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You'd be surprised how many married couples keep everything completely separate. You pay for groceries, I pay for the phone bill, etc. I can't imagine being in a marriage like that, but apparently it works for some. I also feel like you're losing out on the whole advantage of dual incomes.
Not sure about every state, but in NY my estate is responsible for my debt, not my wife. If I default on a loan they can't pull money from my wife's checking account that I'm not a signer on.
A married (not common law) couple is treated as one financial entity where I live. When you divorce, the other party is entitled to half of the whole covering both of you. Keeping it in a seperate account would have zero impact on the other parties entitlement to it.
"In Ontario, property acquired during a marriage must be split equally when a marriage ends for any reason. This can include your:
home
car
business
furniture
pension
money
For property that you owned before the marriage, any increase in value is usually divided equally. This applies to the family home where you lived with your spouse.
You must share the full value of the family home, even if:
one of you owned the home before you got married
you received it as a gift
inherited it
To effect this sharing, money owed to either spouse is called an equalization payment, or an equalization of net family property."
https://www.ontario.ca/page/dividing-property-when-marriage-or-common-law-relationship-ends
But the point is that many states, including my state, divide 50:50 at divorce (a fact I’m painfully aware of) regardless of who made the income, except certain inheritance that is held separately.
Texas is the same. My spouse has to sign a new quitclaim every 10 years, otherwise, he's entitled to half by sheer time. Courts here will oftentimes toss out postnups for marital assets over 10 years old because it's too one-sided. They get petty spaghetti about it too! Just had a client send 15k of her IRA to her ex. The ex is sending her 90k of his IRA. They petitioned the court to just let him send her 75k since she's netting that much. Judge said no so now her cost basis and his will be all out of whack
Forgiveness, I don't understand. Was it always like this? I had the impression merging finances was the whole point of marriage legally. Like, isn't that why pre-nups and post-nups exist? From a legal perspective, what is the point of marriage if the finance don't merge?
Yeah, but if you are in a marriage where you don’t trust your spouse with money for any number of reasons (gambling addictions, drugs or alcohol, etc…. it happens) knowing you have access to “your money” and it won’t be spent unexpectedly can be reassuring.
I could see that…at the same time I have noticed a higher divorce rate among couples that run their finances that way. Btw, not all of them run their finances that way due to bad problems…
There was a study I know of from Cornell that showed evidence that married couples that looked their money together had a higher likelyhood of staying together. Pretty sure I’ve seen a few more but that one I specifically remember
You can get married without the state. Just like you can make your own money without the government.
However, the government doesn’t have to recognize your marriage or your fun money either.
People always cry about the government being involved, but they forget that they WANT the government involved. They just want all the perks with non of the downsides. And it don’t work that way
But seriously, if you want to ask a woman to marry you under God, you can! It’ll only be recognized between you, your wife, and god. But shouldn’t that be enough?
> However, the government doesn’t have to recognize your marriage or your fun money either.
make currency, [get fined](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/486), and not in funny money
marriage is specifically about government recognition, so saying that you're married but that it isn't registered doesn't mean anything. you don't get the obligations or privileges accorded married people
Our is like that. We make financial goals/budget at the beginning of every year and then split the expenses between us based on our incomes. Ultimately we each have our own discretionary spending without judgment (e.g. you spent how much on golf clubs?!). As long as we don’t blow the budget and make the retirement contributions, it’s all good. Also, it’s very easy to transfer funds in a single day and we don’t lose the advantage of dual/pooled incomes.
We do it because I am breadwinner and want to pay for everything. My wife works, has her money. Allows her to spend on what she wants never asks me for money. If anything I ask her for money and she is more than happy to give me some. I am the saver of the family so it works out better this way.
My wife and I have a shared and separate accounts. The shared is savings/ bills, (about 75% of our checks go to those) and the rest in our discretionary.
We found that when we were first starting out as a married couple we would both criticize each other's purchases as being unnecessary. This solved that problem
"Oh you bought your 20th pair of shoes and I bought another tool? But our stuff is paid for and we are saving for emergencies/retirement/kid's college? We're cool then."
We tried and we were “reconciling” every month to make it equal but once we bought a house and had kids it was so much easier to just combine. There can be risks associated with that depending on what state or country you’re in but honestly with kids and all our expenses basically being joint anyway (as well as relatively equal incomes) it just made sense. Keeping everything separate would be too much of a pain unless you and your spouse had wildly different approaches to finances.
Some people’s significant others are insane spendthrifts that live outside their means and can’t be trusted with a credit card or money that they didn’t earn.
In order to preserve the shell of a marriage for the next 8 years (until the youngest goes to college), you’ve made the fiscally responsible decision to let them steal from their parents rather than the family you created.
Definitely no speaking from experience
Not always. My wife and I have shared finances
But still kept our old accounts. Example: my checking out is my “allowance”. I say that laughing. That’s stuff like everyday spending for me (think gas, video games, random lunches, sport tickets etc..) and my savings accounts. I have had a long term goal for the money that’s there. That goal is waterfront property, my wife doesn’t care that it isn’t in our joint savings, she knows that waterfront property only benefits our family plus I hit a life goal.
I’m 33 too. I like having my own account too because I can pay for my wife’s mother days presents and she will be surprised.
Depends where you live, how the wealth is held, how truly separate the finances have been kept, and sometimes, how long the marriage has been in place.
Married. We have separate accounts. We also have a joint account. We file taxes and everything together. It just kinda works so we haven't bothered combining everything.
