Question

Separate accounts & sharing bills people! My partner & I share bills evenly (well we try he makes twice as much as me. ) I do pretty well holding up my part. Now that we just purchased a home. We have way more bills then we’ve ever had to worry about. & we don’t have joint accounts nor will we. It’s getting a lot to remind him or share with him what bills are due and how much. Does anyone else have this issue? Is there an app that I could download that we both could use. Any suggestion?  

Answer 1

Calendar invites and a wall calendar?  

Comments

@siskind came here to suggest the same. We have a shared bank account but some bills are under my husbands account and some are under mine. So I have a calendar notification set up in our shared phone calendar with who needs to pay it. I also have the “due date” 5 days before the actual due date just in case (but he doesn’t know that)  

Answer 2

Share a calendar. Also if it’s bills with email reminders make sure the one that pays it is signed up for that reminder. That’s what we do or we forward the email reminder to the other one. We don’t have a house yet, but we have lived together for 8 years. And we don’t pay half on the bill, we just take individual bills that make sense. Like I pay utilities and daycare and he pays rent (it’s pretty even that way based on our income). My most difficult part is saving with two people, still trying to figure all that out  

Comments

@trachoma this!  

Answer 3

Why are you reminding him? If bills are separate just separate the bills and give him the statements and he takes care of his and you take care if yours? No sense doing it for him if you plan to keep it separate. Or if they are split 1/2 and 1/2 of each bill that is a lot of work to do so I would just figure out the total bill cost and then split the bills up. Make it simple.  

Answer 4

My husband and I have separate accounts. We also share bills somewhat equally. I keep track of the bills better than he does so when one of the his bills needs paid I tell him to pay it now or sign some checks and I will take care of it. He usually just signs a few checks and I take care of the rest. If he pays the same bills every month, maybe a reoccurring calendar event in his phone with notifications would work.  

Answer 5

Use the calendar in the budget mom book. Set up bill pay with your bank Get a calendar and put it in the kitchen Maybe one pay the rent the other pay the other bills?  

Answer 6

Friends of mine who are married and older, closer to retirement age, told me that they kept their accounts separate but created one joint account that was for the home. Then one of them paid the mortgage and the other one paid the bills, the electricity, the water, garbage, etc. What about splitting the bills based on the ratio of his income to your income and split the bills according to the ratio. I'm not sure if that's fair or if that would work but it's just an idea. For example, if he brings in 5K a month and you bring in 3K, that's a total of 8K. His income = 63% of the total income and your income = 38%. If the bills are 6K, then he could pay $3, 750 (63%) and you could pay $2, 250 (38%).  

Answer 7

I’ve heard of Honeydue couples and Honeyfi couples. Also Simple has a great way for couples to budget. Side note. I used to split expenses with my bf and instead of splitting the dollar amounts in half we divided them according to percentage. For instance I made 60% of our joint income so I paid for 60% of our joint bills. This makes the split proportional to each persons income.  

Answer 8

Could you do one joint account and each transfer your half of the financial responsibilities into it and the pay bills from that acct? That seems like it would be smoother and wouldn't involve mingling of personal money.  

Answer 9

White bird calendar or a printout work great in this situation. My husband keeps a small notebook with all of his bills & due dates in it. Every paycheck he checks over his lists and adds it to his budgeting sheet.  

Answer 10

We split based on ratio on salary earned, and just communicate about the money going in and out of the joint checking (only joint account for paying all bills).  

Answer 11

I use SplitWise app

Answer 12

Ynab and setup auto pay

Answer 13

What my boyfriend and I do is we have our separate accounts but we have a joint account for our shared bills. We both direct deposit 50% of our paychecks into it. I budget that out on my worksheets.  

Answer 14

You can buy one of those big calendars and write down your bills on the due dates, make a habit of looking at it together one day of the week to know what’s coming due that week! Good luck  

Answer 15

My husband and I have separate accounts and then share our bills. I have a bank account that he deposits a little over half of our shared expenses, like bills, utilities, debt, and child expenses. The rest of his money is his spending money and goes into savings.  

Answer 16

Have a joint account just for bills. When my ex lived with me that’s what I did. I just figured out what the bills were and we each had our half direct deposited in the account and then I paid the bills. Then I didn’t have to worry about asking for the money and hounding him about it.  

Answer 17

If he makes twice as much as you do why are you expected to pay half of everything? You should contribute using the salary ratio method. Each deposits a % of their pay into a joint acct every pay and that account is used to joint expenses. Have a shared account for shared bills and a separate one if you want. But this 50/50 mentality when one makes twice as much as the other is not what a marriage is about. You’re a team.  

Answer 18

Those that keep everything separate. How do you save for joint goals. How do discuss retirement and other investments.  

Answer 19

Get a joint one and just transfer money over from each account or just give him a card with dates to out money into his savings with budgeted amounts

Answer 20

Google calendar app you can set up “invited” for when bills are due

Comments

You can set email/notification reminders for when bills are due

Answer 21

Honeydue is a financial app for couples

Answer 22

First, I would reconsider the 50/50 mentality. Before my husband and I got married, he made more money than I did and had a lot less debt. He wanted me to focus on paying off my debt, while he contributed the majority of the bills so we can have a brighter future ahead of us. I wouldn’t 50/50 things. I would sit down together and see what $$ amount you each would feel comfortable with. For example, if all bills of yours total $2500/month, it may work out best for him to contribute $1500 and you $1000. That even, 50/50 way has got to go or you won’t have a successful relationship. Also, if he’s forgetting how much bills are or when they’re due, I would take over the finances and have him give you a set amount each month. Anything leftover can be used as a cushion in that account.