Splitting the Bill
Having talked about the importance of having an individual account, it’s time to talk about getting down to it: creating the shared account.
Creating the shared account is pretty easy, all said and done. You don’t even have to technically be married, in case you’re eager to give it a go before/without getting married.
All you really have to do is choose the bank – yours or your partner’s? Or perhaps a different bank entirely.
After you’ve done that, it’s relatively easy to add your partner’s name on your account, vice versa, or to create a new shared account. It’s all paperwork and deciding if you’d like the plain cheques or the ones with puppies on them. (Ladies, please don’t do this.)
What goes into the accounts is what you need to talk about next. How do you want to split up the bill payments? Is your shared account going to be purely a bill account? Do you want to calculate total monthly expenses and split down the middle or some other arrangement?
The answers to those questions will vary from couple to couple. As I mentioned before, my husband and I have it arranged so what I earn goes completely to my student and medical bills and what he earns goes toward our other expenses. He earns a lot more than I do, so this works out great for us.
That may not be the case for you and your partner; that’s why you need to talk about it.
Maybe you assume your partner will take care of the rent while your partner thinks it’ll be an even split. Little assumptions now can lead to big problems later. The saying “assume makes an ass of you and me” isn’t around for no reason.
What you need to do is sit down and make a list of the monthly bills and split them into two columns – luxuries and necessities. Decide what you can and can’t afford and then decide how to split the costs.
It might be one long night to do it, but it will be a much longer fight in the future that you’ll avoid by doing it.
January 17th, 2008 at 3:08 am
If both have not strong financially. It is very difficult splitting who will take care of what expenses.