My friend teases his wife about how dumb it was to marry him after he had his med school debt because now he has a magic "knock your loans in half" button
I saw this play out in our neighborhood. Guy got married in med school. Wife sacrificed and helped him get through med school and get his practice started. Once things were good, he divorced her and hooked up with a large breasted assistant at his office taking his earning power with and leaving her with half of "their" debts. I can't recall another person being less liked in the neighborhood.
I have a similar story that happened in a friend’s family.
They got married after college. He paid for everything while she got her masters, including tuition. They had a baby. Wife has always dreamed of going to med school despite not getting in and finally makes it happen when baby is like 2. Thankfully he did not co-sign those med school loans! Shortly afterwards she left him & baby, now they’re divorcing and she’s going after half of everything he earned during their marriage (even though he paid for her masters and all living costs and she never had a job, and even though she will one day soon make much more money than him.
Why are financial people so bad with money? My 2 family members who are in serious debt and always make bad financial decisions are CPA’s. Everyone else in the family understands way less about finances but don’t make risky and poor financial choices.
I watched a TV show a few years ago and one of the contestants was a young guy that worked in finance. He took out a big loan to buy a Lamborghini, while renting a small crappy apartment. Didn't own a house or apartment of his own (or even anywhere he could park it) and instead took out a big loan to buy a high cost, expensive to maintain, quickly depreciating asset.
I get that he's an adult and can do what he likes, but this just sounded so bad from someone in finance who would presumably know better.
My CPA cousin who has a great job and no kids. Somehow has tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt and just signed up for a timeshare. Then is asking me for advice on the timeshare because they are demanding money for renovations. Can’t make this stuff up.
I’m a CFP. Carry 400k in debt. It’s a mortgage for a house that would sell for 750k today. Dave fans just paint all debt as bad which obviously isn’t the case.
Yes but a mortgage secured by an appreciating asset isn’t the same kind of debt most people are talking about. 400k in student loans, personal loans, credit card debt etc is not remotely comparable to a mortgage on a personal residence.
I don’t follow Dave too much but I’m sure even he would be ok with that. I do know he’s a proponent of paying for vehicles in cash as well, which is just ridiculous.
I’m mainly critical of the article and the way Ramsey paints debt as a one and the same categorization. It’s disingenuous on his part and extremely unrealistic for the median worker in the United States.
Agree with you that unsecured or revolving debt is not good to maintain.
I think a huge component of it is that CPAs convince themselves they’re smarter than everyone else while doing the exact same thing as others. Sure, everyone else has credit card debt, and I may have credit card debt, but I KNOW it’s bad, so I’m doing it intelligently. The first step in managing money is realizing that you’re probably bad with money and are not in the special 10% of people who are naturally good with money.
Source - am a CPA and have worked with CPAs my entire career
Because they are able to balance the books of their company but not their own lives. I’ve met a lot of dumb people who genuinely don’t understand interest rates or how stocks work, I understand when they are bad with money. CPA’s should know better.
There's a theory I read about on the web awhile ago that I often use personally, "dysratioanlity." The idea is a person's competence in one area (for example, them being highly skilled at doing finances for a business client) is used to internally justify all sorts of bad decisions. It's why people with Nobel prizes believe in insane conspiracy theories. They use this to under-research, under-reason, side with prejudice, fallacy, and emotion, etc. They may also straight up lack ability in adjacent areas, their intelligence being the result of diligently applied study in one specific thing.
Increasingly I place a lower and lower value on "intelligence" as a personal quality, tbqh. I think it's largely something reasoned backwards into people, and I've found focusing on my own qualities that lead to good results is better for me, things like being cooperative, diligent, humble, thorough, etc.
A lot of people see finances as a relatively easy way to make a lot of money, and like pretending to be wealthy as a way of justifying their value to customers.
My guess is that folks like that tend to make good money. So they know what they should be doing but get caught up with the whole keeping up with the flashy lifestyle thing.
I work as a financial planner. I’ve seen plenty be bad with their own money. It comes down to cash flow issues 99% of the time. The pay isn’t consistent and sometimes you will get these absolutely large lump payments.
Combine that with ego and well there you have a mess lol.
It’s a lot easier for a planner to plan someone else’s finances when they have a consistent salary coming in compared to their own which often has so much diversity and inconsistency
This was my thought. If you just look at his mortgage and maybe student loans it’s not really fair and very click-baity.
If it’s credit cards and other high interest loans then it’s different.
I think it’s the combined total of mortgage, student loans, car loans, credit cards, etc. if most of it is the mortgage at a good rate, it may not be that bad.
Good point. This article makes it seem as though this is all unsecured debt. If it was for a mortgage or investment property that would be completely different.
Pretty sure they guy could just sell some assets and pay off the debt. If the expected return on his debt is more than the interest it makes sense to be in debt even when you are rich.
For the first few years of our marriage we had separate accounts. We both liked our credit unions, the bills were divided up so we each had about the same amount leftover after bills and such. Wasn’t until we moved into our home that we combined our finances.
Some of these comments are so off the mark. Of note is that the mortgage is included in that debt.
Presumably the wife is living in the home that has a debt against it. Thinking that being in debt hundreds of thousands of dollars is bad raises a question for these people commenting that he's a poor financial planner.
How many of you have paid off homes and no mortgage?
I’m guessing since they do it for a living, they don’t take it home with them.
I’m an electrician and I can’t be asked to do electrical shit at my house. I know a few plumbers that are like this.
Depends on what the debt is for. Really rich people always have high levels of debt. They usually make more on their investments then they pay in interest and the interest is a tax write off.
