How do you handle finances after marriage?

I'm getting married in September and am becoming increasingly worried about how to do financial stuff. My fiance has student loans in addition to credit debt of maybe 2,000 dollars (but I don't know specifically because I didn't feel it was my place to ask, even when we started living together). He also has car payments and insurance, and since we live in SoCal that's pretty pricey.

The thing is, I have almost 30 grand in the bank and for a 26 year old woman have a pretty nice life. I was very very lucky in that my parents got me through school with no student loans and my car is paid for, so I have very low overhead. Aside from rent, I pay for my cell phone and car insurance, and that's about it as far as monthly bills. I've been paying the utilites for most of the time I've been living with my now-fiance, and now that we're going to get married I really want to find a way to get him involved in paying more bills and paying off debts. I want to help, but it's almost as if he's angry with me that I don't have the same problems he does.

So.. when you get married, what's the best way to do financial stuff? I want to have a joint account we can each put money into for bills and stuff, but how do you decide how much each person should put in? I want to fix his debt so we can buy a house one of these days maybe maybe (in L.A. that's probably a pipe dream) but he wants me to be satisfied by him just saying he'll "take care of it" although I know he only pays the minimum on his credit cards!

Argh. Please help me so I don't spend the upcoming months worrying about this.

is in order, at least to protect the assets you bring into the marriage.

I know it's probably a "responsible" thing to do, but I have dealt with too many lawyers in my life and just haven't felt the need. It's probably very naive, though. I just hate dealing with courts.

property liability. But get an agreement signed devolving you
of any pre-nup debt and do NOT open a joint account
UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!!!!!

If I open a joint account does it make me responsible for all his stuff even before that? Oh God. I really am going to have to get a lawyer, aren't I? My sister, who was similarly low overhead (with less savings though) helped her husband pay off student loans and stuff and it helped his credit which then helped them get a better mortgage on a house. Do I really need to do more to protect my own stuff? I really don't think we'll get divorced. (Of course, I know how completely naive that sounds.)

existing and previous. In terms of contract law it is
not explicit but in terms of common law you are considered
a spouse and liable for all pre-nuptual liabilities.

To put it bluntly, a joint account is a prime facie agreement
binding the a co-respondent to the liabilities of the other.
Marriage in other words, with all the communal liabilities attached.

At least that is the way it is in Canadian Law based on the
Brit common law system, (US is also based on common law}

In Canada if you receive mail at the address of your SO for a
period of six months you are considered married. Your SO is
then entitled to all community property and income after six
months.

Food for thought. Don't be paranoid. $30,000 is small
change for a lawyer. Go to a notary and sign an MOU stating
that your fiance is responsible for that particular debt.

Given the draconian Bankruptcy laws just passed in the US she
can't file a chapter 7. But debtors can attach her debts
against your income and assets if you do not have a pre-nup.

A caveat, in order to devolve yourself of her debt obligations
you have to inform her debtors that you have made no formal
declaration of liability and request proof of liability
by double registered letter cc your solicitor.

It's not terribly romantic but hey, 30 grand is 30 grand.

How odd for a girl to have the money, I know :) But I really appreciate the advice. Because I was raised very "Southern US" I think I still have some of that "he'll take care of me and we'll last forever" in me, but because I now live in California it's (even a few years later) some sticker shock.

I wish I had a smart lady like you to take care
of me.

Bottom line.......take care of you and your's.
To hell with the banks. They will put you into
penury and demand that you sell your children
so that they can smoke fat cigars in oak paneled
board rooms.

Fuck em. Take care of yourself, make fat babies and
send me the pictures

it may vary from state to state but i think you can get saddled with a partners debt. But even aside from issues of divorce, when they get married his debt can affect her in terms of credit rating etc. (plus he will be her husband she can't help but get involved)

Going into marriage without all of the cards on the table is dumb. It's asking for problems. If you can't talk about money now, what makes you think a piece of paper with a scribbled signature and a state seal is going to confer magical money chatting ability? Marriage is just a contract and just a piece of paper that confers rights and responsibilities. It is not a magical state of affairs that suddenly changes the way you view the world and each other. (Take it from us. He was married 10 years, I was DPed for 4 and this is our second partnership; we've been married 5 years and we've learned a LOT.) I'm not trying to be hurtful, but I am trying to make you realize that if you aren't talking about it now without hurt feelings and attitude and you're just living together, then nothing's going to change when some shaman chants words over you.

Pay the $200 and talk to the financial advisor at your bank. Get professional advice on this one, and if he says he won't marry you if you don't combine, then don't get married.

(We're combined, but it works far better for us.)

:D

Listen to politicat, listen to the dingbat: talk about it NOW. Go in together. Get some advice. Splurge the $200 bucks on this, so worth it you'll never, EVER spend money better. :thumbsup:

I shall now make the bouncy-bouncy to emphasize my point: :bounce: :D

You two together need to sort out the best way to handle it. There is no one ideal way. From what you described he hasn't yet moved into the savings column while you have. The last thing you want is to feel resentful if your nest egg is used to pay for frivolous spending, or if his credit standing prevents you from being able to qualify for a loan for housing or a car, or from his perspective, he might be resentful that you have no debt and he does.

