Deciding to join finances is a HUGE commitment.
Have you made it yet?
If so, respond and share your best tip for joining your finances with your partner.
If not, keep reading.
Before going too deep, I’m in the boat of joining finances. It has supercharged our finances and our relationship more than if we were separate financially. My passion for this topic flows through in this email so it is a bit more opinionated than I typically am.
After working with hundreds of entrepreneurs, here are some common reasons not to have joint accounts:
- Simplicity
- Comfort
- Security
- Avoid arguments
- We don’t know how
- Different spending habits
Let’s break each one down further.
Simplicity
I’d rather not do anything.
While on the surface it’s easier to just keep doing what you’re doing with separate accounts, it actually makes managing your finances more difficult in the long run.
Pointless venmo’s and transfers back and forth still exist.
You keep a running tally of what you bought vs. your partner.
You start to make more than your partner - who pays for what?
Why should you save money and your partner not?
A divide will always exist between what’s mine and yours, which for a marriage, isn’t healthy.
Yea, it’s easy to take no action, but there is so much friction and mental energy wasted with this “simple” method.
And you’re not truly optimized for having multiple joint incomes.
Comfort
We’re comfortable where we are and afraid of messing something up.
When we’re comfortable it’s hard to make any changes.
If you’re comfortable because you’re avoiding the conversation, that’s not comfort.
If you’re comfortable and you both like the system you’ve created, then it’s guaranteed no change will happen.
But if you feel like you want to make a change, but feel too comfortable, take this as your sign you need to talk about what works best for you both and make a change.
Security
If anything happens to our relationship, then we know who’s money is who’s.
There will be less arguing and it’s easy to part ways with what each of us has earned and saved.
If you’re entering a partnership with this mentality, then you’re entering with one foot out already.
If you have this mentality going in, then keep your accounts separate because your relationship will fail.
In fact, you should probably just leave now and save each other the heartache.
Can you tell I don’t like this reasoning?
A partnership is about bringing 2 people together as one and therefore your money should follow.
True security lies in knowing your partner has your back no matter what.
And they're not going to dip out on you.
Avoid arguments
We already don’t get along with money so we feel like keeping money separate is better for us.
Ultimately, this comes down to understanding the root of why you argue every time you talk about money and finding a system to help ease the transition.
Is it different spending habits?
What to do with money?
You’re too stubborn in trying to get your partner to adapt to your way of thinking?
Getting to the root of your money differences is challenging.
But you’re in a partnership and on the same team.
Remind yourselves that you want what's best for the team.
Different spending habits
She just spends and I like to save.
You need to understand each other's spending habits which happens over time.
And that you’re not going to change your partner's spending habits.
But the easiest way I’ve seen around this is asking your partner what amount of money they want to spend in a month with no questions asked.
Say it’s $200 per month.
Easy - transfer $200 to a separate account and have at it.
Then don’t ever question what they do with that money.
We don’t know how to join finances
We’re on board with joining finances but are overwhelmed with how to do it.
The main steps you need to do are these:
- Open a new account
- Transfer enough money to cover your bills to the new account
- Adjust all bills to charge on the new account
It’s tedious going through and adjusting the billings to the new account, but one short hour of work for a lifetime of organization.
Seems pretty worth it.
Ultimately, joining finances is about becoming on the same page as a partnership.
If that’s what you want, then start taking steps.
What’s been holding you back from joining finances with your partner?
Action Items:
- Align with your partner on biggest fears of joining finances.
- Commit to each other.
- Open a new account.
- Join your finances in the new account.