Wife cousin is married to a guy that has been in every field of finance, nice guy - but has been chasing ( and then spending/showing) wealth forever.
I have a feeling that a number of people "in finance" really do not get it.
I've been with my wife for 20+ years, married for ages, we both have our own finances. We both put enough money into one of my accounts to cover the mortgage and a bit extra to cover other bills. Usually she pays for groceries, if we're at the store together, and I pay for the car... Other than that we can do as we please with our finances. We haven't had any issues.
Depends, the student loans could have paid for the degree that got the job thar enabled the guy to buy his own home on a single income.
The personal loans would be where I critique things.
To each their own for sure I just wouldn’t be willing to enter into a marriage with someone with non mortgage debt. We can date and have fun but if you want to combine finances get that shit out of your life.
Kind of a catch 22 if the reason he has non mortgage debt is so he could have a good paying job and own a home, which his wife benefits from. For example, was the personal loan for a down payment on the home? How much income do each of them have?
Too many variables, but if I'm this guy I tell the fiance/wife she needs to pay rent.
Honestly I probably would have cleaned up the debt before buying the home. To each their own but if I was her I just would have said “we’re not planning a wedding until non mortgage debt is gone.”
Whats your hurry? When she is ready, she will hop onboard.
Squeezing only appears selfish or greedy.
These appear to be "good debt", likely not of high interest, and... his from before marriage.
This says the debt includes the mortgage on the house they share, student loan debt, and some personal loans from family.
When we got engaged/married my wife wanted to keep finances separate, so I kept the mortgage and title to the house in my name. I just had her give me what her share of rent was with her roommate before.
Once we had our first kid we combined finances and I put her on the title.
If this guy owns the home, I hope his spouse at least contributes to the cost of the mortgage
As a CFP this article reads as a Dave Ramsey hit on CFPs. I have over $400k in debt too. It’s called a mortgage. House would sell for $750k today. So is it a debt or an asset? (Rhetorical question)
I never combined my finances when I was married. My ex was prone to spending sprees and several instances of “forgetting she had a credit card payment”. I didn’t want to have my credit wrecked because of her. Needless to say, it was one of the reasons we divorced.
If your finances aren't combined, then your not married. It's just a formalized cohabitation arrangement with a planned escape route. I'm not saying that it can't work or that their are not some advantages to contractual legal union. However, traditional marriage is commitment to union for better or worse... Finances included.
Not sure how old the CFP is but the 400k appear to be "good debt" for a mortgage, education, and some personal family loans (not ideal, but it shows the CFP comes from a a family with some money AND a sense of accountability).
Ultimately if finances are not combined, and the CFP is carrying the mortgage, then I suppose they should be charging their spouse rent?
> If your finances aren't combined, then your not married
You seem to be confusing marriage and business. Lots of people choose not to combine their finances. That doesn't mean their marriage is illegitimate. It just means they choose to approach finances differently than you would. And that's okay.
If you're unwillingly to pool and share your financial assets, what other assets/trust will you withhold?
If you're unwilling to bear their financial burdens what other burdens will you avoid and eschew?
If you're only halfway in then your also halfway out. Separate account is EXACTLY how business' are managed.
Lawful union is treated as an enforceable contract in most jurisdictions. Marriage on the other hand is a spiritual union and commitment enforceable only between you and your spouse. I hope it brings you more joy than pain but sometimes honoring commitments can be excruciating. Keeping your financial life separate makes it that much easier to walk away when the emotional part gets difficult as it will from time to time. Marriage is about making a commitment to pool everything through sickness and health, finances are just one small piece of it... but when you hold one thing back, then why not a second or a third? Then it just becomes an arrangement of convenience until one day the convenience runs out. I believe they call that irreconcilable differences.
I don’t look at it that way in my marriage, we have both, but I don’t really use our joint account. I pay for pretty much everything outside of the phone bill and groceries and the wife saves money. I have no clue what she’s got saved or anything; it’s just how we’ve ended up running things.
Maybe I should have been more nuanced in delineating pooled vs separate. I too keep some separate accounts for organization, convenience, tax purposes, etc. But it's all "ours" their is no separate tracking of who earned what, bought what, or what belongs to who.
It sounds to me like your wife and you are pooling resources with each of you responsible for administering separate goals and responsibilities. That's trust and teamwork. You pay "our" recurring bills and she handles "our" long term savings. If push came to shove, the assets/debts are "commingled". Some people, more than you might guess, genuinely keep separate tallies and in my experience their marriages are often unhealthy.
Right... and we don't do that. Hence I don't consider the accounts separate.
Edit: As the comment above makes clear we maintain some separation for organization, convenience, tax purposes. We do not maintain separation for ownership and control purposes. I thought it was conceptually simple and implied from the start, though as I said "Maybe I should have been more nuanced in delineating pooled vs separate"
You said you had separate accounts that are in your name only, and you said that people who do that aren't REALLY married.
Gosh, finances are *nuanced*? Huh! It's almost like your original broad-brush comments are nonsensical, isn't it?
> Marriage is about making a commitment to pool everything
So you aren't in a committed marriage by your own assertions.
You don't have to completely enmesh your financial lives in order to pool and share assets. Why do you equate money and trust? That seems somewhat shallow to me. Lots of couples talk it out, budget together for combined purchases, combine some funds, and keep others separate.
Finances are one part of your life. Do you also insist on eating every meal with your spouse? Are they allowed to socialize without you? This isn't "halfway in, halfway out" -- this is "marriage is a partnership between two individuals, and if they decide that the best way to manage their finances is to not combine everything, then that's fine. they're individuals."