Money squabbles break up many marriages. It's better to go into it knowing how to achieve your financial goals together. I didn't have your situation but I do know several couples who had the disparity and worked it out with the help of a financial planner.

seperates your assets in the event of a dissolution, and is easy since you have no children.

Why don't you continue to pay the utilities if he agrees to put his share of that amount towards his consumer debt? $2000 debt isn't bad if it doesn't increase.

The student loan debt isn't going anywhere and is acceptable debt.

I hope the $30K is in a suitable investment vehicle instead of cash in the bank. Even long term cds are better than savings accounts. Go to your credit union and review your investment options with an eye towards the goal for that money, and don't blow it all on the wedding.

If you haven't, you must sit down and establish a financial goal with all the options on the table. Review the debt and establish a plan to eliminate it, and then develop an actual household budget and spending plan, and agree to stick to it.

Agree to sit down TOGETHER every month to pay the bills.

Lock up a large portion of your savings so the only way you can get it is if you buy a house.

Create a joint account at your credit union and create an agreement about it. Create a savings account as well and agree to the monthly joint donation. It's okay if your portion is larger so long as you're filling it up. THen create seperate accounts for each person as well.

If he won't consider having a forthright discussion about ALL of this, then consider not getting married.

Because when I got married, we both had loads of student loans, and neither of us carried credit card debt.

Now we both have jobs. Here's what we do: we live off of my salary (rent, groceries, bills, etc...) and save part of that. Every penny of her income goes to paying off our student loans. We have multiple loans, and every loan gets the minimal payment, except for the one with the highest interest rate, which gets whatever is leftover after the minimum payments have been met.

It's kind of nice. It's the only time I fell like I'm giving somebody the shaft by giving them a load of money.

Once the student loans are paid off, her income will go to our upcoming mortgage (and probably still the money that's coming out of my income for rent). Hopefully we'll be completely debt free, and with a house, in a decade or so. It sounds like you have an advantage over us in that respect.

Mais nous le rembourserons en trois ans.

buty you guys really need to be able to talk about this sort of thing before you get married. I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to meet with a financial planner.

Good luck.

Given that you seem to be the one in a pretty good financial, I would suggest that you volunteer to be the one to handle the money. Then I would say, have a sit-down w/ you folks and ask them how they managed their money--it would seem they were pretty good at it. I think it would be great if your fiance were present at this sit-down. (Others have suggested a financial advisor--I think asking your folks saves you the cost of a financial advisor, but if your parents want to stay out of it, go the financial advisor route.)

I also think that while you are keeping track of the money and paying the bills, you give him monthly updates about what bills got paid and how much, how much was put into savings, how much is still owed on each credit card and what plans you have for investment in the coming months.

I don't think ANYONE should just let the other partner "take care of it".

My wife and I got married right after I graduated college and she was still in college(22 and 20). So although I had a nice paying job we were broke. So for us we brought really nothing to the table no debt. We also have the same take on life and spending money, we are both tightwads and hate all debt. The only debt we have is our house and in 5 years that will hopefully be gone.

For my wife and I, we pool all money into one checking account. We then consult each other on purchases and discuss purchases. My personal opinion is that for a couple this is the best way to go about it your unified and you all know whats going on and its MUCH easier to save and build a nest egg.

I know some couples keep everything seperate, personally I think this is a bad idea, I think it makes it easier for either person to spend recklessly and frankly it just sounds like a time consuming pain in the ass, ow I will pay 40% of the rent and you pay blah blah blah.

For your particular situation well you have a problem, your a saver(a damn good saver with 30k) he obviously isn't. Your almost in prenup territory.

Anyone with 2k in credit card debt in their 20s without a medical condition makes me raise my eyebrows. This fiance sounds like he is going to have issues with spending. Now he may be 'curable' but here is what you need to do, you need to sit down with him and get all of the figures together. Ask him, what did you buy that ran up a 2k credit card bill?

DO NOT use your 30k to pay his debts off. He needs to start with the lowest bill first and pay out everything he can to get it payed off, you can help too if you want but he needs to almost all of it. Once its paid off put it towards the next bill, snowball this debt away.

What does this mean for your soon to be husband? Well its time to grow up, this should be a good indicator of the future if he can handle this. Your finance buys NOTHING... no toys, no new TVs, no video games, no music now fancy cellphone that takes pictures. This continues till the credit card at least is paid off, perferably the car too. Give him a copy of the "Millionare Next Door".

This isn't going to be easy for him but as a married man let me just point out that we are our most maliable by spouses two times during our lives... right after marriage when we are still getting sex regularly and right after kids when we are too tired to care about being changed. :)

It simply makes no sense for a married couple to have $30K in the bank making whatever percentage interest it's making (2%, 4%, whatever) yet have potentially thousands of dollars of credit card debt with anywhere from 10-25% finance charges.

