This is an anonymous post from an Elpha member.

Not sure how I feel about pooling finances

I've been with my partner for a year and a half and we've shared all our joint expenses equally for the past year (since we've been living together). So, anything that falls outside of our joint expenses we each pay in full from our own pocket. We recently had a conversation about how, in the future, we'd probably have a joint economy where we pool our savings together, and we wouldn't be counting pennies as we are right now.

I love my partner and can see us having a joint future together, but there's a part of me that feels a bit possessive over my money. I wish I didn't feel this way but I'm very conflicted on the idea of all of a sudden our savings being pooled.

My partner has been on a sabbatical for three years and is in no rush to get a job, whereas I've been working full-time for the past 6 years and have saved up quite a lot of money in comparison to him. So, it would feel a bit unfair if by pooling our economies he would extend his sabbatical while I keep on working. But I guess that's a conversation to be had, case by case, expense by expense.

I'd love to hear how others feel about joint finances and what setup has worked for them. Also, do you discuss each expense or which expenses do you think are worth checking in with your partner on?

I also think I haven't fully explored my relationship with money and I'm a bit stuck on how to do it, so any questions for reflection are greatly appreciated! My hope is that with time I'll get more used to the idea of sharing our money.

Filomena21·Aug 06

Who is "counting pennies"? Both of you, or just your partner? Purely from what you wrote here, it does sound like your partner is angling to take advantage of you financially. I think it wouldn't be that weird to put rules in place, like that you won't pool finances unless your partner gets a job.What I usually hear being normal is opening a joint bank account for shared expenses while each maintaining your own separate accounts for non-shared expenses. If you have a mortgage together, you pay for it out of the shared bank account. Ideally you contribute to the shared account either 50/50, proportional to your income, or in some other way that seems fair to both of you.Also, usually if one person is contributing less financially (edit: is NOT contributing financially), they are contributing more in terms of childcare or household chores. Or there is simply an acknowledgement that one person's work will never pay as well, even if they are trying. Would that be the case here? How does your partner support you — are they cooking all of your meals for you to enable you to work more productively? What is their rationale for not working for three years, and do you agree philosophically with how they are spending their leisure time?It wouldn't be a bad idea for you to have an initial consult with a lawyer who writes pre-nups so you can understand what is normal. It sounds like your current savings are the equivalent of a "pre-marital asset." It literally makes zero sense for your partner to come in and start spending your savings.

elaineguo·Aug 12

@Filomena21 thanks for sharing! I agree that having three accounts is very helpful, though I still try to split housework equally (my line of work pays much less than my partner's, but it doesn't take less effort or time so we are both equally tired by the end of the week).

Filomena21·Aug 12

I'm sorry about that! Rereading my comment, I was really speaking specifically about OP's situation in which her partner isn't currently working at all. So what I meant was "if one person is NOT contributing financially." I definitely agree that if both partners are working, it's not fair to make an assessment of how hard the work is based on how much it pays. I'll add an edit to my comment!

Kathrine111·Aug 07

This week, my partner and I are celebrating 20 years together—and the sharing finances conversation is just as hard! @Filomena21 outlined a few approaches you can take below. I'll just add that we've had a lot of success with the platforms Monarch and YNAB for pooling together our resources while continuing to keep some money/expenses separate and enabling us to plan big-picture and long-term. Keep trying different approaches and you'll find ways that work for you two.

elisegatsby·Aug 07

Everyone - man or woman, married or single - needs access to money that is 100% theirs and no one else's. That isn't to say all your money is yours but some share of what you earn is yours.The set-up that has worked wonders for my partner and myself is 1) joint checking account for shared expenses, 2) joint savings account for an emergency fund and shared big expenses, 3) my own checking account for my own expenses, and 4) my own savings account for my own emergency fund and my own big expenses. We don't "count pennies" we just use the cards tied to the joint account to pay for joint things. Luckily, we pretty readily agree on what counts as joint expenses which is key to this system working. But early on we'd discuss it and ask if xyz should be on the joint or not.In my opinion, if you don't currently have your checking or savings shared, then what is yours today is yours tomorrow. If you want to pool money going forward then those are new accounts that you both agree to initially fund with some amount and continue to fund by some percentage going forward. For example, you both put $X into a new joint checking account and going forward you both contribute Y% of your paycheck to it.

Kris75·Aug 09

First, do either of you have any debt? If so, be extra careful combining finances. Have a very frank conversation- there should be numbers, not "oh, just a couple of credit cards with balances" or "yeah, but it's okay, I've got a handle on it." Second, as someone said, you can combine finances going forward, leaving whatever you have with yourselves separately. This can be your "fuck off money." Remember if you ever want to get a mortgage or something, you're limited by the whoever has the lower credit score.My partner and I have our salaries paid into our personal accounts, then we each keep the same $ amount and everything else goes into the joint account, and we basically live out of the joint account: household, children, pets, vacations, savings. Our personal accounts are mainly for our hobbies. Even so, my partner will often discuss big personal spends with me, because he generally values my opinions.We used to keep the same % as personal, but it seemed more fair that we would each have the same personal money as partners. It would seem like you are not partners if, with different incomes, one of you could buy a luxury car while the other one counted how fancy a coffee they could have with friends. We've each been the higher earner at different times. When one of us earns more, the *household*'s living improves. I'd say we generally discuss anything that is out of the ordinary. So anything outside of the monthly bills and groceries and Target runs. The last thing we talked about was a kid activity- a few hundred bucks. I'd say anything over a couple hundred bucks, we'd let the other one know, or ask if it seemed like a good deal, if it was coming out of the joint account. For personal spending, we normally do a sense-check with each other at higher amounts. Neither of us ever says "no" to the other person's personal spending, of course. If he saved up his money and wanted to buy diamond-coated sneakers, I'd re-examine our relationship, but only because it would appear he had terrible taste, not because I disapproved of his spending his own money.