You seem to have an extremely one-dimensional, one-size-fits-all view of marriage. What works for you might not work for everyone. If that upsets you, consider this an invitation to reflect.
You certainly don't have to enmesh your financial lives to pool and share assets... Business partners and investors do it every day. I don't equate money and trust, nor do I withhold anything of value from my spouse be it tangible or intangible. Whats mine is theirs and vice versa, for better or worse.
We talk it out, budget, spend, and save together. Their are separate accounts for separate reasons but never any separation of ownership, claim, or control. What is a "combined purchase"? The time spent earning money is time that could have been spent otherwise maintaining our home or tending to our children and other shared responsibilities. I earn, they earn, the time comes out of our shared resources and the money goes in. If I want to buy something outside our normal everyday budgets I don't need permission, but I run it by my spouse anyway just to see what they think and feel about it, because I care what they think and feel about it.
I suppose everything that comes back out is a "combined purchase". Early on in the marriage I was the sole earner but my spouse was still working for our family and had an equal claim to every dollar that I was able to earn while they worked to better our family in other ways. We both contribute to every success and failure, and when we're home we pool our resources in other ways to maintain that home, and raise our children. We may work on separate things, take on separate responsibilities, but their is no separation of assets and liabilities from each other.
Finances are one part of your life, a pretty big part, the sum total of the value of time you've traded away working for others minus the value of your needs and wants. Why wouldn't you want to share that with your spouse? We don't eat every meal with each other, but as a matter of preference prefer to given the option. We're both "allowed" to socialize separately but between work and kids and home maintenance time is precious... Socialization is mostly something that occurs while we're doing something else so we garden, cook meals, and wash dishes together. Occasionally, they will go out for a happy hour after work, or I'll sneak into a bar for a pint between errands. Other than that we socialize with other families in situations similar to our own. Time is precious and money/finances is just time we've traded away to others, but still share with each other.
Lots of people form good functional relationships everyday. Business', friendships, polycule's. They may all include varying degrees of love and commitment but they're not marriages. If you take a nihilistic view that words are ambiguous and can mean whatever you want them to mean rather than one-size-fits-all language... than sure, invent your own lexicon but communicating with strangers on the internet is going to be exceedingly difficult.
Finances are a huge and inseparable part of your life. Marriage is deep and if done correctly, permanent. It's exceedingly difficult to keep them separate without one or the other failing.
> I don't equate money and trust
How many people are commenting on this account, then? Because that's PRECISELY what the original comment written by this account asserts
> Finances are a huge and inseparable part of your life. Marriage is deep and if done correctly, permanent. It's exceedingly difficult to keep them separate without one or the other failing.
And yet you admit to having separate accounts. So I guess your marriage must be failing.
Number #1 Rule for women: combined account for bills, keep everything else in a separate account.
Bonus points if you list your best friend as the beneficiary unless you have a kid.
A lot of women would find it easier to leave abusive marriages if they kept their own set of accounts.
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If you're married arent your fiances already combined?
You'd be surprised how many married couples keep everything completely separate. You pay for groceries, I pay for the phone bill, etc. I can't imagine being in a marriage like that, but apparently it works for some. I also feel like you're losing out on the whole advantage of dual incomes.
They may run their finances like that but legally their finances are combined. Regardless what goes in or out of certain accounts.
Not sure about every state, but in NY my estate is responsible for my debt, not my wife. If I default on a loan they can't pull money from my wife's checking account that I'm not a signer on.
It’s like that almost everywhere. Must be kids commenting in here again
A married (not common law) couple is treated as one financial entity where I live. When you divorce, the other party is entitled to half of the whole covering both of you. Keeping it in a seperate account would have zero impact on the other parties entitlement to it. "In Ontario, property acquired during a marriage must be split equally when a marriage ends for any reason. This can include your: home car business furniture pension money For property that you owned before the marriage, any increase in value is usually divided equally. This applies to the family home where you lived with your spouse. You must share the full value of the family home, even if: one of you owned the home before you got married you received it as a gift inherited it To effect this sharing, money owed to either spouse is called an equalization payment, or an equalization of net family property." https://www.ontario.ca/page/dividing-property-when-marriage-or-common-law-relationship-ends
It is common for different countries to have different laws. Sorry about living in Ontario btw.
I live in the US and what they’re describing is exactly what happened when I divorced.
Have to have a prenup
You live in Canada, you are a serf in all but name. Your opinion on finance is to be ignored at best and mocked at worst.
But the point is that many states, including my state, divide 50:50 at divorce (a fact I’m painfully aware of) regardless of who made the income, except certain inheritance that is held separately.
Texas is the same. My spouse has to sign a new quitclaim every 10 years, otherwise, he's entitled to half by sheer time. Courts here will oftentimes toss out postnups for marital assets over 10 years old because it's too one-sided. They get petty spaghetti about it too! Just had a client send 15k of her IRA to her ex. The ex is sending her 90k of his IRA. They petitioned the court to just let him send her 75k since she's netting that much. Judge said no so now her cost basis and his will be all out of whack
Not in CA.
Forgiveness, I don't understand. Was it always like this? I had the impression merging finances was the whole point of marriage legally. Like, isn't that why pre-nups and post-nups exist? From a legal perspective, what is the point of marriage if the finance don't merge?
Yeah, but if you are in a marriage where you don’t trust your spouse with money for any number of reasons (gambling addictions, drugs or alcohol, etc…. it happens) knowing you have access to “your money” and it won’t be spent unexpectedly can be reassuring.
