{"id":545,"date":"2020-12-21T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/what-to-consider-when-combining-finances-with-your-partner\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T20:22:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T20:22:24","slug":"what-to-consider-when-combining-finances-with-your-partner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/what-to-consider-when-combining-finances-with-your-partner\/","title":{"rendered":"Options to Consider When Combining Finances with Your Partner in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This blog post is based on a few sections of Chapter 4<\/strong> of Rich Girl Nation<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>\u201cI Thee Wed (and Spend Thy Bread.\u201d If you\u2019re interested in the full deep dive on marital finances, pick up a copy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The question of \u201chow to combine finances\u201d comes up frequently, so I figured now was as good a time as any to start fleshing out the options.<\/p>\n

Key word? Options. Because there\u2019s an infinite spectrum of personal situations out there, I won\u2019t attempt to offer every single possible scenario \u2013 but what I will<\/em> do is offer three courses of action<\/strong> that you could use as a starting point with your significant other.<\/p>\n

In all three scenarios, the thing to keep at the forefront of your mind is what feels fair<\/strong> to you and your partner. An innate sense of fairness is a vestige of our animal brains, and when one person in a relationship feels that something isn\u2019t fair, it creates resentment \u2013 which is a relationship killer, as anyone who\u2019s ever dated someone to the point of not being able to stand them knows.<\/p>\n

The total combination: \u201cWhat\u2019s Mine is Yours.<\/strong>\u201d<\/h4>\n

This is probably the most \u201ctraditional\u201d of the choices; combining everything both of you bring into the relationship into \u201cone pot,\u201d so to speak. Joint account city. <\/p>\n

Historically speaking, this was the most popular (and sometimes only<\/em> viable) option, because women couldn\u2019t or didn\u2019t work. The man\u2019s salary had to support the entire family, so it was really the only way to go. <\/p>\n

If you\u2019re in a relationship wherein you don\u2019t participate in the traditional workforce and earn an income, this is probably the only choice that makes sense (but even as I type that, I\u2019m like, So how are you supporting yourself now if that\u2019s the case? <\/em>but anyway, I digress). Of course, plenty of couples with dual incomes set up their marital finances this way, too: Both incomes go into the same checking and savings accounts, and are used to pay the bills and fund the investment accounts.<\/p>\n

The pros of this solution are that it\u2019s about as simple as you can get: There\u2019s no math involved. You merely dump everything into the same place, and it can create a real sense of teamwork: We\u2019re working together to build this nest egg that we both benefit from. <\/p>\n

The cons of this situation are a little complex: If one partner makes a lot more than the other, there can be resentment and control issues that affect how the spending happens (not always, of course; this is highly dependent upon individual personalities and the relationship itself), but if all your money is going into the same place, it might start to feel like every purchase decision has to consider the other person in the relationship: If I\u2019m buying something that\u2019s just for ME with OUR money, it makes sense that I should consult you first, right? <\/p>\n

At the risk of sounding like a Holistic Psychologist meme, this arrangement probably requires the healthiest, most open communication in order to work, because expectations have to be crystal clear ahead of time. <\/p>\n

If both partners in the relationship are raking it in and you\u2019re both fairly frugal, it might not be an issue: $300,000 to split between two people who don\u2019t spend very much probably won\u2019t make waves. But if you\u2019re collectively pulling in $80,000 and one partner is a spender and the other is a saver, you might find that the \u201cone pot\u201d solution is causing more headaches than the initial simplicity was worth.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The opposite end of the spectrum: \u201cWhat\u2019s Mine is Mine and What\u2019s Yours is Yours.<\/strong>\u201d<\/h4>\n

This is the opposite approach, and it involves both partners maintaining separate finances \u2013 this is probably akin to how things go when you\u2019re dating before the relationship becomes legally official. Each partner is responsible for making and managing their own money, and things don\u2019t get combined.<\/p>\n

This option became more popular in the 21st century when people began getting married a lot later, and therefore supporting themselves for longer before partnering up and sharing the same HBO GO password. It\u2019s not unusual for both people in a relationship to come into the union with six figures in assets (or six figures in debt) prior to coupling up. <\/p>\n

It can make the idea of combining accounts scary, because the financial pictures may be pretty far along already. Sometimes it feels safer to just maintain separate financial lives within a relationship. <\/p>\n

The pros of this scenario are obvious in that your money is fully yours, and your partner\u2019s money is fully theirs. You can make completely independent decisions about how you save, spend, and invest. Most of the time, people who choose this path split common expenses down the middle. <\/p>\n

The cons of this scenario are that it can make you feel as though you\u2019re not truly a team \u2013 there can be psychological distance as a result of being completely separate in money, which can create some sense of separateness when it comes to how you\u2019re spending. There\u2019s something to be said for a common goal, financially. <\/p>\n

The separation created is also a bit of an illusion, as married couples\u2019 assets are considered \u201cjoint\u201d regardless of whose name is on the account or title\u2014which means if the marriage ends, you may be in for a surprise when it\u2019s time to start divvying up assets and you\u2019re the only one with savings to split. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s also possible that one person will substantially out-earn the other, which can create feelings of guilt if you\u2019re splitting something 50\/50 and the person who makes a fraction of what their partner makes is putting their entire paycheck toward rent. And guilt aside, the higher earner might want to do things that are more expensive (because they can afford it), and the partner who makes less might feel like they\u2019re unable to save because they\u2019re spending in a way that has to keep up with someone who makes twice as much as they do. <\/p>\n

Broken record alert: The open communication comes into play here, too. Fortunately, most couples where this is the case adapt naturally. The high earner usually offers to pay or treat the other for the expensive stuff, because they (hopefully!) recognize that their champagne taste shouldn\u2019t have to be subsidized by their partner\u2019s beer budget.<\/p>\n

The middle ground: \u201cYours, Mine, and Ours.<\/strong>\u201d<\/h4>\n

Personally, I think this is the most attractive option, and there are two paths within this one: The Proportional Path and the Nominal Path (stick with me here \u2013 I\u2019m literally naming this shit as I go).<\/p>\n

Predictably, this path is a hybrid of the two extremes: Each person contributes a pre-determined amount to the \u201cours\u201d bucket, but maintains separate individual accounts as well. <\/p>\n

The \u201cProportional\u201d path works really well for couples with a really extreme difference in income (due to the reasons we touched on above wherein the person who makes more might want to spend more than the person who makes less): In that scenario, the incomes will determine how much each person contributes to the joint account. <\/p>\n

For example, if you determine that your joint expenses are:<\/p>\n