How Do You Manage Your Monthly Couple’s Budget?

Many couples choose to merge their single finances after they get married and some couples choose to keep their money in separate bank accounts even after they say “I Do”. We have learned from my own personal experiences that a committed couple doesn’t necessarily mean marriage.  Therefore committed couples everywhere, both married and unmarried, have to decide how they are going to manage their couple’s budget.

The decision to make all accounts joint

For some people managing a couples budget means that we have to merge all bank accounts.  It may be easier for couples to manage their monthly couple’s budget if all of their money goes into and comes out of the same bank account.  But how do you manage your monthly couple’s budget if your incomes are not equal? It may be easier to manage a couple’s budget with a joint account because it is a lot easier to keep track of all transactions in only one account rather than in several different accounts.

Keeping accounts separate

After the rice is thrown, all of the cake is eaten and the honeymoon is over couples have to sit down and discuss their couple’s budget.  Some couples may decide to keep their bank accounts separate and this has nothing to do with the fact that they don’t trust their spouse. It is simply a question of money management. Some couples find it easier to split all of the monthly expenses in two and pay their bills individually. This way each spouse can manage their own income with their own share of expenses.

This is currently how my boyfriend and I manage our monthly couple’s budget. We don’t each pay half of every single bill, instead we divide the monthly expenses in half and then we each pay approximately the same amount of money each month onto different bills. It is easier for us to manage our money this way because when we were younger (with less income) it was hard to keep track of the money in our joint bank account when two of us were spending money from the same account.

Managing a joint budget without joint money

Couples can still manage their budget together even if their bank accounts are not joint. Just because couples chose not to merge their bank accounts into one joint account doesn’t mean that couples have to keep everything in their life separate, it just means that some people prefer to manage their money alone instead of together.

Couples can still save for joint goals, manage a couple’s budget, and pay down joint debts while maintaining individual bank accounts. It’s not the saving that has to be joint in a relationship, it is the spending. As long as spouses are equally contributing to monthly expenses or contributing an equal percentage proportionate to their income you can effectively manage a couple’s budget.  Additional savings for retirement can be individual, but contributing equally to your joint couple’s lifestyle is what really counts.

How do you and your spouse manage your monthly couple’s budget?

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Kristina Tahnyak

Tahnya is a Certified Financial Planner and former Investment Advisor turned marketing and communications professional She holds a degree from Concordia University, is debt free and currently works in the field of digital marketing.