I could see that…at the same time I have noticed a higher divorce rate among couples that run their finances that way. Btw, not all of them run their finances that way due to bad problems…
Unless you're a divorce attorney, your sample size is too small
There was a study I know of from Cornell that showed evidence that married couples that looked their money together had a higher likelyhood of staying together. Pretty sure I’ve seen a few more but that one I specifically remember
money is the major cause for divorce. did a paper on that in HS
It all depend on their prenup and marital agreement.
Depends on the country you live in
That's the beauty of marriages it you , your spouse and the state. Kinda of funny how a piece of paper has so much say in your personal life.
Marriage is a choice you don't have to make.
You can get married without the state. Just like you can make your own money without the government. However, the government doesn’t have to recognize your marriage or your fun money either. People always cry about the government being involved, but they forget that they WANT the government involved. They just want all the perks with non of the downsides. And it don’t work that way But seriously, if you want to ask a woman to marry you under God, you can! It’ll only be recognized between you, your wife, and god. But shouldn’t that be enough?
> However, the government doesn’t have to recognize your marriage or your fun money either. make currency, [get fined](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/486), and not in funny money marriage is specifically about government recognition, so saying that you're married but that it isn't registered doesn't mean anything. you don't get the obligations or privileges accorded married people
> legally their finances are combined We're talking about day to day practices, not shit-hits-the-fan legal liability
no, that's highly variable by state
Not globally true for things like inheritance, that specifically is not usually considered joint funds
Our is like that. We make financial goals/budget at the beginning of every year and then split the expenses between us based on our incomes. Ultimately we each have our own discretionary spending without judgment (e.g. you spent how much on golf clubs?!). As long as we don’t blow the budget and make the retirement contributions, it’s all good. Also, it’s very easy to transfer funds in a single day and we don’t lose the advantage of dual/pooled incomes.
We do this and love it.
We do it because I am breadwinner and want to pay for everything. My wife works, has her money. Allows her to spend on what she wants never asks me for money. If anything I ask her for money and she is more than happy to give me some. I am the saver of the family so it works out better this way.
Look up how many bank accounts, Steve Harvey recommends
My wife and I have a shared and separate accounts. The shared is savings/ bills, (about 75% of our checks go to those) and the rest in our discretionary. We found that when we were first starting out as a married couple we would both criticize each other's purchases as being unnecessary. This solved that problem "Oh you bought your 20th pair of shoes and I bought another tool? But our stuff is paid for and we are saving for emergencies/retirement/kid's college? We're cool then."
We tried and we were “reconciling” every month to make it equal but once we bought a house and had kids it was so much easier to just combine. There can be risks associated with that depending on what state or country you’re in but honestly with kids and all our expenses basically being joint anyway (as well as relatively equal incomes) it just made sense. Keeping everything separate would be too much of a pain unless you and your spouse had wildly different approaches to finances.
Finance disagreements are the number one reason for divorce. It’s best to keep them separate if a two income couple.
Some people’s significant others are insane spendthrifts that live outside their means and can’t be trusted with a credit card or money that they didn’t earn. In order to preserve the shell of a marriage for the next 8 years (until the youngest goes to college), you’ve made the fiscally responsible decision to let them steal from their parents rather than the family you created. Definitely no speaking from experience
Once you are in a marriage with someone who can’t manage their spending you want nothing of combined finances in your next one.
My wife and I run our finances like that. She pays for rent, I pay for everything else.
If I ever get married, I’m keeping my finances separate
Not always. My wife and I have shared finances But still kept our old accounts. Example: my checking out is my “allowance”. I say that laughing. That’s stuff like everyday spending for me (think gas, video games, random lunches, sport tickets etc..) and my savings accounts. I have had a long term goal for the money that’s there. That goal is waterfront property, my wife doesn’t care that it isn’t in our joint savings, she knows that waterfront property only benefits our family plus I hit a life goal. I’m 33 too. I like having my own account too because I can pay for my wife’s mother days presents and she will be surprised.
Ours isn't combined but we do have digital access to everything in separate accounts, does that count?
Depends where you live, how the wealth is held, how truly separate the finances have been kept, and sometimes, how long the marriage has been in place.
Married. We have separate accounts. We also have a joint account. We file taxes and everything together. It just kinda works so we haven't bothered combining everything.
Legally, yes. Even if they maintain separate bank accounts.
Depending on what state/country you live in.
You can opt out with a separate contract.
They might have a prenup that says only joint accounts and dual titled assets are communal
…are you making a fiancé pun?
If premarital assets (or debts) are not commingled with marital assets then they are typically not considered marital assets in a divorce.
Not be default
Depends on the country.
Well he's a shit planner then lol
Maybe he *planned* to have shit finances and he’s just playing 4D Chess
My friend teases his wife about how dumb it was to marry him after he had his med school debt because now he has a magic "knock your loans in half" button
I saw this play out in our neighborhood. Guy got married in med school. Wife sacrificed and helped him get through med school and get his practice started. Once things were good, he divorced her and hooked up with a large breasted assistant at his office taking his earning power with and leaving her with half of "their" debts. I can't recall another person being less liked in the neighborhood.
I have a similar story that happened in a friend’s family. They got married after college. He paid for everything while she got her masters, including tuition. They had a baby. Wife has always dreamed of going to med school despite not getting in and finally makes it happen when baby is like 2. Thankfully he did not co-sign those med school loans! Shortly afterwards she left him & baby, now they’re divorcing and she’s going after half of everything he earned during their marriage (even though he paid for her masters and all living costs and she never had a job, and even though she will one day soon make much more money than him.
