By now you should have read our other blog post about Separate vs Joint Accounts. If not, Click Here! to read it first. Reading it will give you insight on how the hybrid account might best suit your needs. If you have read Separate vs Joint Accounts, well read on!
To recap our thought process on joint accounts, the O more common downfalls in the joint account concept is the joint check book. In new marriages, money can be tight and this can lead to bounced checks when both parties write checks from the same account and hurt feelings when one person controls the checkbook.
Joint vs Separate accounts?
Hybrid accounts are the way to go.
Here is a simple solution to all of this; a hybrid account! In the days of modern banking, you can transfer money between accounts, and write checks, with a mouse click.
Here is how it works. Each of you keep your separate accounts. Both of you open a joint account together. Then when bills are due, you both use your separate accounts to put money into the joint account. It is easy to calculate recurring payments like splitting rent or a mortgage. The variable bills like electric can be split as desired.
You can even take it a step further and make it fair. If one of you makes more than the other, split the bills that way. For example, if one of you makes $40,000 a year and the other $20,000, why not split the bills 60/40 since the main breadwinner is making most of the money? So that $1000 rent payment gets $600 of attention from the main moneymaker. This way both feel like they are contributing equal amounts into the marriage.
Thoughts? Know a better solution to these problems? Post below!
Here is a great blog on the topic of marriage and money as well ---> daveramsey.com
For an article on mistakes newlyweds make with money, click here ---> kilplinger.com
