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We have combined finances. I handle just about every aspect of them. We have money automatically transferred to savings throughout the month. Sometimes we have to dip into that if we have a larger than usual credit card bill. Otherwise we don't really budget. Neither of us are wild spenders so it works for us. (I see your comment about different spending habits... That's probably a big part of why this works for us, we don't have different habits).

We have a joint account that our paycheques go into. From that we each get a set amount biweekly (the same amount) into our personal accounts. We use that money for clothes, buying lunches, etc. We also transfer a certain amount into a second joint account. The main account is for predictable monthly things - bills, mortgage, property tax. The other account is for all the other spending - groceries, gas, things for the house.

Oh, and we have a vacation account that has a certain amount automatically transferred every month.

I like this system because we have some autonomous money, it's not dependant on how much each of us make, but we're also not constantly trying to figure out who pays for what to make things even.

I Sah so it's kind of different now. We very gradually combined everything after we got married, knowing that when we had kids I would stop working. But DH handles finances differently than me (paying off balances throughout the month instead of on the due date, keeping a running balance in his head at all times). Between that and our bank starting to charge fees for extra accounts, now we have two checking accounts, a joint one that he puts a set amount into every month, and one that is still technically his that he pays all the bills from. We talk about if we will need extra cash or write big checks for any reason and make sure there is enough in the joint but most purchases are on the credit cards anyway.

It works fine for us- though I sometimes think it could be a horror story for me if he ever secretly decided to leave me. Is that weird?

Eta: we also have a joint savings account plus one that is technically only in my name that we pretend isn't there and just think of it as emergency funds.

We've talked about combining finances but have yet to make the switch.
Right now we just try to split bills evenly, we make about the same so it's relatively easy that way, and we don't have to argue about who's spending money on what since we still have our 'own' money.
Con's would be that I think I am more stingy than him so I could probably pay things off faster if I were in control of all the money - but at the same time, I don't have the time (or desire) to devote to handling all the bills either, nor do I want to be nagging him if he spends too much on beer or truck parts one month!

We've had combined finances since right before we were married. It works for us for several reasons. For one, we could not figure out what was fair for personal spending money. If we gave ourselves an allowance, what should that get spent on vs. combined money? I know lots of people do this without a problem, but it just didn't work for us.

The other reason why combining finances works for us is that we split up the benefits between us in the way that costs us least money, vs making our salaries even. At times as things have changed, we've switched back and forth who pays for our health insurance. Right now I fully fund our dependent care spending and health insurance for DS and I. DH has his own health insurance. It makes our pay lopsided, but it's the cheapest way to insure all of us. And since we don't distinguish between "his" and "mine", it doesn't matter. We also have different 401k savings amounts, but we assume it will all be "ours" when we retire.

For the every day stuff, I used to handle the finances but now DH does it. He does much better with his spending when he's managing things. We have all of our pay go into our combined checking, and when we have excess it goes first to our high yield savings accounts, if those are maxed out on interest, it goes to a money market account. We spend everything we possibly can on our credit card, and then we pay it off every month. We use the cash back on points for vacations. We only have 3 credit cards - one we use for practically everything, one for fixed expenses like Verizon (our cards kept getting compromised so this made it easier) and an Amazon one for just Amazon purchases because it has great rewards for that.

We combined finances a few years ago and it really helped us reach our financial goals easier. I like having an extra set of eyes on my bank account. It keeps me from spending quite as wildly as I would if I was the only one with access. The con is that...you know..someone can see everything I buy and access everything I own! Haha.

We also use YNAB and absolutely love it. It has completely transformed our finances for the better. The only con is that it requires frequent tracking of expenses, so if you are someone that doesn't like to do that, it is hard. DH loves doing it, so that makes it easy to continue using the software without issue.

@PurplePumps: We are setup very much the same as you. We have one main checking account and a money market where a majority of our savings is. We do charge almost everything to get the rewards, but pay it off every other week with each payperiod. We use Mint instead of YNAB, so the hard thing is that we can see each other's purchases, so it's hard to surprise each other for presents for birthdays, Christmas, etc. I also feel guilty buying myself things, so once we pay off some larger bills (IVF and others), then I want to re-institute an allowance. Even if it's just in my head, I then won't feel guilty buying myself a pair of jeans or shoes.

I do also have a rental property, so I have a separate checking and savings for that as well. Once the rent payments come in, all that income goes into the checking to pay the related mortgages. I'll be very happy when we can sell it in a few years!

