Currently, I am about to discontinue my joint account with my DH. We spend WAAAYYY to much money on his daughter. We have medical bills up the A$$ from his daughter being in and out of the psych ward. Plus, he gives her an allowance every week for doing ABSOULTELY NOTHING! She hasn't been to our house in more than 3 weeks and she still gets her allowance. We have 2 other boys (3 and 8 months) to start preparing for. It's sad to say this but I make about 70% of the income in our account, other than bills, debt, etc., more money is spent on SD15 than our boys. This will include pampers and formula for the 8 month old - and we know that is expensive!!!

So, in my opinion, I wouldn't join bank accounts. I honestly wished I wouldn't have. Now we are going through this whole process of tell me what you want me to pay and we can agree to that every month.

For this reason, I don't have anything saved for a rainy day.

Our banking is as follows. My account & his account. I am JOINT on HIS account he is NOT on any of mine. When he gets paid, I transfer BILL money out of his account and leave him an allowance. Whatever he does with that, I don't care. This is how it works, has worked for 10 years and I have no desire to change it.

I agree - I can't see any benefits to joining accounts except to create frustration and anger. My DH and I have separate accounts, so I never have to resent when he spends his money more freely than I would, and he doesn't have to feel resentful when I put money towards my debts. We have shared financial goals, like getting out of debt, but we each keep our own income and like it that way.

DH and I have had joint accounts for at least 10 years or more. I never had a problem with the amount of money he spent on skid, but DH was just not good in general at managing his money. So I took full control of the household finances. DH and I both deposited our checks into a joint checking account, I paid the bills and the CS, and we both had access to the remaining funds. We were always broke.

Then DH became a SAHD when our first baby was born almost 5 years ago. That changed things alot because we only had one check going in but still the same expenses going out. I had to put DH on an allowance. DH had to pre-approve every purchase with me ahead of time. It was a challenge but he learned how to manage his expenses better. He's also learned to pocket a few extra dollars here and there so he doesn't have to ask me every time he needs money.

Right now, we have an agreement that any purchase over $100 must be discussed in detail and agreed upon by both parties. But we seldom have any problems. I should mention that I have always maintained a separate savings account in my name only too. Just in case...

DH and I have seperate accounts (checking and savings) but we are signers on each other's accounts should something happen to one of us. I think it was just easier for us to add each other as signers on our existing accounts rather than closing them and opening new ones together.

I can tell you that I learned the hard way that it is much easier to add someone to your account than it is to remove them. when ExH and I divorced the only way I could get him off my accounts was to close them and open new ones and that to me is a huge pain in the ass!

With my exH and my current BF I always have had a separate account and always will.

Right now, we're kinda like blender's family. We have one joint account that pays for joint bills, and the rest is our personal funds.

DH makes more than I do, but he blows through it. He doesn't even know on what. So... We're going to go to a true joint system. CS is taken out of his check before he sees it, so everything else will go into joint. We'll each get a GENEROUS allowance, and then the rest will go to paying down the big bills - the mortgage and his Jeep. Oddly, the mortgage interest rate is higher than the Jeep, so we should be paying that down first, but... I figure we'll have everything paid off in about three years.

Joint checking and savings. I have a separate account thru the credit union at work and pay my Roth IRA out of this plus it allows for savings to build up.

My DH is EXTREMELY careful with money. When mprev. married his ex ran up $1500 in one month on QVC. This was 15 yrs ago and both of them were working for non-profit so you know how little THEY were being paid. He made sure the bills got paid but swore NEVER to get into that situation again.

I have never had a debt collector calling or the repo man coming around (although he DID call to collect the prev owners car when we had bought the house over 4 yrs previously). Otherwise we would be having sep. accounts.

Separate accounts! The spending on the Skids doesn't necessarily stop when they turn 18.