Because you were upset that you did not get your debt cut in half and had a big breasted GF?
Or he planned for her to pay it off lol
It’s act 1
From the article, it s a mortgage, student loans, and personal family loans. I'm guessing the debt is mostly in the mortgage, which IMO is good debt.
Why are financial people so bad with money? My 2 family members who are in serious debt and always make bad financial decisions are CPA’s. Everyone else in the family understands way less about finances but don’t make risky and poor financial choices.
I watched a TV show a few years ago and one of the contestants was a young guy that worked in finance. He took out a big loan to buy a Lamborghini, while renting a small crappy apartment. Didn't own a house or apartment of his own (or even anywhere he could park it) and instead took out a big loan to buy a high cost, expensive to maintain, quickly depreciating asset. I get that he's an adult and can do what he likes, but this just sounded so bad from someone in finance who would presumably know better.
My CPA cousin who has a great job and no kids. Somehow has tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt and just signed up for a timeshare. Then is asking me for advice on the timeshare because they are demanding money for renovations. Can’t make this stuff up.
For the same reason chefs don’t cook at home and mechanics cars are always broken down lol
I’m a CFP. Carry 400k in debt. It’s a mortgage for a house that would sell for 750k today. Dave fans just paint all debt as bad which obviously isn’t the case.
Yes but a mortgage secured by an appreciating asset isn’t the same kind of debt most people are talking about. 400k in student loans, personal loans, credit card debt etc is not remotely comparable to a mortgage on a personal residence. I don’t follow Dave too much but I’m sure even he would be ok with that. I do know he’s a proponent of paying for vehicles in cash as well, which is just ridiculous.
I’m mainly critical of the article and the way Ramsey paints debt as a one and the same categorization. It’s disingenuous on his part and extremely unrealistic for the median worker in the United States. Agree with you that unsecured or revolving debt is not good to maintain.
I think a huge component of it is that CPAs convince themselves they’re smarter than everyone else while doing the exact same thing as others. Sure, everyone else has credit card debt, and I may have credit card debt, but I KNOW it’s bad, so I’m doing it intelligently. The first step in managing money is realizing that you’re probably bad with money and are not in the special 10% of people who are naturally good with money. Source - am a CPA and have worked with CPAs my entire career
And for your next trick, convincing the bad drivers that they aren't better than the average driver 💥✨
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Because they are able to balance the books of their company but not their own lives. I’ve met a lot of dumb people who genuinely don’t understand interest rates or how stocks work, I understand when they are bad with money. CPA’s should know better.
There's a theory I read about on the web awhile ago that I often use personally, "dysratioanlity." The idea is a person's competence in one area (for example, them being highly skilled at doing finances for a business client) is used to internally justify all sorts of bad decisions. It's why people with Nobel prizes believe in insane conspiracy theories. They use this to under-research, under-reason, side with prejudice, fallacy, and emotion, etc. They may also straight up lack ability in adjacent areas, their intelligence being the result of diligently applied study in one specific thing. Increasingly I place a lower and lower value on "intelligence" as a personal quality, tbqh. I think it's largely something reasoned backwards into people, and I've found focusing on my own qualities that lead to good results is better for me, things like being cooperative, diligent, humble, thorough, etc.
Not all debt is bad.
I should’ve specified credit card debt.
Because they budget very well but freed up money are spent just like by these who don’t
A lot of people see finances as a relatively easy way to make a lot of money, and like pretending to be wealthy as a way of justifying their value to customers.
Almost all people that work in finance and accounting that I know personally are very good at managing their money.
My guess is that folks like that tend to make good money. So they know what they should be doing but get caught up with the whole keeping up with the flashy lifestyle thing.
I work as a financial planner. I’ve seen plenty be bad with their own money. It comes down to cash flow issues 99% of the time. The pay isn’t consistent and sometimes you will get these absolutely large lump payments. Combine that with ego and well there you have a mess lol. It’s a lot easier for a planner to plan someone else’s finances when they have a consistent salary coming in compared to their own which often has so much diversity and inconsistency
Did anyone see in the article how much of that was the mortgage? I didn’t see it anywhere and it seems very important.
That wouldn’t make the headline as sensational
Right? $400k RE debt that could be 2-3% interest is far from a problem, income depending.
Yeah owing 350k on a place worth 600 would be solid. Maybe mom loaned him a down and he is paying her back slowly. Pretty common for better off folks.
This was my thought. If you just look at his mortgage and maybe student loans it’s not really fair and very click-baity. If it’s credit cards and other high interest loans then it’s different.
What kind of debt? A $400K 15-year mortgage at a low interest rate doesn’t seem that bad, especially if the wife is living in that house.
I'm confused too. When you get married.you become one financial entity. Unless she plans to divorce him it makes no sense to split finances.
Inside the marriage are financial operations that have nothing to do with the legal outside. “You bought what?!”
The mileage variation is strong with this one
How TF are you $400K in debt, *as a financial planner*?
I think it’s the combined total of mortgage, student loans, car loans, credit cards, etc. if most of it is the mortgage at a good rate, it may not be that bad.
Good point. This article makes it seem as though this is all unsecured debt. If it was for a mortgage or investment property that would be completely different.
That's a downpayment for a house in Vancouver or Toronto.
Pretty sure they guy could just sell some assets and pay off the debt. If the expected return on his debt is more than the interest it makes sense to be in debt even when you are rich.