brittanyhunter·Aug 12

I'm in my late 30's, just got married (my first marriage) last year, my partner and I have been together 3 years total. I make about 3x what my partner does. When we got married I owned the house (that we now both share), had a small savings, and relatively low debt. He has a significant amount of grad school debt. I am thankful that my husband never had any expectations of pooling finances. When we were getting ready to move in together, we opened a joint savings and joint checking account. We made a spreadsheet of all of the expenses we expected to share, and used that to decide on a fair amount that we each contribute to the joint account each month. It’s enough to cover our monthly shared expenses, plus some extra to build up a savings. We only use the joint account for things we agree to. We periodically update our spreadsheet of expenses and adjust the amount going into the joint account, if necessary. We each kept our separate bank accounts, and manage our finances separately. Neither of us is judgemental towards the other for how we spend or manage our money, or what we spend it on. We check in and ask one another’s advice for big personal expenses, like earlier this year I bought a horse and that was something we discussed and agreed to together. We don’t have children (and don’t plan to) so that simplifies our situation somewhat, but even if we did, we would keep the same setup. just adjust the amounts that we are paying in. It’s important that each person have their own money. I’ve seen too many women who couldn’t leave their partners in a bad marriage, because they had no money of their own. And I’ve seen too many good marriages go bad, because of resentment over how one person was using the shared resources. > I'm very conflicted on the idea of all of a sudden our savings being pooledI think you should be conflicted, especially if you are looking at doing this ‘pooling’ before getting married. But I would advise against doing it at all. Your savings should be yours alone, and it should be your choice whether to contribute them to the household.

Filomena21·Aug 12

I'm curious what you mean when you say: "when we got married I owned the house (that we now both share)". How did you transfer ownership? Did he pay you 50% of what you've already paid towards the downpayment and mortgage?I've usually found myself in the opposite situation, with a partner that owns real estate, and I've been reluctant to invest or pay part of a mortgage for something I don't own. Would be curious how you handled this!

brittanyhunter·Aug 13

So I live in midwest USA where housing is relatively cheap (though rising steeply). The mortgage and deed are both still in my name for now but the law doesn't really care about that. If we split (heaven forbid), because we've been paying the mortgage with joint funds out of our joint bank account, it would likely be considered marital property. (keep in mind IANAL and laws differ between states and countries). I had only been in the house for a few years before we married, so there was less than $100k of equity (smallish downpayment, and a few years of payments that mostly went towards interest because of how mortgages work). It wasn't really enough for me to feel concerned about (e.g. try to carve it out with a pre-nup or something). The way I viewed it is, I'm choosing to spend the rest of my life with this person. If I don't trust him enough with this asset, then maybe I shouldn't be pledging to unite my life with his.In his mind it felt like switching paying rent to a landlord, to paying rent to me/us. He's not really a money-motivated person. But really the situation does work in his favor -- he is now building equity, and could very well be entitled to some of the equity from before he came into my life. The same could be true in your situation (*IF* you're married to the partner.)Everyone's situation is going to be different. :) Especially with how real estate values vary from place to place, and how relationships vary.

cgomez100100·Aug 12

As several have said, I think there’s no formulas and no recipes that work for everyone. I’m in my mid thirties and got married this year with my partner of 4 years. When we started I was just out of grad school and he was working. Over the past 4 years personal incomes have ebbed and flowed. We did a prenup in which essentially all accounts/income/debt are separate unless we put it into a joint account. Homes, cars, pets etc etc are each our own individual responsibility. Happy to chat more 1:1 if you prefer.

Lelah209·Aug 13

Even when I was single and before I got married, I always knew I wanted to keep my bank account separate. When I got married to my husband, we talked about this and he was fine with keeping our accounts separate.We split 50/50 on all the bills (except rent) - I pay for all the bills and he sends me money every month. For rent, I choose to pay more since I make more (also gives him the opportunity to save). When we go out for drinks and/or dinner, I pick up the bill most of the time. Sometimes he picks up the bill and other times we split it (more so when it's $$$).We do have a joint savings and checkings, but we mainly operate out of our own accounts. If we want to save towards something (e.g. vacation), we contribute equally to the savings. But by having separate accounts, we're able to spend our money however we want. If I want to help out my parents, I can because it's my money and same goes for him.I think it's totally fine to want to keep separate accounts! If you don't want to pool your savings the. don't. Just have an open conversation about it so expectations are set. :)

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