I will edit this to say that we've had this in place since we were married almost 6 years ago. For us, it's important to know where our money is going and plan for purchases. I'm an accountant, so I feel like I need to control all of it. lol It works for us, but I also get that everyone is different.

@Anagram: we have the salary gap and the diff habits. What we do is have all money go into our joint with an automatic transfer to a second joint that dh uses for his own stuff. Gas, food, whatever games or things he wants. I pay all bills and my gas etc out of our large acct. this works for us because I don't have to worry about his acct or spending habits and he can manage his acct as he sees fit. But I'm able to budget and save the majority of our income

@Anagram: yes comes out of big acct and no he doesn't weigh in on amt because I'm not the spender in our relationship lol

@Anagram: my husband weighs in on what I spend, lol and it's taken some getting used to. For example, on haircuts, his costs $17, mine is $85. It was a matter of getting him to understand that you don't get the same services at supercuts versus a full service salon.

He also lets me know when he thinks I've been hitting Banana Republic a bit too much, but I am okay with that because I have a tendency to buy just because the price is good where he views things differently...it's on sale because no one wanted it, basically.

Finances semi-combined. We each get paid into our personal checking accounts and then transfer into joint as necessary. I make a fair amount more but not necessarily what I'd call a huge gap. Health insurance comes out of his paycheck so it makes the disparity seem a lot greater too. We don't really have any issues here; I think if we had trouble making ends meet it might be problematic but we don't so it doesn't matter to me at all that I make more (I'm kind of proud of it actually!).
Pros: I handle all the finances which I like My husband isn't interested anyway.
Even though we have different accounts the money is all really "ours."
It's easy to buy each other gifts because we still have our own accounts.
Cons: Currently we manually transfer money into the joint account - he does the same amount each time he gets paid and I just transfer whatever is needed to pay the bills.
Other con is my husband has no clue if anything happens to me. I need to set up a password manager thing and hopefully I can add him on that as necessary.

I feel like ours is sort of complicated to describe, but it's actually not too bad.

We each have individual savings and checking accounts, and we also have one joint savings and one joint checking, plus I put money into a fund for LOs.

We each maintain a set amount for emergency funds in our individual savings accounts. We also each keep a healthy amount in our individual checking accounts.

We put all the extra money that comes in into our joint accounts. Almost all major payments (mortgage, daycare, utilities, student loans, plus retirement savings) are automated. We have one joint credit card which we use for most family/house stuff, and we pay it from our joint account. We each keep individual credit cards which we pay from our own accounts. We usually check in with each other before major purchases but we don't keep formal budgets. We like this because we both have the freedom to buy things when we want but we also trust each other not to overspend (and neither of us ever has).

I will admit, we are lucky to both make healthy salaries now so this works for us. Back when we were starving grad students, we had a different system (which involved counting every penny in a spreadsheet to stay on budget every month).

We have a big disparity in salaries, and we operate under the same system that others have mentioned before. Both paychecks go into one account, and we pay all bills from that account. We each have separate accounts, which we can take from the main account so that we have spending money for incidentals and lunches (and just life). We have joint savings and retirement accounts. I have two credit cards that are only in my name, but I only use one. We have a joint card where most purchases are made and gets paid off monthly. Since our accounts are all the same bank, we’ve made it so that we can see all of the joint accounts (plus our own individual ones) when we log in to our online profiles, so we are able to see how things are flowing. We are on both of these major accounts. DH and I buy things, but we are not very frivolous spenders and we don’t spend extravagantly, so we tend to be on the same page with expense habits. I think we differ on things like major large scale decisions at times as well as things like charitable giving, which I value more than he does (he would disagree). Most of our bills are on automatic with the exception of 2, which DH pays. I think our system allows us to balance being able to feel autonomous, while still creating a seamless system that we don't have to think too much about how it functions.

@Anagram: I don't recall, but do you use YNAB or Mint? I don't know YNAB at all, but maybe you can add both of your accounts to it or for sure Mint? Then, you will know exactly what balances are out there, both in checking & savings, but also on any debt, retirement accounts, value of home, student loans, etc.. You can also add mortgages, car loans, etc. It's SO important to be on the same page.

We use Mint and granted all of our accounts are in both of names and combined, but we can see everything that is going on. We discuss about once a week our financial situation and if we have any planned large expenditures (we built our house and are still finishing our basement/landscaping). This might be a good first step so that you can see what your combined financial situation is?

I need to look into the password manager thing..I have so many passwords and my husband doesn't know then all. We would have major issues if something happened to me. He would know where all the accounts are because of Mint; however, getting into them would be another issue.