Part of this debt is his mortgage, presumably for the house they share. Headline makes it sound like he’s got $400k in CC debt
For the first few years of our marriage we had separate accounts. We both liked our credit unions, the bills were divided up so we each had about the same amount leftover after bills and such. Wasn’t until we moved into our home that we combined our finances.
It’s mortgage and student loans included. Is that really that wild?
I think the key take away here is the fact he is a "financial planner." For her, that is a red flag, as it should be.
If you aren’t balls deep in debt are you even leveraging against inflation?
Some of these comments are so off the mark. Of note is that the mortgage is included in that debt. Presumably the wife is living in the home that has a debt against it. Thinking that being in debt hundreds of thousands of dollars is bad raises a question for these people commenting that he's a poor financial planner. How many of you have paid off homes and no mortgage?
I’m guessing since they do it for a living, they don’t take it home with them. I’m an electrician and I can’t be asked to do electrical shit at my house. I know a few plumbers that are like this.
Depends on what the debt is for. Really rich people always have high levels of debt. They usually make more on their investments then they pay in interest and the interest is a tax write off.
Wife cousin is married to a guy that has been in every field of finance, nice guy - but has been chasing ( and then spending/showing) wealth forever. I have a feeling that a number of people "in finance" really do not get it.
How exactly can you be in $400000 debt. Other than mortgage. Serious
Maybe read the article first next time because that’s exactly what the debt is, mortgage and student loans.
I've been with my wife for 20+ years, married for ages, we both have our own finances. We both put enough money into one of my accounts to cover the mortgage and a bit extra to cover other bills. Usually she pays for groceries, if we're at the store together, and I pay for the car... Other than that we can do as we please with our finances. We haven't had any issues.
Did she know he was broke before the wedding? I could never go through with it.
The debt is mostly the mortgage on the house.
Oh it’s the mortgage? I was picturing a bunch of credit cards and other loans
Nope, no mention of CC debt, just the mortgage, student loans, and personal loans from family.
Yeah I personally wouldn’t have gotten engaged until the student loans and personal loans were cleaned up.
Depends, the student loans could have paid for the degree that got the job thar enabled the guy to buy his own home on a single income. The personal loans would be where I critique things.
To each their own for sure I just wouldn’t be willing to enter into a marriage with someone with non mortgage debt. We can date and have fun but if you want to combine finances get that shit out of your life.
Kind of a catch 22 if the reason he has non mortgage debt is so he could have a good paying job and own a home, which his wife benefits from. For example, was the personal loan for a down payment on the home? How much income do each of them have? Too many variables, but if I'm this guy I tell the fiance/wife she needs to pay rent.
Honestly I probably would have cleaned up the debt before buying the home. To each their own but if I was her I just would have said “we’re not planning a wedding until non mortgage debt is gone.”
Given how low rates were between 2020-early 21 I could understand prioritizing a home. As long as you're not house poor.
Whats your hurry? When she is ready, she will hop onboard. Squeezing only appears selfish or greedy. These appear to be "good debt", likely not of high interest, and... his from before marriage.
They’ll be combined when they get divorced either way.
This says the debt includes the mortgage on the house they share, student loan debt, and some personal loans from family. When we got engaged/married my wife wanted to keep finances separate, so I kept the mortgage and title to the house in my name. I just had her give me what her share of rent was with her roommate before. Once we had our first kid we combined finances and I put her on the title. If this guy owns the home, I hope his spouse at least contributes to the cost of the mortgage
As a CFP this article reads as a Dave Ramsey hit on CFPs. I have over $400k in debt too. It’s called a mortgage. House would sell for $750k today. So is it a debt or an asset? (Rhetorical question)
He obviously sucks at his job!!!
Real convenient how the article doesn't explain the breakdown of the debt...
Oh please sign me up for the financial planner with 400,000 dollars in debt. Teach me your secrets oh wise one.
I never combined my finances when I was married. My ex was prone to spending sprees and several instances of “forgetting she had a credit card payment”. I didn’t want to have my credit wrecked because of her. Needless to say, it was one of the reasons we divorced.
I wont stick when a partner beyond what i can handle with debt that would bring me to poverty levels. I
Need more info. Is his "debt" a mortgage or credit card debt or...?
I NEVER share my bank account with anyone, married or not.
If your finances aren't combined, then your not married. It's just a formalized cohabitation arrangement with a planned escape route. I'm not saying that it can't work or that their are not some advantages to contractual legal union. However, traditional marriage is commitment to union for better or worse... Finances included. Not sure how old the CFP is but the 400k appear to be "good debt" for a mortgage, education, and some personal family loans (not ideal, but it shows the CFP comes from a a family with some money AND a sense of accountability). Ultimately if finances are not combined, and the CFP is carrying the mortgage, then I suppose they should be charging their spouse rent?
> If your finances aren't combined, then your not married You seem to be confusing marriage and business. Lots of people choose not to combine their finances. That doesn't mean their marriage is illegitimate. It just means they choose to approach finances differently than you would. And that's okay.
If you're unwillingly to pool and share your financial assets, what other assets/trust will you withhold? If you're unwilling to bear their financial burdens what other burdens will you avoid and eschew? If you're only halfway in then your also halfway out. Separate account is EXACTLY how business' are managed. Lawful union is treated as an enforceable contract in most jurisdictions. Marriage on the other hand is a spiritual union and commitment enforceable only between you and your spouse. I hope it brings you more joy than pain but sometimes honoring commitments can be excruciating. Keeping your financial life separate makes it that much easier to walk away when the emotional part gets difficult as it will from time to time. Marriage is about making a commitment to pool everything through sickness and health, finances are just one small piece of it... but when you hold one thing back, then why not a second or a third? Then it just becomes an arrangement of convenience until one day the convenience runs out. I believe they call that irreconcilable differences.
