@ Adam – Yeah, if you’re doing all the balancing, I can see the desire to want to combine everything for simplicity’s sake.

In California, which is a no fault divorce state, it doesn’t really matter if your money is split up in 10 little pockets or in one shared lump. Lawyers will split it up anyway. We’ve also been together long enough that all of our debts have been accrued while we’ve been living together (cars and student loans), so neither of us came in to the relationship with any money or any debt.

Simply from an organizational standpoint, since I’m the one dealing with the money for the most part, I think sharing everything will be easiest. We’re not frugal people, but we are far from impulse buyers, or credit abusers, so I have no qualms in us not having little accounts for play money and accounts for bills. Less complexity means easier tracking of spending for me at the end of the month.

Then we each have personal accounts where we both get an allowance. Our allowance is equal even though our pay isn’t (about a 25k difference). To me it doesn’t matter who makes more, we split everything 50/50. This money is sort of free spending for us to support our personal hobbies. My husband likes to bowl on a league. I’m into photography. My husband likes music, I like books, etc. So every paycheck we get a direct deposit into our personal accounts that gives us free reign, whether we save it for something big or use it for something small, we never have to ask each other’s permission. We still maintain some independence and support personal interests.

Even cars I see as a joint expense, we both need a car to get to work and provide an income for both of us. We have a car savings fund always going for our next car purchase but we do drive our cars a very long time (or hope to). I also work further from home than my husband so my fuel cost is higher. But these are tools for earning our incomes so all expenses relating to that I feel are a joint responsibility, especially considering the difference in our pay.

The deciding factor for combining our accounts was when we were living together (to be married soon) and I had come through college with no debt and my husband made less than me and was taking a lot of effort to pay off his debt. I had all this money sitting around that could be used to help pay his student & car loans, the sooner they were gone the better for both of us. After we are married to me debt is debt, no matter whose debt it is.

In case of one partner losing most/all of his/her pay, we’d have contingency plans where we trim our budget, scale back the expenses, and one partner picks up the other partner’s slack. Thats what being married is all about anyway, right?

Great. Now I just need to find someone willing to marry me. Anyone interested?

In my opinion, for 90% (or more) of unmarried couples – even in a committed relationship – completely combining finances seems like a monumental jumping the GunShark moment. Not just that, but it also becomes a huge tangle if something happens and the couple breaks up. Also, I am superstitious that way, so if you ask me, its just jinxing the relationship. Now if you are living together, having a joint account which has “slightly more than required” funds for shared expenses as GEM described would be a great idea. At least it eliminates the need to cut each other checks every month. But then again, I have never been a relationship of that kind, so my opinion is probably worth Zero.