If you are intent on keeping that $30K as your personal nestegg (somewhat understandable considering you earned it before you were together, although I'm more in the all-in-one-basket camp), then pay off his credit cards and have him make whatever payments he was making to the credit card company to your little nestegg account. Once that's squared away you two can focus on building a joint nestegg.

And I wouldn't be too hard on a 20-something with a couple thousand bucks in credit card debt. It's not the way things should be but it happens. And it doesn't mean he's irresponsible necessarily. I was in a similar situation. I had to pay for college and grad school myself. I worked, took out loans, got scholarships and made due with next to nothing. There were a several months after undergrad that I had no job (since I had graduated I couldn't keep my university job any longer and no other jobs were available during the summer), but I still had to survive, move upstate, rent an apartment, buy interview clothes, eat, pay for grad school until my loans kicked in, etc. I wasn't happy about doing it but I lived off my credit cards for awhile. I didn't buy cell phones, video games, cds, clothes, etc. I bought food, and vitamins (no money for doctors), and bus tokens. I didn't have a choice. Once I got a job it only paid enough for me to scrape by from paycheck to paycheck, not enough to pay off that debt. It sucked and it took me years to pay off but if I didn't have that credit card I would've been SOL, I'm not kidding. There is no way I would've been able to finish school. My parents sold our house and hit the road as soon as I graduated from high school so going home was not an option for me.

My husband, on the other hand, had college and grad school completely paid for by his parents (including rent and food). After he graduated he lived at home for a few years until he got on his feet. His parents helped buy his first car and his first suits for work. I'm sure he wishes I hadn't started out my adult life at such a disadvantage but he knows I did the best I could.

These things happen, but they can be worked out.

...which you both can monitor. It's a simple way to watch out for each other.

Pay off the debts immediately, since you're able. You pay more in interest per dollar of debt than you make per dollar of savings.

remain TRUE to your user name. I ALWAYS tell my younger girlfriends, "DO NOT have a child until you've socked away at least a year's wages OUT OF YOUR OR ANYONE ELSE'S IMMEDIATE REACH." You are in a position to somewhat protect yourself financially. DO SO.

My experience has led me to believe that the most difficult differences to overcome in a marriage are not racial or religious or cultural (kid stuff ;-)), they're ECONOMIC. An advisor is an excellent idea.

My knight-in-shining-armour, after 4 years and 2 children, ruined my credit and left me living in my car. Surprise, surprise. I am just now on my way to recovering financially. My children are in their 20's.

This is the approach Mrs. Kay and I use, and it's worked well for over 6 years now.

1. He's responsible for his prior debt, including his car payment. And if he gets a different car while you're married, then he's responsible for the payments.

2. You're responsible for your prior debt (cell phone and car insurance). And if you get a different car, then you're responsible for the payments.

3. Joint expenses (rent/mortgage, food, utilities, furniture you both buy, etc) are joint responsibilities. Pay according to your income. For example, if you make twice what he does, then you pay 2/3, he pays 1/3.

(note: your 30 grand in the bank is not part of your income)

4. Rather than a joint account, we have the spouse reimburse whoever pays the bills. So if you pay the bills, then once a month, he pays you his share.

Now if you want to pay more than your share out of the goodness of your heart (given that he has a lot more debt than you do), that's your decision, but IMHO in no way should you pay his bills. So pay most of the utilities, mortgage, etc if you really want to, but the car payments, insurance, student loan debt, and credit card payments are his.

Oh yeah, don't get a joint credit card either. Recipe for disaster.

JMHO.

all the $$$ into one big pot, and one person handles all finances.

Your debt fortunately or otherwise, becomes shared.
You should talk about it, but the end result will be that you will both be starved of reaching your common goals until he erases his debt. (I actually cried when I found out my SO had another loan coupon book coming - she was clueless)

You can get a prenup - in case you split you won't have to carry it with you.
Or you can grin and bear it, combine your resources, and tackle his bag of shit, and then concentrate on the future common goals.
One of you may gravitate toward paying the bills, and that one will generally have his or her finger on the pulse of reality.
Some bills are necessary, some are due to frivolous spending - use that as a meter to determine what you think the future will be like, and gird yourself for the ride - one of you may have to accept the others' lack of reasoning or debt.

The situation can be weathered if you both sincerely want to reach a common goal - however one of you may forget about the goal and be tempted to ditch economic discipline. The other will have to step in and be in control of the budget (bad cop), but both of you will have to agree. If you don't see this potential for reaching an agreement, think again hard.

It isn't easy, but it can be done.

:shrug:

I don't know why he'd be mad that you don't have the same problem. I'd be grateful personally. Anyway you need to get past the "I don't want to piss you off" part and start talking about it now. Money and sex are the two biggest reasons for divorce.

Don't be shy, be up front and candid about your concerns, get on the same page and go from there. You don't want a weird attitude about money from him for the next 50 years do you? Yeah, just get it all out on the table and address it before another week goes by. You really do need to be compatible in this area.