ntt@dciem.UUCP (Name will be found) (09/16/83)
Ah, money. I believe that if you have to have money that doesn't belong to your spouse, your marriage is in trouble. My spouse and I have all our money in joint bank accounts and other joint instruments, and the only time we declare who owns how much is once a year on our income tax returns. (Revenue Canada requires the interest to be attributed to whoever contributed the principal. We just total all the accounts, bonds, etc., and split the total 50-50, or whatever is reasonable in a year where our incomes differ widely. That happened when I was in school and my spouse was working.) We routinely treat our paychecks the same way, routinely pass cash back and forth to whoever is going to spend it, we both can have checkbooks to carry (but we don't use them much outside home), and we both carry automatic-teller- machine cards and credit cards accessing the same accounts. Since the banks require the credit card accounts to be in one name, the MasterCard account is in my name and the Visa in my spouse's. One reason why we bank where we do now, incidentally, was the discovery that there exist banks where, to open a joint account -- or a joint anything else even if you already have a joint account -- both of you have to show up in person *at the same time*, while at others, only one of you has to go at all, and can take home a card for the other person to sign. The latter arrangement is obviously a lot easier if you work in different parts of the city! As for coordination (balancing accounts etc.), I handle all of that, solely because I enjoy doing it. Similarly, I handle bill paying. Since we have been fortunate enough to always earn more money than we needed (no car (you really don't need one in Toronto if you pick where you live; we use cabs or rent cars as necessary), no children, no house--yet), our policy on spending has been "spend whatever you like, even large amounts, but discuss large amounts first with spouse". This may change now since we have just bought a house and will bring both incomes to bear paying it off our (open) mortgage as fast as possible. (By the way we are both programmer/analysts, and have had comparable incomes since I graduated; mine has usually been a bit smaller, I presume because of my spouse's greater experience.) We can't imagine how most couples would feel comfortable doing it any other way, except for the spending rules which will vary with your income and outgo and, perhaps, maturity/impulsiveness level. It seems to me that the next best is a total division into "his money" and "her money", with agreed division of joint expenditures; but I can't help feeling that the view of a married couple as a corporate entity owned equally by its partners is a cleaner, more elegant, and, yes, more romantic one. Did you guess my sex yet? Mark Brader, NTT Systems Inc., Toronto