Joint or separate bank account? The approach you choose depends on you and your partner’s financial history and goals, says financial therapist Lindsay Bryan-Podvin.
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If you are in a serious romantic relationship, you and your partner may be thinking about how to combine your finances. Should you share a joint bank account? Keep your accounts separate? So a combination of both?
The path depends on you and your partner’s financial goals and history. So before you decide, have an open and honest conversation, says Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, financial therapist and author of Solving Financial Anxiety — “ideally before relationship-changing events like moving in or buying a house.” car together”.
Talking about money can seem awkward, but it can also strengthen relationships. “We are deepening our relationship. We are dreaming ahead together and creating a plan,” she adds.
Bryan-Podvin talks to Life Kit about what it means to successfully merge finances with a partner, the merits of each approach—and strategies for success. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Sharing a joint bank account seems to have many benefits. A large-scale study from 2023 found that couples who put all their money in one pot tended to be happier. They stayed together longer than those who kept some or all of their money separately. Why do you think this is so?
My hypothesis is that it reduces the likelihood of financial infidelity. One of the biggest issues couples argue about IS financial secrets that can happen when we have completely separate accounts. Maybe someone is racking up a ton of credit card debt or taking out personal loans. Or maybe they don’t have a good credit score and aren’t working to improve it. [If you have a joint bank account]your partner is inside [on these issues] from the beginning.
For this reason, you recommend that couples share a joint account.
Having a fully joint account feels good because couples are able to spend and save and talk about it very openly.
You also like an approach that the financial community calls “theirs, mine and ours.” It is an arrangement where couples have a joint account for shared expenses and individual accounts for personal expenses.
“Theirs, mine and ours” can work really well when most of your money is shared. you [can use your joint account to] make sure your bills and rent are paid on time and save towards future goals together. But you each have some money to spend as you please without having to text your partner and say, “Hey, can I buy a new pair of shoes?” None of us want to feel like we are under the control of our partner, so having some financial autonomy is important.
Are there some situations where it might make sense to have separate accounts?
If you’ve experienced financial abuse or seen someone steal someone else’s credit or identity, you may have very strong feelings about sharing your money with other people. Then it makes sense to keep your finances separate.
And I think it’s important for people who have had a divorce or separation to keep separate bank accounts or make “theirs, mine and ours” for financial protection. [to avoid assets getting mixed up with court proceedings for example].
Is there such a thing as splitting everything 50-50 in a relationship?
This idea of splitting everything 50-50 makes sense in theory, but we just don’t live in a theoretical world. Even if you earn the same amount, it does not necessarily mean the same your financial history. A partner might have $150,000 in student loans, for example. And there will be times when one person takes on more of the emotional labor or more of the homework.
So keeping all this in mind is really important. I think about [a couple’s finances] like a big old soup. Everything goes into the pot and it all gets mixed together, and it’s really hard to know who gave what.
So between these three approaches — the joint bank account, theirs, mine and ours, and separate accounts — how do you know which approach is right for you?
Talk about money. Don’t just ask, “What’s your credit score? How much do you earn?” Also ask, “What have you been taught about money? What are you proud of doing financially? What are the things you wish you were a little better at financially?” Get an understanding of what is important to your partner so that you have a clear understanding of their relationship with money.
Experiment. Maybe we try for three months to have all the money together and see what it’s like to have our bills on autopay. If this feels really stressful for one of us, then sit down and say, “Is there anything else we can do to make this feel less stressful?”
Give yourself a chance to make sure you’re on the same page emotionally and financially, and remember that none of this is set in stone. You are figuring out how to merge your finances with someone else’s, which is already a challenging skill for an independent adult. It’s perfectly normal to have growing pains along the way.
The digital story was edited by Malaka Gharib. The visual editor is Beck Harlan. We would love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.
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