Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!wjh12!bbncca!keesan From: keesan@bbncca.ARPA (Morris Keesan) Newsgroups: net.social Subject: Re: finances and marriage -- pulled over from net.singles Message-ID: <317@bbncca.ARPA> Date: Tue, 15-Nov-83 14:39:38 EST Article-I.D.: bbncca.317 Posted: Tue Nov 15 14:39:38 1983 Date-Received: Tue, 15-Nov-83 22:50:09 EST References: <1433@utcsstat.UUCP> Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 44 -------------------------------- Several years ago there was an article on this in something like _P_o_p_u_l_a_r _P_s_y_c_h_o_l_o_g_y. I'm reporting all of this second-hand, as it was reported to me at the time by my office-mate, a software engineer with a Ph.D. in psychology, when her style of financial management came up in conversation, and I told her I thought it was bizarre. She and her co-habitant, who might as well be married, since their relationship is as stable and permanent as any marriage, and more than many, have separate finances, and share their mutual expenses (e.g. mortgage payments, entertainment, food) exactly 50/50, to the extent of keeping track of which one owes the other how much. They started doing this when they first started living together, and weren't sure the relationship would last, and have kept it up because it works well for them. Anyway, the gist of the aforementioned article was that there are a few basic categories of financial management styles, with the "split expenses exactly" being at one extreme and the "share everything totally" (shades of Karl Marx) at the other. Different couples fall into different categories, and the categories turn out to have very little, if any, correllation with any other aspect of the relationship, such as closeness, sharing, success (as in longevity), etc. Mostly all that you can tell about a couple by the way they manage their joint finances is what type of money management works best for them, and to some degree this reflects the way the feel about money, but not about each other. My wife and I fall somewhere into a middle category. All of our money is in joint accounts (with minor exceptions like the money my parents-in-law hold in trust for my wife). We each have our own checking accounts, which are both joint accounts, but one is "mine" and the other is "hers". When my mother-in-law heard about the checking accounts, she said, "You kids today. You're setting yourselves up for a divorce," but the truth of the matter is that we thought it would be a nightmare to try and balance a checking account with both of us carrying checkbooks and writing checks on it, never mind knowing how much is in the account to write a check on it. When we got married, we figured out what our monthly expenditures were (roughly) for things like rent, groceries, entertainment, utilities, etc., and what our individual incomes were, and then arranged to split the bills so that each of us would have about the same amount left over for spending money. We still consult each other about any large purchases, as a matter of course, not because of any planned policy, and it turns out that when we're shopping together, things tend to get paid for by the one of us who happens to have more cash on hand, or a larger checking account balance. We also find that having some money that's separate helps for things like buying each other gifts, and it hasn't seemed to interfere with the rest of the sharingness in our marriage. Morris M. Keesan decvax!bbncca!keesan