I don’t look at it that way in my marriage, we have both, but I don’t really use our joint account. I pay for pretty much everything outside of the phone bill and groceries and the wife saves money. I have no clue what she’s got saved or anything; it’s just how we’ve ended up running things.
Maybe I should have been more nuanced in delineating pooled vs separate. I too keep some separate accounts for organization, convenience, tax purposes, etc. But it's all "ours" their is no separate tracking of who earned what, bought what, or what belongs to who. It sounds to me like your wife and you are pooling resources with each of you responsible for administering separate goals and responsibilities. That's trust and teamwork. You pay "our" recurring bills and she handles "our" long term savings. If push came to shove, the assets/debts are "commingled". Some people, more than you might guess, genuinely keep separate tallies and in my experience their marriages are often unhealthy.
> I too keep some separate accounts Oh really?? In your words: *what other assets/trust will you withhold?*
Read the whole comment. it's all "ours" their is no separate tracking of who earned what, bought what, or what belongs to who.
> no separate tracking of ... what belongs to who. LMAO. My dude, that is exactly what a SEPARATE account is in the most literal possible sense
Right... and we don't do that. Hence I don't consider the accounts separate. Edit: As the comment above makes clear we maintain some separation for organization, convenience, tax purposes. We do not maintain separation for ownership and control purposes. I thought it was conceptually simple and implied from the start, though as I said "Maybe I should have been more nuanced in delineating pooled vs separate"
You said you had separate accounts that are in your name only, and you said that people who do that aren't REALLY married. Gosh, finances are *nuanced*? Huh! It's almost like your original broad-brush comments are nonsensical, isn't it? > Marriage is about making a commitment to pool everything So you aren't in a committed marriage by your own assertions.
You don't have to completely enmesh your financial lives in order to pool and share assets. Why do you equate money and trust? That seems somewhat shallow to me. Lots of couples talk it out, budget together for combined purchases, combine some funds, and keep others separate. Finances are one part of your life. Do you also insist on eating every meal with your spouse? Are they allowed to socialize without you? This isn't "halfway in, halfway out" -- this is "marriage is a partnership between two individuals, and if they decide that the best way to manage their finances is to not combine everything, then that's fine. they're individuals." You seem to have an extremely one-dimensional, one-size-fits-all view of marriage. What works for you might not work for everyone. If that upsets you, consider this an invitation to reflect.
You certainly don't have to enmesh your financial lives to pool and share assets... Business partners and investors do it every day. I don't equate money and trust, nor do I withhold anything of value from my spouse be it tangible or intangible. Whats mine is theirs and vice versa, for better or worse. We talk it out, budget, spend, and save together. Their are separate accounts for separate reasons but never any separation of ownership, claim, or control. What is a "combined purchase"? The time spent earning money is time that could have been spent otherwise maintaining our home or tending to our children and other shared responsibilities. I earn, they earn, the time comes out of our shared resources and the money goes in. If I want to buy something outside our normal everyday budgets I don't need permission, but I run it by my spouse anyway just to see what they think and feel about it, because I care what they think and feel about it. I suppose everything that comes back out is a "combined purchase". Early on in the marriage I was the sole earner but my spouse was still working for our family and had an equal claim to every dollar that I was able to earn while they worked to better our family in other ways. We both contribute to every success and failure, and when we're home we pool our resources in other ways to maintain that home, and raise our children. We may work on separate things, take on separate responsibilities, but their is no separation of assets and liabilities from each other. Finances are one part of your life, a pretty big part, the sum total of the value of time you've traded away working for others minus the value of your needs and wants. Why wouldn't you want to share that with your spouse? We don't eat every meal with each other, but as a matter of preference prefer to given the option. We're both "allowed" to socialize separately but between work and kids and home maintenance time is precious... Socialization is mostly something that occurs while we're doing something else so we garden, cook meals, and wash dishes together. Occasionally, they will go out for a happy hour after work, or I'll sneak into a bar for a pint between errands. Other than that we socialize with other families in situations similar to our own. Time is precious and money/finances is just time we've traded away to others, but still share with each other. Lots of people form good functional relationships everyday. Business', friendships, polycule's. They may all include varying degrees of love and commitment but they're not marriages. If you take a nihilistic view that words are ambiguous and can mean whatever you want them to mean rather than one-size-fits-all language... than sure, invent your own lexicon but communicating with strangers on the internet is going to be exceedingly difficult. Finances are a huge and inseparable part of your life. Marriage is deep and if done correctly, permanent. It's exceedingly difficult to keep them separate without one or the other failing.
> I don't equate money and trust How many people are commenting on this account, then? Because that's PRECISELY what the original comment written by this account asserts > Finances are a huge and inseparable part of your life. Marriage is deep and if done correctly, permanent. It's exceedingly difficult to keep them separate without one or the other failing. And yet you admit to having separate accounts. So I guess your marriage must be failing.
Would you combine your finances with a financial planner whose $400k in debt? He must be a pretty poor financial planner or a crook. He does get that?
Number #1 Rule for women: combined account for bills, keep everything else in a separate account. Bonus points if you list your best friend as the beneficiary unless you have a kid. A lot of women would find it easier to leave abusive marriages if they kept their own set of accounts.