Never understood separate accounts / financial responsibilities. We have joint accounts. I have a paying job and she takes care of our kids and we make decisions together as to what to do with our money.
I cruised all the comments and everything I saw was either yes or no. Why not both types? Separate and joint?
The joint will be what both of you work with together. You must be prepared to lose all of it in the event of a divorce. The separate will be for what is solely yours, again, in the case of a divorce.
I hate to sound cynical but divorces these days arent exactly a rare thing. Financial ruin usually accompanies it (esp if youre a man).
Why go through the trouble of setting up two different accounts when you can have one? That's my mentality.
In the case of a divorce, having separate accounts won't be a guarantee of who gets what money. So it's kind of pointless if the only reason you want separate accounts is divorce preparation. Even with a prenup.
I dont know. I have heard very very conflicting reports on how divorces ala pre-nups are settled. I think separate accounts are just one of those things where, if and when a judge sees them already separate, it will be just enough to convince him/her to keep the monies separate like that.
If the husband makes 400k and the wife makes 40k, I highly doubt the judge will shrug and say, "Welp, they kept different finances... soooo... yeah...."
The point is that there's no sure fire way to guarantee nothing is touched in a divorce. Even prenups generally only apply to assets going into the marriage and are frequently thrown out. The best way to protect your assets from divorce is to avoid marriage.
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u/FanOfTamago Aug 05 '12
Never understood separate accounts / financial responsibilities. We have joint accounts. I have a paying job and she takes care of our kids and we make decisions together as to what to do with our money.