Our Guide To Merging Bank Accounts After Marriage

Taking the next step in your relationship? When you and your loved one get married, it’s not just your lives that are merging, but your financial assets as well. Hopefully, talks about your financial status were made before marriage, but in the case that it’s not we’re here to help. Messing with each others money can be a deal breaker in a relationship, so be sure you think long and hard about how you and your partner should merge bank accounts.

After the honeymoon is done and over with, you’ll want to discuss everything to do with money before you actually sign up for a joint account. It may not be romantic, but talking about cold-hard cash will strengthen your marriage – or expose some flaws in your relationship pretty quickly.

If you need some tips on how to both merge and talk about finances with your loved one, continue reading to learn more!

Debts

Before a bright future, you must recall the past and talk about any money that you or your significant other may owe. Is it college loans? Possibly some car payments?

If need be, hold back on merging accounts until your partner cleans up all debts. Now it may sound harsh, but there’s good reasoning for it.

When your accounts merge, both parties credit scores will be affected. If your partner has a low score and you merge, it may affect the score you worked hard to earn. In the event that you may need to acquire a loan, a good credit score is needed.

And always be transparent and honest.

Bill Payments

When you’re married, who pays the bills? Just one of you, or both of you? It’s a good idea to have one person in charge of making sure the bills get paid. This will prevent any bills slipping through the cracks.

Although one person may be paying, both partners should know what’s going on with the bank account, and you should both be making money decisions together.

Money Tools

Assuming you do you banking at a brick-and-mortar bank, talk to your bank teller and ask if he or she has any advice/recommendations on joint bank accounts. They may have advice that is very useful to your situation and maybe you’ll learn something important that your bank does for newlyweds or of an app or special service your bank has for married couples.

Banking at one location together can keep both parties in the loop so they’ll never miss out on important notifications or information.

Your Mentality

If you or your partner still have the “it’s my money” mentality, lose it.

Although many divorce attorneys recommend having separate bank account, committed couples still get joint bank accounts. In an ideal situation, all assets should be viewed as “ours” and not “mine/yours”. It’s a dangerous mentality that can cause the relationship to ween off the rails down the road.

Hopefully, this should already be the case before reading this. Regardless, have the talk with your partner and discuss how you two should view all assets as “ours” henceforth.

Budgeting

A budget should always be created together. Both members need to understand the importance of financial planning. In addition to bills, you’ll need to discuss emergency funds, college funds, etc.

We also recommend laying out how much each individuals spending can be. What is considered a large purchase that requires the other individual’s blessing? Some might think it’s anything over $100, while another person might think it is a much lower number. It’s an important matter that should be discussed before going out and spending.

Even if you were single, a budget is necessary to maintain financial equilibrium.

A great way to manage money is to get a credit card whose bank offers great financial management tools!

Joint Accounts

At the end of all this, we can start to think about the benefits of a joint account. To summarize – joint accounts are simpler and makes payments easier.

If you’ve ever lived together with your boyfriend/girlfriend, splitting the bills may be a pain since it involves extraneous accounting, lots of money changing hands and the occasional frustration when somebody’s late with their share.

At the end of the day, creating a joint account with the one you plan to spend the rest of your life with is a decision both of you need to make together.

Author’s Verdict

Be sure to discuss all these topics with your significant other before jumping the gun and merging accounts. It’s important to understand each others financial past and come to the conclusion of whether it’s smart to merge accounts.

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