Marriage & Money

I know the chocolate was a bit much...so here's something a little more thought provoking and not as sweet!

During pre-marital counselling, one of the topics that we discussed was Money and Marriage! And of course as most or all of you know, money is the number one reason couples fight and break up.  I am sure this could be debated in some ciricles but for the sake of this post, i agree with this.

Money is definitely a sore spot for many people, individually as single people and then collectively after marriage.  

Before i got married, i had my ways of handling money. And Mr. Pancakes had his.  During pre-marital counselling, we talked ways to handle our monies  after marriage.  Even though we were living together before marriage, we both had "separate accounts" and split our expenses including rent,electric bill, food, cable/telephone and miscallaneous.  Mr. Pancakes had his "girlfriend fund" (now his wife-fund) and i had my "whatever fund.!"  We opened up a joint account to save for our wedding after we were engaged.  And this worked for us.

However, during pre-marital counselling, the idea of "the household money pot" entered our discussion.  The pot would be where my money was his money and his money was my monies.  Many financial gurus support this idea including Dave Ramsey  and Suze Orman to some degree.  While Dave Ramsey believes once you are married, all monies should be combined; Suze Ormane believes that monies you had prior to marraige should be kept separate while post-marital monies can be joined with some exceptions. 

Here is where Mr. Pancakes and i defer a little.  While i am completely in support of the "household money pot" without any exceptions, he believes in the exceptions.  The exceptions include if the other partner has terrible money management skills, is an impulsive shopper, overspends and or just bad with money! 

First Confession: Both Mr. Pancakes and I don't have credit cards.  We got raid of if soon after we started dating.  (i know there are some questions about how can you not have credit? Don't you need credit to buy a house? Dave says NO! Suze says YES! this is an ongoing debate with Team Pancakes, but that's for another post!).

Second Confession:  Mr. Pancakes is great with money!  He has his budget and he sticks to it.  Hence why he had a "girlfriend fund" which is now his "wife fund." I am not terrible with money! As a matter of fact, i have a budget too.  I just like to move money around occassionally.  So if i am running short on something during the month, i will borrow from my savings and then replenish it later (most of the time).  For Dave Ramsey fans, he is the nerd and i am the free spirit all the way!

The second confession is what prevented Mr. Pancakes from becoming gung-ho about the "household money pot."  He was worried that i would rob peter to pay paul, martha and john too! And potentially ruin our future by constantly borrowing from our accounts.  This was a legitimate concern but i necessarily did not agree!  I thought he needed to just go ahead, deal with it and join our monies together. 

However, the more he resisted, the more i had to look in the mirror.  Looking in the mirror, i could see i had some terribly bad skills at managing money from myself.  Once i got married and if i continued, we would never meet any of the financial goals we had as a couple.  If i continued to use and give money frivilously, we would be in the poor house (and not in the house i have always dreamed about) before we celebrate our fifth anniversary!  I definitely still had changes to do, including when i made a budget, i should stick to it and make it last after the month ends!

I am sure Mr. Pancakes looked in the mirror too because three months since our marriage was made official and six months since that first pre-marital session about merging our finances, my hubby/the man of the household is shifting his thinking about the "household money pot" idea.  I am not sure exactly what he saw when he looked in the mirror.  He may have realized that he can finally trust in my money management skills and or that he needs to live a little.  It could be many things and something entirely different but i am excited about merging not only our lives in marriage but in money too!

We definitely try to act as a team in every aspect of our lives (residence, health, money, TTC).  We always come together and compromise and try and find some middle ground in all areas of our lives.  Therefore, we will have a household money pot.  But to keep both our sanity in our marriage and marry both Dave and Suze, we will have our individual accounts for my "whatever fund" and his "wife fund."

Which side of the financial fence are you on: 

household money pot or individual money pot?

P.S: maybe this is a separate post all together, but how about combined taxes after marriage! That is something we will be doing together next year.  Scary! Battles all on it's on.  At least Turbo Tax! I've heard of couples that have had to use "form 4868 tax extension” because they couldn't agree on what to claim.   But like i said, this deserves it's own post!