Thoughts on joint bank accounts?

First thing to learn:

  • Wife is always right.
  • Woman wants, woman gets.
  • Even if it's not rational, accept it.

In this case, you're not exactly legally married yet, so not being joint still makes sense.

But once married, what's yours is mine and vice versa.

With a joint account, the risk is that one party could empty the account and run off in to the sunset and frolic in the wind.

With individual accounts, the risk is that the other party may not be able to access the money easily.

I'm making some presumptions here:

  • You have bank account (individual).
  • SO has bank account (individual).
  • Your account has all the real money in it. SO's account just has a hundred bucks in it.
  • You're still not yet married.

Then pick any one of these:

  • You get hit by car. Hospitalized. Comatose.
  • You get kidnapped by Cartels/Mafia/Gangs of New York/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Whatever and a ransom of $1000 cash is demanded
  • You're on a remote vacation by yourself with no cell phone/internet

What's SO to do about getting money? Obviously not enough in her account. Sure there are ways to work around these issues, but a joint account would give SO easy legal authority to transact.

But bottom line is, there's no absolute wrong answer. Every couple does their finances differently. Separate accounts in perpetuity can work for some folks.

/r/personalfinance Thread