August 2010
Beginner to intermediate
6 pages
8m
English
When You Need to Take Charge of Your Joint Spending
Liz Pulliam Weston
There’s no one right way for couples to handle money. You don’t have to do it the way your parents did, or the way your friends do, or the way you did it during your first marriage. What’s important is creating a system that works for the two of you now, as a couple.
Some spouses put their money into a combined pot. Others keep strictly separate accounts, carefully dividing up the household bills. Some combine the approaches, with a joint account for most expenses plus individual accounts for “mad” money.
However you decide to divvy up the accounts and the bills though, certain approaches do tend to work better for most people, such as:
• Let one person handle ...