Show me the money, honey.

I am an avid reader. I love to read just about anything I can get my hands on. One of my guilty pleasures is advice articles. You know the ones, "How to make one million dollars"..."Retire by the time you're 50"..."Success secrets of Forbes most successful women." I can't help it. So of course, through my diet of all things how to, I came across all these opinions on marriage money habits. And naturally the opinions ran the gamut from should a couple have combined checking, separate savings; separate checking, combined savings; combined checking, combined savings; separate everything and everything in between. I saw the pros and cons to each, but I've always known that with my saving personality and my husband's spender with a saving if he really wants/needs something personality we'd have to come up with our own hybrid.

So we started with a combined checking, bonus checking and a few diversified savings account. Nick and I would be responsible for our own bills (ex: student loans) and each contribute to the household and savings. It worked for a while, but the more we talked the more it still felt like his money/my money. I felt like we were working toward the same goals, but we were still on different pages.

Some people might say, okay so what's the big deal combine all your accounts and call it a day. Well my counter to that is you don't me all that well. I like to go out to eat on occasion, but I defy most female stereotypes and avoid shopping frequently if at all (outside of grocery shopping - big change from how I was about a year ago). I love to shop sales and "get high" on scoring a great deal. I'm the woman my father-in-law swears has the first dollar she ever earned. It's possible. I have had a savings account for as long as I can remember. So needless to say, it terrified Nick to relinquish all financial control to muah. We're pretty open with our spending habits with one another, but I think it was/is still a scary concept.

We have big plans for the future, one of which is paying down the vast majority of student loan debt by our 30th birthdays. In order to do that, we need to get serious about spending and saving. Thus, Nick realized it was time to take the plunge. With shaking hands and a near bout of hyperventilation, along with some nagging coaxing bribery encouragement from me, he finally saw the light.

Our hybrid plan is now in the works. I'll oversee our main checking account with all of auto-payments etc. and Nick would keep a checking account open with money for gifts (so he can still surprise me from time to time without me saying why did you spend $$$ at XYZ Florist yesterday - lol) as well as cash access to go to movies with friends, get lunch from time to time, etc. Basically, smaller it's no big deal/hobby purchases. We can still see what is being spent, saved and more by channeling all of our accounts into a free online budgeting tool. This will give me more freedom to make an extra mortgage payment or student loan payment here and there or transfer some additional funds into savings.

I should have prefaced this by saying this has taken full affect just yet. We're only into one pay period under our new plan of action. Please don't think I'm a control freak, I'm just good with money. Sometimes maybe a little too much of tightwad, but at least I own up to it. I look forward to keeping you posted on how this goes. Hey I like to think no matter what, it's worth a shot!

© Nichole DeMario, 2010 – 2012. All rights reserved