Couples & Money Management

I often read, on other blogs, about either single people or married folks. I haven’t read too much about people in committed relationships where two people live together and how they manage their finances. There are three options really, keep your money completely separate, combine all of your money, or keep some together and some split (in one form or another).

My household is a little more unique in that I live with my partner Jordan as well as my brother and his girlfriend. We split common bills such as utilities (satellite, TV, & heat/gas/water) as well as rent. All of these are managed by me. As such I have very large influxes in and out of money.

Jordan and I were talking about amalgamating some of our finances and when the best time to do this would be. Due to the unique situations of having many roommates and many bills to split, we though now is not the best time.

That said, we will continue to save for large items together (such as our house fund right now). When you save as a team, it can happen so much quicker then if you were to do it on your own.

Once we are in our own place (probably 2-3 years away) we will start by having one joint account where all of the bills will be withdrawn from (utilities/mortgage ect). Once this works for us and we are comfortable with the change it is likely that we would join our finances in other ways as well. I do like the idea of knowing how much I can spend without having to check with the other person (especially at Christmas). So if we did put all of our money together eventually, I would want to keep one separate account each (above and beyond emerg funds, rrsps ect). This would be our ‘fun’ money. Our ‘personal’ spending funds. It might only be a few hundred dollars a month – but it would be a good way to save for surprises for the other person and what not.

I’m curious to know, how other couples – new to navigating the joint financial world – have combined their finances. What worked? What didn’t?