the same page financially (ie my fiance not seeing the importance of saving for retirement, I not being as frugal as he was)
- He made a lot more money than I did, since I was in school and working (full-time) in a retail job; he was already secure in his career
- We weren’t married.
So much has changed since then. I graduated and even before that, tripled my income. My fiance has ramped it up on the retirement savings and investing front. I’ve become more frugal when my spending doesn’t count so I can spend more on the things that do.
Finally, we’re getting married.
We both already consider any purchase that we make as a joint purchase; the money is coming out of the same pot.
This is why, when the time came, I told him that I was buying a new laptop and I didn’t go out and just buy one without alerting him.
He let me know that he was buying $1000 worth of tools a few months previous to this.
We don’t feel the need to “ask” each other, because neither of us reports to one another, however, it’s just nice to know when substantial chunks of money are coming out of our own accounts.
It’s a courtesy, really.
We both make similar amounts of money. We both save diligently. We have a mortgage together. If I have an emergency, it’s his emergency, and vice versa.
To be honest, it’s a hassle to have to transfer money into a joint account every time we go to pay the mortgage, and it’s definitely a hassle to have to transfer money around when we go to the grocery store together, or, as we’ve done in the past, go through separate checkouts.
(He spends a lot more money on groceries than I do).
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we’ll be combining our finances, at least partially.
We will have our own separate accounts so we can meet our own separate goals; I don’t believe in “allowances” so there will be none of that. Simply that we will be keeping part of our own earnings for ourselves, and combining the vast majority.
Of course, our retirement savings will be separate, as it is now. I have a pension, he doesn’t. That will remain the same, unless he finds employment that is pensionable.
So, yes, our finances will change at least a little bit post nuptial. Plus, we’ll be our own little family unit. Not to say that un-married couples aren’t.
Daisy, thank you for sharing your approach and what is working for you. I think there are a million different ways to do this, and I think what you mentioned in your post is so important. Situations change and so do your preferences and priorities. While you didn’t see the importance of combining finances, things have happened and you’ve monitored and adjusted.
I appreciate you sharing with us!
There are definitely a million ways to do this; I think this will be the method that works best for us but I guess we will see after we wed!
I really enjoyed your post.When I get married I don’t think I want to combine finances. I think I’d rather just split the bills down the middle and keep my savings and investments to myself. Not to say I would be secretive or not want to share my finances butthat’s how I feel not.But my opinion probably will change later when I meet “The One.”
I didn’t think I would want to either, but that doesn’t mean that you will want to when you meet “the one”. There are a lot of couples that don’t combine because it works for them.
My only question is how will retirement work if you retire with a ton of pension money but he didn’t save at all? I’m assuming you won’t let that happen, but that is the one thing I never understood.
Fair enough! He’s saving now. Because he’s a few years older than me and I didn’t save during college for my retirement very aggressively, he has a nice little head start on me. Plus, I’ll only have a ton of pension if I stay at my job for another decade or two (which is not likely) so we’ll just both have to ramp up the savings when I leave.
Congrats on the engagement! I don’t think much would change between the bf and I if/when we get engaged. We already work really well as a pair (individually and together), so we’d probably keep running out finances the way we do them now. A combo of “he pays” “I pay” and “we pay”.
Thanks, KK. A little bit of everything, why not!
Congratulations Daisy!! I’m sure now that you have such a great understanding about personal finance you have the ground work already done for the two of you. It will always take work and tweaking but just knowing that you both are on the same page for the most part is a great start to your new life together. Cheers mate
It definitely helps – I wouldn’t want to be with somebody who wasn’t seeing eye to eye with me when it comes to money.
Sounds like you guys figured out what works best for you. Congrats!
Thank you!
Got married this Saturday, after spending almost 11 years with the guy. It doesn’t change anything, it’s just a paper. I don’t feel anything new, same two people who love each other 😉
We do not combine finances, at least not entirely. We both have our separate bank accounts since we weren’t married and plan on keeping them like this. We do plan on saving money together, but also have our small personal ‘envelopes’. It doesn’t mean we don’t share the money (we’re always helping each other financially, when one of us is ahead with the earnings), but we like the small ‘competition’ we have.
Wow, 11 years. I doubt anything will change. Do you feel more like a family now?
Nope, I don’t even feel married 😀
We’ve lived together for quite some time, traveled across the world together, so there’s nothing new this married life can bring to us. We’re happy and in love, but it doesn’t change how we feel
Congratulations! I’d love to hear a follow up post as you move forward with this new approach and see if your view on joint and separate finances evolves again. I’m just starting over on the whole dating front so I have a while before I’ll need to deal with these kinds of questions again.
I’ll post something in the future, but we won’t be combining until we officially tie the knot. They are big decisions, that’s for sure!
First of all – huge congrats and I hope your wedding is amazing! I think the way you are combining your finances is the way to go. Me and my girlfriend have shared accounts and investments, but we also have separate checking and savings accounts for our own individual spending money.
The goal is to make the arrangement mutually beneficial without adding unnecessary complication.
Thanks Anton. Having your own individual accounts is a good idea, being that you may want to buy each other gifts or something like that. Plus, it’s impossible to have all of the exact same goals.
Looks like I’m a little bit late to say congratulations, but I’ll offer them anyway: congrats!
Based on the way you’ve described things, you and your future husband seem to be on the same page financially speaking. That’s a very good thing! Your relationship seems very healthy in that regard especially with the communication aspect. Don’t be too concerned about your finances being more “officially” intertwined, it’s natural!
When i got married, my finances got much stronger. Not because my wife was rich, but because she has always been a saver and I was always the spender. She is like my financial conscience.
Planning a wedding and getting married is great fun – enjoy every minute of it and tell anyone who is even slightly negative to take a very long walk.
Congratulations
Well a lot of things financially will change, like you will now have 2 sources of income you can either save one income and use the other for living expenses or you can pay off all your debts. It depends on what you want but if I were you I would start paying off my debts with one income and use the other for saving. If your spouse owns his own home then you can either rent one of the two houses or sell both of your houses and buy a big one.
We’ve already lived together for years, so that won’t change for us – we don’t have debts except for our mortgage (we have already bought a house together). We’re already paying it off more rapidly than the minimum payments.